Suplex and Rice University, Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts present Everything we want it to be… at all times, featuring the work of Houston-based artists John Forse, Lane Hagood, Bradley Kerl, Cody Ledvina, Gabriel Martinez and Lauren Moya Ford. The impetus for the collection came initially in the form of a response to traditional group shows: Curator-driven exhibitions in which a central thematic, usually a pet interest of the curator, became the connective tissue between the work of disparate artists.

Instead, Everything we want it to be… at all times attempts to be a group show about a group — it attempts to give visual and artistic form to a series of conversations, relationships, collaborations, friendships, jokes and revelations.

Curators Max Fields and Rachel Vogel designed a series of meetings for the artists to discuss their individual practices, their relationships with the other artists and the possibilities and limitations of collaboration. Rather than reducing the curatorial framework to a set of dates and instructions to follow, the artists were asked to respond to a series of questions that explore the boundaries of individual artistic representation and identity within the context of a group exhibition.

The dialogue-focused meetings offered the artists and curators a creative and transformative production process that allowed ideas to be exchanged and debated freely. Throughout the meetings new complex narratives were created and in the exhibition, they are presented in visual, performative, relational and auditory forms.

This exhibition will be accompanied by a downloadable digital catalogue via the Suplex website. The catalogue will include a selection of transcriptions and images from the group meetings as well as a series of essays written by the curators and organizers.

On view through Sept. 18.