VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

This month, Blaffer Art Museum and the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts team up to present two Contemporary Salons at Blaffer.

The first Salon will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 20, at 6:30 p.m. and will be a conversation about Gabriel Kuri: Nobody needs to know the price of your Saab. The second Salon on Wednesday, Oct. 27, at 6:30 p.m. will be a discussion about Amy Patton. Admission to both events is free to the public and the talks will be include a wine-and-cheese reception. Blaffer Art Museum is located in the Fine Arts Building on the University of Houston's central campus.

For each Contemporary Salon, a diverse range of panelists featuring artists, art historians and experts discuss Blaffer's current exhibitions. The Gabriel Kuri conversation on Oct. 20, moderated by Blaffer director and chief curator Claudia Schmuckli, will feature guest panelists Fredericka Hunter, director of Texas Gallery; Rex Koontz, associate professor of art history at the University of Houston; Mary Leclère, associate director of the Core Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Katrina Moorhead, artist.

The Amy Patton Salon on Oct. 27, moderated by associate curator and Cynthia Woods Mitchell fellow Rachel Hooper, will include Justin Doran, actor and adjunct lecturer at UH; Delilah Montoya, associate professor of photography/digital media at UH; Michael Taylor, an artist and teacher of Blaffer's award-winning Young Artist Apprenticeship Program; and Sandra Zalman, assistant professor of art history at UH.

"The Contemporary Salons are fun and lively discussions and speakers shed amazing insights on the artworks," said Blaffer curator of education Katherine Veneman. "The informal format of the event fosters an inclusive environment among the audience. We encourage questions and look forward to two truly special evenings," the Mitchell Center's director of programs Bree Edwards added.

Over the past decade, Gabriel Kuri has concentrated on making sculptures and collages that zealously rummage through the realm of material consumption. Both his objects and images are often created from the residue of monetary exchanges and the consumed goods that the artist collects on a daily basis. Kuri is a material archivist who extracts visual and linguistic value from the tracking systems, retail supplies, and trivial marketing mechanisms that constitute our daily lives. Organized by Claudia Schmuckli, Kuri's exhibition at Blaffer Art Museum is a ten-year survey presented in conjunction with the celebration of the Mexican Bicentennial. Gabriel Kuri lives and works in Mexico City and Brussels, Belgium.

Amy Patton's recent experiments in performance and theater employ complex strategies of sound, text and voiceover to explore the various ways images and meaning are constructed. Commissioned through a residency at the UH Mitchell Center and shot entirely in a black box theater at UH, the artist's most recent film Oil (2010) centers on a young woman preparing for her role in a theater production inspired by Upton Sinclair's Oil! Organized by Rachel Hooper, Patton's exhibition at Blaffer Art Museum also debuts a new series of photographs and earlier films with Texan origins. Patton was born in Texas and currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

WHAT:
Contemporary Salons

WHEN:
6:30 p.m. Oct. 20, 2010 -- Gabriel Kuri: Nobody needs to know the price of your Saab
6:30 p.m. Oct. 27, 2010 -- Amy Patton

WHERE:
Blaffer Art Museum
120 Fine Arts Building, University of Houston's central campus
(Located on Entrance 16 by the intersection of Cullen and Elgin)
Houston, TX 77204

WHO:
University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts and Blaffer Art Museum

About Blaffer:
Founded in 1973, Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston was named in honor of the late Sarah Campbell Blaffer, a noted Houston arts patron and collector. Since its inception, the museum has been a vital force in the presentation and promotion of contemporary visual arts in Houston. Blaffer is located in the Fine Arts Building on the University of Houston's central campus, entrance 16 south of Cullen Boulevard. It is free and open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed Sundays, Mondays, university holidays and during exhibition installations (visit the website or call to confirm). The museum is ADA compliant. For general inquiries, please call 713.743.9521, or visit the museum online at www.blafferartmuseum.org.

About the Mitchell Center:
The University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts cultivates interdisciplinary collaboration in the performing, visual and literary arts. From its base at the University of Houston, the Mitchell Center offers public events, residencies and courses that fuse artistic disciplines, ignite dialogue and present new ways of experiencing the arts in contemporary life. The Mitchell Center forms an alliance among five units at the University of Houston: The School of Art, Creative Writing Program, Moores School of Music, School of Theatre and Dance, and Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston. For general inquiries, please call 713.743.5548, or visit the Mitchell Center online at www.mitchellcenterforarts.org.