Moving Pictures
At Houston's FotoFest 2002, digital art took center stage as never before-and proved that the Next Big Thing might really be the next big thing.
Writer-at-large Michael Ennis is a longtime Dallas resident whose writing for Texas Monthly has included award-winning art criticism and political commentary as well as in-depth reporting on business and national defense. A graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, with a degree in history and a former Rockefeller Foundation fellow in museum education, he is also the New York Times best-selling author of historical novels that have been published in twenty languages worldwide. He is currently working on a “historical novel set in the future” about the breakup of the United States, the transformation of politics and culture by deeply immersive virtual reality, and the competition among next-generation tech giants to develop human-level artificial intelligence.
At Houston's FotoFest 2002, digital art took center stage as never before-and proved that the Next Big Thing might really be the next big thing.
The Hyde Park Miniature Museum in Houston is an outsized testament to one man's love of his life's little treasures.
With a massive addition to its gallery space and a host of new exhibitions in the works, Fort Worth's Amon Carter Museum is back in the saddle.
Frank Reaugh was one of the state's greatest artists. So why does his name draw so many blanks?
Denton's Toni LaSelle has a perspective on the modernist movement like no other artist. That's because she witnessed it first-hand.
Meet two prominent Houston artists who are at the forefront of digital artand the debate over what virtual reality means for reality itself.
If you're searching for the splendor of Spain's golden age, look no further than the Meadows Museum in Dallas and the Alamo in San Antonio.
Breaking the mold.
From Fort Worth's Amon Carter Museum to Houston's Pennzoil Place to Dallas' forthcoming Cathedral of Hope, architect Philip Johnson's grand vision for Texas is set in stone.
With Fort Worth’s Michael Auping as a curator and nine of the state’s artists participating, this year’s Whitney Biennial puts a New York spotlight on the art of Texas.
Sixteen years after rocketing into the Whitney Biennial, Dallas photographer Nic Nicosia is still on the cutting edge.
How a collection of paintings and drawings coveted by Sotheby’s and other art world Goliaths ended up at the University of Texas at Austin.
Sculpting a legacy.
With a major retrospective of his work at three Houston museums, Robert Rauschenberg is once again the talk of Texas. What’s he been up to? A portrait of the artist as an old man.
Less than a decade ago, she was a homemaker and an arts volunteer, but today the Arlington Museum of Art’s Joan Davidow is the most imaginative and adventurous museum director working in Texas.
The boom in “outsider” art that began in New York, Chicago, and Atlanta has finally come to Texas, driven by true visionaries whose images conjure worlds that may have never existed but are invariably inhabitedby penetrating psychological truths.
By employing stereotypes like Sambo and Aunt Jemima, Austin painter Michael Ray Charles hopes to master the art of racial healing.
Now that both its building and its mission have been renovated, Houston’s Contemporary Arts Museum is ready to win back the public and reestablish its eminence.
Texas artists versus Texas galleries.
Long mocked for making unrecognizable pieces of junk, Texas Modernists strike back in a superb exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
An ambitious new exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston suggests Texas is becoming less like itself and more like everyplace else.
A Houston art exhibit juxtaposes spirit and science with family photos, Tylenol caplets, and gigantic blood cells.
The Dallas Museum of Art spent $55 million on a splendid new wing—and redefined itself in the process.
A provocative San Antonio exhibit captures the flash and fervor of the Chicano movement in art and politics.
With the suddenness of a revolution, Texas changed from a cultural colony to a hot spot for homegrown artists.
A Houston show introduces new black Texas artists in works that range from personal vision to political agitprop.
At Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts, Mexican photographers portray their culture with rare empathy and a sense of wonder.
Bert Long comes to Houston’s Contemporary Arts Museum by way of the Fifth Ward, the Marines, haute cuisine—and the Prix de Rome.
Two San Antonio shows examine how Texas artists interpret the state’s past and present.
Melissa Miller’s latest paintings are a dark departure from her past; a Rauschenberg retrospective examines his youthful eye.
Sifting through stored collections, the Dallas Museum of Art discovers a tradition of spiritual subtlety among Texas artists.
With their earnest autobiographical and cultural themes, the young Mexican painters and sculptors are following the legacy of Frida Kahlo.
Visitors may suffer from culture shock upon seeing the artistic riches of “Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries.”
San Antonio’s new ancient-art gallery takes you back a few millennia.
An exhibition by a trio of contemporary women artists looks at what matters most to them.
Benito Huerta reconciles the religious and the worldly in powerfuul new works at Houston’s Contemporary Arts Museum.
Drawing from its extensive Texas art collection, Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts has assembled a concise survey of a vast subject.
A Fort Worth exhibit of scenes from the Mexican War shows that fanciful lithographs outgunned the realism of nascent photography.
Two museum shows culled from private collections illustrate that Texans know what they like—and it's not just Monets and Renoirs.
For years, the Dallas Museum of Art sought prestige by following the mainstream. The new director thinks it’s time to change course.
FYI: The Houston Post’s new society sleuth has great connections, a phone in her purse, and the complete attention of Houston’s haut monde.
In a Fort Worth exhibit of Russian and American paintings, two groups of artists use the same vocabulary to express profoundly different views of life and art.
The current show at Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts brings 150 years of photography into sharp focus.
In a Houston retrospective, the art of Julian Schnabel appears to be aging prematurely.
Can a Texas publisher of technical books make a difference in the nuclear powers’ arms race? You bet.
Up in the sky, it’s a plane, it’s a helicopter—no, it’s a tiltrotor, the Texas hybrid that will soon revolutionize air travel.
The exuberant crystal towers above San Antonio’s botanical conservatory have captures everyone’s attention. Inside, it’s even better.
An exhibit at Fort Worth’s Amon Carter Museum contends that before the cowboy became America’s hero, Indians and mountain men were the icons of a vanishing frontier.
The Dallas Museum of Art hosts an eighty-year retrospective of Wyeth family art that carries Nancy Reagan’s seal of approval.
Hans Holbein’s life drawings are a tantalizing glumpse into the lusty court of Henry VIII. And courtesy of HRH Queen Elizabeth II, they’re on view at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.