The Tool at Hand
No one likes being told what to do, but what if the instruction comes in the form of an invitation? That very question is addressed in The Tool at Hand, a traveling exhibition currently on view at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum in collaboration with the Chipstone Foundation, which [...]
Read MoreAstrodome Rising? (UPDATED)
Proposal for Moldering Stadium Shows Promise Amid Logistical, Access Issues Update to story posted April 27, 2013. Earlier this spring, a proposal to partially demolish the Astrodome and keep its steel skeleton as a monster-sized gazebo to shade NFL tailgaters, rodeo livestock and carnival-goers, and sports practice fields became a local viral sensation. It was [...]
Read MoreYou Can Go Home Again
Trey McIntyre’s Peter Pan Returns to Houston Ballet “I love my childhood,” mused my son, at age nine, as if he where inhabiting his adult self for an instant. You can’t go home again, unless you are Peter Pan, or Trey McIntyre, who recently returned to Houston to freshen up his charming Peter Pan for [...]
Read MoreRoom for Improvement
Theater’s Proposed Renovation Includes Overdue Improvements But Needs a Lighter Touch In contrast to Houston’s other major theaters — Jones Hall, The Wortham Center, and The Hobby Center, which are bland, boxy affairs — the Alley Theatre is an utterly memorable building. Originally designed by Ulrich Franzen, its [...]
Read MoreSuspended Animation
The Bridge Club Heads to Currents New Media Festival If the medium is the message, as philosopher and media analyst Marshall McLuhan famously proclaimed, then The Bridge Club performance collective reveals the (digital) writing on the wall with their performance of Medium at Currents: The Santa Fe International New Media Festival. Currents is the first [...]
Read MoreA Plethora of Prints
PrintHouston Returns, Leaving Its Mark on Spaces Large and Small Although it’s only in its third year, PrintHouston, the annual citywide extravaganza of workshops, demonstrations, lectures, and exhibitions celebrating printmakers and their work, has already become a Houston art-scene fixture. So much so that, although it’s known as a summer festival, PrintHouston’s 2013 event schedule [...]
Read More8 Kids, 2 Punk Rock Fans, a Probation Officer & a Dream
Ben Tecumseh DeSoto’s Whole Mind Workshop Brings Art Where It’s Needed Most Having signed an agreement with the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department not to photograph the kids or use their real names in this story, I ask the three 16-year-olds at the Raul Yzaguirre School for Success’s high-school campus on [...]
Read MoreDeep in the Marrow
Stark Naked Ends Season with Macbeth Stark Naked Theatre co-artistic directors Kim Tobin and Philip Lehl tackle the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in their first production of Shakespeare’s tale of ambition run amok. Tobin and Lehl sat down with A + C editor Nancy Wozny to discuss the iconic Scottish play. A + [...]
Read MoreMFAH Inflated Attendance Figures for Years
General Admission Visits Are Less Than 19% of Beck, Law Building Tallies Having spent two weeks poring over annual reports and attendance data, I’ve got good news and bad news about the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston that couldn’t be more timely or relevant to our art scene’s conversations about the image it wants to [...]
Read MoreOrchestrating Success
The Conductors of the Texas Music Festival When is a conductor more than a conductor? When he (or she) is conducting the fellows at Houston’s premier summer musical festival. The Immanuel and Helen Olshan Texas Music Festival (TMF), May 31 -June 29, is a nationally recognized summer music festival held at the University of Houston [...]
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