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110 C heck out Mobius Houston and toast a half-century mark for one of the most significant university collections in the country. Wednesday, October 23, 6:30 pm, UH curates "On Site: 50 Years of Public Art of the University of Houston," celebrating and benefiting PAUHS. The sylvan venue is Wilhemina's Grove, which connects Blaffer Art Museum, Moores Opera House, Lyndall Finley Wortham Theatre, and the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts. Three power women chair: Beth Madison, Judy Nyquist, and Beth Robertson. The evening honors an MFAH Core Fellow: two-time Whitney Biennial artist Houston-based Trenton Doyle Hancock, whose epic and intricate wall installation LEGENDS makes an impact at UH's downtown campus. The evening begins with cocktails and a strolling supper under the stars surrounded by art, music, and dance by UH students, as well as a showcase of the new Temporary Public Art Program. Dress in artful attire, with sensational sneakers; PaperCity is media sponsor. Tickets from $500; contact Ellie Francisco, 866.366.5274, ext. 101; ellie@franciscoandco.co m. public art piece in the U.S. The snaking, sinuous Double Physichromie, 2009, is a 648-inch-long perambulating sculpture in painted aluminum and steel manifesting Cruz-Diez's bold foray into color. While Double Physichromie punctuates a plaza at the main campus, other works are of a more modest scale, such as the cache of Andy Warhol Polaroids, including an image of art star and UH grad Julian Schnabel; measuring 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ inches and dating from 1983, Schnabel and other Pop Polaroids are held in the University of Houston Libraries Special Collections. It's also important to note that from its founding, the UH System intuitively possessed a sensitivity to collecting from the standpoint of racial diversity and gender parity. Nationally known talents who worked in Houston such as the late greats Dorothy Hood (see pages 76 - 77) and Dr. John Biggers are represented by, respectively, an engaging color-field canvas edged in surrealism that bears a moody gray palette, The Angel's Key, 1987, at the main campus, and the epic mural Salt Marsh, 1997, at University of Houston-Downtown. The Guerilla Girls need not picket here: Included are seminal works by Texas and national artists Margo Sawyer (a stunning cascade of hand- painted stained glass, Synchronicity of Color: Victoria, 2018, for the UH- Victoria campus) and Alyson Shotz (a symphony of suspended glass beads, A Moment in Time, 2005, in the Wortham Theatre lobby of the central campus). The collection encompasses artists hallmarked by high-profile exhibitions nationally who also call Texas home. These include Whitney Biennial-exhibited Luis Jiménez, the late UH art professor who "was and is considered the leading Hispanic sculptor of his generation," says curator Clint Willour in the University of Houston's first-ever collection catalog, which publishes this fall. Jiménez is represented by the dynamic 10-foot-tall pas de deux Fiesta Jarabe (Fiesta Dancers), from 1991-1993, executed in the sculptor's signature polychrome fiberglass, installed on a plaza of the main campus. At University of Houston-Downtown, another Whitney Biennial talent holds court: Trenton Doyle Hancock, who lives and works in Houston but has shown extensively internationally. Hancock's ink-on-acrylic 36-by-30-foot masterwork, LEGENDS, 2015, continues the artist's comic-fueled cosmology, which addresses race in America. No visit to the University of Houston campus is complete without one of A PARTY FOR PUBLIC ART: UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON'S EVENING IN THE GROVE the calling cards of its public art collection: Frank Stella's grand baroque, multi-part mural Euphonia, 1997, which celebrated its 20th anniversary with great fanfare and programming two years ago, topped by the return to campus of its creator. Stella's Euphonia ceiling cycle lends the Moores Opera House a spectacular flourish. One of the works, which addresses Texas' Native American population, is Brian Tolle's Origin, 2014, which enlivens the façade of Cemo Hall at the UH Bauer College of Business. The two-part sculpture references a creation myth of the Karankawa tribe who once inhabited the Gulf Coast; Tolle's work functions as a fountain during heavy rains, with water from a large oyster- shell-shaped cradle spilling upon a wigwam from above. Carlos Cruz-Diez's Double Physichromie (detail), 2009, at the University of Houston John Biggers' Salt Marsh (detail), 1997, at the University of Houston-Downtown Marta Chilindrón and Dr. María C. Gaztambide, with a projection of Mobius Houston at Cecilia de Torres, Ltd., New York Luis Jiménez's Fiesta Jarabe (Fiesta Dancers), 1991-1993, at the University of Houston (continued from page 108) (continued on page 128)