Talk | Riverside Terrace: Where Today and Tomorrow Collided with Stephen Fox
2024-07-18 18:30 - 19:30 (America/Chicago) | Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), 5216 Montrose Blvd, Houston, TX, United States
Join us for a talk with Stephen Fox in conjunction with the exhibition Olivia Erlanger: If Today Were Tomorrow.
This talk examines the history of a Houston subdivision, initially developed for a middle-to-upper-middle market of (implicitly: white) Houstonians beginning in 1924. As Houston’s economy recovered from the Great Depression during the mid-1930s, Riverside Terrace became the neighborhood most associated with Houston’s Jewish elite. Then, in the 1950s, the neighborhood’s demographics flipped as it was desegregated, becoming by the 1970s the neighborhood most associated with Houston’s African American elite. Riverside Terrace has it all: parkways, freeways, segregation, integration, and architecture. It’s how history really happens.
This event is free to attend but attendees are encouraged to RSVP for free through the ticketing link.

Houston reVision CommUnity Night
2024-07-18 18:30 - 21:00 | Houston reVision Community Center, 6856 Bellaire Blvd, Houston, TX, United States
reVision’s CommUnity Night is a weekly get together for a hot meal, music, dancing, and celebration. While primarily focused on school-aged children and youth, and young adults, reVision’s CommUnity Night is open to the public. The musical focus is on hiphop, a live DJ plays music, and children and youth can learn the fundamentals of breakdancing and other dance styles.

Big, Hot & Sticky
2024-07-19 09:00 - 15:00 | Architecture Center Houston, 315 Capitol St, Houston, TX, United States
Architecture Center Houston is proud to announce their upcoming exhibition Big, Hot, and Sticky, opening Thursday, June 27, 5:30-7:30pm, and on view through April 23, 2024. Curated by Dalia Munenzon and Maggie Tsang, the exhibition commissions seven architects and artist to respond to Houston’s built and natural environment.
Houston is Big, Hot, and Sticky. The metropolitan region is roughly 640 square miles, and from east of Galveston Bay to west of Katy, it is comparable in width to the State of Connecticut. For nearly one third of the year, the city’s temperature climbs to at least 90 °F; and 2,500 miles of slow moving, flat waterways crisscross the city creating a swamp-like environment.
Houston’s emergence as a metropolis, like many American cities, has been shaped by its defiance of the environment. From climate control to flood control, the city is a hyper-engineered, constructed landscape designed to resist the natural world. As Houston grows, however, so too does this tension between the natural and the human-made: from the shock of hurricanes and tropical storms to the chronic stresses of urban heat and nuisance flooding. In the face of these environmental challenges, engineered and technological solutions have a limited impact, and historically, have also been sources of inequality. Instead, what is needed is a more radical social, cultural, and ecological imaginary that recasts the city’s relationship to nature.
Big, Hot, and Sticky, spotlights Houston as a novel urban ecosystem: a constellation of highways, waterways, air-conditioned buildings, remnant prairies, and possums. This exhibition invites seven designers to respond to Houston’s provocation through critical histories, design research, and speculative projects rooted in the city’s urban landscape: How are environments, climates, and cultures co-constructed? What is the future of this notoriously air-conditioned, car-centered, energy capital? What does it look like to thrive in a city that is Big, Hot, and Sticky?
Contributors:
Cadaster
Lola Ben-Alon and The Natural Materials Lab
Dept.
Departamento del Distrito
Dalia Munenzon
Jess Myers
Fei Zhou
This exhibition is generously supported by:
Diluvial Houston Initiative, an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation-supported project; Rice School of Architecture, Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design at the University of Houston, and Rice University Office of Research. Architecture Center Houston is funded in part by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.

Dance of Gestures
2024-07-19 09:00 - 17:00, 2024-07-20 09:00 - 17:00 | Sabine Street Studios, 1907 Sabine St, Houston, TX, United States
For her latest solo exhibition, Dance of Gestures, Houston-based Colombian artist Loriana Espinel, takes inspiration from the pre-Columbian pictographs of the Chiribiquete National Park in Colombia to develop a visual system based on the intersection of two different styles of calligraphy: the fluid lines of Japanese ink painting and angular gothic calligraphy.
Dance of Gestures combines both abstract and representational approaches and goals. Espinel writes of her work: “I aim to create a mural that is both abstract and representational. The lines will suggest natural forms while being expressive and dynamic on their own. I want viewers to appreciate both the shapes and lines and their interplay”.
The exhibition is part of the annual Sawyer Yards program at Sabine Street Studios’ East Corridor Gallery, a space dedicated to hosting exhibitions dedicated to the line as an essential, conceptual element in visual art.
The opening reception will be held on Thursday, July 18 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and the exhibitions is on view from July 18 to August 31. All exhibitions and activities are free and open to the public.

Earl Staley: The Machine
2024-07-19 09:00 - 17:00, 2024-07-20 09:00 - 17:00 | Sabine Street Studios, 1907 Sabine St, Houston, TX, United States
Sawyer Yards presents Earl Staley: The Machine, a diverse showcase of the longtime Houston artist’s works on canvas at Sabine Street Studios’ North Gallery.
The artworks chosen for this exhibition are large, densely colorful paintings on canvas that highlight Staley’s variety of approaches to image-making, mark-making, and his range of techniques. Even at this stage in his long career, Staley continues to experiment, attempting new and different ways of building and finishing a work. The paintings all exist somewhere on a wide spectrum of abstraction and pictorial quality, as well as physicality. Though landscapes are evident in his work, no subject is off the table for the artist. For Staley, the most important considerations are that his pictures be “visually delightful, intellectually stimulating, and tell an interesting story.” He further writes:
“I found my voice when I stopped thinking about making art and stared telling my life story.
and “All art must contain love of life and an awareness of death.”
The exhibition is on view through August 31, and is free and open to the public. Join the artist for a reception on Thursday, July 18, from 6-8pm.
Artist Biography:
Earl Staley grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois and resides in Houston, Texas. He is an artist and teacher with more than 60 years of experience. Mr. Staley holds Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees. He taught at Washington University in St. Louis, Rice University in Houston, and the University of St. Thomas in Houston, where he was chairperson of the Art Department. Today he teaches in the Fine Art program at Lonestar College in Tomball, TX. Mr. Staley is the recipient of three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1981 he received the Rome Prize in Painting from the American Academy in Rome, Italy and he resided in Rome for 4 years. Mr. Staley’s paintings look back to his artistic roots and forward to new interpretations of the myths and symbols embedded in his life.

Cian Dayrit: Liberties Were Taken
2024-07-19 10:00 - 17:00, 2024-07-20 12:00 - 17:00 | Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston, 4401 University Oaks Blvd, Houston, TX, United States
The Blaffer Art Museum is proud to present Liberties Were Taken the first solo museum exhibition in the United States of works by Manila-based artist Cian Dayrit. Known globally for cartographic artworks, Dayrit investigates notions of power and identity represented and reproduced in monuments, museums, and maps. The exhibition brings together site-specific installations, embroidered textiles, and elaborate paintings created over a decade of participatory actions and solidarity work in the Philippines and around the world. Deploying visual tools, such as written text, graphs, and symbols, the artist positions land as a site of struggle through archival references, protest imagery, and grassroots counter-mapping.

“The Toy Canvas”: Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts
2024-07-19 10:00 - 17:00, 2024-07-20 10:00 - 17:00 | Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts, 6815 Cypresswood Dr, Spring, TX, United States
It’s going to be another fantastic summer at the Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts!
This summer, the Pearl has curated a one-of-a-kind exhibition that features toys as contemporary art. “The Toy Canvas: Artists at Play” features toys in photography, sculpture, mixed media and more.
This engaging exhibition explores the theme of play, with art by FriendsWithYou, Mitchel Wu, Herb Williams, Michelle Brooks and Tim Howell from FOX’s LEGO® Masters, Madame Alexander dolls, and many more!
Included in the exhibition is an interactive play zone where visitors can discover their own creativity. The makerspace will have a variety of STEAM activities such as building challenges with LEGO® bricks and MAGNA-TILES®, art activities inspired by the exhibition, digital drawing tools, and a literacy zone.
“The Toy Canvas: Artists at Play” opens Saturday, June 1 and continues through August 31, 2024. For special Opening Day festivities, Wild Art Wednesdays, and more, visit pearlmfa.org.
Admission is free, but donations are appreciated to help support the work of the museum.
Located at 6815 Cypresswood Drive in Spring, TX, the Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For more information, visit pearlmfa.org.

Brenda Biondo: Sun to Earth
2024-07-19 11:00 - 17:00, 2024-07-20 11:00 - 17:00 | Koslov Larsen, 4411 Montrose Blvd, Houston, TX, United States
Koslov Larsen is pleased to present Sun to Earth, the gallery’s third solo presentation by artist Brenda Biondo. Combining several series of Biondo’s works, Sun to Earth introduces new ways of looking at common subjects while challenging viewers’ perception of color and three-dimensional space. The works explored throughout the show focus on atmospheric phenomena and other ephemeral components of the natural world. Unnatural (Texas Tumbleweeds) and Prairie Wheels study the interconnectedness of humans and flora, inspired by the iconic tumbleweed, an invasive species brought inadvertently to the United States in the 1870s by Eastern European settlers. Influenced heavily by James Turrell’s Skyspaces, Perceptual Skies emphasizes the limitless potential of light as a subject and the subjectivity of perception. Biondo states, “Using a visual language that deconstructs the sky portion of the landscape helps articulate questions about how we engage with our environment and the emotional and psychological effects natural light has on humans.” The images in the series follow the formal aesthetics of modern painting, particularly minimalism, while emphasizing the ambiguity between the real and the reproduced.
Sun to Earth will be on view at Koslov Larsen from May 3 – June 21, 2024.

Theaster Gates: The Gift and The Renege
2024-07-19 11:00 - 18:00, 2024-07-20 11:00 - 18:00 | Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), 5216 Montrose Blvd, Houston, TX, United States
Theaster Gates: The Gift and The Renege presents work by the acclaimed Chicago-based artist, featuring large-scale paintings, sculptures, and installations that highlight the seen and unseen dynamics of Freedmen’s Town in Houston’s Fourth Ward. Throughout his career, Theaster Gates has soulfully elevated our understanding of Black labor, materials, place, and community to revitalize underrecognized neighborhoods by combining urban planning and a multifaceted art practice. His work powerfully highlights the true value Black spaces hold—although often devalued—as sites of American resilience, liberation, and redemption. Gates is a shape-shifter, a world-builder, and an artist who singularly connects the dots in both poetic and pragmatic ways. For over 20 years he has worked to transform the Southside of Chicago through various initiatives aimed at preserving and continuing the neighborhood’s vital role as a site for Black creativity. His multifaceted practice, which demonstrates the dual importance of building community and exposing power structures, has made him one of the most significant artists working in our time.

Olivia Erlanger: If Today Were Tomorrow
2024-07-19 11:00 - 18:00, 2024-07-20 11:00 - 18:00 | Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), 5216 Montrose Blvd, Houston, TX, United States
Olivia Erlanger: If Today Were Tomorrow is the artist’s first solo museum presentation in the United States. Across an installation, a video, and a series of commissioned sculptures, Erlanger continues her decade-long disruption of the “semiotics of suburbia.” In her practice, Erlanger thinks of the home as a greater ecosystem containing not only houses but also their surrounding infrastructures and interior architectures.
At Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), massive illuminated planet sculptures map the suburban landscape, positioning the development of home as an environmental force in itself. These new works explore “speculative memory”—how progress can only be understood through hindsight—and what this psychic limitation implies for the artist. Viewers will then move to new diorama sculptures that play on an institutional language of presentation, positioning the enclosed scenes as already-past. Here, Erlanger proposes both impossible architectures and terrestrial forms created using strategies of model-making. These works are each marked by changes in season, emphasizing receding memories of a once-diverse climate.
The exhibition culminates in a sitcom set, riffing on the psychology of interiors as well as acting as a platform to watch Erlanger’s new short film Appliance. The film dovetails recent research into the history and cultural significance of domestic technologies, such as the shower or washing machine, with a specific focus on how their operations have been considered interchangeably with human bodily functions. In our age of “polycrisis,” wherein multiple seismic events occur simultaneously, If Today Were Tomorrow provides a framework for thinking about the porousness of interior and exterior, self and non-self, body and home.
Olivia Erlanger: If Today Were Tomorrow will be accompanied by a catalogue published by Hatje Cantz containing newly commissioned texts about the artist’s practice, as well as contributions focusing on the interplay between architecture, psychology, and science fiction.
Support
Major support for Olivia Erlanger: If Today Were Tomorrow is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Contemporary Arts Museum of Houston is funded in part by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.

Abstraction after Modernism: Recent Acquisitions
2024-07-19 11:00 - 19:00, 2024-07-20 11:00 - 19:00 | The Menil Collection, 1533 Sul Ross St, Houston, TX, United States
“Abstraction after Modernism: Recent Acquisitions” highlights work made by succeeding generations of artists who forged new paths in their approaches to non-representational art. The exhibition brings together acquisitions made by the Menil over the past fifteen years, including work by Agnes Denes, Suzan Frecon, Sam Gilliam, Ellsworth Kelly, Rick Lowe, and Richard Serra.

Ruth Asawa Through Line
2024-07-19 11:00 - 19:00, 2024-07-20 11:00 - 19:00 | The Menil Drawing Institute, 1500 W Main St, Houston, TX, United States
Ruth Asawa Through Line is the first exhibition to focus on the artist’s lifelong drawing practice. The exhibition presents drawings, collages, & sketchbooks alongside stamped prints, paperfolds, & more, showing the breadth of Asawa’s innovative practice.

Janet Sobel: All-Over
2024-07-19 11:00 - 19:00, 2024-07-20 11:00 - 19:00 | The Menil Collection, 1533 Sul Ross St, Houston, TX, United States
The Menil Collection will open “Janet Sobel: All-Over” on February 23, 2024, featuring some thirty paintings and drawings made by artist Janet Sobel (1893–1968). This exhibition, the first to focus on Sobel’s highly accomplished and influential abstract paintings, will explore the artist’s work as one of the first to pioneer a new approach to modern abstraction known as “all-over” painting.

Cian Dayrit: Liberties Were Taken
2024-07-19 12:00 - 17:00, 2024-07-20 12:00 - 17:00 | Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston, 4401 University Oaks Blvd, Houston, TX, United States
The phrase “counter-cartographies” describes Manila-based artist Cian Dayrit interdisciplinary practice of transforming historic maps into portraits of contemporary social conditions. Employing counter- cartography as an approach, Dayrit charts histories of imperialism, industrialization, and systems of subjugation that shape geographical boundaries and cultural narratives around the world. In Summer 2024, Blaffer will present Dayrit’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States with embroidered tapestries, paintings, and sculpture. The exhibition will be accompanied by Countermapping Workshops in Houston to excavate histories of imperialism, extraction, and displacement among historically marginalized people, while summoning new imaginaries that recognize the overlapping global struggles and resistance.

TECHNE GALLERY @ TXRX LABS :: WOODSHOP GROUP SHOW
2024-07-19 12:00 - 20:00, 2024-07-20 10:00 - 15:00 | The Techne Gallery @ TXRX LABS, 4366 Navigation Blvd, Houston, TX, United States
From June 15 to August 18, 2024 Please join TXRX Labs in the Techne Gallery for a talented membership showcase of our woodworking community.
Objects will include furniture, Maloof inspired chairs, hand turned bowls, cutting boards and decorative inlay applications through VCarve, CNC work, live edge work, wood turning and various hand finishing techniques.
Come opening weekend to engage directly with the craftsmen behind the creations to learn more about woodworking processes and their lifestyle insights, inspirations and techniques. Stay to explore further collaborative opportunities with the artisans and fellow members.
Select pieces will be available for purchase, providing an opportunity to bring home a piece of our vibrant community’s artistic expression.
Event Opening : Saturday June 15th 10am-3pm
Artist Talks will be scheduled on our open house days, given the 1st Friday of each month. Dive deeper into the world of woodworking by learning about our state-of-the-art tools and equipment, enrolling in offered classes, and tapping into the expertise of our dedicated shop manager and skilled volunteers with 30+ years of experience. Don’t miss this chance to ignite your creativity and appreciation for the artistry of woodworking.
Artists Talk 1 : July 5th 6:30 pm. Facility tours @ 7 and 8pm.
Artists Talk 2 : August 2nd 6 :30 pm. Facility tours @ 7 and 8pm.
Location: 6501 Navigation BLVD Houston TX 77011
The Techne Gallery is located inside the TXRX Labs lobby. TXRX Labs is located in the East End Maker Hub. Please look for the brightly colored permanently installed EEMH fabricated sign next to the very long driveway. We are past Centerpoints last driveway and our facility cannot be seen from the road. When you do find us, the facility has a brightly colored mural of orange, blue and gray squares on it. TXRX Lab’s front door is to the left of the loading docks.
Gallery hours : Mon-Fri 12-8 pm. Sat/Sun 10-3pm.

Level 0 - Intro to Improv Class
2024-07-19 19:00 - 19:30 | Station Theater, 2219 Crockett St, Houston, TX, United States
Station Theater’s weekly FREE Level 0 class is a fun, no-pressure way to try improv! This weekly 30-minute class lets you get a taste of Station’s improv training program, and it’s a great way to spend a Friday night! Students are invited to stay for the 8:00 pm show for free, pending ticket availability, and will receive a discount code for our nine-week Level 1 class. This class is perfect for those wanting to get a taste of our improv training program before registering – or for those wanting to try something new and have fun!

Level 0 – FREE Intro to Improv Class
2024-07-19 19:00 - 19:30 | Station Theater, 2219 Crockett St, Houston, TX, United States
Our FREE Level 0 class is a fun, no-pressure way to try improv! This weekly 30-minute class lets you get a taste of Station’s improv training program, and it’s a great way to spend a Friday night! Level 0 students will receive a $25 discount code for our nine-week Level 1 – Fundamentals of Improv class and are invited to stay for the 8:00 pm show on us!
Free 8:00 pm show tickets are only available at the door and are based on ticket availability at showtime. Special events are excluded from the free ticket offer.

Free Salsa Lesson at Latin Beats Downtown Aquarium
2024-07-19 19:00 - 23:00 | Downtown Aquarium, 410 Bagby St, Houston, TX, United States
Every Friday, Latin Beats hosts music and free salsa lessons by the Texas Salsa Congress!
Organized by the Texas Salsa Congress & Downtown Aquarium, this event promises salsa family fun that’s perfect for celebrating the summer vibes. The Texas Salsa Congress is marking its 19th season with the 2024 Season at the Downtown Aquarium! Free Salsa Lessons at Latin Beats! Whether it’s a romantic date night, a girls’ night out, a happy hour with friends, or a family gathering, Latin Beats is the perfect event to unite everyone in H-Town for a fantastic time!
Summer in Houston, Texas offers so much excitement, and Latin Beats is a highlight for families. The Texas Salsa Congress is thrilled to announce the return of Latin Beats for a full season of entertainment. Get ready to dance the night away at Latin Beats at the Downtown Aquarium! Bring your friends and family along for an evening of Latin music and fun. This event is free and open to all ages, running from 7 pm to 11 pm.
Free, All Ages Welcome!
Join our Fan Page https://bit.ly/LatinBeatsHou or our Instagram: www.instagram.com/texassalsacongresstx
#LatinBeatsHou
