The Hidden Agenda: Gratest Hits
Mark Flood, “Eat Human Flesh,” 1989. Courtesy the artist, Peres Projects, Berlin, and Stuart Shave/Modern Art, London. Taken from Contemporary Arts Museum Houston website.
With another week comes another selection of the city’s best art, music and film events, including a can’t-miss exhibition by Houston great Mark Flood at the Contemporary Art Museum Houston, a Latin American film festival at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and a reborn experimental music series at Lawndale Art Center. And here we go:
Ongoing
Mark Flood: Gratest Hits at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
Mark Flood has dedicated much of his thirty-year career as an artist to describing and critiquing the cultural and artistic landscape through painting, collage, sculpture and video. As the first comprehensive survey of his work, Gratest Hits features work from the 1980s to 2024 and serves to highlight the storied career of one of Houston’s most prolific artists, one who has frequently escaped recognition on the museum level. The extensive exhibition includes two of his largest lace paintings, site-specific installations and even a mound of “Like” button paintings that visitors are encouraged to place near their favorite works as a commentary on the Facebook-driven world in which we live.
While the opening reception for Gratest Hits takes place on Friday from 6:30 to 9 pm, be sure to catch the exhibition walkthrough with Flood and CAMH director Bill Arning on Saturday at 2 pm. The exhibition will be on view through August 7.
Latin Wave: New Films from Latin America at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
From Thursday through Sunday, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is hosting the 11th edition of their Latin Wave film festival that showcases 10 of the newest and most innovative films from Latin America. This year’s festival selections include Guatemala’s Ixcanul (Volcano), a fusion of fact and fable with an incredible lead performance by a first-time actress; Desde allá (From Afar), a character study set in contemporary Caracas, Venezuela; Patricio Guzmán’s documentary El botón de nácar (The Pearl Button), an inquiry into Chile’s indigenous and nearly extinct “water people”; and Colombia’s El abrazo de la serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent), a historical tale following two parallel journeys up the Amazon. General admission is $10 for each screening and there will also be a Filmmakers Brunch at Under the Volcano (2349 Bissonnet) from 11 am to 1 pm on Saturday.
SPEAKEASY at Lawndale Art Center
As a new program that re-envisions Lawndale’s “Speakeasy” series from 1993 to 2024, this series highlights Lawndale’s storied relationship to live music, performance and contemporary art. The first installment of the series takes place at Lawndale Art Center (4912 Main), with the event on Friday at 7 pm featuring can’t-miss performances by Nameless Sound founder and trombone player David Dove with trumpeter/rapper/producer Jawwaad Taylor and another by Charalambides, which is the first Houston show for the band in nine years. The event continues with programming on Saturday at 7 pm, including performances by “doom-cellist” and composer Helen Money and the genre-defying two-piece Soldier Kane. Two-day tickets are available for $35 and single-day tickets are $20.
Friday, April 29
UH School of Art Student Exhibition at Blaffer Art Museum
Every spring this exhibition introduces the local audiences to the work of the University of Houston’s School of Art undergraduate seniors and first- and second-year graduate students. In addition to the works on view in the exhibition, the School of Art will have open studios throughout the Fine Arts Building during the opening reception, which takes place from 7 to 9 pm at the Blaffer Art Museum (4173 Elgin).
Saturday, April 30
Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud: Holdings & Intervals at Alabama Song
As part of The School of Experimental Work: Audio-Visual series, visitors are invited to experience Holdings & Intervals, a largly silent, meditative sound installation with additions of altered sound from spirituals, gospel music and field recordings. Houston artist Ayanna Jolivet Mccloud’s installation is accompanied with a read-aloud text, which leads into sound meditation and attendees invited to meditate, read and listen. The event starts at 3 pm at Alabama Song (2521 Oakdale).
Off Road: William Wegman at Rice University
Glasstire is hosting a lecture by photographer and video artist William Wegman — commonly known for his photographs of weimaraner dogs — at the Glasscock School for Continuing Studies at Rice University on Saturday. Tickets are $25 and include a complimentary cocktail reception that starts at 3:30 pm with the lecture starting at 4:30 pm. Additionally, Wegman will be on hand following the talk to sign copies of his new book, “Paintings.”
The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People at DiverseWorks
As a large-scale installation and performance platform, The School for the Movement of the Technicolor People serves as research for the ongoing question, “What is a Black dance curriculum today?” in relation to Houston. Held in the memory of an erased Black school in East Texas, the School builds a curriculum in response to the limited positioning of Black and queer participants in the dance and art worlds, seeking new relationships, possibilities, freedoms and spaces. The opening reception takes place on Saturday from 6 to 9 pm at DiverseWorks (3400 Main), although programming continues with free public classes every Saturday in May.
