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The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is a not-for-profit institution dedicated to presenting the art of our time to the public. As a non-collecting museum, its mission is to provide a forum for art with an emphasis on the visual arts of the present and recent past; to document new directions in art through changing exhibitions and publications; to engage the public in a lively dialogue with today’s art; and to encourage a greater understanding of contemporary art through education programs.The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston was founded in 1948 by a group of seven Houston citizens to present new art and to document its role in modern life through exhibitions, lectures and other activities. The Museum’s first exhibitions were presented at various sites throughout the city, such as The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and included This is Contemporary Art and L. Maholy-Nagy: Memorial Exhibition.The success of these first efforts led in 1950 to the building of a small, professionally equipped facility where ambitious exhibitions of the work of Vincent Van Gogh, Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Max Ernst, and John Biggers and his students from the then-fledgling Texas Negro College (now Texas Southern University), reflected Houston’s receptiveness to new ideas. In the 1980s, the Museum contributed vigorously to the emergence of Houston as one of the most significant cultural centers in the nation. From 1979 to 1984, the Museum grew significantly, extending its reach with major exhibitions that presented and toured thematic surveys of installations for performance art; contemporary still-life painting; an important group exhibition of work by Texas artists; and one-person shows of nationally-known artists such as Ida Applebroog, Robert Morris, Pat Steir, Bill Viola and Frank Stella as well as exhibitions of the work of Texans Earl Staley, Melissa Miller, and Vernon Fisher. At the start of the decade Director Linda L. Cathcart established Perspectives in the Museum’s lower gallery. Perspectives is a fast-paced series of medium-sized exhibitions focusing on cycles of work by emerging and well-known artists not previously shown in Houston. Over 135 shows have taken place within the series that continues today.In the 1990s, the Museum sharpened its focus, concentrating on art made within the past 40 years and extending its reach internationally. Major one-person exhibitions included Art Guys: Think Twice; Tony Cragg: Sculpture 1975-1990; Ann Hamilton: kaph; Richard Long: Circles Cycles Mud Stone; Nic Nicosia: Real Pictures 1979-1999; Introjection: Tony Oursler: 1976-1999; Lari Pittman; Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective; James Turrell: Spirit and Light; William Wegman: Paintings and Drawings, Photographs and Videotapes; and Robert Wilson’s Vision.
Ashley |
The most underrated museum in Houston. (2008-05-15 20:47:55) |
Chrissy |
We love to go there and check out what they have there after church on Sundays. (2007-10-31 09:49:09) |
