Winter/Spring 2009 Newsline by Blaffer Art Museum

WINTER/spring 2009

NE W S L I n E

the Art Museum of the University of Houston

f rom th e director As I write this, the staff is in the process of dismantling the exhibition Damaged Romanticism: A Mirror of Modern Emotion and preparing to ship its works to The Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, N.Y., and the Grey Art Gallery in New York City. Damaged Romanticism was one of the most visually appealing and intellectually stimulating exhibitions that I have worked with. As evidenced by a steady stream of visitors, the show was enormously popular in spite of a rough start that was beyond our control—it was scheduled to open the weekend that Hurricane Ike hit Houston. Blaffer Gallery was fortunate in that the building received no damage and never lost electrical power. Like most Houston arts organizations, we scrambled to reschedule our fall programming. I extend my sincere appreciation to all of our supporters during this challenging time, and I tip my hat to the staff for their hasty reopening of the museum doors. Speaking of staffing, many have asked me about our progress in finding a new executive director. The search committee, which was formed in late March, conducted a national search and interviewed several highly qualified candidates. In mid-November the committee made its recommendation to Dean John Antel, and he is currently in contact with the selected candidate. I am pleased to say that we will be making an official announcement shortly after the publication of this newsletter. Blaffer Gallery anticipates having the new executive director installed soon after the first of the year. Be on the lookout for a special e-mail blast with the announcement.

Upcoming Events Friday, January 16 6 – 8 p.m. Opening Reception for Electric Mud and Texas Oil: Landscape of an Industry Saturday, January 17 12 p.m. Roundtable Discussion and Luncheon for Electric Mud Featuring Sara Cochran, David Pagel, Michael Reafsnyder, Claudia Schmuckli, and Patrick Wilson Saturday, January 24 Blaffer Membership Event Houston Heights Gallery Crawl and Private Home Tour Wednesday, February 4 12 p.m. Brown Bag Gallery Tour for Texas Oil: Landscape of an Industry Wednesday, February 18 12 p.m. Brown Bag Gallery Tour for Electric Mud Wednesday, March 11 6 p.m. Contemporary Salon for Texas Oil: Landscape of an Industry

This is indeed an exciting time for Blaffer Gallery!

David L. Vollmer Interim Director

Friday, March 13 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. Opening Reception for Young Artist Apprenticeship Program Exhibition

Friday, March 27 – Sunday, March 29 Blaffer Gallery/Mitchell Center Symposium Systems of Sustainability: Art, Innovation, Action Museum open Sunday Saturday, March 28 12 p.m. Artist’s Talk with Matthew Coolidge Friday, April 10 6 – 8 p.m. Opening Reception for 2009 School of Art Masters Thesis Exhibition Tuesday, April 14 4 – 7 p.m. Blaffer Student Association Red Block Bash Wednesdays, April 15 and 22 Thursday, April 23 12 p.m. Brown Bag Gallery Tour for 2009 School of Art Masters Thesis Exhibition Friday, May 15 6 – 8 p.m. Opening Reception for Existed: Leonardo Drew Friday, May 15 8 p.m. – 12 a.m. 2009 Blaffer Gallery Gala

th e SCENE AT B L AFFER

1. William Betts (left) and John Devine (right) at the Damaged Romanticism closing reception. 2. DiverseWorks Public Relations and Marketing Manager Shawna Forney creates a silkscreen printed T-shirt during the fall Red Block Bash. 3. Damaged Romanticism organizer Terrie Sultan (left) with Michael Clark and his wife Sallie Morian (right) at the Damaged Romanticism closing reception. 4. Blaffer Registrar Youngmin Chung watches as Damaged Romanticism co-curator David Pagel autographs exhibition catalogues. 5. David Pagel and Terrie Sultan lead a tour of Damaged Romanticism. 6. A jazz band performs at the fall Red Block Bash.

7. Blaffer Galleryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cynthia Woods Mitchell Curatorial Fellow Rachel Hooper provides her insights during the Celebutants, Groupies, and Friends Brown Bag Gallery Tour.

8. Damaged Romanticism contributing artist Mary McCleary (left) with Blaffer Curator of Education Katherine Veneman (right). 9. Gretchen and Andrew McFarland at the closing reception for Damaged Romanticism. 10. UH students at the fall Red Block Bash.

10. 7.

TEXAS OIL: LANDSCAPE OF AN INDUSTRY January 17 – March 29, 2009

The Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) debuts Texas Oil: Landscape of an Industry at Blaffer Gallery on January 17; the exhibition runs through March 29. Exhibition curator Rachel Hooper sat down with Matthew Coolidge, founder and director of the CLUI, to discuss what he has been working on for Blaffer. Rachel Hooper: The CLUI’s strangely beautiful exhibitions are designed primarily to get us thinking about the American landscape, and your organization takes its educational mission very seriously. You have chosen the oil industry in Texas as the subject of your study over the past year. What do you hope visitors will walk away with after seeing your exhibition? What sort of effect do you anticipate it will have? Matthew Coolidge: We do not set out for a specific effect, at least not one that is describable. In general, I suppose, if people are surprised, amazed, confused, astounded, inspired, overwhelmed, flabbergasted, blown away, intrigued, amused, bewildered, shocked, startled, encouraged, excited, or aroused, then we’ll be happy. Top: Freeway flyovers and Buffalo Bayou near downtown Houston. Photo courtesy of the CLUI Photographic Archive.

RH: The galleries will be filled with photographs, maps, and writings you have gathered as part of your research. But there will also be a video installation near the entrance to the exhibition. Can you give us a preview and describe this video?

A pair of arched pipelines designed to help regulate product flow at Rohm & Haas’s Deer Park plant. This piece of land was once part of Dr. George Patrick’s Deepwater Farm, a historically significant place that briefly served as the seat of power of the Texas Republic immediately after the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. Photo courtesy of the CLUI Photographic Archive.

MC: It is an aerial shot, what we call a “landscan” video. It was taken using a helicopter with a gyro-stabilized highdefinition camera. The angle is oblique, so you see what’s coming and have enough time to follow the objects and watch them as they come in and leave the frame. It’s a way of presenting a landscape exactly as it is over a wide area, to give a local and a regional view. Though we do a lot of

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Disused pump jack and oilfield on Spindletop hill, Beaumont. Photo courtesy of the CLUI Photographic Archive.

Infrastructure detail and public service signage at the LyondellCitgo refinery, Pasadena. Photo courtesy of the CLUI Photographic Archive.

still aerial photography, and have done some short aerial video shots in the past, this is the first time we have done something like this, with a sustained, forward-looking view. It's around ten minutes as one unedited scan. The stable platform of the gyro-mounted camera controls the point of view, allowing just the vista ahead to come forward. It seemed like the only way to show the remarkable scale of the industrial oil landscape in the Houston area. RH: Where have you traveled in the course of your research for Texas Oil? Is there a place that you found particularly compelling? MC: We have been all over the state, from El Paso to Brownsville to Amarillo to Dallas, and everywhere in between. From West Texas oil towns, like Odessa, Kermit, Andrews, Denver City, and Iraan, to the petrochemical processing centers of the Gulf Coast, like Freeport, Corpus Christi, Port Arthur, and Pasadena. We have scoured the state as much as we can. There’s no way to choose favorites, but some of the great oil-related places include the four-mile wide refinery complex at Texas City and ExxonMobil’s stealth headquarters building in Irving. The Permian Basin Petroleum Museum in Odessa is one of the most interesting museums in America. The outdoor display of twenty or so different oil pump jacks is sublime. And the Ocean Star

Power and communications lines, along with product pipelines (buried and exposed), form the linear infrastructure—the connective tissue—of the Houston petrochemical landscape. Photo courtesy of the CLUI Photographic Archive.

Offshore Drilling Rig and Museum in Galveston is fantastic, too. As is the Texas Energy Museum in Beaumont, where they have things like an immersive display where you are reduced to four inches in size to travel through the refining process. And the Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum has a recreated gusher that operates on demand. Can’t beat that! RH: We’ve been hearing a lot these days about ending our dependence on oil and finding alternative energy sources. Do you feel at all as if you are documenting the end of an era—the twilight of the age of oil? MC: Not the end by any means, but the apogee perhaps. This may be as big as it gets, but I believe the end is a long way off. I think we will continue to use petrochemicals for a long time, as there is still a lot of oil and the range of products made from it is pervasive. If we use less oil in vehicles, which I think most people agree is a good thing, then there is more oil to use in other things. Who knows what sorts of uses and materials are left to dream up? I don’t need to tell you the industry is huge, and very profitable. It will adapt. Like most of us do. The Center for Land Use Interpretation’s exhibition Texas Oil: Landscape of an Industry is organized by Rachel Hooper, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Curatorial Fellow at Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston. The exhibition and publication are presented in partnership with the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, with additional generous support from Baker Hughes Foundation and Marita and JB Fairbanks, and in-kind support from PennWell MAPSearch.

Electric Mud

and ceramics, form and function, leisure and labor, still life and real life. The six artists in this exhibition suggest that the history of art in California is a history of misfits, renegade artists whose ideas about how things work in the world are so far out of step with the status quo that they make their own poetic sense—and they do it so well you can’t help but agree with their propositions about how things should be, right here and right now.

January 17 – March 29, 2009

Excerpt from the Exhibition Catalogue:

James Richards

This January Blaffer Gallery pres- Untitled (#225), 2008 Acrylic nylon string, yarn, wood ents Electric Mud, guest-curated 45 x 42 inches Courtesy Shoshana Wayne Gallery by David Pagel, art critic for the Los Angeles Times and Associate Professor of Art Theory and History at Claremont Graduate University. Featuring the work of Californians Brian Calvin, Ron Nagle, Michael Reafsnyder, James Richards, Anna Sew Hoy, and Patrick Wilson, Electric Mud explores the physical similarities and fluid boundaries between clay and paint. By highlighting the basic properties of these crude, gooey substances, the exhibition turns conventional ideas on their ears, confounding preconceived differences between art and craft, painting 6

The noun part of the title—“Mud”—emphasizes the utter ordinariness of what literally goes into these works, the fact that they are made out of simple stuff, primarily clay and paint, but also string, lumber, leftover electrical cords, glazes, a bit of costume jewelry, and Anna Sew Hoy Mask, 2007 a brand-new bath towel. Glazed ceramic, dyed fabric, necklace, resin, screw Nothing special and nothCourtesy Karyn Lovegrove Gallery ing precious has been used in any of these paintings and sculptures. All steer clear of the musty sentimentality of much found object art (whose meaning primarily resides in the faded memories and vanishing atmospheres of the long-lost times and faraway places it evokes). They also avoid the naïve earnestness of objects collaged together from recycled castoffs (which can turn art into a sort of symbolic environmental activism). Instead the materially humble works in Electric Mud start with substances—tinted liquids and malleable solids not all that different from dirt—whose intrinsic significance is so ridiculously overshadowed by the things that have been done with them by other artists since Altamira and Lascaux that it is difficult to imagine anyone doing anything original or significant with them now. Yet these

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pieces’ down-to-earth humility and characteristically American pragmatism are laced with the derring-do of incorrigible thrill-seekers—the fearlessness or the foolhardiness or the flat-out desperation of folks who can’t help but try to do something fabulous when the deck is so stacked against them that no right-minded person would bet on their success. At the same time, it’s difficult to resist rooting for them. Their underdog charm appeals.

Top: April Juice, 2008 (detail) Acrylic on linen 60 x 72 inches Courtesy the artist and Western Project Middle: Patrick Wilson Green Bean, 2008 Acrylic on canvas 15 x 36 inches Courtesy Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects Bottom: Ron Nagle Sonny Boy’s Fifth, 2001 Earthenware 6 1/2 x 6 1/4 x 4 inches Collection Maxine and Stuart Frankel

The adjective part of the title—“Electric”—emphasizes the energy that is embodied, concentrated, and conveyed by these works, a force that is all the more potent and thrilling because of their rudimentary materials. The reference to electricity focuses on the transformations that have taken place in the studio, the sparked moment when each of the artists turned mute goo into singular objects of mind-blowing beauty, surprising excitement, and unsettling verve. This half of the title is meant to get at the intangible magic of art that makes supposedly materialist critics cringe, in the process abandoning a good part of the real world and its history to the province of spiritualists, dimwitted transcendentalists, and half-baked mystics, all of whom are happy to jettison the quotidian vicissitudes of the everyday in favor of the treacly platitudes of their idealisms. Electric Mud aims to take back art’s mystery, to bring down to earth and into the realm of criticism the dazzle and delight of beholding something you have never seen before or even imagined and cannot fully fathom. Yet you are as certain as you have been about anything that this is something you need to know fully—physically and intimately and to the best of your abilities, which, despite the application of all your faculties, are never quite enough to exhaust the works’ fascination or to quench your interest in it. David Pagel Electric Mud Curator Electric Mud is organized for Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston, by David Pagel, Associate Professor of Art Theory and History at Claremont Graduate University. The exhibition and publication are made possible, in part, by The Cecil Amelia Blaffer von Furstenberg Endowment for Exhibitions and Programs and Houston Endowment, Inc.

Existed: Leonardo Drew May 16 – August 1, 2009 In summer 2009, Blaffer Gallery hosts Leonardo Drew's first mid-career survey in the United States. Throughout his career, Leonardo Drew has been continuously engaged with the cyclical nature of existence. Made to resemble the detritus of everyday life, his formally abstract but emotionally charged compositions have an aesthetic authority and metaphorical weight that is as unique as it is symbolic, transcending time and place in favor of a celebration of things eternal. These works range from the intense drama of his sculptures and installations of the 1980s, to the epic sweep of his massive wall-bound tableaux in the 1990s, to the ethereal language of his paper casts of the early 2000s. Add the poetic intimacy of his recent works on paper, and Drew’s practice can be described as a journey toward enlightenment, full of reprises and returns as well as new beginnings. In 2000 Drew began to create sculptures using paper replicas of his ongoing collection of cast-off items that have constituted the material source for his works. Presented on their own or in encasings of the artist’s making, they introduced a new presence into the artist’s work, a ghostlike immateriality and a sense of mediation that counter the visceral weight and physical immediacy of his earlier tableaux. Ever since then,

Background: Leonardo Drew Number 123, 2007 Cardboard, cast Elmer's glue, feathers, paint, paper, plastic, rope, string, wood Dimensions variable Courtesy Sikkema Jenkins & Co. © Photo: Luciano Fileti

even when working with actual objects, a new economy of means has driven Drew toward a visual poetry of lightness and simplicity, culminating most recently in his installation Number 123 (2007). With this new development also has come a newfound emphasis on drawing—a practice that Drew suppressed for nearly twenty years because his extraordinary natural talent with the medium made it insufficiently challenging. The installation conceived for this exhibition is his grandest and most ambitious to date. Its composition from many individual material elements connected through an intricate web of drawings applied directly to the walls, its flexible format, and its variable dimensions allow its adaptation to any space. This new installation will be complemented by a selection of fourteen major pieces realized between 1991 and 2005, and twelve works on paper made between 2005 and 2008, which together offer a representative survey of Drew’s artistic development as well as speak to the relevance of the direction the work is taking today. The exhibition will be accompanied by a comprehensive monograph, the first on this artist, published by Giles Ltd., London, featuring essays by Acting Chief Curator Claudia Schmuckli and Allen S. Weiss, Associate Adjunct Professor, Performance and Cinema Studies, New York University. Following its Blaffer debut, Existed: Leonardo Drew will travel to the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, N.C., from January 31 through May 30, 2010.

Existed: Leonardo Drew is organized by Claudia Schmuckli, Acting Chief Curator, Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is provided by the Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation, the Harpo Foundation, the Linda Pace Foundation, and The Fifth Floor Foundation. Support for the catalogue is provided by Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

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Leonardo Drew Number 28, 1992 Canvas, rust 132 x 256 x 156 inches Marc and Livia Straus Family Collection

Leonardo Drew Number 23, 1992 Cotton, canvas, nails, wood 96 x 120 x 8 inches Courtesy of Brenda Taylor Gallery, New York

Leonardo Drew Number 43, 1994 (detail) Fabric, plastic, rust, string, wood 138 x 288 x 12 inches Marc and Livia Straus Family Collection and the Saint Louis Art Museum ÂŠ Photo: Dorothy Zeidman

Special F e atu re

MO D UL ATION From 1994 through 2008, Ralph Helmick and Stuart Schechter, a collaborative duo based in Boston, have created astounding public art throughout the United States. Helmick, an accomplished sculptor, and Schechter, an MIT-educated rocket scientist with a passion for art, merged talents to imagine, design, and realize a number of creative artworks that are also engineering marvels. Well known for suspended pieces made up of hundreds of individual parts that create bird, boat, and human forms, they have installed their sculptures at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the Salt Lake City Public Library, and the Federal Courthouse in St. Louis. They’ve also created mechanical and kinetic pieces for the Dallas South Central Police Substation and for Capital Community College in Hartford, Connecticut. The University of Houston is fortunate to have worked with these two remarkable artists during their heyday. In 2000 they created Modulation, an enormous head suspended in the three-story atrium lobby of the Leroy and Lucille Melcher Center for Public Broadcasting, home of KUHF 88.7 FM and HoustonPBS. It’s composed 10

of hundreds of discarded and antiquated electronic parts, like circuit boards, video monitors, wires, cables, radio tubes, and speakers, all attached to a steel armature. The piece is active as well: speakers transmit KUHF radio programs, a halo of functioning computer fans encircles the head, and the figure’s eyes contain working video monitors, one displaying HoustonPBS television broadcasting and the other playing a live feed from a security camera located in the building’s entry hall. The interior of the head, which can be viewed by standing underneath it, features an LED map of the Houston area. The face of Modulation has no specific gender or ethnicity; it is instead an amalgamation of multiple ethnic groups. If you ever find yourself near the Melcher Center for Public Broadcasting, be sure to stop in to take a look at Modulation. To learn more about Ralph Helmick and Stuart Schechter and their public art works, visit www.handsart.net. Michael Guidry Curator, University of Houston Public Art Collection Top left and detail: Ralph Helmick and Stuart Schechter Modulation, 2000 Mixed media Collection University of Houston

SY M POSIU M

Systems of Sustainability:

Art, Innovation, Action March 27 – 29, 2009

Systems of Sustainability: Art, Innovation, Action, or S.O.S., is a three-day event organized by Blaffer Gallery and the University of Houston’s Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts. Part arts festival, part academic symposium, S.O.S. explores how creative enterprise can be an integral tool for cultural growth and social change. The program will present a range of innovative practices demonstrated by a roster of local, national, and international participants, including prominent artists, scientists, business leaders, activists, and scholars. Events will include site-specific projects, participatory activities, lectures, scholarly panels, and many opportunities for dialogue. What do we mean by “sustainability in the arts?” Media outlets, political leaders, and corporations alike have proclaimed that today’s most complex global challenges can be addressed with a single term: sustainability. This inherently optimistic concept attempts to combat some of the biggest and most fearsome problems worldwide— global warming; natural, economic, and political disruptions; and social discord. As a result of its widespread application, sustainability permeates our everyday life. Visual, performing, and literary arts, and creative enterprise and intellectual thought in general, can be extraordinarily effective in posing solutions to such global challenges. S.O.S. invites participants to take the conversation about sustainability one step further, charting new pathways towards the future.

All events are open to the entire UH community as well as the public. For more information about the program and registration, visit www.blaffergallery.org or contact Curator of Education Katherine Veneman at 713.743.9526. Systems of Sustainability is presented by the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts and Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston. It is developed in close consultation with Dr. Robert Harriss, President of the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), and Liz Lerman, Founder of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Robert Harriss is President and CEO of the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), an institution devoted to sustainability science, engineering, and education. He is an educator and researcher with a passion for creating collaborative and interdisciplinary environments that aim to inspire people to engage in the grand sustainability challenges of the twenty-first century. HARC is dedicated to facilitating and participating in collaborative networks that focus on creating sustainable futures. Bob has spent much of his career working with students and colleagues in studying the Florida Everglades, the coastal ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico, the freshwater wetlands of the world, and the roles of the Amazon Basin of Brazil and the North American Arctic in global climate change. He received a B.S. in Geological Sciences from Florida State University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Earth Science (Geochemistry) from Rice University.

Liz Lerman, Founding Artistic Director of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, is a choreographer, performer, writer, educator, and speaker. Described by the Washington Post as “the source of an epochal revolution in the scope and purposes of dance art,” her dance/theater works have been seen throughout the United States and abroad. Her aesthetic approach spans the range from abstract to personal to political, while her working process emphasizes research, translation between artistic media, and intensive collaboration with dancers and communities. She founded Liz Lerman Dance Exchange in 1976 and has cultivated the company’s unique multigenerational ensemble into a leading force in contemporary dance. Liz has been the recipient of numerous honors, including a 2002 MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant.

S AV E T H E D A T E for the New-and-Improved

2 0 0 9 A N N U A L G AL A! FRIDAY, MAY 15, 2009 8 P.M. – 12 A.M. NEW WORLD MUSEUM 5230 CENTER STREET

Rhode Island School of Design instructor Francoise McAree leads the “Mapping Texture” workshop.

VISITING ARTISTS LIGHT UP THE MUSEUM This fall Blaffer lined up an impressive array of visiting artists and speakers to host a series of events and workshops. Francoise McAree (Rhode Island School of Design) kicked off the schedule by leading the “Mapping Texture” drawing workshop. Students learned how to find texture in their everyday environments and completed a collaborative project that will be presented in the MD Anderson Library Student Show this spring. Dr. Bradford Collins (University of South Carolina) presented a lecture on the life and death of Andy Warhol, whose estate recently donated a selection of his photographs to the University of Houston. These events, always free to the public, provide a unique opportunity to learn from experts outside our area. Be sure to check out our calendar for future events in our visiting artist program. SUMMER ARTS REGISTRATION BEGINS SOON One of our most popular children’s programs will begin registration on April 1. Summer Arts gives children ages six to twelve hands-on art experience through a series of fun activities and lessons. In six sessions led by two professional art teachers, students receive one-on-one 12

TICKETS Individuals $250 Underwriters $1,000 Details: 713.743.9537 or seconaway@uh.edu

YOUR HOSTS Karen and Steve Farber Judy and Scott Nyquist José Solis … and more

attention as they learn to express themselves and become unique artists. Class size is limited, and registration is filled on a first come, first served basis. Please visit www.blaffergallery.org/youth_programs.html for more information, or contact Katy Lopez at 713.743.9971 or klopez@uh.edu. COMMUNITY MEMBERS AND CORPORATIONS BACK BLAFFER EXHIBITIONS AND PROGRAMS Blaffer Gallery is proud to announce recent generous grants from the Baker Hughes Foundation and Marita and JB Fairbanks in support of Texas Oil: Landscape of an Industry; from the Harpo Foundation and Linda Pace Foundation in support of Existed: Leonardo Drew; and from the Travelers Foundation in support of the 2009 Young Artist Apprenticeship Program. We are deeply appreciative and extend our thanks to all for recognizing the importance of exhibitions and programs dedicated to original scholarship in the arts. GUIDED TOURS NOW ONE STEP EASIER Our audio tour, accessible at 713.481.2811, provides an insightful, behind-the-scenes look at the current

E Du cation/de v e lopm e nt

Joel Orr from Bobbindoctrin Puppet Theatre performs a one-man puppet show during the fall Red Block Bash.

Debbie Green, Fine Arts Department chair at Cesar Chavez High School, analyzes participants’ work during last fall’s Studio Saturday.

Young Artist Apprenticeship Program students pose in front of Exquisite Corpse, a collaborative mural permanently installed in the Graduate College of Social Work foyer. Present at the installation were Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams and Dean Ira Colby.

Blaffer Gallery members enjoy an exciting day of art in Fort Worth in October.

exhibitions, perfect for both groups and individual guests. Want to use the museum as a class assignment? Our system can record your students’ comments, then share them with you at the touch of a button. Traditional tours are still available at the click of a mouse, using our online request form at www.blaffergallery.org. Our friendly, highly trained docents are on hand to provide your group with an invaluable experience. BLAFFER MEMBERSHIP TRIPS In October Blaffer Gallery took members on a successful trip to Fort Worth for a guided tour of the Kara Walker exhibition at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and a viewing of The Impressionists at the Kimbell Art Museum. On Saturday, January 24, Blaffer is pleased to once again host an exciting members-only event, this time an intimate afternoon of cocktails, private collections, and gallery tours in the Houston Heights district. To ensure your membership is current and you don’t miss this exclusive opportunity, contact Jeff Bowen at 713.743.9528 or jbowen2@uh.edu.

SUPPORT THE 2008/2009 ANNUAL FUND Did you know that Blaffer Gallery receives no funding for its programs from the University of Houston, and that it must independently raise funds to continue presenting its exhibitions of regional, national, and international contemporary art? Here’s how you can help: $35 sends a camper to Summer Arts $100 provides two docent-led group tours $250 supplies lunch for our Brown Bag Gallery Tour guests $500 provides guest artist hospitality $1,000 supports a Young Artist Apprenticeship Program student scholar $2,500 sponsors an issue of Newsline $5,000 subsidizes the 2009 School of Art Masters Thesis Exhibition catalogue $10,000 sponsors student gallery attendants for nearly three months …and so much more. Want to see your gift go further? Any new or increased annual fund gifts from the previous year will be matched dollar-for-dollar by an anonymous donor. Please see the enclosed insert in the center spread of this magazine to make your gift today. You may also contribute online through the College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences’ giving website at https://giving.uh.edu/class. For more information contact Susan Conaway at 713.743.9537 or seconaway@uh.edu.

Is Blaffer in your will? Visit us at www.uh.edu/plannedgiving

B laf f e r Par tn e rs LEAD SPONSORS George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation Houston Endowment, Inc. MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS The City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance Jane Blaffer Owen Sikkema Jenkins & Co. Joanne and Derby Wilson PROGRAM PARTNERS Baker Hughes Foundation The Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation The Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation Marita and JB Fairbanks Harpo Foundation Institute of Museum and Library Services John P. McGovern Foundation The National Endowment for the Arts Occidental Energy Marketing, Inc. Louisa Stude Sarofim Dorothy Carsey Sumner Ellen and Steve Susman Travelers Foundation The Visionary Initiatives Fund Vicky and Don Eastveld, Miranda and Dan Wainberg, Founding Members DIRECTOR’S COUNCIL Marita and JB Fairbanks Gretchen and Andrew McFarland Lisa and Russell Sherrill DIRECTOR’S CIRCLE Linda and Simon Eyles Jo and Jim Furr/Gensler The Michael & Rebecca Cemo Foundation Red Claw LLC Shirley and Don Rose Chris and Don Sanders Texan-French Alliance for the Arts/ Levant Foundation DIRECTOR’S PARTNERS Nancy C. Allen Andrews Kurth LLP Raymona and William Bomar Katy and Michael Casey Mary Kay and Robert Casey, Jr. Consulate General of France Karen and Stephan Farber Gastonia and Gordon Goodman Ryan Gordon Claudia and David Hatcher Karen and Eric Pulaski Philanthropic Fund

Cornelia and Meredith Long Nancy and Robert Martin Meg and Nelson Murray Judy and Scott Nyquist Jane Dale Owen Jennifer Smith and Peter Ragauss Richard Stodder Charitable Foundation Minnette and Jerome Robinson Stephen W. and Marilyn R. Miles Foundation Texas Commission on the Arts Vinson & Elkins LLP VISIONARY PARTNERS Anonymous Donor Chinhui and Eddie Allen Emily Baker and Gerardo Amelio Mary Criner Blake The Brown Foundation Buck Family Foundation Kristen and David Buck Dr. Fran Sicola Cardwell Tammy and Bob Casey, III Jereann Chaney, in honor of the late Robert Chaney Sallie Morian and Michael Clark Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany Crescent Real Estate Equities Limited Rania and Jamal Daniel Terrie Sultan and Christopher French Ann and Jim Harithas Pablo and Maria Cristina Henning Dorene and Frank Herzog Ann Jackson Mary Johnston Joan and Marvin Kaplan Mr. and Mrs. I. H. Kempner, III Gretchen and Andrew McFarland Lester Marks and Penelope Gonzalez Marks Mitsui & Co. (U.S.A.), Inc. The Mitsui USA Foundation Moody Gallery Morgan Family Fund Mr. and Mrs. Robert N. Murray Morgan Dunn O’Connor Veronica Reed Karen and Scott Rozzell Wilhelmina R. Smith Stanford and Joan Alexander Foundation Hillary Stratton Texas State Bank Cynthia Toles Nancy and Sidney Williams Isabel Brown Wilson E. Wayne Wood Mr. and Mrs. Michael Zilkha FOUNDING PARTNERS Carol and A. L. Ballard Toni and Jeffery Beauchamp

Booker-Lowe Gallery and Lowe and Booker Charitable Trust Amy Sutton and Gary Chiles Sheila Coogan Susie and Sanford Criner Krista and Michael Dumas Victor B. Flatt Global Impact for UBS Foundation Julie Greenwood Paula and John Hansen Nancy and Carter Hixon Houston Assembly of Delphian Chapters Leslie Hull Anne and Lee Leonard Katherine and David Lucke Clare Casademont and Michael Metz Judy and James Nicklos Cabrina and Steven Owsley Beverly and Howard Robinson Jackie and Richard Schmeal Lisa and Russell Sherrill Leigh and Reggie Smith William F. Stern Kelley and Harper Trammell Mr. and Mrs. Ronald B. Walker Wilhelmina W. (Beth) Robertson Fund THE MARTHA MEIER MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP ENDOWMENT FUND Andrew T. Anton Lavinia and Stephen Boyd Mary Ann and Robert Brezina Linda Buchanan Peggy and Thomas Caskey Grayson Cecil Michael Chmiel Sallie Morian and Michael Clark Mabeth and Kenneth Coleman Nancy and Bert Corkill Joan K. Bruchas and H. Philip Cowdin Dean DeVoss Dianne and Robert Edmonson Jennifer Fichter Carol and Dave Fleming Michael France Cathy Coers and Jay Frank Edward Gomulka Caroline Caskey Goodner Paul D. Grossbard Amir Halevy Warren Haley Tissy and Rusty Hardin Helene and Tod Harding Adana and Chris Haynes Marilyn Hermance Bonnie Hibbert Julia Jervis and O.L. Kirkpatrick Billie Koetter Jim Kollaer Shirley A. Kopecky William Lewis

Linda and David Lynn Gundula McCandless Terry S. Mahaffey Marsha Amdur Malev Pat Malone Marie Mansour-Partridge Martha Meier Family Estate Clark Martin Nancy and Robert Martin Emily Miller Betty Moody Nancy and Lucian Morrison National School of Public Relations Association Nolan-Rankin Galleries, Inc. Marilyn O’Connor and Don Gill Custom Homes Monica and Mark Oathout Janet and Tony Parisi Ada Perry Terri and David Peterson Earline Jones and Mike Prescott Peggy Vineyard and Jim Pruitt Sally and Norman Reynolds Norma and Davis Richardson David W. Roark Shirley and Donald Rose Billie and John Schneider Natalie C. Schwarz Carolyn and Calvin Simpson Mary Ann and Neal Simpson Gina and Kenneth Sones Grayson and John Stokes Gwyn and Tolis Thanos Ann and David Tomatz Corinne and Charles Tracy Mary Faye and Peter Way Linda J. Webb Nancy and Jim Willerson Clinton T. Willour Dorothy Wright William A. Zugheri IN-KIND Seth Alverson Armandos Mary and Bernard Arocha Basiques Deborah Bay Bergner and Johnson Design William Betts Melissa Borrell Bright Star Productions, Inc. City Kitchen Continental Airlines Sasha Dela Jonathan Durham Emilie Duval Fotofest Green Mountain Energy Michael Guidry Maria Guzman Kara Hearn Hana Hillerova Allison Hunter Hedwige Jacobs

Andres Janacua Nicholas Kersulis Mindy Kober Jonathan C. Leach Lynne McCabe Marcelyn McNeil Masterson Design Mixed Emotions Fine Art Teresa Munisteri Jessica Ninci McKay Otto Peel Gallery PennWell MAPSearch Ariane Roesch Carolyn Rose Saint Arnold Brewing Company Savage Design Anthony Thompson Shumate TEBO Design Shane Tolbert Tootsie’s Sergio Torres-Torres Tupelo Grease Co. Kelly Ulcak Katherine Veneman David Waddell Lillian Warren Jeff Williams Audry Worster RECENT GIFTS (AS OF DECEMBER 8, 2008) Elizabeth and Norman Bock Richard Braverman Elizabeth and Orson Cook Sara Dodd Roger Eichhorn Susanne and Randall Evans Cathy Coers Frank Beverly and Wayne Gilbert Rob Greenstein Dr. and Mrs. Edward R. Haymes Heimbinder Family Foundation Kim and Mike Howard Olive and Lynn Hughes Vernell Jessie Jacqueline Kacen Karen Kelsey David Lake Marsha Amdur Malev John E. (Sandy) Parkerson Beth and Wayne Pickett Gary Polland Suzanne Richards Russ Robinson Safeway, Inc. Brian Shaw Sandy and Rob Shaw Scott Sparvero April Thrasher Beatrice Villegas David Ashley White Megan and Jason Williams Clinton T. Willour Xiaojing Yuan

All efforts are made to be accurate. If you identify incorrect information, please contact the Office of External Affairs at 713.743.9537.

B laf f e r Gall e ry Par tn e rship s $35+ Community Partner

$250+ Leading Partner

$2,500+ Corporate or Director’s Partner

• 10% discount on museum catalogues and purchases • Advance notice to all exhibition previews, lectures, and events • Invitations to select museum programs • Subscription to Blaffer Gallery’s newsletter, Newsline

All of Supporting Partner benefits plus: • Complimentary copy of any one Blaffer Gallery publication • Invitation to two special events organized by Blaffer Gallery

All of Visionary Partner benefits plus • Complimentary copies of select exhibition catalogues • Recognition on promotional literature for twelve months • Special cocktail reception with the Director

$100+ Supporting Partner All of Community Partner benefits plus: • 25% discount on museum catalogues and purchases • Invitation to one special event organized by Blaffer Gallery • Invitation to members-only day trip and travel opportunities

$500+ Founding Partner All of Leading Partner benefits plus: • Complimentary copy of any one exhibition catalogue • Recognition in Newsline

$1,000+ Visionary Partner All of Founding Partner benefits plus: • Invitation to private events to meet visiting artists and curators • Recognition on the museum’s entry wall

$5,000+ Corporate or Director’s Circle All of Corporate or Director’s Partner benefits plus: • The opportunity to host a private function at Blaffer Gallery • Dinner with the Director for two

Exclusive benefits for $10,000+ Program Partners, $25,000+ Major Contributors, and $50,000+ Lead Sponsors are available. Please call 713.743.9537.

M e mb e rship – Join th e B laf f e r ❑ New Membership

❑ Renewal Membership

Name (please print name as you would like to be listed)

❑ A check for made payable to University of Houston Blaffer Gallery is enclosed. ❑ Credit Card Number (MC, VISA, AmEx.,Disc.)

Address

City State Zip

❑ Supporting Partner $100+ ❑ Leading Partner $250+

Expiration Date

❑ Founding Partner $500+

Name (as it appears on card)

❑ Visionary Partner $1,000+

Signature

Phone Fax

❑ Community Partner $35+

Please complete and mail to:

Membership Office Blaffer Gallery, The Art Museum of the University of Houston 120 Fine Arts Building • Houston, TX 77204-4018

9HHAA00730⁄4041⁄H0097⁄C0717⁄NA⁄41311-42904

❑ Corporate or Director’s Partner $2,500+ ❑ Corporate or Director’s Circle $5,000+ For more information call 713.743.9528 or visit us online at www.blaffergallery.org

Entrance 16 Cullen Boulevard

From I-45 South

Location

Parking

Blaffer Gallery is located in the Fine Arts Building on the University of Houston’s central campus, Entrance 16 off Cullen Boulevard, near the intersection of Cullen and Elgin.

Reserved parking for museum visitors is along the front of parking lot 16B directly across from the Fine Arts Building. Visitors parking in the reserved area should check in at the museum’s front desk.

Directions

To Do wntow n

Hous

ton

Elgin Avenue

Blaffer Gallery

45 From I-45 North

hibitions

Open Tuesday – Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Take I-45 South toward Galveston. Exit #44C Cullen Boulevard. Turn right onto Cullen. Pass through the light at Elgin. Turn left into Entrance 16.

Closed on Sundays, Mondays, and University holidays.

From points South: Take I-45 North towards Downtown. Exit #44A Elgin-Lockwood⁄Cullen Boulevard and continue on feeder road. Turn left onto Cullen Boulevard. Turn left into Entrance 16.

Front Cover :

For information call

Hours

From Downtown and points North:

The Center for Land Use Interpretation ExxonMobil Baytown plant and Houston Ship Channel. Photo courtesy of the CLUI Photographic Archive.

All exhibitions and related programs are free and open to the public. The museum is ADA compliant.

Brian Calvin Guard (II), 2007 (detail) Acrylic on canvas 48 x 72 inches Courtesy Marc Foxx Gallery

713.743.9530 or visit us online at www.blaffergallery.org

Texas Oil: Landscape of an Industry The Center for Land Use Interpretation January 17 – March 29, 2009 Electric Mud January 17 – March 29, 2009 Young Artist Apprenticeship Program Exhibition March 14 – 29, 2009 2009 School of Art Masters Thesis Exhibition April 11 – 25, 2009 Existed: Leonardo Drew May 16 – August 1, 2009 Josephine Meckseper September 12 – November 14, 2009 Jonathan Pylypchuk September 12 – November 14, 2009

Non-Profit Org. U.S.Postage PAID Houston, TX Permit No. 5910