Above: Still from Ross Birrell’s Duet.
DUET was performed and filmed in the historic Spiegelsaal of the Clärchens Ballhaus, Berlin. Standing in the same position, each musician performs separately and at his and her own pace resulting in renditions of differing tempo and duration. When the recitals are played back together, a tension is produced in the displaced harmonies of the resulting ‘duet,’ mirroring the shared geography but dissonant history of Israel and Palestine.
Greta Pratt
Nineteen Lincolns, 2005
18 archival inkjet prints
28 x 24 inches each
Courtesy the artist
Above: 9 images from Greta Pratt’s series Nineteen Lincolns. This series was featured in CAMH’s 2008 exhibition Old Weird America.
#houarts
This Thursday at CAMH: Musiqa Loft Concert
Musiqa, winner of the 2013 Chamber Music America/American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music, will present a free Loft Concert: Parallel Practices, at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston on Thursday, May 9 at 6:30pm.
The concert showcases virtuosic, dynamic and haunting works by Morton Feldman, Elena Kats-Chernin, Pauline Oliveros, Arvo Pärt (pictured) and John Tavener, composers who were inspired and influenced by visual and performance art movements of the late 20th century. The works, featuring voice, cello, harp and taped music, include elements of performance and visual art that parallel elements of works in the exhibition.
The program’s featured artists include Karol Bennett, soprano; Meghan Caulkett, harp; Barrett Sills, cello and Chapman Welch, sound design. The concert, held in collaboration with CAMH’s exhibition Parallel Practices: Joan Jonas & Gina Pane, is Musiqa’s final concert of the current season.
“Generally, we use light—we don’t really pay much attention to light itself. That’s my interest: this fascination with light and how we come to light.”
—James TurrellHappy birthday today (May 6) to artist James Turrell.
Seen here is the The Light Inside (1999), commissioned by and installed at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The Light Inside is installed in the underground tunnel that links the museum’s Caroline Wiess Law Building with the Audrey Jones Beck Building.
This scene is featured in the Art in the Twenty-First Century Season 1 episode, Spirituality (2001).
WATCH James Turrell in Spirituality: Preview | Full Segment [available in the U.S. only]
IMAGES: Production stills from the Art in the Twenty-First Century Season 1 episode, Spirituality, 2001. © Art21, Inc. 2001.
Check out this amazing photograph featuring some of the Houston art community’s most influential figurers; including our own Senior Curator Valerie Cassel Oliver.
This year CAMH took a four-day whirlwind, in-depth, behind-the-scenes art tour of Chicago! CAMH travelers got to visit a spectacular line-up of private collections, galleries, exclusive curator-led museum tours, behind-the-scenes artist studio tours and, of course, some of the best food that Chicago has to offer.
Learn about the trip by viewing the images in the slideshow view.
Slideshow continued from the “CAMH goes to Chicago” post.
Join us for “Mirror Check,” a performance work created by Joan Jonas in 1970. The work will run every Saturday at 2PM for the final 8 weeks of “Parallel Practices: Joan Jonas & Gina Pane.” In “Mirror Check,” a performer uses a small round hand mirror to inspect all visible portions of her exposed body in reflection. As one of Jonas’ earliest works, “Mirror Check” marks an important theoretical and artistic turning point for the artist as she transitioned from using mirrors as media in her sculptures to using it as an instrument in her performance. Jonas remarks, “It was a logical development and kind of abstraction of a solo work, standing nude in front of an audience, examining one’s own body with a mirror very slowly. It’s a very simple piece. There is the stipulation that it has to be done by women because that’s how it was originally performed and seen, and meant to be seen because it’s about a woman looking at her own body, having control of that gaze.”*
This quote is from an interview between Joan Jonas and CAMH staff during an in-house interview on 2-21-13.
Check out this review of the CAM Perennial from ART Magazine, in which Alana Coates discusses the exhibition, the works included, and our very own Director’s role in making it all happen as the guest curator.
For a full interview with Arning, you’ll have to get a copy of the magazine, as it is only available in print! You can subscribe here (the first issue is free!).
Sex, Transubstantiation and Punk Angst: A Review of bite like a kitty.
“The 2013 CAM Perennial, bite like a kitty, is curated by Bill Arning, the former Director of MIT’s List Visual Arts Center and the current Executive Director of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Arning was invited to survey the artist studios of San Antonio as a guest curator with extensive expertise, a discerning eye, and an outside perspective. Arning selected an all female roster to represent his vision of a unique artistic current in San Antonio; featuring the work of Joey Fauerso, Julia Barbosa Landois, Sarah Sudhoff, and Saintlorriane (an artistic collaboration between Britt Lorraine and Kristy Perez), the exhibition opened on Friday, March 15th at The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center and will run through Saturday, June 1st.”
Above image: Joey Fauerso, Nick Reading Nouns #4, 2013. Single channel video, 1:15 Minutes.
Above: William Basinski + Richard Chartier, Aurora Liminalis
The album’s artwork is by James Elaine, the curator of CAMH’s exhibition Perspectives 180: New Video from China.
You can purchase the album on LINE.
“CVS BANGERS IS THE AUDIOSCAPE FOR WHEN YOU’RE BUYING TAMPONS OR A 12 PACK OF CONDOMS, A SAMPLING OF THOSE MAGIC TUNES THAT PLAY WHEN YOU’RE CONTEMPLATING HOW RIDICULOUS YOU WOULD LOOK CARRYING 24 ROLLS OF TIOLET PAPER ON THE TRAIN, THOSE BITTERSWEET TUNES OF YESTERYEAR THAT SKIP THROUGH YOUR MIND AS YOU READ THE NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION ON THE BACK OF A BOX OF FROZEN PIZZA AND OPT FOR A PINT OF ICE CREAM INSTEAD, THOSE SPECIAL DITTIES THAT ACCOMPANY YOUR SMASHING THE BAR CODE OF A CAN OF RED BULL AGAINST THE SCANNER OF BROKEN SELF-CHECKOUT MACHINE. CVS BANGERS IS COMMERCE ITSELF, AND COMMERCE, MY FACELESS INTERNET FRIENDS, IS BEAUTIFUL.” - DJ Hennessy Youngman
Hennessy Youngman’s Art Thoughtz were featured in the exhibition Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art.
Kirsten Pieroth
Inflated Dinghy, 2009
Accordion, dinghy, hose
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist
Visit the Perspectives 172: Kirsten Pieroth exhibition page here.
Christopher Clark, Web Typography for the Lonely: Cluster, poster, 2011, Courtesy the artist. Copyright: Christopher Clark
Coming soon to CAMH.