LITERATURE + LECTURES

Buffalo Bayou Partnership announces Confluence: Points of View on Buffalo Bayou, a multi-year contemporary art project that will introduce innovative public art within the environs of Houston’s historic waterway. The first manifestation of Confluence is a March-April 2009 series of Artists Talks by participating artists, Matthew Coolidge/The Center for Land Use Interpretation, Mark Dion, Teresa Hubbard /Alexander Birchler, and Pedro Reyes.

The Buffalo Bayou Partnership, an organization that oversees beautification and redevelopment efforts along Houston’s historic waterway, has a long history of supporting public art on Buffalo Bayou from temporary architecture to dramatic permanent lighting design. These significant commissions by prominent artists and designers, such as Mel Chin and L’Observatoire International, undertaken over the last two decades, have established visual landmarks along the Bayou that contribute to the mapping of the waterway, and enhance public engagement with the bayou.

Confluence: Points of View on Buffalo Bayou will invite local, regional and international artists to create new temporary and permanent public artworks, integrated public programming, and special events for the 10-mile stretch of the Buffalo Bayou from the Memorial Park to the industrial Ship Turning Basin, connecting diverse Houston neighborhoods to the history and present-day life of the Bayou. Artists have been selected on the basis of their past work and their ability to engage the imaginative landscape of the bayou.

The Artists Talks series will introduce past work and proposals by artists invited to develop projects for Buffalo Bayou. The artists have conducted site visits to the bayou, presented preliminary ideas, and are in the research and development stage of their projects.

CONFLUENCE: ARTISTS TALKS

Co-presented with the Core Residency Program Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Latin Maecenas of the Latin American art department of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston; and the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts.

• Matthew Coolidge, The Center for Land Use Interpretation
Saturday, March 21, 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Downstream: A Center for Land Use Interpretation Tour of Houston’s Water and Oil
Departs from Allen’s Landing (Corner of Commerce and Main Streets)
$75 per person ($50 for students); includes lunch.
Reservations: 713-752-0314 ext. 3
Please note, cancellations must take place by March 7

CLUI founder/director Matthew Coolidge leads this custom-designed boat tour from downtown Houston to the San Jacinto Monument. 

• Mark Dion
Thursday, April 2, 7 p.m.
Freed Auditorium, Glassell School of Art, 5101 Montrose
Free Admission

• Pedro Reyes
Tuesday, April 14, 6:30 p.m.
American General Conference Room
Mezzanine level – Audrey Jones Beck Building
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 5601 Main Street
Free Admission

• Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler
Thursday, April 16, 7 p.m.
Freed Auditorium, Glassell School of Art, 5101 Montrose
Free Admission

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

The Center for Land Use Interpretation
The Center for Land Use Interpretation is a research and educational organization that seeks meaning in the landscapes people inhabit and alter. Matthew Coolidge founded the Center as a way to engage in intensive research about the built landscape of the United States. The Center disseminates its findings through exhibitions, tours, lectures, kiosks, an online "Land Use Database" publication and a national network of on-site interpretative facilities known as the American Land Museum.

Mark Dion
Mark Dion produces artwork that consistently blurs the boundaries between natural history, art, and science. His works both critique and celebrate the cataloging and presentation of art, historical, and natural materials by museums, exploring themes as diverse as archeology, consumer culture, ecology, environmentalism, and political activism. Dion’s work has been shown widely at museums and galleries as well as nature centers, parks and gardens in the United States, Canada and Europe.

Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler
Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler create highly cinematic videos that play with the construction of narratives, often within literary contexts. Their images capture and enhance the psychology of architectural spaces using the people and objects within them to create multiple narratives that seldom find resolution. The two artists have been working collaboratively in video, photography and sculpture since 1990.

Pedro Reyes
Mexican artist Pedro Reyes examines modernist ideologies, environmental concerns, and community interactions in social space. Trained as an architect, Reyes often employs architectural and design strategies to question the uses of public space and resources. He creates objects that instigate actions: an adjustable mural for Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park or a floating Styrofoam pyramid meeting place for the waters off Puerto Rico.

CURATORS/PRODUCERS

Confluence is curated by public art consultants Andrea Grover, Houston (Founder, Aurora Picture Show) and Sandra Percival, San Francisco (Director, New Langton Arts) in consultation with a Steering Committee and Working Group representing the partner organizations.

SUPPORT

Confluence: Points of View on Buffalo Bayou is funded in part by grants from the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance. Public programs for the CLUI are presented in collaboration with the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston, Core Residency Program Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Latin Maecenas of the Latin American art department of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston Continental Airlines is the official airline of Confluence.

CONFLUENCE PARTNERS

Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston; Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Core Residency Program; The Menil Collection; and Museum of Fine Arts Houston.