Art Trip: Houston | The Art Assignment | PBS Digital Studios
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We take an art pilgrimage to Houston, Texas, and visit the likes of the Rothko Chapel, James Turrell's Twilight Epiphany, the Menil Collection, and Project Row Houses, among others. Come with us we feast upon Houston's many cultural riches, and some good food, too!
The full itinerary:
The Rothko Chapel:
Siphon Coffee:
The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston:
Cullen Sculpture Garden:
Underbelly:
Lawndale Art Center:
Project Row Houses:
James Turrell’s Skyspace at Rice University:
Common Bond Cafe and Bakery:
The Menil Collection:
The Orange Show:
The Beer Can House:
Broken Obelisk photo by Runaway Productions
Menil Chapel 1971 interior photo by Middleton
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BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Houston, Texas KIRK2140
'Thomas Helton - I' Trailer
Purchase online:
'I' is a synesthetic collaboration between bass player Thomas Helton and video artist Jonathan Jindra of
The stunning DVD, I, is a thirty minute sonic and visual meditation by bassist/improviser Thomas Helton and videographer Jonathan Jindra. Helton transforms the most fundamental aspects of sound starting with low longtone double stops and patiently morphs through various techniques- beating tones, glissandos, tremolos, multiphonics, playing with two bows, simultaneous arco pizzicato. They are juxtaposed with shifting images of industrial city-scapes, subterranian vistas, refuse, states of light and insect evolutions inter-cut with wonderful footage of Helton performing. It is not so much about sound complexity and virtuosity though it exists, but rather a personal expression that projects the beauty of what is normally discarded. -Mark Dressar
Thomas Helton is a composer and bassist who writes and performs music in both solo and ensemble settings. As a composer Mr. Helton was awarded a Houston Arts Alliance Individual Artist Fellowship Grant in 2007 for the commission and premiere of a new work for fifteen-piece ensemble, the Torture Chamber Ensemble. He was awarded an artist residency for the commission and premiere of Pride from DiverseWorks ArtSpace in Houston in October 2004, a work for ten-piece ensemble and video projection created in collaboration with video artist Maria del Carmen Montoya. Other new music commissions include 5 works for the Michele Brangwen Dance Ensemble. Desesperados (2005), a suite of tangos, is featured on Houston Public Radio's CD The Best of the Front Row. Black Rain (2005), a work for saxophone, guitar, string bass, percussion and dancers, was chosen to be performed as part of FotoFest's 2006 Biennial dedicated to the themes of The Earth and Artists Responding to Violence. As a bassist, Thomas Helton performs with his own ensemble, The Core Trio, as well as with many celebrated jazz and free improv artists including Tim Hagans, Milt Jackson, Daniel Carter, Monty Alexander, Frank Gratowski and Ernie Watts. He recently performed the music of Tim Hagans as a guest artist with Sweden's Norrbotten Big Band. He was also featured at the 2009 ISB Bass Convention curated by Mark Dresser. Thomas has released three CD's: Doublebass; Experimentations in Minimalism; and Saga. All three have received positive reviews in the press in both in the U.S. and Europe.
In the spring of 2010 he spent 3 month a the TAKT Artist residency in Berlin, Germany. While there he performed at many of the cities avant-garde venues with local musicians, Simon Rose, Matthias Mueller, Klaus Kuervers, Chris Heenan and bassist Clayton Thomas. Upon returning to the USA, Thomas completed a very successful west coast tour. Among some of the performances were NORCAL Noisefest, USC Bakersfield, UNT and a special performance with bassist Damon Smith at Tex Gallery in Denton,TX.
ASIA SOCIETY TEXAS CENTER - Building Bridges of Understanding (preview)
Asia Society Texas Center, the third episode of Texas Foundation for the Arts' Telly Award-winning series Houston Arts Television, produced in collaboration with HoustonPBS, explores how famed Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi's landmark building came to fruition in Houston's Museum District. The filmmakers take a look of the history of the organization, the design and construction of building, the grand opening festivities and the many arts and cultural organizations that will use the 300-seat theater, art exhibition space and conference facilities.
Executive Producers: James Bailey & Kimberly Lykins
Director of Photography: Mark Susman
Editing & Post Production: Mark Susman / Fast Cut Films
Introduction to the Exhibition-Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings
Sarah Greenough, senior curator and head, department of photographs, National Gallery of Art. For more than forty years, Sally Mann (b. 1951, Lexington, Virginia) has made experimental, elegiac, and hauntingly beautiful photographs—a broad body of work that includes figure studies, still lifes, and landscapes. Offering both a sweeping overview of Mann’s artistic achievement and a focused exploration of the continuing influence of the South on her work, the exhibition Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings presents some 115 photographs, many of which have not been exhibited or published previously. This powerful and provocative work is organized into five sections: Family, The Land, Last Measure, Abide with Me, and What Remains. On view from March 4 through May 28, 2018, the exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog with essays that explore the development of Mann’s art; her family photographs; the landscape as repository of personal, cultural, and racial memory; and her debt to 19th-century photographers and techniques. Sarah Greenough celebrates the exhibition with this introductory lecture recorded on opening day.
Donna De Salvo on the Whitney Museum's America Is Hard to See
Presented by The Arts & the University lecture series at Brown University, De Salvo was a leading figure in the design and relocation of the new Whitney Museum of American Art in downtown New York. As Chief Curator, she worked closely with Renzo Piano on the building’s design, and also led the curatorial team that organized its critically praised inaugural exhibition, America Is Hard to See. Surveying more than 100 years of American Art, America Is Hard to See offered a reappraisal of art of the United States, and an expanded notion of who can be considered an American artist. De Salvo will discuss the curatorial process that informed the building’s architecture, and the thinking behind the opening exhibition.
[ARTS 315] The (Spiritual) Crisis of Abstract Expressionism: Mark Rothko - Jon Anderson
Contemporary Art Trends [ARTS 315], Jon Anderson
The (Spiritual) Crisis of Abstract Expressionism: Mark Rothko
September 2, 2011
Hsin-Jung Tsai, Thomas Helton, Misha Penton at NMASS2015
Hsin-Jung Tsai, Thomas Helton, Misha Penton at COTFG: NMASS2015, Salvage Vanguard Theater
Hsin-Jung Tsai, a native of Taiwan, studied at the PhD-DMA program in music composition at the CUNY Graduate Center with Tania Leon and Bernadette Speech, has had her compositions performed in Japan, Europe, Taiwan and the United States. In May 2000, Ms. Tsai had her chamber music recital at Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall in New York. In addition, Ms. Tsai has collaborated on films and theater projects: she composed a clarinet solo piece,Poetry of a Painter, for a short film on the life of the artist, Fernando Gerassi; the score for Allatonceness, a multimedia performance where the composer also conducted; music design and improvisation for a documentary film Turning Japanese; music design for Dorothy Tan’s play, Palace of Loneliness, produced by Multistage Inc. and HERE Theatre for the Performing Arts in New York; and the score for a documentary film Ocean and People produced by Civilization Explorer Association (CEA). In November of 2002, Ms. Tsai received the Music Composition Award from the Asian American Research Institute in New York. In 2006 Ms. Tsai was invited as a guest composer and held a lecture recital at Tarrant County College South Campus, Fort Worth, Texas. In 2011, Ms. Tsai received grant from City University of New York Diversity Grant for her piano solo piece “Precipitation.” Recently, she has been collaborating with The Play Saxophone Quartet, who premiered her composition Sound of Loneliness at the Moore School Opera Theatre, University of Houston. In 2008, Ms. Tsai relocated to Houston, where she has been actively contributing her compositions, as well as performing as an improvisational artist, and serves as Secretary of Houston Composers Salon.
Thomas Helton is a composer and bassist who writes and performs music in both solo and ensemble settings. As a composer Mr. Helton was awarded a Houston Arts Alliance Individual Artist Fellowship Grant in 2007 for the commission and premiere of a new work for fifteen-piece ensemble, the Torture Chamber Ensemble. He was awarded an artist residency for the commission and premiere of Pride from DiverseWorks ArtSpace in Houston in October 2004, a work for ten-piece ensemble and video projection created in collaboration with video artist Maria del Carmen Montoya. Other new music commissions include 5 works for the Michele Brangwen Dance Ensemble. Desesperados (2005), a suite of tangos, is featured on Houston Public Radio’s CD The Best of the Front Row. Black Rain (2005), a work for saxophone, guitar, string bass, percussion and dancers, was chosen to be performed as part of FotoFest’s 2006 Biennial dedicated to the themes of The Earth and Artists Responding to Violence. As a bassist, Thomas Helton performs with his own ensemble, The Core Trio, as well as with many celebrated jazz and free improv artists including Tim Hagans, Milt Jackson, Daniel Carter, Monty Alexander, Frank Gratowski and Ernie Watts, William Parker, Weasel Walter and Steve Swell.
Soprano, Misha Penton is a contemporary classical singer, theater artist, and writer. She is founder and artistic director of Divergence Vocal Theater, a new music multi-performing arts ensemble based in Houston, Texas. Misha is one of Houston Press’ 100 Creatives of 2011, and is named a 2012 finalist for Best Artistic Director by the Houston Press Theater Awards for her work with Divergence Vocal Theater.
Julie Mehretu: American Artist Lecture Series
The Art in Embassies American Artist Lecture Series at the Tate Modern-London is a unique collaboration with Embassy London. In celebration of AIE’s 50th anniversary, the three-year-long program will feature six noted American artists. Julie Mehretu is the 4th artist in the series.