SARAH GREEN (VOICEOVER):
This episode of The Art Assignment is
supported by Prudential. We arrived to a rainy
and cold Houston and drove directly to Kim Chau,
to fuel up on Vietnamese food. We were so hungry, we
forgot to document our meal before we ate it. Then, we ordered more and
then forgot to document that. But trust us, it was delicious. Then, we spent a
delightful several hours in the spectacular studio of
JooYoung Choi, who regaled us with stories of
her fictional realm called the "Cosmic
Womb," populated by a variety of intriguing
and adorable characters. It wasn't until the next
day that we officially began our art trip tour. And we started with the big
daddy, the Rothko Chapel. I'd heard a lot about this
place and seen many pictures. And I wondered if it would
live up to expectation. It's a nondenominational
chapel that art collectors John and Dominique de Menil
commissioned painter Mark Rothko to create in 1964. Rothko helped design
the octagonal building with architects Phillip
Johnson, Howard Barnstone, and Eugene Aubry. And it opened to
the public in 1971. According to its mission,
the Rothko Chapel is a sacred space open
to all, every day, to inspire people to action
through art and contemplation, to nurture reverence
for the highest aspirations of
humanity, and to provide a forum for global concerns. Inside the space, you
encounter and become surrounded by 14 murals created by
Rothko, all in dark shades with subtle variations
between each. The light in the
space is natural and emerges from
behind a baffle that covers skylights and protects
the paintings from sun damage. So there's this ethereal
low level of light that suffuses the space
and allows your eyes to take in the texture
of the painting surfaces and the shifts in
hue between them. Every detail of the space
is considered and just so. The proportions, the seating,
the pavers, the discreet stanchions that remind
you not to brush up against these delicate surfaces. While there, I
kept thinking what are the preconditions
for worship, for contemplation,
for meditation? It's a kind of
comforting neutral that admits the darkness
of life and the world, but that also is welcoming
and enclosing and sheltering. You then, emerge from the
darkness of the chapel back onto the glorious
grounds that surround it. You'd usually take in
a full reflecting pool and Barnett Newman's remarkable
sculpture, "Broken Obelisk." But it was away that
day, being conserved. But rest assured, it
is back now in place. The sculpture is dedicated
to Martin Luther King Jr. whose life of service to
social justice and spirituality was much admired by the Menils. The entire campus is
not only a destination for more private
meditation, but is also a dynamic meeting place for
spiritual and world leaders. We stopped off at Siphon
Coffee and then headed to the Contemporary
Arts Museum, Houston, which has this incredible
building designed by Gunnar Birkerts. You know you've arrived. But you're not quite
sure how to arrive, until you find the only way in. Of course, we missed the opening
of a new Angel Otero show, by two days. But luckily, there was a
fantastic exhibition of works by Matt Keegan and Kay Rosen. Both artists explore language
and linguistics in their work. And for the past
eight years, they've had an ongoing mail art
correspondence, a selection of which was on view. While it's easy enough to
see that yes, they both enjoy and excel at word play, the
differences in their approaches revealed the depths that
are available to plomb when it comes to exploring the
architecture of language. The show was clever
and challenging, both intellectually
and optically. And I found myself looking
differently all day at signs and the written
word, pretty much anywhere they appeared. Across the street is the
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. And we took a walk around
their sculpture garden, which is rather lovely. We'd intended to go
into the actual museum. But we were too hungry and
decided to go to lunch. I thought we'd go back. But well, we didn't. I know. We're terrible people. Said lunch was immensely
enjoyed at Underbelly, where we had these refreshing
colonial style shrub drinks made with
carbonated water and preserved fruit vinegars. They were the
perfect counterpoint to the spicy Korean
braised goat and dumplings. We probably should have
stopped after that. But we didn't. Then, it was on to Lawndale
Art Center, which currently has up a really rad
exterior wall mural, by LA based artist Russell Etchen. We were meeting up with JooYoung
to see Lawndale's exhibitions celebrating the artists who
participated in their Artist Studio program over
the past 10 years. JooYoung is one
of those artists. And she had on display
a large scale sculptural work that brings to
life a development in the ongoing tales of
"The Cosmic Womb," where Captain Spaciatano fights Lady
Madness to protect the snow people. There was a lot of
other good work too. And I especially appreciated
the small portrait paintings on paper by Dawn Black,
who's based in Baton Rouge. These are part of
her Conceal project. And they depict a wide range
of people, who take on guises, wear costumes, or engage in any
number of masquerading tactics in order to wield
power and influence. We then, headed over to Project
Row Houses, an arts and culture nonprofit organization in the
northern third ward, whose mission is to be the catalyst
for transforming community through the celebration of
art in African-America history and culture. They accomplished this through
a broad range of programming. But we were there to see its
current series of artists rounds, featuring
seven installations by artists in the row
houses along Hollman Street. Walking into each
of these houses is almost like walking into
ones actually lived in, because each of them is a
little world unto itself, despite being architecturally
nearly identical. Each of the artists are part
of Houston's arts community. But they all have
distinct approaches, highlighting the diversity
of viewpoints and practices in the city today. In one house, you'll encounter
Regina Agu's investigation of the Gulf Coast of
Texas and Louisiana and its cultural and
environmental exchanges with the Gulf of Mexico
and Gulf of Guinea. In the next, you'll
experience the Jazz Church of Houston, curated by Tierney
Malone, which we caught in between its transition
between being a daytime museum, dedicated to the history
of jazz in Houston, and a nighttime music
venue with performances by local jazz musicians. In another, you'll see works
by two different artists who both use collage and have
brought their distinct works together into a
collaborative installation. And in yet another, you'll
transport once again into JooYoung's
"Cosmic Womb," entering her immersive
installation, have faith, for you have always been loved. You pass through
a maker's space, where you can get a window
into her planning process. And then, you meet
Spaciatano once again. This time, Spaciatano has
crash landed on Earth, holding the wounded
warrior Noiro, soliciting you, the audience,
to donate constellation plasma to help heal them. You can do this by adding your
own light to the installation, while thinking about a time when
someone made you feel loved. When we re-emerged into
the present day Houston, we saw the sun was
getting lower in the sky and hightailed it over
to Rice University, to take in James Turrell's
"Twilight Epiphany." it's situated in the
middle of campus. And it's one of his
sky spaces, which is this really beautiful series
of works in which he engineers the architecture of a given
space to reveal and frame a section of sky. This one is two
levels, is designed to host musical performances,
and just before sunrise, and just after sunset, you
can experience an LED light sequence that projects
onto its ceiling and through its aperture. We were there when
it was under repair and got to experience it
in its unembellished state. We sat within it and
gazed up at the sky as it transitioned
from day to night. Every once in a
while, a bird flies past, or the normal sounds
of a college campus float in. But it's mostly just you and
the sky, which gradually darkens and causes the light
balance to shift and create these mesmerizing optical
effects at the aperture's edge. We watched the moon rise
and realized all of a sudden that it was almost totally dark. Yes, you can observe
sunset without Mr Turrell's engineering and framing. But do you? And does it look this cool? We started our next day at
Common Bond Cafe and Bakery, where I couldn't
resist this absolutely delectable kouign-amman, which
is a kind of caramelized pastry that's worth seeking out. Mark had dessert for breakfast
and some other stuff too. And it made us wish we lived
in Houston so we could eat here every day. Then, it was on to the
venerable Menil Collection, a campus founded
by the eponymous art collectors we
mentioned earlier. Several buildings housed their
permanent collection, as well as host temporary
exhibitions, including its main building designed
by Renzo Piano that opened in 1987. Inside, you take in their
absolutely astounding collection, built around the
art that the Menils loved most. You see objects from
around the world and from many different areas,
presented without wall labels and with exquisitely
minimal mounts and barriers. The Menils collected
art from the 1940s all the way to the 1990s. And throughout
the galleries, you see masterwork after
masterwork, presented impeccably and mostly without comment. Photography is not
allowed in here. We had special permission. And it's not because they're
snobs or hate the internet. It's because they want the
physical experience of art to come first. It was the philosophy
of the founders to foster each person's
direct personal encounter with works of art. And for me, they
do this so well. The Cy Twombly Gallery is
housed in another Renzo Piano building, designed in
consultation with the artist. Sailcloth baffles allow
just the right amount of natural light to
illuminate the artworks, as well as the
bare plaster walls. I love Cy Twombly
paintings and like them in almost any environment. But this one was transcendent. It's rare that an
artist can ever control the conditions of
viewership this tightly and set up their
audience to have the best possible
encounter with the work. Well, here it is folks. If you don't like
Twombly here, alone, in these perfectly
proportioned spaces, with the light perfectly tuned
and the slight scent of plaster in the air, you never will. We also visited their former
1930s commercial building that now houses
a 1996 Dan Flavin installation, which the
artist completed just before his death. And just to provide as sharp
a contrast as possible, we followed that up with a visit
to the Menil's Byzantine Fresco Chapel. Currently, it features Francis
Alys's "The Fabiola Project," which is the artist's
collection of paintings he found in flea markets
around the world, all by different
artists, but all with the same subject matter,
a 4th century saint known as Fabiola. Rendered in a
variety of mediums, the works are modeled
after an 1885 painting by French academic painter
Jean-Jacques Henner, which was lost long ago. The artists were working from
reproductions and illustrations of the original,
which can explain the consistency of
composition in most, as well as the reversals and
color inversions. It's the inconsistencies
that really stand out. The small differences in facial
contour, the delicate folding of the veil in one picture
and the unnaturally dramatic in the next. Fabiola is revered as the
protector of abused women and also the patron
saint of nurses. And while very little is
known about the history of each picture,
they're presumed to have been painted mostly for
personal or devotional reasons. It's absolutely fascinating
to stand in this room and think about the remarkable
persistence of this image, about the impulse
and ritual in making one's own copy of an icon. Why do we need these images? And how does this impulse
toward reproduction represent itself in
the internet age, when the images that
stick with us most are blogged and reblogged,
tweeted and retweeted, as we receive them or with our
own additions, however slight. Then, we filed those
thoughts for later and thought about
none of that while wolfing down Torchy's Tacos. We then scooted along
to Inman Gallery, in the Midtown District,
which was hosting an exhibition of the
work of Jamal Cyrus with whom we met there
to film an assignment. He was delightful. And his assignment is excellent. And you should really
get going on this one, if you haven't already. We had very little
time on our last day, but were able to
make two last stops before heading to the airport. The first was the Orange
Show, the life's work of Jeff McKissack,
a postal worker who made this entire
structure in the middle of a residential area, entirely
on his own starting in 1956. Ruben Guevara, the preservation
and restoration manager, kindly walked us
through, despite it being very early and very cold. Anyway, the orange was
McKissack's favorite fruit. And the show was
intended to illustrate the benefits of good nutrition,
which of course included plenty of oranges, which
he planned to sell there. McKissack anticipated
crowds for his attraction. But he never opened it to
the public, until nine months before his death in 1980. After this, a foundation was
formed to preserve the place and really open
it to the public, so that we might marvel in
McKissack's singular vision and imagine for ourselves
what he imagined might take place on its stages. The same foundation looks after
our next destination, the Beer Can House, which
is the former home of another remarkable
resuscitator of things most people throw away. John Malkovich and his
wife Mary lived here and enjoyed drinking beer here. And John started
customizing his backyard with inlaid marbles
and rocks and bottles and, yes, cans in
the late 1960s. After finishing with the
backyard, he moved to the front and eventually to the
surface of the house itself. He made garlands out
of cut beer can lids, which hang from the roofs edge,
move energetically in the wind and make a resounding noise. This noise moves throughout
the property and surrounding area, where houses like
John and Mary's are being replaced by high end condos. We couldn't stay longer. But we wanted to. There was much more to see. Houston, the 4th most
populous city in the US, felt that big, that
full, that diverse. Many of the places we
visited had been on my must visit before I die list. And in each case, I
was not disappointed. Far from it. Sometimes, that anticipation
and those bits of knowledge can prepare you for a richer
experience, where you're better able to be in the
moment, rather than be in information gathering mode. Everywhere we went, I
saw profound evidence of Houstonians caring deeply
about their cultural heritage, about listening to
artists and helping them realize the projects
that others might deem too grand or too costly. They care about remembering
neighborhoods, fostering community, and providing
platforms for artists at all stages of their careers. Houstonians are even
committed to preserving the expressions of those who
didn't consider themselves to be artists. The city has changed a great
deal since John and Dominique de Menil planted roots here. But their ethos has
held strong, that art is central to the
human experience and that the experience
of art can be spiritual, without necessarily
being religious. Pretty much everywhere we
went was free and focused on helping you to have
a sincere, direct, and profound as possible
encounter with whatever was on view. This video can't replace
those experiences, but can perhaps prepare
you so that when you do have the chance you're ready. Thanks to Prudential for
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Awesome tour but the constant vocal fry is very jarring and difficult to endure.