Conversation
Untitled (Structures)

Friday, January 25, 2013
6:00 p.m. Curator Michelle White talks with artists Leslie Hewitt & Bradford Young
7:00 p.m. Exhibition Opening

Civil rights-era photographs at the Menil inspired New York-based artist Leslie Hewitt and independent filmmaker / cinematographer Bradford Young in their collaborative look at the “Great Migration” when, beginning in 1910, six million African-Americans left the American South. A dual-projection film installation, the footage was shot with 35 mm on location in Memphis, Chicago, and Arkansas in spaces associated with the Civil Rights Movement.

Museum Experience

Saturday, January 26, 2013
11:00 a.m.– 7:00 p.m.

Museum District Day, the annual fall celebration by member institutions of the city’s Museum District, has been divided into four zones, and beginning in 2013 each zone will present an annual program called the “Museum Experience.” The Menil Collection, Rothko Chapel and Houston Center for Photography comprise Zone 1 which, for its first Museum Experience, has invited Da Camera to present a classical music performance at each institution. There will be other Zone 1 programs, plus events, food trucks, pedicab rides, and a family friendly Scavenger hunt.

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The Artist's Eye
Stephanie Darling on Sharon Kopriva

Sunday, February 3, 2013, 3:00 p.m.

Photo: Tarina Frank

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The Marion Barthelme Lecture Series
Michael Govan on Michael Heizer

Monday, February 11, 2013, 7:00 p.m.

The Marion Barthelme Lecture Series was established in memory of the late Marion Knox Barthelme Fort (1944-2011), Vice President of the Board of Trustees of The Menil Collection. The first lecturer is Michael Govan, Director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and, before that, President and Director of Dia Art Foundation. Govan’s subject is artist Michael Heizer, four of whose sculptures can be seen on entering the Menil Collection. In 1969-70, Heizer created the Nevada earth work called Double Negative. Since 1962, he has worked primarily on City, an enormous complex in the Nevada Desert one and a quarter miles long and more than a quarter-mile wide. In Levitated Mass, Heizer’s most recent project, a 340-ton rock was moved 107 miles from its quarry and installed at LACMA.

Marion Knox Barthelme was active in the artistic and literary cultures of Houston. A former correspondent for Time magazine, her writings include Women in the Texas Populist Movement: Letters to the Southern Mercury, and ten works of non-fiction published in The New Yorker‘s “Talk of the Town.”A past president of Inprint, Inc. and Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts, she served on the boards of The Chinati Foundation and Alley Theatre, and the advisory board of The Houston Seminar.

Poetry Reading
Terrance Hayes and Kim Addonizio

Monday, February 25, 2013, 7:30 p.m.

The long-running Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series comes to the Menil Collection for the first time with readings by two poets. Terrance Hayes's four books of poems have won the National Book Award, the National Poetry Series, a Pushcart Prize, and three Best American Poetry selections. Kim Addonizio is the author of five collections of poems - Tell Me was a finalist for the National Book Award - and two non-fiction works about writing poetry. Books by both authors will be available.

*Film Screening
Faat Kiné Directed by Ousmane Sembène

Friday, March 1, 2013, 7:00 p.m.
Brown Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet

Faat Kiné, a gas station operator born symbolically in the year of Senegalese independence (1960), has to confront the paternalistic attitudes of men, even though the health of the African economy and society depends on women.

*Film Screening
Hyenas (Hyènes) Directed by Djibril Diop Mambety

Saturday, March 2, 2013, 7:00 p.m.
Brown Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet

Hyenas tells the story of Linguere Ramatou, an aging, wealthy woman who revisits her home village with a disturbing proposition. She will bestow a fortune in exchange for the murder of Dramaan Drameh, a local shopkeeper who abandoned her after a love affair and her illegitimate pregnancy when she was sixteen.

*Film Screening
White Wedding Directed by Jann Turner

Sunday, March 3, 2013, 5:00 p.m.
Brown Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet

Elvis leaves Johannesburg to pick up his best friend and best man Tumi in Durban. The two journey on to Cape Town for Elvis's wedding. But things don't always go according to plan in this high-spirited comedy.

*Film Screening
Sex, Okra, and Salted Butter (Sexe, gombo, et beurre sale) Directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
Surrender Directed by Celine Gilbert

Saturday, March 8, 7:00 p.m.
Brown Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet

Sex, Okra, and Salted Butter An extramarital affair leads to Hortense’s separation from her traditional African husband, who is in for a ride as he learns about her love affair, his eldest son’s secret love life, and the responsibilities of single parenthood.

Surrender is a story about Amri, a man trapped between the traditional role of the family man his father expects him to fulfill, and his personal desires for a local fisherman.

Performance, Mahabharata, An Epic Indian Poem Retold
by Jean Claude Carrière, a Modern Vyasa

Monday, March 11 & Tuesday, March 12, 2013
7:00 p.m. – Menil Foyer

In this unique program, renowned French playwright, screenwriter, author and actor Jean-Claude Carrière brings to the foyer of the Menil Collection a one-man rendition of the story of Mahabharata. The longest Sanskrit epic, The Mahabharata has over 100,000 stanzas, the earliest composed 2,000 years ago. At the Menil, Carrière will recall his eleven years in India studying the work, and the resulting nine-hour stage version of The Mahabharata, directed by Peter Brook, which premiered in 1985. Scriptwriter or director for 170 films including The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Chinese Box, Carrière's work spans six decades.  Founder and President of the French State Film School, he was awarded the Légion d'Honneur, France's highest honor.