Helen Mayer & Newton Harrison Tracing the Rise of Houston’s Art Community
Hyperallergic Nov 18, 2019
It was 1972. While the rest of the country sank into a recession, Houston was swimming in money from an oil boom. On the night of March 12, the Texas city marked its ascent with a new building for the Contemporary Art Museum (CAM). CAM’s young director, Sebastian Adler, outlined a bold vision with the opening of the exhibition 10. Stacked cages filled with pacing urban wildlife — “New York City Animal Levels” by artist Ellen Van Fleet — confronted visitors as they entered the barely finished museum. California artist Newton Harrison filled a gallery with plants under grow lights and a tub of worms in soil for his “Portable Farm.“ Outside, a trench was dug to house Vera Simons’s “Wave Transplant,” a five-horsepower motor attached to a wheel with a paddle meant to push water through the carved soil. Adler stated of 10 in Southwest Art Gallery Magazine (April 1972), “It’s not a safe, easy show, but anything less would have been insulting.”
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Ronald Feldman Gallery has been at the frontier of contemporary art since 1971. The gallery is located in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City and exhibits performance, photography, new media, film, painting, drawing and sculpture.
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