Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1526979
We're all about our town's alternative spaces, as we focus on three of our most historic: 76-year-old Art League Houston, 42-year-old DiverseWorks, and Lawndale Art Center, founded 1979. That's more than 150 years of serious art history, even as this seminal trio remains intensely relevant. Case in point, check out this month's art offerings. Art League Houston rolls out its eagerly awaited Texas Artist of the Year exhibition, showcasing the works of UT Austin professor Beili Liu, whose practice addresses climate change via poetic performances, as well as Art League's biannual Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts solo, this year highlighting Kathy Vargas, San Antonio professor at the University of the Incarnate Word, who addresses the transparent veil between life and death. Contemplate this prescient doubleheader through November 23. Also, acquire your tickets to Art League's 76th Anniversary Gala: Bloom at the buzzy new Thompson Hotel Houston. This captivating night bestows honors upon Liu and Vargas, as well as the Lifetime Achievement in Arts Leadership award to Community Artists' Collective maven Michelle Barnes (tickets artleaguehouston.org/2024-gala). DiverseWorks steps up as an advocate for environmental justice as it mounts "River on Fire" in its MATCH Gallery. Curated Jay Monroe BROKER ASSOCIATE N O T H I N G C O M P A R E S T O W H A T ' S N E X T . N O T H I N G C O M P A R E S T O W H A T ' S N E X T . 7 1 3 . 5 0 4 . 6 9 3 6 - M O N R O E W A R R E L L T E A M @ S I R . C O M - T H E M O N R O E A N D W A R R E L L T E A M . C O M 7 1 3 . 5 0 4 . 6 9 3 6 - M O N R O E W A R R E L L T E A M @ S I R . C O M - T H E M O N R O E A N D W A R R E L L T E A M . C O M Stephen Warrell REALTOR-ASSOCIATE® | | by DW's Ashley DeHoyos Sauder, the exhibition takes its name from the 30th anniversary of a notorious Houston-area climate disaster when the San Jacinto River caught fire. Fourteen multidisciplinary artists from the U.S. and Canada probe climate and environmental issues, including four from our region: Willow Naomi Curry, Heather L. Johnson, Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud, and Joe Robles IV. The ecology-meets-activism exhibition (through November 16) aligns with a fraught Presidential election cycle and an Art + Climate Justice Symposium (also at MATCH, November 8 – 10; gratis, register diverseworks.org). Wrap your viewing at the legendary Lawndale Art Center, a Mecca for new discoveries and a nest for Houston creatives. Now up are exhibitions for Sol Diaz-Peña and Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud, informed by personal and/or metaphoric journeys addressing each artist's roots — respectively, the Zapotec culture of Oaxaca and the African diaspora (through November 2). Finally, some trans formative news: Artist Jack Massing has been anointed as executive director of the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art. (Previous director Tommy Ralph Pace left for a plum position at Aspen Art Museum). Read our online interview with Massing, who's famed for his role as one half of The Art Guys, with late collaborator Michael Galbreth. As Massing tells us, his first brush with the Orange Show began with a fence-climbing incident in 1981. Massing's arrival coincides with the Orange Show's raucous gala, DaliDada: A Surrealicious Soirée, set for Saturday, October 26, at Orange Show World HQ (tickets e.givesmart.com/ events/CB8). Surreal Scene at The Silos: An annual harbinger of fall is Sculpture Month Houston, a site- specific challenge t o T e x a s 3 D - m a k e r s to forge an unforgettable s c u l p t u r a l installation in dialogue with the agrarian ruins that are the creepy-cool Silos in the Sawyer Yards art complex. Curator Dr. Volker Eisele dreamed up this concept, now in its eighth iteration, which serves as a barometer of the state of the arts, introducing promising new talents as well as showcasing mid-career notables. Among the 18 artists in "Solid State: A Celebration of the Material World" are Yale MFA grad Nathaniel Donnett, recently seen at TSU in a poetic solo conjuring Deep Space and Black astronauts; our lady of neon light and invention Adela Andea; masters of the visceral, heroic, industrial, and discarded Kathy Kelley, Fred Spaulding, Patrick Renner, Michael Sean Kirby, and Cameron Schoepp; Garland Fielder's architecturally informed minimalism; maverick inventors Jeff Shore and Jon Fisher; and John Walker, whose foray into the ancient art of divination involves scrying with a water element (October 5 – November 30). Catherine D. Anspon Art Notes Left: Kathy Vargas' The Living Move: Self Portrait, 1998 – 2005, at Art League Houston. Above: Adela Andea's Liminal Entropy, 2024, at Site Gallery, The Silos at Sawyer Yards. COURTESY BLUE WAY 28