Perspectives 159: Superconscious, Automatisms Now December 14, 2007 – March 9, 2008 Opening reception December 13, 2007, 6:30-9:00 p.m. Sigh. This is Houston's last hurrah with Senior CAMH Curator Paola Morsiani, and we are sad. Having been with the CAMH for over eight years, Morsiani is heading north to become Curator of Contemporary Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, an internationally renowned encyclopedic museum in the midst of a $258 million renovation and expansion.......

Some pret-ty, pret-ty, pret-ty cool stuff opening this weekend, kids. Check it out: Jeanne Cassanova / Reginald Rachuba The Joanna Gallery "Those in attendance can be assured a multi sensory onslaught of 'image spillage'." Oh, really. We have to admit, the term "spillage" sort of scares us, but the image at right is so cool, we're willing to risk it. Both Cassanova and Rachuba pull from contemporary images and create narratives woven between each other......

So if you've been following our easy, no-fuss no-muss primer on learning about art and local artists, etc. now is your chance to show off your new knowledge! This weekend brings us Spacetaker's 2007 Holiday Sale, featuring all kinds of work from local artists. They'll have everything from jewelry to paintings to sculpture for purchase AND 75% of the proceeds benefit the artist while 25% goes to Spacetaker, which helps nurture the Houston arts community!......

There are so many freaking cool things happening this weekend -- here's just a list of what Houstonist has on hand. Please send us the rest. Thursday November 29th HOUSTON. IT'S WORTH IT. Book Launch Party At the Lawndale Parking Lot, 4912 Main Street 6:30PM-9PM Images from the book will be projected on North wall of Lawndale art center. DJ Pooks spins the tunes and there will be refreshments. Proceeds from sales of the......

Cara Barer—The Book Project DeSantos Gallery Beginning with just a found soiled copy of the Yellow Pages, Cara Barer created The Book Project, and eventually had volumes of new sculptures resulting from old books. As book lovers, our first inclination was to scoff at the idea of destroying old books for the sake of art. But then we saw the sculptures. This is one of the Houstonist's favoritist things we've seen in a long time.......

With so many fun and interesting gallery openings this evening, we thought we would briefly give you a few options and let you, dear readers, decide which one to attend...or maybe gallery hopping is your thing! Eating, drinking, being merry, viewing art and what-not. Either way, there is much interesting work on view this beautiful fall evening in Houston. First up is the opening of Jack Zajac A Survey: 1967-2007 at Gremillion & Co. Gallery.......

Native Houstonian Sam Jones IV may not have a traditional route as to how he got his start in art, but it's definitely a unique story. The mixed media artist sat down and talked with us about his experiences growing up in Houston, and how living in the South has impacted his artistic career. You have a pretty "uniquely-Houston" story as to how you got your start in your art education. Most people don't......

Bayou City Arts Festival - Downtown Need tickets to this weekend's Bayou City Arts Festival? We gotcha covered. We scored a few pairs, so drop us an email at monica (@) houstonist dot com and we'll hook you up. (And not like the time we tried to hook you up with our boyfriend's 3rd cousin. Sorry about that.) This all can be yours, for the low, low price of free (aka send an email to......

Rice Gallery Opening Exhibit: Kirsten Hassenfeld's, Dans la Lune Among the many reasons we are happy that our quaint abode sits blocks from Hermann Park and Rice University, we add to that list our proximiity to the always excellently exhibited Rice Gallery. When we first heard about this installation, we knew we had to see it to believe it. Rice Gallery's current exhibit, Kirsten Hassenfeld's, Dans la Lune, utilizes the most ordinary of materials, paper,......

We hope you are keeping the Spacetaker Optiks Gala on your radar, cuz it's been on ours for quite awhile. Bleep.....bleep...bleep..bleep, bleep, bleep. Yep, it's coming up. September 29th. Do you have your tix yet? Spacetaker September Artist Saloon This month Buffalo Bayou Art Park & Spacetaker, in conjunction with Winter Street Studios, present Sasha Dela, Jonathan Durham, and Dominic Walsh of the Dominic Walsh Dance Theater for the September edition of The Artist Saloon.......

We wouldn't go quite so far as to say that every day is an anniversary of 9/11, but there are several events happening around the city today to remember 9/11 and its victims. So hit them up, whether you're a firefighter, a civilian, or a troofer. >> Houston Fire Museum dedicates new statue: The Houston Fire Museum will dedicate a new statue titled "In the Line of Fire" to honor firefighters everywhere. The sculpture will......

Looking for art tonight? We gotcha covered. It's all over. Tons of it. Tonight, and all weekend long. Check out openings tonight at Diverseworks, Vine Street (Fotofest), UH Downtown (O'Kane), CTRL Gallery, Inman, Finesilver, Kinzelman, Glassell, Blaffer, Art League, and much, much more. We just got tired of typing. See: help wanted. b.s. Artblog has a nicely coordinated list here, and ArtsHouston weighs in with their picks here. Seems like the top of everybody's list,......

Lawndale Opening Exhibit x 3 What's better than a Thursday night opening at Lawndale? Try 3. Saw that one coming, huh? Hey, it's been a long week, we're spent. Tonight, Lawndale Art Center presents exhibitions in three galleries, all opening August 30, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm, with artist talks at beginning at 6 pm. The exhibitions continue until October 6, 2007. In the John M. O’Quinn Gallery will be, Round Up, an installation by......

Ok, ok, we KNOW we are the fattest city in the universe for like the kabillionth time. We don't need a fancy survey to tell us that. But when it's 120 degrees out and you feel like someone just threw a wet towel on your face, it's a little hard to be motivated to get fit. Ya hear what i'm saying, peeps? We don't see anyone yelling at Antarcticans to get out there and "gimme......

Today’s Photo of the Day comes from flickr user and Houstonist photo contributor phototainable. This shot of a sculpture was taken outside of the MFAH during the Red Hot Asian exhibit. This exhibit is on display until October 21, 2007. If you have a passion for Houston and photography, consider joining over 350 of Houston's best photographers in the Houstonist Flickr Photo Group. If Houstonist uses your photo for Photo Of The Day, submit......

Bayou City Arts Festival: Call for Entries The Bayou City Art Festival Downtown (not to be confused with the Sping Festival in Memorial Park) has announced the call for entries for its third annual “Art on Water” floating art competition on the City Hall Reflection Pool at Hermann Square. This year’s theme is “Water in Motion.” "We’re asking local artists to express movement through artwork either stationary or through kinetic nature of sculpture or installation,”......

Last week, Urbanist showed you all the hidden jems that lie in the Lower Montrose area. One of those, the Jung Center, tonight presents innovative multimedia artist Cameron Sands and dancer Paola Georgudis on an exploration of the the spiritual possibility in every corner of our city. Is there truly creative potential in every space? What about the concrete area around a trash dumpster in an alleyway – or a place you pass by every......

Today until 5:00pm is your last chance to catch works by students attending the Glassell Junior School of Art as they are presented at the annual Junior School Spring Exhibition. Works will be on view through July 31 in the Norma R. Ory Gallery at the Junior School, 5100 Montrose Boulevard. The exhibition includes more than 200 works created by students age 4 to 18. Media represented includes painting, sculpture, fashion design, and ceramics. Also......

Discovery Green, the unfortunately named park under construction in downtown Houston, has gained its first high-profile piece of artwork: Jean Dubuffet's Monument au Fantôme, which has stood in front of 1100 Louisiana for 25 years. Dan Duncan, the pipeline tycoon who owns the skyscraper, has donated the sculpture to the park, where it will sit along Avenida de las Americas across from the George R. Brown Convention Center. "It's a fantastic piece of art," park......

Need to know just a little bit about something? Ask a dilettante. I have to go to a wedding shower this week. It’s the second one this month (two different couples), and in addition to the shower gifts, I'll bring another present to each wedding. All of this shopping is costing me a lot of money, and one of the couples is on their second marriage. At what point can I stop buying my friends......

We heard. We went. We saw. We loved. Inversion Coffee House (1953 Montrose Blvd ), a relatively new installment to the Montrose art scene, is an independent, locally owned coffee joint. And we heart independent coffee joints. Located on the former site of the mind-boggling Inversion House created by artists Dan Havel and Dean Ruck, this java dwelling resides in the new home of the Art League of Houston. Art lovers and independent thinkers are......

Need to know just a little bit about something? Ask a dilettante. I am confused about all the controversy surrounding the big chocolate Jesus. It seems to be a logical way to combine at least a couple of the disparate elements of the holiday that have always been particularly confusing to me (a giant egg-laying rabbit who bestows chocolate eggs to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus). So what's the deal? There are many questions regarding......

You've driven passed it a zillion times. You were probably in the midst of sipping a bit of your super chai metro coffee or applying some sort of eye make-up when you spotted the distinctive blue of the HPD cruiser parked out front. You slammed on your brakes in a last ditch attempt to stave off a ticket. Then you noticed that the police car was empty; no sirens were blaring after you. Your foot......

Today’s Photo of the Day comes from flickr user and Houstonist photo contributor seven twenty-five and contains this description: Wildlife in the city. And this wildlife can be spotted at Eleanor Tinsley Park (also known as Buffalo Bayou Park) off of Allen Parkway and Sabine Street in the shadows of downtown Houston. This is a great park with over 124 acres that extends from near downtown Houston all the way to Shepherd. Wildlife abounds......

Saturday, Feb 10 + Sunday, Feb 11 VISUAL ARTS Exhibits Opening this week: Justice for All: Artists reflect on the Death Penalty M2 Gallery, 325 West 19th Street, Saturday, Opening Reception @ 7pm Bringing Hope to Houston Houston Center for Contemporary Craft Reading the Movies: Photoplay Editions from the Collection of Stuart Kane Museum of Printing History February 5-April 30, 2007 Exhibits Closing this weekend: Christian Renonciat: The Way of Wood | Gremillion &......

Waiting to Explode Exhibit: Opening Reception The Lawndale Art Center will feature works by San Antonio artists Richie Budd and Jimmy Kuehnle (whose work is featured on the right), with their exhibit "Waiting to Explode," opening tonight and on display until March 3. The exhibit opens today with a reception held at the John O' Quinn Gallery at the Lawndale Art Center. Richie Budd is an installation artist who deals in multi-media sculpture and "self-contained......

On what would have been Martin Luther King Jr.'s 78th birthday, some Houstonians are saying the city hasn't done enough to commemorate the life of the civil rights leader through the years. Sure, there's the street in southeast Houston that bears his name and there's the bust of MLK at Bricker Park, but maybe that's not enough for a city like Houston. By this time next year, the Chronicle reports, at least two groups hope......

The Contemporary Arts Museum's Teen Council will host a music video night on the lawn in front of the museum at 6:30 tonight. To make an evening of it, Houstonist suggests visiting the Cullen Sculpture Garden and maybe dinner at nearby Cafe Express? Or maybe not. The showing will consist of music videos chosen especially by members of the Teen Council. The videos will be projected on a screen set up on the lawn in......

Good news for one of our favorite works of art in Houston: Jay Baker's "Light Spikes," the collection of eight 24-foot-high flag pillars created for the 1990 Economic Summit. The pillars originally stood in front of the George R. Brown Convention Center, but were moved to Intercontinental Airport when the summit ended — and they've remained there ever since, sitting alongside the airport's main drive. Problem is, the work was never intended to be permanent,......

Houston’s old artist friend David Adickes is shifting his focus from painting back to the monumental sculpture that he’s known for. Even if you’re unacquainted with Adickes and his neartown studio littered with giant busts of all forty-three presidents, you’d surely recognize the gigantic Sam Houston statue, his most famous work as well as our favorite part of making the trip to Dallas. Adickes has decided to take his work in a new direction though.......