Programs
Chant •Sonata •Duet
Music for The Byzantine Fresco Chapel
Sunday, February 12, 2012
5:30 p.m. Prelude (Optional). Walk from the Menil Collection to the Byzantine Fresco Chapel
6:00 p.m. Musical performance inside the Byzantine Fresco Chapel
St. Paul's Methodist Choir, Mark Edenfield, director
Da Camera: Craig Hauschildt, marimba; Eva Lymenstull, cello
Join singers from the St. Paul's Methodist Choir who, emulating medieval clergy, will chant during their walk from the Menil Collection to the Byzantine Fresco Chapel. The music continues inside the chapel with performances of Bach's Cello Suite #2 in D Minor (BWV 1008), and Mariel (1999), Osvaldo Golijov's duet for marimba and cello.
Sunset Walk (optional): This program, inspired by the chanting priests and nuns of the middle ages, begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Menil Collection. There you will join members of St. Paul's Methodist Choir as they walk, while chanting, to the Byzantine Fresco Chapel. The 15-minute walk will take you past illuminated sculptures on the Menil campus as the sun is setting.
SPECIAL NOTE TO THE FEBRUARY 12TH PROGRAM:
SEATING IN THE CHAPEL IS STRICTLY LIMITED TO 100 PEOPLE
There are no reserved seats for the Chapel program.
When the Chapel fills, you are welcome to mingle in the garden, where you can hear the music.
The Chapel will close at 4:30 p.m.
At 5pm, free passes (one per seat) will be distributed at the Chapel and in the Menil main foyer.
If you would like to join the procession from the Menil to the Chapel, pick up your free pass at the Menil.
If you would like to attend only the seated concert, please get your pass at the Chapel.
Constructions of Art & Faith
The Byzantine Fresco Chapel and the Menil Collection
Sunday, February 19, 2012, 7:00 p.m.
A discussion moderated by Menil director Josef Helfenstein
At the heart of the Menil Collection’s mission is the belief that faith and art are powerful forces in contemporary society and central to a shared human experience. The closing of the Byzantine Fresco Chapel provides an opportunity to consider this subject: an art historian, an anthropologist, a theologian, and the director of the Menil Collection will discuss how art and spirituality inform the entire Menil campus. The speakers are:
• Annemarie Weyl Carr, University Distinguished Professor of Art History at S.M.U., who organized Imprinting the Divine: Byzantine and Russian Icons from The Menil Collection (2011), and edited the exhibition catalogue
• Josef Helfenstein, director of the Menil Collection since 2004
• Pamela Smart, Professor of Anthropology and Art History, SUNY Binghampton, and author of the book Sacred Modern: Faith, Activism, and Aesthetics in the Menil Collection (2010)
• William Vendley, Secretary General of the World Conference of Religions for Peace
Exhibition Opening
Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective
Thursday, March 1, 2012
5:00 p.m. Book signing at the Menil Collection Bookstore
6:00 p.m. Conversation with Richard Serra
Preceding the exhibition opening, Richard Serra signs copies of the exhibition catalogue in the Menil Collection Bookstore. At 6:00 p.m. the artist speaks about his work with Michelle White, co-curator of this exhibition organized by the Menil Drawing Institute and Study Center. Already seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the exhibition shows the fundamental role Serra’s drawings have played in reshaping and redefining the medium of drawing.
Seating is strictly first-come, first-served, and is limited. Doors open at 5:00 p.m.
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The Artist's Eye
Bert Samples on a Bedu Mask from Côte d'Ivoire
Sunday, March 4, 2012, 3:00 p.m.
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Photo: Maureen Eck
Conservation Panel Discussion
Conserving the Work of John Chamberlain
with Brad Epley, Chief Conservator; Shelley Smith, Objects Conservator; and Austin-based Conservator Catherine Williams
Tuesday, March 6, 2012, 7:00 p.m.
This conservation-based program looks at artist John Chamberlain whose Recent Sculpture 1970s & 1980s was one of Menil’s 1987 inaugural exhibitions; and whose large-scale American Tableau, 1984, was featured in the 2009 Menil series “Contemporary Conversations.” The career survey John Chamberlain: Choices, which opens at New York’s Guggenheim Museum in February, 2012, with important loans from the Menil, prompts this consideration of Chamberlain’s work through the materials and methods that have been central to his artistic practice. The program also serves as a tribute to the artist who died in December 2011.
Image: Visiting conservator Catherine Williams works on a Chamberlain sculpture
Da Camera and The Menil Collection present
STOP, LOOK, AND LISTEN! Celebrating Debussy
Saturday, March 10, 2012, 3:30 p.m.
Da Camera’s Young Artists perform the music of Debussy and other French composers at locations throughout the Menil campus.
For more information call 713-524-5050
Outdoor Films
Cinematic Graphite
Friday, March 23, 2012, 8:00 p.m.
“Under the Leaves,” east end of the museum
Inspired by the exhibition Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective, Aurora Picture Show Curator Mary Magsamen organized a selection of short films that explore mark making. Videos include work by Magali Charrier, Mary Ellen Strom and Ann Carlson, Cheryl Donegan, and Robert Todd.Co-presented with Aurora Picture Show
Image: 12 Sketches by Magali Charrier
Nameless Sound and the Menil Collection present
Musical Performances
Sources and Echoes: A Decade of Musical Improvisation in Houston
Saturday, March 24, 2012, 11:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
7:00 p.m. Opening of Mandell Pavillion at 4215 Mandell St.
8:00 p.m. Pauline Oliveros Concert in Mandell Pavillion
Nameless Sound presents international music in Houston that, like its music education program, emphasizes improvisation.
To mark the organization’s first decade, Sources and Echoes brings alumni musicians from Houston and beyond to Richmond Hall for short back-to-back solo improvisations. Visitors are free to come and go during these performances.
The event continues at the 4215 Mandell Pavilion, the Menil’s repurposed open-air space on the corner of Mandell Street and Richmond Avenue, adjacent to Richmond Hall.
At 8:00 p.m. Nameless Sound’s alumni musicians inaugurate the Mandell Pavilion with two works by Pauline Oliveros: “Four Meditations for Orchestra” and “Sound Piece.”
Photo: Brittanie Shey
Film Screening
Los Niños Abandonados, (1975)
A film by Danny Lyon (running time: 63 minutes)
Brown Auditorium, MFAH, 1001 Bissonnet
Monday, March 26, 2012, 6:30 p.m.
Co-presented with MFAH Films.
In conjunction with the Menil exhibition This World is Not My Home: Danny Lyon Photographs, Lyon’s film about homeless orphans in Colombia will be screened, followed by a discussion with Lyon; Toby Kamps, curator of Menil’s Lyon exhibition; and MFAH Photography Curator Anne W. Tucker.
Image: Film still from Danny Lyon’s Los Niños Abandonados (The Abandoned Children), 1975. Color, 16mm film, 63 minutes Bleakbeauty.com
The Artist's Eye
Ebony Porter on the Menil Collection Campus
Sunday, April 1, 2012, 3:00 p.m.
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Menil-Morgan Lecture with Barbara Rose
The Impact of Medieval Illumination on Modern Drawing
Tuesday, April 3, 2012, 7:30 p.m.
Independent scholar and curator Barbara Rose is the first Morgan-Menil Fellow at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. The subject of her talk is the medieval Spanish monk Beatus of Liébana (c. 730 – c. 800) and the influence of his
Romanesque illuminated manuscripts of the Apocalypse on modern drawing, specifically on the work of Joan Miró, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso. Rose has served as art editor of The Partisan Review and as contributing editor of Artforum, Vogue, and Art in America. She was chief curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, from 1981–1985.
Image: Beatus of Liébana, Commentaire de l’Apocalyspe, 8th century
Poetry Reading
Ghassan Zaqtan Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me
Monday, April 9, 2012, 7:00 p.m.
Ghassan Zaqtan, perhaps the most important and original Palestinian poet writing today, comes to the Menil Collection during National Poetry Month for his first Texas appearance. Zaqtan will read from his tenth book, Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, which gathers new and selected poems translated by Fady Joudah, Houston poet and PEN prize-winning translator. Born near Bethlehem, Ghassan Zaqtan is also a novelist and editor, and lives in Ramallah. The reading is co-sponsored by the Rice/UH Visiting Writers Series.
Panel Discussion
Wednesday, April 11, 2012, 7:30 p.m.
Michelle White, co-curator of the exhibition Richard Serra Drawing, leads a discussion with scholars Richard Shiff and Gordon Hughes. Shiff contributed the catalogue essay Drawing Thick: Serra’s Black and is Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art at the University of Texas at Austin, where he directs the Center for the Study of Modernism. Hughes is Mellon Assistant Professor of Art History at Rice University and co-editor of October Files: Richard Serra.
Menil Community Arts Festival & Houston Indie Book Fest
Saturday, April 14, 2012, 11:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
The Menil Collection and a group of surrounding non-profit arts organizations present the fourth Community Arts Festival, a free afternoon of art and entertainment that extends across the Menil campus from West Alabama to Richmond Avenue. The festival again includes the Houston Indie Book Fest and highlights the neighborhood’s diversity with exhibitions, performances, and readings. An array of food trucks will be available
Illustrated Lecture
Amanda Douberley
The Obelisk, the Astronaut, and the Mouse: Defining Public Sculpture for Houston
Tuesday, April 17, 2012, 8:00 p.m.
Amanda Douberley is the 2011–12 Vivian L. Smith Foundation Fellow at the Menil Collection and a Ph.D. candidate in Art History at the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation The Corporate Model: Sculpture, Architecture, and the American City, 1946–1975, is a theoretical and historical account of abstract public sculpture in the United States. Drawing on research conducted during the fellowship year, this talk will situate important examples of Houston public sculpture, both realized and imagined, in relation to the city’s urban development between 1965 and 1975.
Claes Oldenburg, Geometric Mouse, Scale X – Red, 1971. Painted steel, 18 feet high. Collection Houston Public Library, Tex., City of Houston, Texas. © 1971 Claes Oldenburg
The Artist's Eye
Allison Hunter on Richard Serra
Sunday, May 6, 2012, 3:00 p.m.
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Photo: Nash Baker
