Lawndale has launched an open call for its annual juried exhibition and named Dr. Phillip Townsend as the juror for The Big Show 2025.
Each year, Lawndale invites artists living within a 100-mile radius of the organization to submit up to three artworks to be considered for its annual juried competition. This year, the artworks must have been completed between January 2023 to the present. To be eligible for the exhibition, pieces must fit through the 6-foot-9-inch-by-4-foot-11-inch entryway and cannot exceed 200 pounds. Additionally, the work must not have been previously exhibited in Houston, unless it was shown as part of a school program in the city, such as an MFA thesis exhibition.
Phillip Townsend
This year’s juror, Mr. Townsend, is the Curator of Art at the Art Galleries at Black Studies (AGBS) at the University of Texas at Austin and a lecturer in the university’s African and African Diaspora Studies Department. Prior to joining AGBS, Mr. Townsend co-founded Neon Queen Collective, an Austin-based curatorial collaboration exploring topics of race, ethnicity, representation, class, sexuality, and gender in socially engaged art produced by feminist artists of color. He holds a PhD in Art History, with a specialization in modern and contemporary art and a focus on BIPOC artists and identity politics.
Mr. Townsend has curated retrospectives on artists such as Melvin Edwards, Alicia Henry, and Nicole Awai, and multi-institutional exhibitions on María Magdalena Campos-Pons and Charles White. His scholarship has been published in peer-reviewed journals and exhibition catalogs, including CAA, UT Press, and Getty Publications.
The application deadline for The Big Show is Tuesday, April 8, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. Artworks must be available for installation and delivered between May 20 and 30 and will remain on view for the duration of the exhibition (June 6 through August 2).
Read the full guidelines and complete the application via Lawndale’s Submittable page.
