Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1546312
Three museums and a heroic new nonprofit are where you need to be this autumn in the Dallas art world. Unidentified artist, The Creation of Heaven and Earth, 18th century, at Meadows Museum, SMU. Pablo Picasso, Woman Lamp (Lampe femme), 1955, at Meadows Museum, SMU. S eismic Surls: Epic news arrives at press time. Kirk Hopper Fine Art shutters to make way for the gallerist's bold and ambitious new nonprofit, Passage Arts, sited in a 7,500-square-foot space bordering Fair Park and downtown at 845 S. Trunk Avenue, near the intersection of I-30 and 1-45. The hundred-year-old warehouse will be reborn this month when Passage Arts launches with an exhibition that underscores Hopper's decades-long commitment to Texas art and artists. Don't expect understated conceptual art here, but the massive sculpture of Texas titan James Surls, whose roots go deep in both Dallas and Houston — from teaching at SMU, to birthing the contemporary art scene as we know it by forming the iconic Lawndale Art Center, established 1979 as an off-campus studio space for University o f H o u s t o n a r t s t u d e n t s after the UH Department of A r t b u i l d i n g burned down. Independent c u r a t o r, a r t historian, and author Susie Kalil co-curates the inaugural e x h i b i t i o n alongside the 8 3 - y e a r - o l d S u r l s . " F ro m the Old Growth" p r e s e n t s 2 5 sculptures and 1 8 d r a w i n g s across a half- century of Surl's vast oeuvre, bringing forth a show that reminds the viewer of the primacy of art spun around nature, which is both Surls' calling card and his legacy. The exhibition's namesake 16,000-pound redwood burl sculpture will halt you in your tracks. At Passage Arts, Surls' primal practice — wood honed by ax and chainsaw — has the space it demands to be properly experienced. "Passage Arts is getting back to origin stories the way artists created and wanted their art to be seen and experienced," Kalil texted us. In her press statement, she writes, "Surls' vision is of another world — a metaphysical quest of the mysteries and terrors of nature, as well as the fragility Art to See By Catherine D. Anspon. and absurdity of human life" (September 19, 2026 – April 17, 2027). H i g h L i n e t o D e s i g n D i s t r i c t : Colombian-born Iván Argote is a talent for our time. The Paris-based conceptualist's breakout work is a monumental, antiheroic sculpture of a prosaic pigeon, Dinosaur, 2024. Cast in aluminum at the scale of Tyrannosaurus rex, it alighted at Manhattan's High Line for an 18-month period that just wrapped this spring. The buzzy, brilliant Argote is the headliner of Dallas Contemporary's fall lineup, showcased in the cryptically titled "How to Move a Monument on a Tuesday Morning." Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts alum Pilar Tompkins Rivas, in from her post at AltaMed, L.A., curates. For the DC, Argote continues his take on monuments. This body of work is familiar to Dallas audiences: A series of deconstructed statues transformed into planters, Wild Flowers, graced The Katy Trail in 2024 and 2025 as part of its public art program. The latest iteration of Wild Flowers, featuring Christopher Columbus, will be included in his DC solo, joined by a three-channel video and bas- relief concrete work that bridges painting and sculpture while bearing Argote's signature activist text fragments. While the exhibition unveils next month, DC Gala-goers will get an advance peek and mingle with guest of honor Argote on Saturday, September 26, at a big-ticket night co-chaired by Catalina Gonzalez Jorba, Peter Augustus Owen, and Ramiro Garcia (exhibition October 3, 2026 – January 31, 2027). The Sun Never Sets on a Bruce Nauman Exhibition: So goes the adage about one of the seminal contemporary artists of our time. Nauman's works embrace wide-ranging ideas, defy predictable genres, and are deployed in varied materials from neon, film/video, and wax to sound and performance. Incredibly, he has never had a © 2026 ESTATE OF PABLO PICASSO / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. PHOTO BY KEVIN TODORA. COLLECTION OF CARL AND MARILYNN THOMA. PHOTO BY KEVIN TODORA. (Continued on page 130)