Glasstire counts down the top five art events in Texas.
For last week’s picks, please go here.
1. The Curatorial Imagination of Walter Hopps
The Menil Collection (Houston)
March 24 – August 13, 2023
From the Menil Collection:
“Once dubbed ‘the marvelous mad maven of modern art in America,’ Walter Hopps (1932–2005) estimated that he had curated some 250 exhibitions in his fifty-plus-year-long career. Hopps’s impressive curatorial record constitutes the framework of The Curatorial Imagination of Walter Hopps, which features approximately sixty artists and more than 130 artworks, many of which are recent or promised gifts to the museum from Caroline Huber and the Estate of Walter Hopps. The show will explore the influential curatorial vision of Hopps, the Menil Collection’s Founding Director, as well as his distinctive approach to exhibition making, and appreciation for a variety of 20th-century art movements, featuring drawings, paintings, photography, and sculpture, ranging from the 1930s to the early 2000s.”
2. If You Look Hard Enough, You Can See Our Future
African American Museum Dallas
April 24 – October 22, 2023
Read our reviews of the show here and here.
“The highly-anticipated exhibition If You Look Hard Enough, You Can See Our Future made its worldwide debut at the African American Museum, Dallas in historic Fair Park. Made possible by the beloved restaurant group Nando’s, one of the largest collectors of contemporary Southern African art in the world, the exhibition features nearly 90 pieces from more than 60 emerging, mid-career and established artists.
Some of the most notable Southern African-based artists will have work on display, including Zanele Muholi, Kudzanai Chiurai, Claudette Schreuders, Patrick Kagiso, Igshaan Adams, Stephen Hobbs, Anastasia Pather, Penny Siopis, William Kentridge, Portia Zvavahera and Samson Mnisi. The selection of work is drawn from the collection’s strength in portraiture, landscape, cityscapes and abstraction.”
3. Exposure: Native Art and Political Ecology
El Paso Museum of Art
July 28 – November 12, 2023
From the El Paso Museum of Art:
“Exposure: Native Art and Political Ecology documents international Indigenous artists’ responses to the impacts of nuclear testing, nuclear accidents, and uranium mining on Native peoples and the environment. The traveling exhibition and catalog give artists a voice to address the long-term effects of these man-made disasters on Indigenous communities in the United States and around the world. Indigenous artists from Australia, Canada, Greenland, Japan, Pacific Islands, and the United States utilize tribal knowledge, as well as Indigenous and contemporary art forms as visual strategies for their thought-provoking artworks.”
4. Patrick Renner: Once & Future Architecture
Architecture Center Houston
June 22 – August 18, 2023
From Architecture Center Houston:
“In Once & Future Architecture, Patrick Renner pays tribute to one of nature’s chief builders and architects, the mud dauber. Inspired by a piece he created in 2012, wooddauber, Renner fills the Center with a larger-than-life dauber nest. Renner’s fascination with the non-aggressive wasps began when he noticed the laboriously constructed nests throughout his Houston studio.
Constructed from architecture refuse Renner collected over the years, the installation is a patchwork of found materials that wraps around the gallery providing viewers an immersive experience of the labor and craftsmanship.”
5. New Austin Printmakers
Flatbed Center for Contemporary Printmaking (Austin)
July 29 – August 26, 2023
From Flatbed Center for Contemporary Printmaking:
“Flatbed Center for Contemporary Printmaking is excited to announce their second annual exhibition that showcases Austin’s new and upcoming printmakers. This exhibition features work from students who are receiving their BFA, BA, BS, or MFA with a major or minor concentration in printmaking from an Austin area college or university. The exhibition, curated by Alyssa Ebinger, Flatbed Master Printer, represents a wide variety of new artists that are investigating and challenging what printmaking can be.”