Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1535713
Summer arrives, and it's in with the new: an upcoming Fort Worth museum of country- wide significance is celebrated, and an iconic photo dealer moves from Dallas Design District to Denton's historic downtown. H e r a l d i n g t h e N a t i o n a l Juneteenth Museum: One of our top Texas creatives, artist/writer/curator Christopher Blay, shared big news from his new post as director of public programs at the upcoming National Juneteenth Museum (NJM), set to unveil soon on the historic Southside of Fort Worth. Inspired to locate in Fort Worth by Nobel Prize-nominated Opal Lee, crusader for Juneteenth as a national holiday, NJM's $ 7 0 m i l l i o n f u n d - r a i s i n g continues with the City of Fort Worth pledging t h i s s p r i n g $ 1 5 m i l l i o n to make the 50,000-square- foot museum designed by international architects BIG | Bjarke Ingels Group a reality. There's also an art component: B l a y a n d t h e N J M ' s Dr. Lauren Cross curate "Declarations of Freedom," a group show at Fort Works Art in the Cultural District and G a l l e r y o f D r e a m s , S u n d a n c e Square (June 12 – July 19). "Declarations" offers a peek at artists in the museum's burgeoning collection whose practices intersect Juneteenth history and social justice today. Among the Texas talents highlighted: Nasher-exhibited Vicki Meek, Johnny Floyd, Robert Hodge, Ann Johnson, Delita Martin, Floyd Newsum Jr., Phillip Pyle II, Assandre Jean-Baptiste, and Sedrick Huckaby and Letitia Huckaby of Fort Worth's Big Momma's House. Program lineup and tickets, freedomvibes2025.com. Denton on My Mind: In the art world, smaller towns are in. As evidence, one of America's esteemed photography dealers, PDNB Gallery, relocates from Dallas Design District to Denton — population 169,000 and growing — where owners/ gallerists Missy and Burt Finger reside and started more than 30 years ago before moving to Dallas to launch their photo-based gallery in 1995. "No more commuting!" Missy says. "We looked around for a new space, then had an epiphany that we should move the gallery to Denton. The city has grown and improved. Demographics have changed, and the downtown County Courthouse Square has blossomed with restaurants and cultural activities." PDNB reopens Friday, June 6, on Denton's Downtown Square with a group show of some of its photo luminaries represented through the years; the gallery is a member of the prestigious Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD). The Fingers will hold court in a modernist bank building lining the square whose punctuation point is its 1896 courthouse (now a history museum). The town's thriving art-centric universities figured in the gallery move: University of North Texas, where Burt Finger studied, and Texas Woman's University, where avant-garde abstract photographer Carlotta Corpron (a Bauhaus-influenced talent shown by PDNB) taught. Other stars of the stable, on view after the Denton move: Frida Kahlo portraitist Nickolas Muray, joined by international, national, and Texas notables including Keith Carter, Michael Kenna, 2022 Art League Houston Lifetime Achievement honoree Earlie Hudnall Jr., Patty Carroll, Bill Owens of Suburbia fame, Vadim Gushchin, Esteban Pastorino Díaz, Neal Slavin, and Dallas' Jeanine Michna-Bales, who mines underknown chapters in American history, from the Underground Railroad to the Suffragette movement. Summer exhibition details, gallery hours, and info about PDNB's 30th Show this September, pdnbgallery.com. More on this story, papercitymag.com. Catherine D. Anspon Art Notes BJARKE INGELS GROUP AND KAI ENTERPRISES 26 Above: Earlie Hudnall Jr.'s Girl with Flag, 3rd Ward, Houston, 1991, at PDNB Gallery. Rendering, aerial view of future National Juneteenth Museum, Fort Worth.