The Museum of Fine Arts Houston is embarking on an ambitious $450 million expansion project that will seek to place it as one of the city’s cultural hubs. “It’s all about shaping space,” says , architect Steven Holl. “The collection of buildings there is already outstanding. It’s very delicate, not a site that calls for over-exuberance.” (more…)
James Turrell, Tycho White: Single Wall Projection, (1967), Courtesy the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, © James Turrell
Part of his ongoing retrospective spanning three cities and upwards of 92,000 square feet of exhibition space, American artist James Turrell has brought several of his iconic light installations to the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Serving as the way station between the Guggenheim’s “blockbuster” exhibition of Turrell’s Aten Reign, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s blowout review of Turrell’s nearly fifty years of work, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston offers a subdued, yet cohesive addition to the national celebration of one of America’s pioneering light and space artists. (more…)
The New York Times has published an extensive profile on artist James Turrell in advance of his three museum retrospective opening this summer at the Guggenheim Museum, LACMA, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, occupying 92,000 square feet in total, with some of Turrell’s most striking visual illusions and light works. Profiling the artist’s career and body of work, the article covers the full range of Turrell’s discipline, including his massive project at Roden Crater. “It has become, even unfinished, as important as any artwork ever made,” LACMA director Michael Govan said. “I know I’m going out on a limb here a little bit, but I think it’s one of the most ambitious artworks ever attempted by a single human being.” (more…)
Starting its campaign to create a “neighborhood of art” around its Houston campus, the Menil Collection has hired landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh to redesign and expand the environment around its 6 buildings. “It’s always a challenge to take a landscape that has evolved incrementally and a landscape that has a subtle and modest character and to somehow succeed in improving it,” Mr. Van Valkenburgh says. “It’s not something that needs to be reinvented.” (more…)
Uriel Landeros, the University of Houston student who spray-painted over Picasso’s Woman in a Red Armchair at Houston’s Menil Collection, has been sentenced to two years behind bars for vandalism. Landeros was facing up to 10 years in prison for felony vandalism, but pleaded guilty for a reduced sentence. “We are heartened and grateful that the judicial process has come to completion,” said Menil spokesperson Gretchen Bock Sammons. “As for the Picasso, the restoration is complete and successful and the painting will eventually go on view — as works from the collection do, in rotation.” (more…)
A scheduled Kanye West video projection at Houston’s Rothko Chapel was shut down last week by police, closing down the event before it started. Another screening was also closed down by police after technical difficulties later that night. The video projections, done by West for his new single “New Slaves,” is part of a worldwide series of projections to promote his new album, Yeezus. (more…)
Artist James Turrell recently spoke with the Financial Times as he prepares for his three museum retrospective at LACMA, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, as well as a solo show at LA’s Kayne Griffin Corcoran space. The artist is still vigorously involved in his Roden Crater Project, as well as his early career in Los Angeles. “I would describe Los Angeles as actually not having taste. In New York there’s taste. But you have to remember that taste is censorship. It’s a form of restriction.” In Los Angeles, he said, “there wasn’t any party line so you could do what you wanted.”
Artist James Turrell will open three shows in the next month, bringing his light works to viewers nation wide. The artist has major retrospectives scheduled to open at the Guggenheim, LACMA, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The ambitious series exhibitions has called for challenging constructions at the museums, recreating spaces from Turrell’s exacting specifications. “We have trained our dry-wallers that they are working with art, not drywall,” says Bradley Johnson, chief architect for the construction project at LACMA. (more…)
The “Andy Monument,” formerly located in New York City’s Union Square, began its journey on Tuesday to its next stop, the Houston Contemporary Arts Museum. The artwork, made by Rob Pruitt and commissioned by the Public Arts Fund had been positioned in front of a former Warhol studio location.
The New York Times interviews Mark Flood on his influences, vision, and position in the art world. “I’ve known people who I call ‘sacred monsters,’ like famous art people and such, who are so uptight about always doing everything the same way. So I’m trying to do things differently,” says the Houston artist whose show, The Hateful Years, will open on July 18, 2012 at Luxembourg & Dayan.
“What is it about Pablo Picasso that attracts vandals?” The Wall Street Journal asks, while contemplating the artistic and social relevance of the recent Picasso vandalism in Houston. The painting, Woman in a Red Armchair (1929), is being restored and will show again soon.
