3-23-17 v3 Fellows of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Houston Tuesday April 25-Saturday April 29 2017 Itinerary Day One: Tuesday April 25th 2017 Group arrival into George Bush Intercontinental/Houston Airport. Here in “Bayou City,” as the city is known, Houstonians take their art very seriously. The city boasts a large and exciting collection of public art that includes works by Miró, Dubuffet, Nevelson, Oldenburg, Moore, Calder, Barnett Newman, Michael Heizer, Tony Rosenthal, and Albert Paley. Art Horizons International president Lisa Hahn will greet the group at baggage claim and escort them to our private bus. Check in at the Four Seasons Houston. (1300 Lamar St, Houston, TX 77010 Phone: (713) 650-1300) 6:30 p.m. Gather in the hotel lobby to meet study tour leader Leo Costello and Art Horizons International President Lisa Hahn. 7:00 p.m. Depart by bus for dinner. 7:15 p.m. Enjoy a welcome dinner at Hugo’s Restaurant. Located in the heart of Houston's Montrose area, Hugo's brings the exciting and earthy flavors of Mexico across the border. Return to the hotel after dinner by bus. Day Two: Wednesday April 26th 2017 6:30am on Enjoy breakfast at the hotel. 9:15 a.m. Gather in the hotel lobby to depart promptly by bus. 9:30 a.m. Enjoy a private art collection visit in Houston’s River Oaks neighborhood. These two Houston art patrons and their children live with an extensive contemporary collection that includes paintings, works on paper, photography and sculpture. The art leans towards representational work, sometimes conceptual, and usually with an ironic twist. Artists represented at the Smiths’ Houston home include many working in Texas, other important American artists (e.g. Fred Tomaselli, George Condo, Carroll Dunham, Laurie Simmons, William Wegman, Philp Taafee, John Currin, David Salle, Barkley Hendricks, and Jim Nutt), and artists from Japan (e.g. Yoshitomo Nara, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Yasumasa Morimura), Great Britain (e.g. Julian Opie, Yinka Shonibare, Richard Patterson, and Peter Blake), Latin America (e.g. Luis Gonzales Palma, Liliana Porter, Vik Muniz, and Monica Costillo), and elsewhere in the world (e.g. Wim Delvoye, Stephen Balkenhol). The pieces in the home range from a 1930’s painting by Francis Picabia (temporally the oldest piece in the collection), to mid-century work (e.g., among notable others, a 1956 drawing by Larry Rivers and a 1969 John Wesley work on paper), to pieces made in the last year (e.g. an amusing outdoor sculpture by artist Ray Smith). 10:30 a.m. Depart for another collection located nearby. 11:00 a.m. Enjoy a visit to a second private art collection in the River Oaks neighborhood. 12:30 p.m. Depart by bus. 12:45 p.m. Enjoy lunch at Canopy Restaurant. Enjoy seasonal fare in a dining room decorated with murals of trees and other eco-chic touches. 2:30 p.m. Depart for an artist's studio. 3:00 p.m. Enjoy a visit to the studio of Karin Boker. 4:15 p.m. Return to the hotel by bus. 4:45 p.m. Arrival at hotel. 7:00 p.m. Depart for Rice University. 7:30 p.m. Enjoy a special sunset visit to the James Turrell’s “Twilight Epiphany” Skyspace. Located adjacent to the Shepherd School of Music on the Rice University campus is the Suzanne Deal Booth Centennial Pavilion, James Turrell's Twilight Epiphany skyspace. Twilight Epiphany is acoustically engineered to host musical performances and to act as a laboratory for music school students. Constructed of grass, concrete, stone and composite steel, the structure is equipped with a LED light sequence that projects onto the ceiling and through an aperture in the 72-foot square knife-edge roof just before sunrise and at sunset. Turrell's composition of light complements the natural light present at 2 twilight, and transforms the skyspace into a locale for experiencing beauty and reflective interactions with the surrounding campus and the natural world. (Sunset is at 7:55 pm) 8:15 p.m. Depart for dinner. 8:30 p.m. Enjoy dinner at Annie’s Café. Return to the hotel by bus after dinner. Day Three: Thursday April 27th 2017 6:30am on Enjoy breakfast at the hotel. 9:00 a.m. Gather in the hotel lobby to depart by bus. 9:15 a.m. Enjoy a visit to an studio of artist Christian Eckhart (pending confirmation). 10:00 a.m. Depart for the Menil Campus. 10:30 a.m. Enjoy a visit to the non-denominational Rothko Chapel which houses 14 canvases by Mark Rothko. Architect Philip Johnson collaborated with Rothko on the design of the chapel. 11:00 a.m. Next, we will enjoy an introduction to the Menil collection given by the curator of Modern and Contemporary art, Toby Kamps. The Menil’s permanent collection is one of the most important privately assembled collections of the 20th century. The museum opened in 1987 to preserve and exhibit the art collection of John and Dominique de Menil. Designed by Renzo Piano, this understated but elegant expanse of gray clapboard features a roof of white louvers, used both in the gallery spaces and on the building’s exterior, to unify the structure. The “leaves” function as a method of controlling light levels and also as a means of returning air flow. The Menil Collection houses approximately 15,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs, and rare books. Masterpieces from antiquity, the tribal cultures of Africa, Oceania, and the American Pacific Northwest, and the major modern and contemporary art movements are particularly well represented. Highlights of the museum include its Surrealist holdings, particularly the works of Max Ernst, widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost collections of its kind. Special Exhibitions on View: The Beginning of Everything: Drawings from the Janie C. Lee, Louisa Stude Sarofim, and David Whitney Collections The Beginning of Everything will feature nearly 100 master drawings promised to the Menil by trustees Janie C. Lee and Louisa Stude Sarofim and bequeathed in 3 2005 by David Whitney. The 110 promised gifts represent the work of 41 artists, who range chronologically from Paul Cézanne and Edgar Degas in the late 19th century to Piet Mondrian, Balthus, and Georgia O’Keeffe in the mid- 20th century to Robert Gober and Terry Winters in the present. Among the highlights are drawings by Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Richard Serra, Eva Hesse, Agnes Martin, and unique works on paper by Robert Rauschenberg. Between Land and Sea: Artists of the Coenties Slip Between Land and Sea: Artists of the Coenties Slip brings together examples of the early work of Chryssa, Robert Indiana, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, Lenore Tawney, and Jack Youngerman. These artists were among a group of intellectuals, writers, filmmakers, and poets who lived and worked during the late 1950s and early 1960s in the old seaport at the lower tip of Manhattan called the Coenties Slip. Distinguished by its views of the Brooklyn Bridge and its position between land and sea, the slip served as an important inspiration for the artists, who frequently incorporated aquatic themes into their early work. The exhibition will feature 27 aesthetically distinct works, united by the artists’ desire to locate new ways of thinking about abstraction. ReCollecting Dogon ReCollecting Dogon showcases over 25 examples of artistry from the Bandiagara region acquired by John and Dominique de Menil during the mid-20th century. The sculptures, masks, necklaces, and other works by “unknown” artists not only suggest the significance of art to daily life among Dogon peoples, they evoke formidable legacies of colonialism and the limitations of representing Dogon peoples through objects collected by and for foreigners. Curated by Paul R. Davis, ReCollecting Dogon strives to destabilize the authority of ethnographic display by including 1930s ethnographic audio recordings simulated by Marcel Griaule, photographs of artworks taken by Walker Evans (1935) and Mario Carrieri (1976), and other archival works that recall the long history of encounters and transactions shaping current understanding of Dogon peoples. Recently commissioned masks, videos by Sérou Dolo of recent masking events, and contemporary works by artists Amahigueré Dolo and Alaye Kene Atô present vibrant, living visual culture and serve as counterpoints to historical representations Dogon peoples. On view in the Menil’s Byzantine Fresco Chapel: Francis Alÿs: The Fabiola Project The Fabiola Project consists of more than 450 reproductions of a lost 1885 painting of 4th-century Roman Saint Fabiola by French artist Jean- Jacques Henner. The project was initiated by Belgian artist Francis Alÿs in the early 1990s, shortly after he moved to Mexico City, his current home. Fascinated by the artisanal culture of the city and short on funds, he decided to build an art collection for himself by combing the city’s flea markets and antique and junk shops. He expected to find copies of masterpieces by painters like Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and Jean-François Millet. Instead, he found and bought versions of Henner’s Fabiola, depicted in left-facing profile wearing a red 4 headscarf. Gradually, Alÿs’s casual collecting project gathered steam as he and his friends discovered new images of the saint during their travels around the world. Today, The Fabiola Project consists primarily of paintings, but also includes bas- relief wood carvings and images in needlepoint, painted ceramics, jewelry, and in one case a mosaic made of rice and beans. Also located on the Menil Campus is the Cy Twombly Gallery. This gallery houses a permanent collection of work by the late American Abstract Expressionist artist Cy Twombly, exhibited in a building designed by Renzo Piano (1995) whose design is a pure square of pale Texas limestone.