• Home
  • popular
  • EVENTS
  • submit-new-event
  • CHARITY GUIDE
  • Children
  • Education
  • Health
  • Veterans
  • Social Services
  • Arts + Culture
  • Animals
  • LGBTQ
  • New Charity
  • TRENDING NEWS
  • News
  • City Life
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • Home + Design
  • Travel
  • Real Estate
  • Restaurants + Bars
  • Arts
  • Society
  • Innovation
  • Fashion + Beauty
  • subscribe
  • about
  • series
  • Embracing Your Inner Cowboy
  • Green Living
  • Summer Fun
  • Real Estate Confidential
  • RX In the City
  • State of the Arts
  • Fall For Fashion
  • Cai's Odyssey
  • Comforts of Home
  • Good Eats
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2010
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2
  • Good Eats 2
  • HMNS Pirates
  • The Future of Houston
  • We Heart Hou 2
  • Music Inspires
  • True Grit
  • Hoops City
  • Green Living 2011
  • Cruizin for a Cure
  • Summer Fun 2011
  • Just Beat It
  • Real Estate 2011
  • Shelby on the Seine
  • Rx in the City 2011
  • Entrepreneur Video Series
  • Going Wild Zoo
  • State of the Arts 2011
  • Fall for Fashion 2011
  • Elaine Turner 2011
  • Comforts of Home 2011
  • King Tut
  • Chevy Girls
  • Good Eats 2011
  • Ready to Jingle
  • Houston at 175
  • The Love Month
  • Clifford on The Catwalk Htx
  • Let's Go Rodeo 2012
  • King's Harbor
  • FotoFest 2012
  • City Centre
  • Hidden Houston
  • Green Living 2012
  • Summer Fun 2012
  • Bookmark
  • 1987: The year that changed Houston
  • Best of Everything 2012
  • Real Estate 2012
  • Rx in the City 2012
  • Lost Pines Road Trip Houston
  • London Dreams
  • State of the Arts 2012
  • HTX Fall For Fashion 2012
  • HTX Good Eats 2012
  • HTX Contemporary Arts 2012
  • HCC 2012
  • Dine to Donate
  • Tasting Room
  • HTX Comforts of Home 2012
  • Charming Charlie
  • Asia Society
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2012
  • HTX Mistletoe on the go
  • HTX Sun and Ski
  • HTX Cars in Lifestyle
  • HTX New Beginnings
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2013
  • Zadok Sparkle into Spring
  • HTX Let's Go Rodeo 2013
  • HCC Passion for Fashion
  • BCAF 2013
  • HTX Best of 2013
  • HTX City Centre 2013
  • HTX Real Estate 2013
  • HTX France 2013
  • Driving in Style
  • HTX Island Time
  • HTX Super Season 2013
  • HTX Music Scene 2013
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2013 2
  • HTX Baker Institute
  • HTX Comforts of Home 2013
  • Mothers Day Gift Guide 2021 Houston
  • Staying Ahead of the Game
  • Wrangler Houston
  • First-time Homebuyers Guide Houston 2021
  • Visit Frisco Houston
  • promoted
  • eventdetail
  • Greystar Novel River Oaks
  • Thirdhome Go Houston
  • Dogfish Head Houston
  • LovBe Houston
  • Claire St Amant podcast Houston
  • The Listing Firm Houston
  • South Padre Houston
  • NextGen Real Estate Houston
  • Pioneer Houston
  • Collaborative for Children
  • Decorum
  • Bold Rock Cider
  • Nasher Houston
  • Houston Tastemaker Awards 2021
  • CityNorth
  • Urban Office
  • Villa Cotton
  • Luck Springs Houston
  • EightyTwo
  • Rectanglo.com
  • Silver Eagle Karbach
  • Mirador Group
  • Nirmanz
  • Bandera Houston
  • Milan Laser
  • Lafayette Travel
  • Highland Park Village Houston
  • Proximo Spirits
  • Douglas Elliman Harris Benson
  • Original ChopShop
  • Bordeaux Houston
  • Strike Marketing
  • Rice Village Gift Guide 2021
  • Downtown District
  • Broadstone Memorial Park
  • Gift Guide
  • Music Lane
  • Blue Circle Foods
  • Houston Tastemaker Awards 2022
  • True Rest
  • Lone Star Sports
  • Silver Eagle Hard Soda
  • Modelo recipes
  • Modelo Fighting Spirit
  • Athletic Brewing
  • Rodeo Houston
  • Silver Eagle Bud Light Next
  • Waco CVB
  • EnerGenie
  • HLSR Wine Committee
  • All Hands
  • El Paso
  • Avenida Houston
  • Visit Lubbock Houston
  • JW Marriott San Antonio
  • Silver Eagle Tupps
  • Space Center Houston
  • Central Market Houston
  • Boulevard Realty
  • Travel Texas Houston
  • Alliantgroup
  • Golf Live
  • DC Partners
  • Under the Influencer
  • Blossom Hotel
  • San Marcos Houston
  • Photo Essay: Holiday Gift Guide 2009
  • We Heart Hou
  • Walker House
  • HTX Good Eats 2013
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2013
  • HTX Culture Motive
  • HTX Auto Awards
  • HTX Ski Magic
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings 2014
  • HTX Texas Traveler
  • HTX Cifford on the Catwalk 2014
  • HTX United Way 2014
  • HTX Up to Speed
  • HTX Rodeo 2014
  • HTX City Centre 2014
  • HTX Dos Equis
  • HTX Tastemakers 2014
  • HTX Reliant
  • HTX Houston Symphony
  • HTX Trailblazers
  • HTX_RealEstateConfidential_2014
  • HTX_IW_Marks_FashionSeries
  • HTX_Green_Street
  • Dating 101
  • HTX_Clifford_on_the_Catwalk_2014
  • FIVE CultureMap 5th Birthday Bash
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2014 TEST
  • HTX Texans
  • Bergner and Johnson
  • HTX Good Eats 2014
  • United Way 2014-15_Single Promoted Articles
  • Holiday Pop Up Shop Houston
  • Where to Eat Houston
  • Copious Row Single Promoted Articles
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2014
  • htx woodford reserve manhattans
  • Zadok Swiss Watches
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings 2015
  • HTX Charity Challenge 2015
  • United Way Helpline Promoted Article
  • Boulevard Realty
  • Fusion Academy Promoted Article
  • Clifford on the Catwalk Fall 2015
  • United Way Book Power Promoted Article
  • Jameson HTX
  • Primavera 2015
  • Promenade Place
  • Hotel Galvez
  • Tremont House
  • HTX Tastemakers 2015
  • HTX Digital Graffiti/Alys Beach
  • MD Anderson Breast Cancer Promoted Article
  • HTX RealEstateConfidential 2015
  • HTX Vargos on the Lake
  • Omni Hotel HTX
  • Undies for Everyone
  • Reliant Bright Ideas Houston
  • 2015 Houston Stylemaker
  • HTX Renewable You
  • Urban Flats Builder
  • Urban Flats Builder
  • HTX New York Fashion Week spring 2016
  • Kyrie Massage
  • Red Bull Flying Bach
  • Hotze Health and Wellness
  • ReadFest 2015
  • Alzheimer's Promoted Article
  • Formula 1 Giveaway
  • Professional Skin Treatments by NuMe Express

    Road to Peace

    Monumental Menil exhibit looks at the hard and dangerous road to peace for nonviolence advocates

    Tarra Gaines
    Oct 6, 2014 | 1:13 pm

    Violence is sexy, at least that’s how it’s often depicted in pop culture and even art. Nonviolence, though, that’s a bit tougher to picture.

     

    Could nonviolence take the form of a pair of sandals, glasses, a bowl and book, the last possessions of one India man on Jan 30, 1948? Is it found in the image of an older man looking again through the bars of a cell that had imprisoned him for almost two decades? Perhaps it’s a small figure in white and black standing in the path of four tanks.

     
     

      “What does peace look like?” is the question the Menil Collection asks in its monumental exhibition organized by Josef Helfenstein.  

     

     

    “What does peace look like?” is the question the Menil Collection asks in its monumental exhibition Experiments with Truth: Gandhi and Images of Nonviolence, organized by Menil director Josef Helfenstein. These photographs of Gandhi’s last possession, Nelson Mandela’s revisit to Robben Island and Tank Man of Tiananmen Square are some of the answers to this question.

     

    In an early walk through the exhibition before it opened on Oct 2, Gandhi’s birthday, Helfenstein explained the problem with trying to depict nonviolence.

     

    “It’s so much more sexy to document violence,” Helfenstein admitted. “That’s what TV is interested in or the media. It’s just the way we are. It’s quite complicated to visualize nonviolence.”

     

     Beyond Gandhi

     

    While it might be easy to summarize the exhibition as the Gandhi show, and the life and work of Gandhi are its inspiration, the exhibition sets out to chronicle those complicated ways we have imagined and on rare occasioned, after much struggle have achieved peace.

     

     

      “Even if they attack you, even if they kill you, you don’t fight back. It’s a very noble attitude, and in a way it’s a very spiritual thing too. It’s kind of scary to do.” 

     
     

    Once inside the first gallery the exhibition begins with photographs of Gandhi’s last days taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson. On other walls, we find portraits of those advocates for justice and peace who came before, like Henry David Thoreau, Sojourner Truth and Leo Tolstoy.

     

    Going deeper into the exhibition, viewers move back and forth through time, place, art and artifact, to explore the struggle against violence, spotting along the journey Rembrandt’s Christ Teaching, a 8th century Folio from a Qur’an, Ai Weiwei’s arrangement of 10 Buddha feet from sculptures of the Northern Wei period and Dan Flavin’s untitled fluorescent sculpture dedicated to the students killed at Kent State and Jackson State University.

     

    The exhibition illustrates the path to peace is a hard, dangerous road.

     

    “There’s nothing easy about nonviolence. Many people think that nonviolence is sitting back and being afraid and not doing anything, but of course it’s exactly the opposite, said Helfenstein and went on to describe the some of the core beliefs of many nonviolent action campaigns: “Even if they attack you, even if they kill you, you don’t fight back. It’s a very noble attitude, and in a way it’s a very spiritual thing too. It’s kind of scary to do.”

     

     The dialogue

     

    Some of these images and works are well known, others rare, but by showing them together Helfenstein wishes to create a dialog between the pieces and viewer, which seems quite appropriate since many of these artists, advocates and philosophers were influenced by each other. Perhaps this is most crystallized in the photo, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the SCLC Office, where King stands in front of a portrait of Gandhi.

     
     

    Some of these images and works are well known, others rare, but by showing them together Helfenstein wishes to create a dialog between the pieces and viewer.

     
     

    The works are powerful by themselves, but their juxtaposition with each other is what halted me in my walk, and forced me to pause and see. The arrangement of works within each gallery or on a single wall are particularly striking. For example, Warhol’s Little Race Riot is placed besides Theaster Gates’s recent work, Hose for Fire and Other Tragic Encounters, created from decommissioned fire hoses.

     

    Art and artifact even seem to call to each other from across galleries and perhaps time. My favorite moment of this call and response came when I wandered around a wooden sculpture of Saint Martin and the Beggar (ca. 1500-10) and then looked back into the previous gallery to find when viewing it from that exact angle it almost appeared that both Saint Martin and the beggar were giving comfort to the blue figures of Yves Klein’s Hiroshima.

     

    “That is, of course, an attempt to create a kind of dialogue between the pieces without having to explain them,” Helfenstein told me when I mentioned this angle of sight and insight I had found. “The idea would be to not do too much pedagogy but to allow this kind of discovery. The whole relationship between the galleries and between these different types of material is very important. . .the hope is that there is a kind of associated dialogue.”

     

    The exhibition begins and end in the Menil’s West Gallery, but the spirit of the show moves out throughout the collection and, it is Helfenstein’s hope, into our city.

     

    Running simultaneously and next to Experiments with Truth is Amar Kanwar’s mixed media installation The Sovereign Forest. The east wing of the collection will showcase a concurrent exhibition the Menil is calling “Modern and Contemporary Experiments with Truth” that includes South Korean born, New York based artist Kimsooja’s video installation A Needle Woman; animated films by William Kentridge; and a very rare treat, a gallery of Mark Rothko alternate panels painted for the Rothko Chapel but not used in the final display.

     

    The staff of the Menil have also reached out to other institutions and organizations in Houston to present Gandhi's Legacy: Houston Perspectives, four months of programs, exhibitions, films and lectures. Rice, UH, the MFAH, the Asia Society and many more will be pondering the question “What does peace look like?” and they’ll all be looking for individual Houstonians to voice their own answers.

     

    ------------------

     

     Experiments with Truth: Gandhi and Images of Nonviolence runs through Feb. 1, 2015.

    Margaret Bourke-White, Gandhi using his spinning wheel at home, 1946, gelatin silver print.

    Outdoor Film Screening: Mahatma: Life of Gandhi, 1869-1948
      
    Photo by © Margaret Bourke-White Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
    Margaret Bourke-White, Gandhi using his spinning wheel at home, 1946, gelatin silver print.
    unspecified
    news/arts

    Best July Art

    Where to see art in Houston now: 9 fun new exhibits opening in July

    Tarra Gaines
    Jul 9, 2025 | 4:30 pm
    ​Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"
    Photo courtesy of Artechouse
    Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"

    Art blooms in our world class museums but also on our city streets this July. From exhibitions featuring traditional paintings and sculptures to high tech immersive and interactive shows, we’re weaving art into the best of summertime fun and dreaming up beautiful new artistic creations all over Houston.

    “Town Meeting 1978-2028” at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    Pioneering Houston-based interdisciplinary artists Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin continue their decades-long project to create new and sometimes monumental artworks in response to little-known pre-Stonewall queer histories. For this latest exhibition, the duo explore a more recent and influential piece of Houston history, “Town Meeting I,” the pivotal convening of 4,000 LGBTQIA+ Houstonians at the Astro Arena in 1978. For this show at Art League, they’ve used their “wind drawing” technique of stenciling unfixed charcoal powder on paper and blowing it away, leaving a ghost-image. Using archival images of “Town Meeting I” as the bases of their stenciling, the finished “wind drawings” highlight the ephemerality, beauty, and loss of queer histories. In addition to these new works, Vaughan and Margolin hope to inspire, facilitate, and develop programming in 2028 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of “Town Meeting 1.”

    “Fragmentos de un sueño que yo también soñé (Fragments of a Dream I Also Dreamed)" at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    “Every house is a body, and every individual body is a house full of memories and hopes,” says award-winning Venezuela born, Chicago-based artist, Jeffly Gabriela Molina, of her artistic focus. Molina’s fragmented, layered, and figural compositions explore that idea of home and memories. Delving into memories and stories, these figurative compositions, depicting people and relationships, fluctuate between stories of the present, past, and future. Taken together, the works in “Fragmentos de un sueño” aim to visually capture the feelings of vulnerability, nostalgia, and hope embedded in the experience of many immigrants. Art League notes that Molina’s pieces emphasize optimism over hardship, specifically addressing the longing for a home that no longer exists while striving to create a new one.

    “Every Fiber of Their Bodies” at Art League Houston (now through July 20)
    Working with natural fibers such as linen, paper collage, and hand-spun paper yarn made from calligraphy paper and book pages, textile artist Lin Qiqing weaves stories ofhuman relationships, gender, immigration, and language. As the title hints, the labor-intensive weaving process brings thematic depth to the images of bodies depicted in the pieces. The woven pieces also make connections to the natural world, as when Lin crumples then smooths handmade mulberry paper to resemble human skin, or when she uses handwoven fiber to mimic the body’s movement. Lin process includes research and experimenting with natural materials to explore themes of the internal human struggle for existence and our interactions with the world around us.

    “Annual Juried Exhibition” at Archway Gallery (now through July 31)
    For the 17th year, the artist owned Archway Gallery celebrates Houston artists with its juried exhibition of area artists who are not members of the space. This year’s exhibition is juried by Project Row Houses founder and MacArthur "genius" fellow, Rick Lowe. The acclaimed artist and social activist has selected work from over 35 area artists representing a diversity of medium and styles. Sales from the exhibition will go to Houston’s Brave Little Company, the theater company for Houston’s kids and their gown ups.

    “Foyer Installation: René Magritte” at Menil Collection (now through August 3)
    After a critically acclaimed trip to Australia, some of our favorite Belgian-born Houstonians are back home. Yes, the Magritte paintings have returned to the Menil Collection after taking a star turn in a monumental Magritte retrospective at Sydney’s Art Gallery of New South Wales. Now the Menil is celebrating their return with a special installation in the main building foyer. The Menil Collection owns the largest collection of work by René Magritte outside the artist’s native Belgium, and this display focuses on a core group of paintings from the 1950s and ’60s that truly represent Magritte’s status as a master creator of impossible painted worlds and an icon of the Surrealist movement. The paintings were purchased within a couple years of their making by the museum’s founders, John and Dominique de Menil. They represent and important part of 20th century art history, as the de Menils became Magritte’s biggest champions in the United States, helping to shape the artist’s reception and reputation in the postwar American art world. Stop by to welcome them home and slip into their enigmatic wonder.

    “Blooming Wonders” at Artechouse (now through September)
    The latest immersive exhibition from the Houston venue that brings art, science, and technology home together, Artechouse, lets the flowers blossom. The exhibition contains several dynamic installations, including “Timeless Butterflies,” a 270 degrees projection space that puts visitors in the middle of a butterfly cloud. Audiences journey with a flock of butterflies into an immense garden of flowers. Another immersive piece, “Infinite Blooms” takes audiences on a journey through an endless digital forest of cherry blossoms. The installation, “Akousmaflore et Lux” creates a very different type of garden where plants transform into musical instruments. “Clay Pillar” by Interactive Items / Vadim Mirgorodskii invites visitors to sculpt new forms using clay and a little help from an AI program. Note that “Blooming Wonders” runs simultaneously with the rock ‘n’ roll exhibition, “Amplified” with “Wonders” open during the daytime.

    “Weci | Koninut” at Avenida Houston (now through September 1)
    Houston is a place for big dreams, and this wondrous outdoor exhibition near George R. Brown Convention Center gives us the space to do so. Created by First Nations artists Julie-Christina Picher and Dave Jenniss, this interactive installation weaves together visual arts, Indigenous storytelling and sensory technologies in the form of six immense sculptural dreamcatchers. Each of these dreamcatchers are unique and represent one of the six seasons from the Atikamekw culture, an Indigenous people in Canada. Activated by people passing by, the dreamcatchers come to life with lights, sounds, and story, making the whole installation truly interactive. “Weci | Koninut” creators say that they want the installation to offer a total immersion experience for visitors, to create a moment where nature and dreams converge. Each piece offers a place for the public to slow down, sit, reflect, and yes, dream.

    New Murals in the East End and Midtown (ongoing)
    We could spend days viewing all the new murals painted across town, just in the last few years. But in honor of summer outdoor art viewing, we thought we’d spotlight two noteworthy new additions to our city-wide gallery of murals. As part of his major exhibition last spring at the CAMH, Vincent Valdez worked with San Antonio muralist Rubio and local students to create “Memoria, Memory.” Dedicated to his mother Theresa Santana Valdez (1947–2020), the vivid mural on historic Navigation Boulevard features her favorite bird and flower. Over in Midtown, check out “Stellar Illumination,” the latest installation in the city’s Big Walls Big Dreams mural series. Created by Robin Munro, also known as Dread, the seven stories high “Illumination” depicts a celestial scene of an astronaut gazing at Earth from space.

    “The Weight of Place” at Anya Tish Gallery (July 11-August 23)
    This group exhibition will explore themes of memory and the emotional, psychological, and physical landscapes memories can evoke. The will showcase three contemporary Texas-based female artists: Megan Harrison, Marisol Valencia, and Lillian Warren. While these artists work in different mediums–including large-scale paintings, mixed media works, and elegant porcelain sculptures–they are inspired by personal reflection and nature to create artworks that reflect on the ways we hold onto the past through sensory experience.

    “In Residence: 18th Edition” at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (July 12-June 27, 2026)
    This annual exhibition celebrating the Center’s Artist Residency Program reaches it’s big 18th anniversary. Over the many years, the residency program has supported so many emerging, mid-career, and established artists working in all craft media. The program gives them a space for creative exploration, exchange, and collaboration with other artists, arts professionals, and the public. Now arts and craft lovers will get a chance to see the culmination of that work with this exhibition featuring pieces in fiber, clay, copper, and found objects by 2024-2025 resident artists Prerata Bradley, Stephanie Bursese, Atisha Fordyce, Nela Garzón, Gbenga Komolafe, Gabo Martinez, Preetika Rajgariah, Macon Reed, Jamie Sterling Pitt, Adam Whitney, and Dongyi Wu.

    “My Texas” at Our Texas Cultural Center (July 27-August 22)
    Award winning, Russian-born photographer, Anatoliy Kosterev, chronicles his personal exploration of Texas with photographs he took around the Lone Star State. The photos offer extraordinary views of Texas, from our dynamic cities to dramatic and sometimes lonesome landscapes. Kosterev’s photographic style blends science and technology with an artistic eye. He puts those two perspectives into practice when documenting all facets of life in Texas. Using HDR, drone imaging, macro photography, and traditional camera methods, he captures a diversity of subjects from quiet human moments to vast landscapes to delicate close-ups of insects and flowers.

    \u200bArtechouse presents "Blooming Worlds"
      

    Photo courtesy of Artechouse

    Artechouse presents "Blooming Worlds."

    museumsopeningsvisual-art
    news/arts

    most read posts

    Netflix chef's modern Mexican restaurant opens in Houston this month

    Houston restaurant serves Beyoncé a Southern feast and more top stories

    More rain brings further flood risk as Texas death toll tops 100

    Loading...