VISUAL ARTS + MUSEUMS

Project Row Houses is pleased to announce the opening of seven new projects in the art houses on Saturday, October 15, 2011 from 4.00pm - 7:00pm (2505-2521 Holman Street). Round 35 will be on view from October 15 through March 4, 2012, and is free and open to the public.

There will be an Artists & Community Talk on Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. in our main building at 2521 Holman Street. Join Project Row Houses' Round 35 artists as they speak about the new projects that they are creating in the art houses.
 

ROUND 35 (2505-2515 Holman St.)
Artists include: Regina Agu, Ashley Hunt, Sharon Kopriva, Patrick McFarlin, Robert McKnight, Carrie Schneider and Charles Washington

PRH has invited seven artists, from Houston and across the US, to create new projects in the historic shotgun houses on the 2500 block of Holman Street. Round 35 embraces the approach of Project Row Houses’ early days when the rounds were not thematic and each selected artist was provided a house to create and explore freely within the context of the historic Third Ward community.

Round 35 Participants & Projects:
Regina Agu, Houston, TX www.reginaagu.com
A Nostalgia for the Living is an exploration of how the body serves as a reservoir of memories, myths and shared experiences. Through an installation and large wall drawing on fabric, Agu investigates the parallels between the personal and the physical.

Sharon Kopriva, Houston, TX www.sharonkopriva.net
THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS PROJECT explores the universality of these spiritual shortcomings by illustrating transgressions, in both mortal and venial degrees, through the sculptural forms of Kopriva's dogs, Pluto, Luna and Thor.

Patrick McFarlin, Santa Fe, NM www.mcfarlinoil.com
Out on a Limb features a selection of illustrations (drawings & paintings) of both McFarlin's personal experiences of going out on a limb in his life as well as highlighting visionaries, eccentrics, activists and game-changers from history. The community will be invited to participate by sharing their own personal stories, which McFarlin will incorporate and/or later illustrate.

Robert McKnight, Miami, FL www.mcknightfineart.com
Tears for a Dying Sun - A Temple of Improvisational Art is a paper installation created in collaboration with the Third Ward Community. Inspired by improvisational Jazz music, McKnight leads residents in using the rhythms, patterns and shapes found in everyday life to create three¬-dimensional visual representations.

Carrie Schneider, Houston, TX www.thecarrieart.com
Hear Our Houston www.hearourhouston.com,  a hub of public generated audio walking tours, narrated by a variety of individuals from throughout the city, will be housed in one of the row houses for Round 35. Schneider will focus on collecting tours centered in the Third Ward to add to the already growing collection as well as offer some public "how to give a walking tour" workshops.

Charles Washington, Houston, TX www.charleswashingtonartist.com
What’s in a door? is a global project comprised of recycled, hand-painted doors that build on the metaphor of a door as opportunity. In collaboration with PRH's Education, Young Mothers and Residential Programs, Washington will create a series of personalized doors that will be placed in one of the art houses, on PRH's site and around the Third Ward Neighborhood.

Ashley Hunt, Los Angeles, CA www.ashleyhuntwork.net
Communograph, is a multi-platform art project, created in response to PRH's interest in creating a map of the Third Ward neighborhood. Through Hunt's initial conversations with community members and questions about what it even means to make a map today, the project expanded into a framework for community-based research, featuring five parallel activities.

The title, “Communograph,” combining “community” (communo-) with “writing” (-graph) grounds this research in “a writing of community from the perspective of the community itself.” In this way, each research activity serves as a platform for community members to enter into conversation, thinking about authorship in different ways, with the aim of building local questions, knowledge, audience and interpretation in ways that will, in the end, serve as an atlas for community members and institutions.

These five platforms include:

1. Communograph House (2505 Holman Street), an exhibition of research-based artworks by Houston artists: Regina Agu, Lisa Harris, journey, Michael Khalil Taylor, Rebecca Novak, and Ifeanyi “Res” Okoro; the exhibition is organized collaboratively between the artists and the project’s organizers, project manager Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle and Ashley Hunt.
2. Communograph: Mapping Community Through Creative Action, a series of public programs presented in collaboration with the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts (MC). This series was curated by Bree Edwards (MC) and Ashley Clemmer Hoffman (PRH) and features artist talks by Mel Chin, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, a conversation between Rick Lowe and Ashley Hunt, and architectural and photography tours of the Third Ward, led by Stephen Fox and Ray Carrington.
3. Sidewalk Talks, a neighborhood conversation series will take place in front of the Communograph House twice a month, organized by the artists from the Communograph House and members of the surrounding community.
4. The PRH Welcome Center, featuring participatory Third Ward mapping (2521 Holman Street), will be open to participation by all members of the public and visitors to Project Row Houses, constructed by students of Cheryl Beckett’s Graphic Design class at the University of Houston’s School of Art
5. An interactive website (www.communograph.com ) will offer information on the project while acting as an archive for the research built during the project, designed by the students of Beckham Dossett’s Graphic Communications and Web Design class at the University of Houston’s School of Art.

See a full listing of all related programs at: www.projectrowhouses.org  / www.mitchellcenterforarts.org  / www.communograph.com

Programming at Project Row Houses is generously supported by: The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts; The Brown Foundation; The Bruner Foundation Inc.; Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts; Chevron Corporation; Adelaide de Menil; Ann & Jim Harithas; Houston Endowment, Inc.; Joan Hohlt & Roger Wich Foundation; Kinder Morgan Foundation; Kensinger & Co.; The Kresge Foundation; Leveraging Investments in Creativity; The Lewis Family Foundation; The McGovern Foundation; The MetLife Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; Picnic; The Simmons Foundation; Small Ventures USA; Texas Commission on the Arts; United Airlines; William Hill Land & Cattle Co.; William Stamps Farish Foundation; the Winston Family Foundation; City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.