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Iconic Houston Art Car Parade revs up new day and night 'experience' for 2021

Enjoy different Art Car experiences by day and night this year.

Photo by Morris Malakoff

In a car-centric town such as this, few local events are more consummately Bayou City than the annual Houston Art Car Parade. Typically, the parade draws tens of thousands downtown who clamor to view the cool, cutting-edge, and kooky car designs.

Sadly, COVID caused things to stall last year and the 34-year tradition was forced to go virtual due to the pandemic. This year, with COVID still looming, the parade is making a three-point turn.

Parade organizer, The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, has announced the 2021 Houston Art Car Experience running May 14-16. The three-day event will take place at the organization’s five-acre campus located at 2334 Gulf Terminal Rd.

Thus, rather than take the show on the road, the Orange Show is inviting locals to stop by and check out the approximately 80s artsy and never-before-seen automobiles.

Art Car by day
Guests who purchase a ticket ($10 adults, $5 for kids and 12 and under) online will have access to the Houston Art Car Parade Experience By Day at a selected ticket time. Visitors can embark on a quarter-mile Art Car Walk, complete with a digital, self-guided tour. Each vehicle will display a unique QR code, which, when scanned, will reveal audio and video clips of the artist speaking about their work.

Expect daily drivers, lowriders, SLABs, painted cars, contraptions, mobile sculptures, and many more, a press release promises. Additionally, children’s craft activities, food and drinks, and art car merchandise will be available.

Art Car by night
As the sun sets on the evenings on Friday, May 14th and Saturday, May 15th, the space will transform into the Houston Art Car Experience By Night. The illuminated event harks to the colorful annual Art Car Ball and features with live music, light and projection art installations, elaborate costumes, special performances, and more. (Music and art lineups will be announced on April 1, per a press release).

Tickets for the Houston Art Car Experience By Night start at $40 at www.artcarexperience.com, with reserved VIP sections of 4 available for $1,000. Funds raised will directly benefit the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art and its production of the 35th Annual Houston Art Car Parade Weekend, scheduled for April 7-10, 2022.

To assure visitors of safety procedures, The Orange Show has shared these pandemic protocols:

TheArt Car Experience will take place throughout a 5-acre outdoor campus; no guests will be allowed indoors.
Only 250 individual tickets per hour will be available for the Houston Art Car Experience By Day, and each Houston Art Car Experience By Night event will be capped at 500 attendees.
Guests attending the Houston Art Car Experience By Day are encouraged to limit their stay on the property for 60-90 minutes to allow for social distancing.
All guests will be required to wear a face covering while on the property.
Staff, volunteers, and vendors will have daily temperature checks, must pass a COVID-19 questionnaire prior to beginning their shift, and will be required to wear face coverings at all times.
Restrooms will be cleaned and sanitized regularly.
Hand washing and hand-sanitizing stations will be placed throughout the venue.
Signage encouraging social distancing will be prominent throughout the venue.

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Movie Review

Great directing and acting power The Christophers to artistic heights

Photo by Claudette Barius

Michaela Coel and Ian McKellen in The Christophers.

Director Steven Soderbergh is one of those filmmakers who — aside from the Ocean’s series — never seems to make the same kind of movie twice. He is somehow able to adapt his abilities to all sorts of different stories, making each of them as compelling as any other. His latest masterclass is in the London-set film, The Christophers.

Lori Butler (Michaela Coel), who restores art for a living, is approached by brother and sister Sallie and Barnaby Sklar (Jessica Gunning and James Corden) with a scheme. They want her to become the new assistant for their aging father, Julian (Ian McKellen), a famous artist known for a series called “The Christophers,” in order to gain access to unfinished paintings from the series and complete them herself.

Lori accepts the deal despite having some uneasy feelings about Julian, with whom she had a bad interaction years ago. Julian is just as wary, both because he knows of his children’s interest in the unfinished works, and because he would prefer to be left in peace. Although the trepidation on both sides continues for the bulk of the story, a grudging respect arises between two artists who know skill when they see it.

Directed by Soderbergh and written by Ed Solomon, who last collaborated on No Sudden Move, the film is astonishing in its ability to be compelling with such a small story. Much of the film is spent inside Julian’s multi-story home as Julian and Lori have low-level confrontations about a variety of things, including the meaning of his art, her abilities, the fate of the remaining “Christophers,” and more. Each conversation brings out more detail about their worldviews and their thoughts about their lot in life.

Much of the success of the film lies in the performances of McKellen and Coel. The 86-year-old McKellen has not lost his ability to astonish with the spoken word, and the monologues he delivers are engrossing even when they’re about mundane things. Coel, best known for the 2020 HBO show I May Destroy You, is a great foil for McKellen, never backing down from his challenges and giving her own unique takes on her lines.

While the film can be enjoyable for non-art lovers, those who appreciate the vagaries of the art world will have a lot to chew on. Soderbergh and Solomon debate a lot of aspects of art, including whether it’s possible to separate the art from the person making it, why some art is valued more than others, the ethics of forgery, and more. Because the film is about a fictional artist, it gives the filmmakers a bit more freedom in their criticisms.

Aside from McKellen and Coel, Gunning (Baby Reindeer) and Corden are the only other two people who get significant screen time in the film. Both of them are, let’s say, acquired tastes, and each gives an elevated performance that matches the energy of their respective characters. Tilly Botsford makes a nice impression in a small role as Julian’s masseuse.

Soderbergh’s last three films — Presence, Black Bag, and now The Christophers — have nothing in common other than the expert filmmaker helming all of them. When you can make a ghost story, a spy film, and a small film about artists equally interesting, you know you’re doing something right.

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The Christophers is now playing in theaters.

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Movie Review

Great directing and acting power The Christophers to artistic heights