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    sticks in the city

    Climb aboard this stunning and sticky new exhibit at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

    Tarra Gaines
    Jun 13, 2018 | 10:20 am

    Viewing art doesn’t usually require signing a safety waiver before the seeing, but then most sculptures don’t thrillingly bridge the divide between art and spectator like the latest incarnation of Mike and Doug Starn’sBig Bambú project, This Thing Called Life, now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

    For five summers in a row, the MFAH has presented a large-scale immersive installation inside the Caroline Wiess Law Building, an offering that has quickly become the coolest annual art tradition for many Houstonians. But this year’s piece from acclaimed contemporary artists, Mike and Doug Starn, might be the most ambitious yet, as the twin brothers seem to have grown a vast bamboo forest for us to explore.

    And yes, the Museum is requiring visitors to read the guidelines for experiencing the installation and sign a waiver before making that journey into This Thing Called Life.

    A bamboo tsunami


    Life rises from the floor of Cullinan Hall, like a bamboo tsunami 30 feet into the air, creating a bridge onto the second floor the balcony of the Upper Brown Pavilion. Explorers may enter the piece from the second floor, traversing the bridge and then walk through the tree tops, following the bamboo road as it gently spirals down to the floor. Those who have any fear of heights, balance or some mobility issues, can still experience the enormity and beauty of the piece by roaming through it from the ground.

    Throughout their artistic career, which began in childhood working on each other’s paintings, the Starns have focused on themes of interconnectedness, especially in nature and in human relationships. The Big Bambú series began a decade ago as a sculptural exploration of some of those ideas, which led to ever evolving manifestations of the work for institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome, and the Naoshima Museum, Japan.

    Interconnections

    “The original idea for Big Bambú had nothing to do with bamboo. It was about these interconnected elements that create the structure of life,” explained Mike Starn at a recent “Conversations with the Director” program with the Starns and MFAH director Gary Tinterow.

    “The Bambú series was born from our own personal philosophy of how things grow, whether we’re talking about a culture, person or family. It’s through random occurrences, trajectories from history, politics or fears and hopes,” continued Doug Starn. “All these things interconnect and we all live with that and travel forward in life through all these interactions.”

    No two installations are the same and each is created by the Starns and a team of artist/rock climbers specifically for the space it inhabits. According to the MFAH, Big Bambú installations have been experienced by more than two million visitors in the last 10 years.

    Life Journey

    This Houston installation consists of approximately 3000 lashed-together poles of bamboo selected from a farm in Georgia. For all the Big Bambú installations, the brothers work with specially trained rock climbers who do much of the construction. Fifteen artists/climbers, including four local climbers, have worked on building and ensuring the safety of This Thing Called Life since April 30.

    Traveling forward through this Life, calls for rubber-soled shoes, no bare feet, heels, or flip-flops, and being able to walking without assistance. You also need to travel sober, and mindful of swinging cameras and phones for all the selfies we’ll no doubt be taking. However, carrying a sense of wonder while walking is certainly allowed and encouraged.

    Warnings aside, one of the most remarkable, and seemingly intentional, aspects of Big Bambú is how wild and precarious the installation looks, yet how stable and safe it feels while on the journey from air to ground. Big Bambú gives us a new perspective on both the forest and the trees. And for a few minutes, as we glimpse other sojourners walking the pathway ahead and behind us, we might even feel a slight vibration from those invisible ties — made visible through art — that bind our lives together.

    ---

    The ticketed exhibition Mike + Doug Starn: Big Bambú This Thing Called Life remains on view (and ready to climb) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston through September 3, 2018.

    The installation of Mike + Doug Starn: Big Bambú lasted for more than a month.

    Big Bambu installation
      
    Mike and Doug Starn Courtesy Photo
    The installation of Mike + Doug Starn: Big Bambú lasted for more than a month.
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    A Roman Holiday (Season)

    All roads lead to Houston museum's blockbuster exhibit of Imperial Rome

    Tarra Gaines
    Jun 11, 2025 | 3:15 pm
    ​The Museum of Fine Arts Houston presents "Art and Life in Imperial Rome: Trajan and His Times"
    Photo courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
    The Museum of Fine Arts Houston presents "Art and Life in Imperial Rome: Trajan and His Times" ("Statue of Trajan" Minturno, Italy, 2nd century, marble, National Archaeological Museum, Naples)

    Houston's holiday season will have a distinctly Roman feeling this year, as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is bringing the glory of the Gladiator era to Texas. On November 2, 2025 through January 25, 2026 the MFAH presents the monumental new exhibition “Art and Life in Imperial Rome: Trajan and His Times.”

    Featuring 160 objects of antiquity, including marble sculptures, frescoes, mosaics, delicate glass vessels, and exquisite bronze artifacts, the exhibition will transport visitors back in time to the Roman Empire during a flowering of art and architecture. The MFAH partnered with the Saint Louis Art Museum to organize the exhibition, which will showcase many pieces that have never been on view in the U.S.

    While Emperor Trajan might not be the most famous — or in some cases, most infamous — of the Roman emperors, he ruled between 98 and 117 C.E. during the empire’s height and was the second of the so-called “Five Good Emperors” of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty. He was also the first emperor born outside of present-day Italy, in what is now Andalusia, Spain. During his reign, he granted citizenship and rights to some peoples from conquered lands. The exhibition will explore how this time period expanded what it meant to be a Roman and how art reflected Rome’s power and promoted the empire’s values and ideals.

    \u200bThe Museum of Fine Arts Houston presents "Art and Life in Imperial Rome: Trajan and His Times"
      

    Photo courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

    The Museum of Fine Arts Houston presents "Art and Life in Imperial Rome: Trajan and His Times" ("Statue of Trajan" Minturno, Italy, 2nd century, marble, National Archaeological Museum, Naples)

    From statues of prominent men and women of the era, including Trajan, to vivid frescoes and furnishing from the villas of Pompeii, the objects in the exhibition will tell fascinating cultural and political stories of life in imperial Rome. To add context to the artworks and objects of antiquity, the MFAH will recreate a section of Trajan’s Column, which was a towering pillar with a spiraling narrative frieze, one of the few monumental sculptures to have survived the fall of Rome.

    “Art and Life in Imperial Rome: Trajan and His Times” brings such a wealth of objects to Houston thanks to unprecedented loans from the renowned antiquities collections of Italian museums including Museo Nazionale Romano, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, the Parco Archeologico di Ostia, and the Musei Vaticani. It would would likely take months of travel across Italy to see this much art.

    “This is truly a rare opportunity for U.S. audiences to experience spectacular objects from this glorious era of the Roman Empire,” said Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams chair of the MFAH, in a statement. “We are enormously grateful to our colleagues in Rome, Naples, and Vatican City for lending these treasures to us and broadening the appreciation of Italy’s cultural heritage.”

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