UP CLOSE Houston Loves Eccentrics by Bill Arning Production still from Trenton Doyle Hancock,Stephen Mills, and Graham Reynolds's ballet Cult of Color: Call to Color, 2008. Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York, and Ballet Austin. Photo Tony Spielberg. Robert Rauschenberg I arrived in Texas in 2009 to direct the political realities-especially around guns Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and reproductive rights-there is broad Foundation I after a lifetime on the East Coast, and the bipartisan support for the arts. Even the Art in America first lesson I learned was that Houston conservative community brags about the Arts Writing Fellowship loves eccentrics. It is, in fact, something of city's openness to controversial art. a tradition and likely why I have been able I was unaware when I moved here Essay to thrive as a museum director here. that Texans consider the state its own I've found Houston to be a progres­ country, and that I would need to study sive and intellectual city-a bright blue its history-most of my fellows had dot in a massive field of red. We have had already learned it in junior high school. This article is part of the Robert an arts-friendly, out-lesbian mayor for the Several books on the history ofTexas art Rauschenberg Foundation I Art in last six years. There are more artists' talks, would be required reading as well.1 It's no America Arts Writing Fellowships, a joint project designed to foster lectures, performances, film screenings, surprise, then, that the cultural landscape art and culture writing in cities and concerts than one could ever attend. here is full of world-class attractions. Yet throughout the U.S. This makes it easy to forget the regres­ Houston is a cat city, rather than a dog sive elements of the political machine city, meaning that its charms can make BILL ARNING is director of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. working against equality and sanity in themselves scarce and do not come to See Contributors page. the state. But despite the truly heinous you just because you express a passing 70 MAY 2016 curiosity. The city requires a tour guide and emulate it in their own patronage. and a car. I hope this essay will serve as The Menils were involved in the found­ an introduction to a city that I find to be ing period of the Contemporary Arrs richer in artistic stimulation every year. Museum Houston (1948), constructed The double meaning of"rich" is the Rothko Chapel (1971), and helped intended, for the response T-shirt to the the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, ubiquitous is grow exponentially,before building the world-renowned Menil Collection, which "KEEP ForAUSTIN someone WEIRD" whose "KEEP job opened in 1987. descriptionHOUSTON RICH." includes convincing wealthy Texans that supporting museums is a Add to these four institutions the worthy and enjoyable philanthropic University of Houston's Blaffer Art endeavor, a rich Houston is very welcome Museum, with its robust curatorial vision, and the city is well served by its museums, indeed. Most cities have a diversified Melanie Smith: Aztec Stadium. Malleable Deed, funding base. Houston money all comes which have divided the contemporary art 2010, video, 10 minutes, 29 seconds, back to the oil and gas industry-directly nu-£ We museum directors consistently In collaboration with Rafael Ortega. Courtesy Slcardi Gallery, Houston. or indirectly. Most general economic cooperate to ensure mat most major areas downturns are barely felt here due to the of investigation in contemporary art are consistent cash flow of the petroleum on view in Houston within a year of their business, as people keep driving their appearance in big art centers like New cars even when economically stressed. York, Los Angeles, London, or Berlin. Cultural leaders in the city all have the As a gateway city to South and price per barrel of oil in our morning Central America, and with the Museum news feeds, since it is the biggest single of Fine Arts devoting significant resources factor affecting the success of requests to its Latin American program, Houston Dario Robleto: gets current art fromthe south quickly. Harvest/Harvest for support of important projects. Even Moon (detail), during the 2016 sinkhole, there is money Under the leadership of curator .Mari 2014-15, �- being made, but few capital campaigns Carmen Ramirez, the MFAH's Latin cyanotypes of various moons in will be launched until the market condi­ American department has created a solid the solar system, tions change again. system for exhibiting and sometimes crystals, paper, feathers. and almost Cu1111ni011ent to access to the arts buying Latin American works, and mixed mediums, is a beautiful thing to see in the city. all me best collections in Houston have 30 by 69 by 16 made significant acquisitions. In 2015, inches overall. When artist and musician Robert Hodge Courtesy Inman released a hip-hop single with Phillip me Texas Contemporary Art Fair, held Gallery, Houston. Pyle II in 2014-the Black Guys'"The in the fall, mounted a survey of Mexico Menil Song" is about Hodge's discovery City galleries, leading many Houston as a black teen of the always-free, heavily collectors to prioritize Mexico City art air-conditioned galleries at the Menil-it fairs Zona Maco and Material Art Fair became an underground hit, giving me a over New York's Armory this year. Maria prideful thrill. Hodge-who had a killer Ines Sicardi started representing the show at CAMH of his paintings that mix great Latin American modernists, such hip-hop phrases, slavery-era illustra­ as Carlos Cruz-Diez and Luis Tomasello, tions, and images frompopajar culture and politically engaged conceprualists, and European art history2�cknow1- such as Liliana Porter and Miguel Angel edges that, for many in his community, Rios, well before mere was any market for museum-going is not part of life. But their works in North America. Sicardi has when he and his friends learned about also fostered the intricate, poetic practices Houston's free museums, they felt wel­ of Mexico City's Gabriel de la Mora and come and were happy to see tl1eir cultural Melanie Smith, bom of whom have pieces histories represented on the walls. in Houston collections. Performance is huge here, and there Relocating to Houston in 1941-when aremany festivals, such as the feisty Lone the city could rightly be termed provin­ Star Explosion and the classic Dance Salad. cial-John and Dominique de Menil Lone Star's lasr iteration remains infamous changed the terrain of cultural philan­ for the extremityof many of its presenta­ Robert Hodge: Why You All in My Grill?. thropy, and to this day Houston's phi­ tions,which had one major foundation 2014, MDF and mixed mediums on lanthropists hold the Menil model dear representativeasking me if we should climb reclaimed paper, 31 by 42 inches. ART IN AMERICA 71 into the performance :ueai�.:e me! the Even though Houston has all this exciting performer to stop chokinghim__<di stuffgoing on, almost any denizen of the I see many performances O\'er the city's art scene can recite the names of art­ city, but I'm particularly proud ,r-a couple ists who have left-Earl Staley, Dash Sno"" we've presented at C.\,\lH.In all -epcember Will Boone, Jeff Elrod, Mark Lombardi, 2014, Nathaniel Donnen responded to and Donna Huanca-but they will follow being racially profiled.Pulled over b�· the up with the reminder that "you don't need police some months before,he felthis to do that now." Stnce my arrival, I have life was in peril from the way the officer seen a steady upturn in artists who build was aggressively questioning until lives here. Many seem to find that there is the officersaw his two-year-old daughter enough influx from the international art in the backseat. For the performance,him, world to launch a career while maintaining Earl Staley: Portal Series #19, 2015, acrylic on he imagined himself as another victim a fairly high quality of life. canvas, 29 by 63 inches. of police violence and staged his funeral For non-�atives,I have heard Houston service,with other artists delivering described as a "flypaper city."You come eulogies. This year,Autumn Knight, to take advantage of one of the scores of the only Houston artist in the Crysral culture-industry jobs or residency programs. Bridges Museum of American Art's 2014 Then, years pass while you avoid oppor­ national survey,"State of the Art," staged tunities in other cities because it would her worl<,WALL,consisting of sound, involve a drastic decline in your standard rituals, and actions that explore the Wail­ of living. In 2014, artist and curator Steven ing Wall in Jerusalem and the Galveston Evans, whose wall paintings of disco-song Seawall. At CAMH, black women sat in titles from the '80s were among the stars of a row between the artist and the audience "Macho Man,Tell It to My Heart: Col­ to represent the power of resilience in the lected by Julie Ault" (2013-14) at Artists face of trauma. Space in New York,was lured to Houston Music and art mix well and oftenin from the Pace Foundation in San Antonio Houston. The blues musician Lightnin' to assume the directorship of FotoFest, the Hopkins has a memorial bus stop not fur tnternational photo-based biennial. Some from Project Row Houses, the long­ long-established Houston artists, such as the running art organization and installation lyrical abstract painter David Aylsworth and space in the historically black Third Ward conceptual sculptor Joseph Havel, came for neighborhood.