VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

The Consulate General of Mexico in Houston and Canal Street Gallery present works by artists Bela Gold and Naomi Siegmann. Opening reception with the artists - Thursday, February 25, 2010, 6-8 p.m. Canal Street Gallery. Exhibit on view February 25 thru April 22, 2010 at Canal Street Gallery.

For several years, Bela Gold's work has been a reflection of the complexity of contemporary culture. Her work is defined by a contrast between beauty and cultural references; in her case, the Holocaust. She puts this conflict on display in all her pieces, which offer evidence of our own ambivalence toward the beauty of artistic expression and the social impact it creates. Beauty is of fundamental importance in Gold’s work, beauty which intermingles with sensation and mystery. Gold reminds us that it is critical to fight the impunity of forgetfulness by refreshing our memories. It is equally important to do it with originality, and in manner which, first and foremost, is true to oneself, such as the art which she produces.

While her lithographs, her drawings, her books, her books, her words and her images focus on the told, the documented, and the recorded, on occasion they also illustrate the beautiful and terrible patina of forgetting. Belas’s pieces draw the viewer into an exciting dialogue with its own conscience.

For Naomi Siegmann nature and everyday objects make the best artistic models, as long as the art exceeds them in beauty. Conceptually, however, Siegmann does not seek to create a competition between art and nature: on the contrary- she tries to achieve a communion between them to create an ecological conscience. Her aim is to create a symbol which reminds us of the beauty and fragility of the original object. Siegmann has a great capacity of materializing her thoughts, without diminishing their identity, their distinctive profile, Her process is essential in understanding the redefining of sculpture as she transitions from symbolic/tradition art to conceptual art, offering a highly successful conciliation between the two conceptual fields, such as the direct actions of the artist upon the material-the making of the object-and the conceptual intentions of the work.

Gold delivered a lecture about her work as a guest speaker in the conference for Spanish and Latin American Teachers of the Holocaust. A selection of her art works will be displayed in Holocaust Museum Houston's Laurie and Milton Boniuk Resource Center and Library under the title The Book of Memory, from Thursday Feb.4 through April 25, 2010.

These exhibits are sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, Canal Street Gallery, Holocaust Museum Houston and Bank of America. The event is encompassed within the Houston Celebrates Mexico 2010 celebrations of the Bicentennial of Mexico's Independence and the Centennial of its Revolution,  www.houstoncelebratesmexico2010.com.

Canal Street Gallery 2219 Canal St. Houston, TX 77003-1009 (713) 223-2219 www.canalstreetgallery.com,  Holocaust Museum,H ouston 5401 Caroline St Houston, TX 77004-6804 (713) 942-8000 www.hmh.org.