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Chron •

'CenterPointle$$': Graffiti captures Houston's anger over Beryl outages

The mural, which is under I-10 West between Taylor and Studewood streets, reads, simply, "Centerpointle$$." Though Chron hasn't yet confirmed who painted the tag, above it are two names, including Rowdy, the city's prolific tagger and street artist.

The mural, which is under I-10 West between Taylor and Studewood streets, reads, simply, "Centerpointle$$." Though Chron hasn't yet confirmed who painted the tag, above it are two names, including Rowdy, the city's prolific tagger and street artist....
Chron •

History becomes paper sculptures for artist's photography exhibition

In Plato's allegory of the cave, a person stands inside a cavern with a fire at their back, watching the shadows formed by the fire on the wall. The person believes the shadows are their reality, not realizing that there are objects behind them casting those shadows.

A short video at the entrance to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston's new exhibit Thomas Demand: The Stutter of History highlights this concept. In the animated video, a small cluster of party balloons weighed down by a chip clip drag
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New Houston mural honors Texas' 'Grandmother of Juneteenth'

To celebrate the holiday, artist James E! Walker has transformed the iconic "Midtown" sign, inside Bagby Park at 415 Gray St. into a mural steeped with meaning and symbolism. The work, titled "Dear Grandma," is a reference to Lee's nickname: the Grandmother of Juneteenth.

Lee was born in Marshall, Texas, and grew up in Fort Worth. In 1939, when she was 12, her family bought a house in a predominantly white neighborhood in Fort Worth's historic Southside district. Shortly after the purchase, ami
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Artists focus on body's connection to land in Houston exhibit

On a small table in the Moody Center for the Arts' Brown Foundation Gallery, a series of colorful crystal hands hold stones. The hands belong to artist Kelly Akashi. She's made different casts of her body over the years — legs, torso, hands — which show the process of aging. The hands also show generational trauma. Several of the glass hands are wearing bits of jewelry: a bracelet here, a gold cocktail ring there. In the palm of each hand are stones and pebbles. The jewelry belonged to her grand
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POST Houston's new art installation will blow your mind

Art Club, the new 40,000-square-foot exhibition space that opens June 1, is meant to combine elements of both an art gallery and a nightclub. The venue, located in POST's X Atrium, builds off the sound and light shows integral to the 2017 music festival Day For Night, which took place in the same building when it was known as the Barbara Jordan Post Office. "Art Club aims to arouse the imagination of visitors and prompt discussion about technology’s mediation of our everyday lived experience," a
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Where to celebrate Pride in Houston all month long

This year for the first time ever, Houston will celebrate Pride with two parades—one from the newly-formed group New Faces of Pride on June 22, and one from long-standing group Pride Houston 365 on June 29. The dual pride celebrations come after a handful of years in which the city's pride festival was scaled back due to the COVID-19 pandemic, excessive Houston heat, and financial issues.

But Pride is about more than just parades. From family-friendly events to fundraisers, pool parties to choi
Chron •

Every Houston museum you can explore this summer

First founded in 1909, HMNS is one of the most popular science museums in the country. In addition to temporary exhibits that run the gamut from mummies to sharks, HMNS also includes a permanent exhibit on paleontology, a planetarium, a butterfly and tropical plant enclosure, and the Hall of Gems, plus cool science-y displays including a pendulum that demonstrates Earth's rotation, exhibits on Texas wildlife, and a sundial. The museum draws 1.5 million visitors a year, which means it can sometim
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Custom jeweler for Lady Gaga, Beyoncé debuts exhibition

Artist Georgina Treviño has made custom jewelry for celebrities including Lady Gaga, Doja Cat and Beyoncé, and her work has graced the pages of Rolling Stone and W Magazine. But she's never had a solo exhibition—that is until May 25, when her show La Fuente del Deseo (The Fountain of Desire) opens at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.

Treviño, who was born in San Diego and raised in Tijuana, studied jewelry and metalsmithing at San Diego State University, graduating in 2014 and starting
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Museum of Fine Arts, Houston unveils renovated Korea Gallery

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's Korea Gallery, the first gallery dedicated to Korean art in the southern United States, will reopen on May 16 after a renovation and newly configured installation.

The gallery, part of the museum's Arts of Asia collection, includes several new acquisitions and loans that have been added to the museum since the gallery first debuted in 2007. The works span several centuries, with a heavy focus on the 500-year-long Joseon Dynasty, a transformative period in Kore
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Meow Wolf Houston announces more artists for upcoming space

Ten more Texas artists have been announced as collaborators for Meow Wolf, the psychedelic immersive art experience set to open a Bayou City location later this year.

The 10 newly-announced artists will join Meow Wolf Houston's Art Team Task Force (ATTF), which will work with the company's Artist Development and Production team to apply the "frosting" to Meow Wolf Houston before it opens.

According to Meow Wolf's website, "the Frosting layer is one of the last phases of the install timeline in
Chron •

Hundreds built Houston art installation just for it to be burned

The Houston Temple, the non-denominational structure built by Petaluma, California-based artist David Best to The , is now open for visitation every Thursday night at Orange Show headquarters.

Beginning this evening, the wooden temple will be open from 6–9 p.m. every Thursday through Oct. 31. Visitors are welcome to write messages or memories on one of the temple's wooden planks, or simply sit in contemplation or remembrance. The temple will be burned in a public ceremony on Nov. 9.

Best, who
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Trippy spa from Meow Wolf co-founder is headed to Texas

Called Submersive, the project promises to be "a spa that takes you beyond relaxation into elevated states of consciousness." The 25,000-square-foot, $15 million project is set to open in 2026. An exact location for the retreat has yet to be announced.

The project is the brainchild of Corvas Brinkerhoff, who in 2008 helped cofound the psychedelic art space Meow Wolf in Santa Fe. Meow Wolf now has four locations in the United States, including an outpost in Grapevine, Texas, that opened in 2023.
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Houston's Menil Collection lets abstract art take center stage

In the first room of the new Menil Collection exhibit "Abstraction after Modernism: Recent Acquisitions," a sculpture from recently deceased artist Richard Serra hangs on the wall. The work is made from thick rubber industrial belts, dark brown and floppy, but structured at the same time. Triangle Belt Piece, made in 1967, is a direct response to the dripping, gravity-influenced works abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock was making a decade before. At the same time, the lines and flow
Chron •

One of 2024's most anticipated art shows opens in Houston

The first thing you notice walking into the downstairs gallery at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is a blanket-covered couch positioned in front of a large screen. The room is dark, and the other furniture—a dining table and chairs, a yellowing lamp—give the impression of cast-offs. It feels like walking into a basement den, or perhaps a converted garage.

That's fitting because American artist Olivia Erlanger's previous work has dealt with the mythology of the garage—everything from Frank
Chron •

Houston's Rothko Chapel is undergoing a big expansion

It was ironic that Wednesday's groundbreaking ceremony for Phase II of the Rothko Chapel's renovations was somewhat interrupted by background noise—mowers and leaf blowers manned by landscapers in the distance. That's because the second phase of the chapel's revamp will include extensive work on a park-like space extending the Rothko's calm, meditative atmosphere to the surrounding grounds.

The chapel, which opened in 1971 on the campus of the Menil Collection, was commissioned by museum founde
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Houston's Museum of Fine Arts celebrating its 100th anniversary

The oldest art museum in Texas, the MFAH opened on April 12, 1924, with just one structure, the neoclassical Caroline Wiess Law building at Montrose Boulevard and Bissonnet Street. The original museum entrance faced south, overlooking Hermann Park and the Miller Outdoor Theater, which celebrated its centennial last year.

Over the years, the original building was expanded with new wings and galleries, and the museum's campus also grew, with the eastern structure, the Audrey Jones Beck Building,
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Sculptor builds 35-foot temple to honor Houston's art community

The encounter with Scranton highlights one of the reasons Best is in town. Though Best, who is in his late 70s, lives in California, he has close ties to the Houston art car community. He's in town for the next several days as the Orange Show's 2024 artist in residence.

Best is well known internationally for his towering, intricate, non-denominational wooden temples, which are built as places of mourning, release and reflection, and then burned to the ground. He's closely associated with the Bu
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Two artists are turning Houston's Sabine Street footbridge pink

Though Buffalo Bayou Park has undergone numerous improvements over the past decade, including the installation of new pedestrian bridges spanning the bayou near Montrose Boulevard and Shepherd Drive, the Sabine Street Bridge predates them all. As a result, it has a sort of neglected, utilitarian air. Whereas the Rosemont Bridge, just east of Montrose, includes decorative ironwork railings and a unique Y-shaped design, the Sabine bridge consists of ugly stairs, patchwork concrete, and generic met
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In Houston’s Botanic Garden, Zimbabwean art is born in real time

At the Houston Botanic Garden Friday morning, artist Passmore Mupindiko was putting the finishing touches on a stone sculpture, a hummingbird perched atop the leaves of what looks like a bromeliad. A visitor to the garden earlier in the week saw Mupindiko's unfinished sculpture and already put a claim on it. That customer is coming to pick up the sculpture later on Friday, and so Mupindiko, working under a pop-up tent just inside the gardens' entrance, is trying to finish it in time.

"It needs
Chron •

Kim Kardashian sued over 'knockoff' Donald Judd tables

The suit was filed in California on Wednesday, where the Foundation also has a location. At issue is a 2022 Instagram video in which Kardashian is giving a tour of the minimalistic headquarters of her company Skkn by Kim. She pauses at a large wooden table and says, "These Donald Judd tables are really amazing and totally blend in with the seats."

The only problem? The tables are not made by Donald Judd nor his foundation, according to the suit. Instead, they are "unauthorized knockoffs" from a
Chron •

Houston lights up again for East End park art festival

Houston's Tony Marron Park is set to undergo major renovations at the end of this year. But before then, Buffalo Bayou Partnership and Aurora Picture Show are throwing one last big art fest at the east side park.

Called Night Light, the festival features several visual artists who have created site-specific light installations that will be projected throughout the park on the evening of April 6. It's a continuation of Houston's long-standing embrace of light and space artists, from James Turrel
Chron •

Another Houston museum may be without a home

A leasing agent for the property at 3121 San Jacinto St. confirmed that the museum was moving out but provided no other information. Officials with The Printing Museum (TPM) did not respond to multiple requests seeking comment on the future of the institution. It's unclear whether the museum, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2022, is relocating again or closing for good. The property has been listed for lease since the middle of December.

The news comes just a few days after another Hou
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Houston's famous Art Car Museum will close for good in April

The closure was announced in a statement posted to the Art Car Museum's site. "Discussions are in progress with local and regional arts organizations to continue and evolve the Art Car Museum's presence, legacy, and mission in the future. The details of those discussions and plans will be shared further as and when they take shape," the statement read in part.

Art Car Museum officials did not respond to emails from Chron last week inquiring about the future of the museum. However, the statement
Chron •

MFAH's house museum tells the story of 1950s Houston high society

The museum, which is owned by the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, first opened in 1999 during the Azalea Trail, the biennial garden tour and fundraiser hosted by the River Oaks Garden Club. Pictures from the opening show Houstonians lined up down the home's long drive and around Kirby, waiting for a chance to tour the museum and its iconic gardens.

The story behind Rienzi follows two threads, according to Christine Gervais, director of the museum and curator of decorative arts at the MFAH. The fir
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