The Core Program

About

The Core Residency Program awards residencies to exceptional, highly motivated visual artists and critical writers who have completed their undergraduate or graduate training but have not yet developed professional careers. Established in 1982, the Core Program encourages intensive studio practice as well as an intellectual framework for understanding that practice. Residents engage in ongoing dialogue with one another and with a wide range of leading artists, critics, art historians, and curators who visit throughout the year. The Core term starts in September and ends in May; residents may apply for a second term.

Residents receive an $11,000 stipend, health insurance coverage, 24-hour access to a private studio or office, and borrowing privileges at the museum’s Hirsch Library and Rice University’s Fondren Library. Critical-studies residents are also provided a networked computer and may submit a proposal to curate a show at the Glassell School of Art during their second year. In March, a yearbook featuring essays by the critical-studies residents is published and the artists mount a group show of their work in the main gallery of the Glassell School. In their second year, artists become eligible to receive the Long Prize, a $10,000 unrestricted grant.

Joseph Havel, Director, Glassell School of Art

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Joseph Havel, director of the Glassell School of Art, has exhibited his art across the United States and abroad, including solo shows in Dallas, St. Louis, Barcelona, and Paris. In 1992 he curated, with Project Row Houses founding director Rick Lowe, Fresh Visions/New Voices: Emerging African-American Artists in Texas for the Glassell School of Art. Havel's bronze sculpture Exhaling Pearls, from the MFAH collection, was included in the 1995 exhibition Twentieth-Century American Sculpture at the White House. Havel was selected to participate in the 2000 Whitney Biennial and the 2001 Phoenix Triennial, and in 2006 the MFAH hosted the exhibition Joseph Havel: A Decade of Sculpture 1996–2006 and published an accompanying catalogue. In addition to the MFAH, Havel’s work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Musée d’art et d’industrie in Roubaix, France.

Mary Leclère, Associate Director, Core Program

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Mary Leclère works with the critical-studies residents to develop individual curatorial projects, and she facilitates critical dialogue between the artists and critics. She also oversees the Core Residency Exhibition Program, which resulted from merging the Glassell School of Art's contemporary art exhibition program with that of the Core Program in 2006. An art historian and critic herself, Leclère is a PhD candidate at the University of Virginia. Her publications include an essay on art criticism in the journal Afterall and a catalogue essay for Nothing Is Neutral: Andrea Bowers. She has also contributed essays to exhibition catalogues for artists Jasper Johns and Richard Serraand for Sam Durant's work at the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.) in Belgium.

Partners

Project Row Houses
The Core Program has forged a partnership with Project Row Houses (PRH), a community-based arts/cultural/public-service center located in Houston's Third Ward neighborhood. Core residents entering their second year are invited to apply for a dual residency with the Core Program and PRH. The selected Core resident lives on site at PRH, participates in programming activities, and creates a project that incorporates PRH’s mission.

Rice University
The Core Program has established a collaborative teaching partnership with the Department of Visual & Dramatic Arts at Rice University. As guest instructors, selected Core residents offer undergraduate courses in art and art theory on the Rice campus.

(as of 3/6/13)

Support the Core Program

The Core Program is sustained entirely through annual contributions, which provide for the basic needs of Core residents while also underwriting related activities, travel, exhibitions, symposia, and lectures.

Contributions of any amount are welcome; however, for those who have a passion for supporting emerging artists, there are two levels of giving that offer exclusive benefits.

CORE 10X10

$10,000 (FMV $1,000)
All of the benefits of CORE SALON plus:

A limited-edition work of art by a former Core Fellow
Past works have been contributed by Amy Blakemore, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Aaron Parazette, Karyn Olivier, Francesca Fuchs, and Demetrius Oliver This year’s edition is produced by Mark Allen.

CORE SALON

$1,500 individual (FMV $100) or $2,500 couple (FMV $200)

Invitations to up to three events at a sponsoring venue
Two events featuring discussion about local exhibitions
One special event featuring a guest artist
An invitation to a CORE SALON breakfast at an international art fair
An invitation to the annual Core Open Studio
Recognition at the annual Core exhibition and in the annual Core publication
A copy of the annual Core publication

For more information or to contribute, please e-mail acordova@mfah.org or call 713.639.7559.