September 20 - January 26, 2025
From the Menil Drawing Institute:
“The Menil Collection open s Fragments of Memory at the Menil Drawing Institute on September 20, 2024 . On view through January 26, 2025, the exhibition address es how 20th – and 21st – century artists have placed pieces of personal experiences and historic events at the heart of their work. Memories in their material form — snapshots, collages, notes, and the like — are often fragmentary and ephemeral and are deeply imbued with emotional weight. In the hands of the se artists, the past i s alive and replete with possibility. E vents are revisited in different ways, creating alternate perspectives and proposing new understanding s . Kelly Montana, Assistant Curator, Menil Drawing Institute, said, “The artists in this exhibition demonstrate a desire to say more than what personal ephemera, historical accounts, and selective memory leave behind. We hope that these works, many of which a re new additions to News Release, Fragments of Memory, The Menil Collection.pdf the museum’s collection, will encourage visitors to reimagine how fraught memories and contested histories are accessed and how these recollections impact our present.” Wardell Milan’s (b.1977) Pulse, recently acquired by the Menil, recalls the 2016 deadly mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub that targeted the city’s queer and Latin American communities. The artist’s decision to remember the victims in a vibrant dance celebration is a staunch message of resistance against calculated violence. Milan will participate in an Artist Talk discussing his work on Thursday, November 14, 7 – 8 p.m. at the Menil . Houston artist Gael Stack (b. 1941) layers texts and images to form the visual ground of her compositions, such as Untitled (for Tim) , 1985. Culling from notes, jotted grocery lists , and doodles, often from her family and friends, Stack’s work presents a swirl of consciousness as chaotic as it is contemplative. Similarly, Sari Dienes’s (1898 – 1992) Letterbox, 1940s – 1980s, fuses artwork and scrapbook by juxtaposing decades of personal correspondence from her circle of friends in side a found antique box. The me andering narrative she lays out for the viewer functions as both a composed portrait of her community and an art historical archive. Also included is My Door, a 2013 series featuring six works of a fractured landscape by Luc Tuymans (b. 1958). The scene of a figure photographing a waning sun atop a distant horizon is portrayed through multiple perspectives — all similar but distinctly different. Memory, and how it fragments as time passes, is a foremost theme in the artist’s work. For Tuymans and others in the exhibition, the idea of the fragment surfaces in their exploration of vision, identity, and elegy. The robust list of artists represented in the show also includes James Lee Byars, Jacob El Hanani, Joe Goode, Jasper Johns, Mark Lombardi, Jim Love, Walter Tandy Murch, Denyse Thomasos, Cy Twombly, and Danh Vo. Fragments of Memory is curated by Kelly Montana, Assistant Curator, Menil Drawing Institute. About the Menil Collection Philanthropists and art patrons John and Dominique de Menil established the Menil Foundation in 1954 to foster greater public understanding and appreciation of art, architecture, culture, religion, and philosophy. In 1987, the Menil Collection’s main build ing opened to the public. Today, the Menil Collection consists of a group of art buildings and green spaces located within a residential neighborhood in central Houston. The Menil remains committed to its founders’ belief that art is essential to human exp erience and welcomes all visitors free of charge to its buildings and surrounding green spaces. menil.org About the Menil Drawing Institute The Menil Drawing Institute was established in 2008 in recognition of drawing’s centrality in the lives of artists and its crucial role in modern and contemporary artistic culture. The Drawing Institute has since developed an international profile for exhi bitions, scholarship, and collaboration. In 2018, a dedicated building for the Menil Drawing Institute, designed by Johnston Marklee, was inaugurated. It is now the site of regular drawings exhibitions, an annual monumental wall drawing commission, public programs, and study.”
Reception: September 20, 2024 | 12–5 pm
1412 W Main St
Houston, 77006 Texas
(713) 525-9400
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