Most people (including us, until recently) don’t know that UH has a significant art program — they acquire about 3-4 major pieces and 10-20 smaller works every year through a 1% program that’s been going on an astonishing 40 years. It being a university, and the government, there are committees with Orwellian-sounding names like SWAAC (System Wide Art Acquisition Committee) who decide what gets added to the list; and the results, unsurprisingly, are a very mixed bag. But they’ve got an ambitious new curator in Mike Guidry who sounds like he wants to ramp things up and get UH known nationally for its art collection. Sounds good to us. [Next on their docket will be the first US commission for Venezuelan Op artist Carlos Cruz-Diez.]