Museum of Fine Arts, Houston draws up electrifying exhibit and Van Gogh tribute

This spring, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston turns the light on lighting innovation as well as artistic inspiration with two illuminating new shows “Electrifying Design: A Century of Lighting” and “Hockney-Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature.”  

As the first large-scale exhibition of its kind in the U.S, “Electrifying” will trace how a century of lighting design influenced artistic innovation within major avant-garde design movements.

Showcasing 85 rare or limited-production lighting designs, the exhibition includes works by renowned designers such as Achille Castiglioni, Christian Dell, Greta Magnusson Grossman, Poul Henningsen, Ingo Maurer, Verner Panton, Gino Sarfatti, Ettore Sottsass, and Wilhelm Wagenfeld. 

“Lighting design has both transformed our daily life and influenced major design movements over the past 100 years. These novel creations blend advances in technology with artistic expression; they will open visitors’ eyes to innovative design in the everyday,” said MFAH director Gary Tinterow, in a statement announcing the exhibition.

Organized by themes of Typologies, the Lightbulb and Quality of Light, “Electrifying” will feature works ranging from early expressions in the 1920s to 21st-century national and international cutting-edge designs.

“Lighting as a field has often been pushed, literally, into the shadows. This exhibition highlights its role as a leading indicator of stylistic and technical change,” described Cindi Strauss, curator of Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design at the MFAH, in the same statement.

The MFAH continues to shed new light on artistic inspiration–though in a somewhat more figurative way–with its second blockbuster spring exhibition, “Hockney-Van Gogh,” a presentation of 57 selected landscape paintings and drawings by Vincent van Gogh and contemporary artist David Hockney.

The exhibition illustrates how Van Gogh’s perspective on nature influenced and inspired Hockney, especially the series of paintings of the in Yorkshire Wolds, in northeastern England Hockney produced in the early 2000s.

“Hockney once asked, ‘How can you be bored with nature?’” said Ann Dumas, consulting curator of European art for the MFAH, in a press release. “In this exhibition, we discover both artists’ profound love of nature expressed through brilliant color and the capacity to see the world with fresh eyes.”

When presented alongside landscapes seen through Van Gogh’s eyes, the exhibition heightens understanding of the inspirational connection between the artists.

“This exhibition offers visitors an extraordinary opportunity to see these two visionary artists side-by-side,” Tinterow added. “We are delighted to collaborate with David Hockney and the Van Gogh Museum to bring these exceptional works to our audience in Houston.”

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“Electrifying Design: A Century of Lighting” and “Hockney-Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature” open February 21 at the MFAH.  

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents "Electrifying Design: A Century of Lighting" beginning February 21.

Photo courtesy of Drift

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents "Electrifying Design: A Century of Lighting" beginning February 21.

museums

Houston museum sounds off after vandals deface artist's painting

Clarence Heyward painting with damage at HMAAC

Photo courtesy of HMAAC

Clarence Heyward's Man in the Garden was intentionally damaged

The Houston Museum of African American Culture (HMAAC) announced on Monday, June 8, that a museum visitor intentionally damaged one of its paintings on May 21. The damage included a puncture and large cut or scrape in a painting by North Carolina artist Clarence Heyward called Man in the Garden, part of the EDEN exhibition in the downstairs gallery.

HMAAC CEO Emeritus and exhibition curator John Guess Jr. held a press conference at the museum on Tuesday, June 9, and said the vandalism was representative of continued bigoted attitudes in Houston.

"If we're honest about it, this is a very racist town," he said. "We're the fourth-most economically segregated city in the country. Houston has the highest poverty rate of any of the 25 metropolitan cities. And no one talks about that.This town itself has some serious issues. We're demographically diverse, but we remain segregated."

According to Guess, two young white men entered the museum carrying a large bag. They visited an exhibition of Kandy G. Lopez's work upstairs, where they asked a staff member to take a picture of them in front of a painting. When the staff member obliged, the two men made an obscene gesture at the work.

Later, they briefly went downstair to the Heyward exhibit before quickly leaving. Afterwards, staff discovered the defacement. Unfortunately, the museum's cameras had malfunctioned the day before the attack, and a work order to repair them was placed hours before the suspects arrived.

HMAAC says they have filed a report with HPD, but have not yet heard of any movement in the case. This incident is the first time that HMAAC has had a work defaced, though there have been previous incidences of threats against the museum in its logbook. A man also showed up at the museum in the past with a Bible claiming that God had told him to take vengeance on the museum, though he was removed before he caused any damage.

After initially taking the painting down to start reconstruction, the museum said they returned it on the wall to illustrate the damage. Guess compared leaving the marred painting up to the mother of Emmett Till's mother insisting on an open casket funeral after her son was abducted and lynched. The exhibition ended Saturday.

Heyward's painting highlights one of his signature techniques of portraying Black people, specifically his family members, with green skin. In his artist statement, the Brooklyn-born Heyward describes the techniques as linking skin tone to the cinematic process of green screening, where green backgrounds are used to project computer-generated new realities. "This provides an alternative entry into the conversation of existing while Black in America," he said in the statement.

HMAAC vowed to continue displaying works by Black artists despite the vandalism.

"Our immediate priority is supporting the artist and ensuring the proper restoration of the work,'" said CEO Davinia Reed in a statement. "At the same time, we remain committed to presenting exhibitions that encourage learning, reflection, and dialogue. Acts intended to intimidate, censor, or damage cultural expression will not deter us from our mission."

Photo courtesy of HMAAC

Clarence Heyward's Man in the Garden was intentionally damaged

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