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ART TOPICS N ature is Noted: At Moody Gallery, one of Texas' greatest showcases her latest. Helen Altman's work is aligned with our times through its reverence for nature and focus upon all creatures great and small. "Cold Road" features her ongoing series of chalkboard paintings, which walk the line between nostalgia and a call to activism while rendering in exquisite detail landscapes, trees, nests, and eggs (through January 22). A Fitting Honor: Catch the Texas Artist of the Year exhibition at Art League Houston and acquire the accompanying catalog for your library. The worthy honoree is Dallas- based Vicki Meek, whose works and installations have also graced the Nasher Sculpture Center and Project Row Houses (where she was among the artists presented in Round 1 in Fall 1994/Spring 1995). At Art League, Meek is in her glory, with imagery and objects that speak to the African diaspora (through February 5). Dynamic Duo: The Batman and Robin of our art world are the West Texas-birthed Jeffrey Wheeler (now residing in San Antonio) and Houston provocateur Paul Horn; their holiday pop-up at Deborah Colton Gallery has been held over. Wheeler's deadpan humor is paired with fine draftsmanship to render tropes of Lubbock, his hometown, alongside European ports of call where he has recently sojourned. Horn's nifty new drawings skewer American pop culture, dialoguing with a few of his greatest hits — sculptural melees of symbol-laden toys and consumer goods (through January 22). Clarion Call: Documentary photographer Bruce Davidson gets his due with a tightly focused museum show at The Menil Collection. Some 70 images, many never exhibited before at the Menil, are organized by curatorial assistant Molly Everett. The humanistic photos span four decades, 1956 through 1995, culled from an anonymous gift of a trove of the artist's work. In Davidson's lens and now our consciousness: a gang of Brooklyn teenagers, life on NYC's Lower East Side, Welsh m i n e r s , c i r c u s performers, and, most unforgettably, scenes from the Civil Rights movement including the march from Selma to Montgomery (through May 29). Eloquence of Abstraction: Photographer turned artist Don Glentzer shows himself to be a disciple of minimalism. At Gallery Sonja Roesch, Glentzer presents deft sculptures and works on paper that take as their departure the Benesh notation system to record choreographic dance movement. The Houston talent (whose wife is respected arts writer Molly Glentzer) proves himself a master of understated color and line (through January 15). FIVE FOR '22. By Catherine D. Anspon THE MENIL COLLECTION, HOUSTON, © BRUCE DAVIDSON / MAGNUM PHOTOS | COURTESY THE ARTIST AND ALH | COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GALLERY SONJA ROESCH Clockwise from top: Bruce Davidson's Selma March, Alabama, 1965, at The Menil Collection. "Vicki Meek: The Journey to Me," 2021 Texas Artist of the Year exhibition at Art League Houston. Don Glentzer's Traces 12, 2021, at Gallery Sonja Roesch. 36