October 8 - November 4, 2021
From the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art:
“The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, in collaboration with University of Houston Libraries Special Collections, is proud to present UNREAL ESTATES: Houston’s Visionary Art Environments, on display at Flatland Gallery from October 8 – November 18, 2021. As a way to celebrate the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art’s fortieth anniversary, Unreal Estates collects photographs, objects and ephemera telling the stories of the Orange Show, the Beer Can House, Smither Park, and the Houston Art Car Parade, as well as several lost Houston environments. Artist and Archivist Cody Ledvina has spent the past year sifting through and cataloguing four decades of photos, artifacts, and hand-written notes in the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art’s archives, resulting in a dazzling array of previously lost and never-before-seen items that showcase both the evolution of the organization and Houston’s creative communities. “Houston’s un-zoned sprawl has created an opportunity for self-styled visionaries to adapt the built environment and fulfill a personal creative mission,” says Pete Gershon, Orange Show Center for Visionary Art’s Curator of Programs. “Today, sites like the Orange Show and The Beer Can House are regarded internationally as significant examples of contemporary art, each built by working class men who didn’t consider their activities to be part of an artistic practice.” From the Orange Show’s handmade, multi-level, wagon-wheel maze designed to extoll the health benefits of the Orange, or a bungalow covered in flattened beer cans surrounded by a decorated concrete yard built because its owner was sick of mowing the lawn and painting the house, the exhibition incorporates the rich history of folk and outsider art in Houston through the lens of the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art’s 40-year commitment to supporting and promoting this type of creative culture. In addition to the exhibition, a screening of Laurie MacDonald’s “Eyeopeners,” a documentation of the 1986 New Music America Festival out of which spawned the birth of the beloved Houston Art Car Parade, will take place in the courtyard on October 20 th at 7pm. Flatland Gallery | 1709 Westheimer Rd., Houston, TX 77098 (next door to Café Brasil) Opening Reception: October 8, 6-9pm Screening: Laurie MacDonald’s “Eyeopeners” – October 20, 7pm. For more information, visit www.orangeshow.org. About the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art: Now in its 40 th year, the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization based in Houston, TX with a mission to preserve, promote and document visionary art environments, provide opportunities for the expression of personal artistic vision, and create a community where that expression is valued. The organization owns and operates The Orange Show, The Beer Can House, and Smither Park, as well as produces the annual Houston Art Car Parade – the world’s oldest and largest gathering of its kind. Funding is provided in part by grants from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, Texas Commission on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, The Brown Foundation, Houston Endowment, Wortham Foundation, and Silver Eagle Distributors, as well as private contributions, in-kind support, and volunteer assistance. For more information visit www.orangeshow.org.”
On View: October 8, 2021 | 6–9 pm
1709 Westheimer Rd.
Houston , 77098 Texas
(202) 293-0370
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