The ART MUSEUM OF SOUTHEAST TEXAS presents ESPOUSED, through January 6, 2013.
ISSUE Magazine: October 2012
A vibrant group exhibition featuring 36 contemporary Texas artists who are partners either in marriage, as significant others or as a collaborative team.
“Espoused” comprises more than 40 works in a variety of media and highlights these diverse pairs of artists working together in various ways through inspiration, creativity, encouragement, studio space and techniques. These couples further examine how their works are or are not influenced by one another.
The artists whose work will be featured include: Shannon and William Cannings, Jerolyn Bahm- Colombik and Roger Colombik, Elizabeth Akamatsu and Piero Fenci, Suzanne Bloom and Ed Hill (MANUAL), Linda Ridgway and Harry Geffert, Letitia and Sedrick Huckaby, Janet Chaffee and Benito Huerta, Carter Ernst and Paul Kittelson, Corinne and Charles Jones, Cathy Cunningham-Little and Ken Little, Liza and Lee Littlefield, Joan Batson and Bert L. Long Jr., Beverly Penn and Marc McDaniel, Susan Budge and Jesús Moroles, Sharon Engelstein and Aaron Parazette, Charmaine Locke and James Surls, Ann Stautberg and Frank X. Tolbert 2, and Marianne Green and Randy Twaddle.
Randy Twaddle, DISTRIBUTION LINE DRAWING #3, 2011,
ink and coffee on paper, courtesy of Moody Gallery, Houston, Texas
Many of these artists have gained national and international attention and are represented by major galleries and in museum collections across the country. AMSET also has exhibited individually or owns work by several of the featured artists.
“We are pleased to present ‘Espoused’ to the Southeast Texas community,” Caitlin Williams, AMSET curator of exhibitions and collections, said. “This is an exciting exhibition teeming with a variety of subjects, media, styles, and personalities.”
“Espoused” is organized by AMSET and funded in part by the Southeast Texas Arts Council, Edith Fuller Chambers Charitable Foundation, the late Dorothy Anne Conn, City of Beaumont and the Texas Commission on the Arts.
AMSET is located at 500 Main in downtown Beaumont.
For more information, visit www.amset.org.
The MENIL COLLECTION hosts DEAR JOHN & DOMINIQUE : LETTERS AND DRAWINGS FROM THE MENIL ARCHIVES through January 6, 2013
This exhibition commemorates the Menil’s 25th anniversary. It celebrates the founders of the Menil Collection, John and Dominique de Menil, through the words and images in the letters and drawings sent to them by their friends: artists, curators, museum directors, architects, family members and intellectuals. In gratitude, awe and delight the assembled exchanges penned in the collected correspondence from the Menil Archives provides a unique and intimate look at the pioneering ideas that helped form the museum long before the building opened in 1987.
The exhibited letters will be displayed in the gallery turned into an archival reading room. Here, museum guests will be able to comfortably spend time with the letters, which will be augmented by a selection of photographs and ephemera also pulled from the archive. Together, the materials reveal the complexity and pleasure of the swirling art world the de Menil’s inhabited, as well as the profundity and conviction of their project, and the magnitude of their patronage of living artists. This is expressed in the simple eloquence of a letter from Robert Rauschenberg to Dominique de Menil from 1996 that will be included in the exhibition. It reads:
“Dear Dominique, I personally, and the world specifically, will and do celebrate your devotions, dedication and accomplishments. I am grateful that your acceptance of my artwork — marking your unique contributions—can be a contract to our future services to continue our unveering care. Let’s get on with our joyous work. We are needed as never before — again. Thank you from the depths of my mind, body and heart. Robert Rauschenberg.”
As a component of the exhibition, the Menil Collection will launch an interactive cell-phone tour of the Menil campus, compiled of rare audio recordings from the Menil archives, including the voices of John and Dominique de Menil. It will also feature the perspective of those who have impacted — and are continuing to impact — the formation of the museum and the neighborhood. “Dear John and Dominique: Letters and Drawings from the Menil Archives” is organized by Michelle White, curator, with Geraldine Aramanda, Menil Collection archivist.
The Menil Collection is located at 1515 Sul Ross in Houston.
For more, visit www.menil.org.
If you come across any interesting exhibitions, museums or other places on your travels, share them with us. Call 409-838-5393, or contact us through our web site at www.artstudio.org. Be sure to include the location and dates of the subject, as well as any costs.