Conversations with Artists & Curators
Celebrating the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building
Aaron McIntosh, Freshman Magazine, August 2002 Issue (Broken Links), 2015, cotton and thread, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by the Art Colony Association, Inc. © Aaron McIntosh
Christiane Baumgartner, Phoenix, 2018, woodcut in colors from one block, inked à la poupée in blue, red, pink, and orange inks and hand-printed multiple times on Korean Mulberry paper, edition 4/6 (varied), the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by Daisy Wong. © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Trenton Doyle Hancock, Mind of the Mound: Critical Mass, 2019, installation view at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA). © Trenton Doyle Hancock / photograph by Tony Luong, courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York
Trenton Doyle Hancock, Color Flash for Chat and Chew, Paris Texas in Seventy-Two, 2020, wool and silk on a cotton foundation, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum commission funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund. © 2020 Trenton Doyle Hancock
Vik Muniz, Sigmund, from the series Pictures of Chocolate, 1997–98, silver dye bleach print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by the Houston-Galveston Psychoanalytic Institute in honor of C. Glenn Cambor. © Vik Muniz / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Julie Mehretu, Fragment, 2009, ink and acrylic on canvas, courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery. © Julie Mehretu
Teresa Margolles, Lote bravo, 2005, 400 handmade adobe mud bricks made out of soil in which the bodies of murdered women were buried, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by the 2007 Latin American Experience Gala and Auction, Mary and Roy Cullen, Sofia Adrogué, P.C. and Sten Gustafson, Celina and Alfredo Brener, Brad and Leslie Bucher, Eduardo and Eugenia Grüneisen, Bruce and Diane Halle, Gonzalo Parodi, and Robert J. Card M.D. and Karol Kreymer in honor of Gilbert Vicario.
Ellen Lesperance, When all the warheads turn to rust, until our days are done, we’ll hold our mother earth in trust, for children yet to come, 2018, gouache and graphite on tea-stained wove paper; and wool, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by Lynne Werner and Kerry Inman at Art + Paper 2019; and the Alvin S. Romansky Prints and Drawings Accessions Endowment Fund.
Amalia Mesa-Bains, Transparent Migrations, 2001, mirrored armoire, 16 glass leaves, wire armatures, small gauze dress, lace mantilla, assorted crystal miniatures, and shattered safety glass, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by the Latin Maecenas. © 2001 Amalia Mesa-Bains
David Taylor, Border Monument No. 1, 2009, inkjet print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund. © David Taylor
César Augusto Martínez, Bato con Sunglasses, 1984/91, acrylic paint on canvas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by Crowley, Marks & Douglas, and Pablo Alvarado in memory of Froilán and Juan Joaquín Aguirre. © César A. Martínez
Vincent Valdez, Untitled, from the series The Stranger Fruit, 2013, oil on canvas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by the Latin Maecenas. © Vincent Valdez
Installation view, from the MFAH collections (right to left): Jason Salavon, Little Infinity (v.MFAH), 2020, photographic mural, inkjet on vinyl, Museum commission funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund © 2020 Jason Salavon / Alberto Giacometti, Grande femme debout I (Large Standing Woman I), 1960, bronze, Museum purchase funded by the Brown Foundation Accessions Endowment Fund / © Alberto Giacometti Estate/VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY/ADAGP, Paris
Norwood Viviano, Cities: Departure and Deviation (installation view), 2011, glass and inkjet print on vinyl, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund. © Norwood Viviano
Guillermo Kuitca, Le Sacre, 1992, acrylic on 54 mattresses with wooden and brass legs, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment Fund. © 1992 Guillermo Kuitca
Conversations with Artists
The Annual Ruth K. Shartle Lecture Series
April 8–December 9, 2021
These lectures bring MFAH curators together with artists whose works shaped the inaugural installations and special commissions for the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building, which opened in November 2020.
Watch All of the Conversations
Video Showcase
SCHEDULE
• Thursday, April 8, 6:30 p.m.
Guillermo Kuitca in conversation with Latin American art curator Mari Carmen Ramírez and assistant curator Rachel Mohl. Learn more & watch the video
• Thursday, May 13, 6:30 p.m.
Aaron McIntosh in conversation with decorative arts, craft & design curator Cindi Strauss and assistant curator Anna Walker. Learn more & watch the video
• Thursday, June 10, 6:30 p.m.
Christiane Baumgartner in conversation with prints & drawings curator Dena Woodall. Learn more & watch the video
• Thursday, July 8, 6:30 p.m.
Trenton Doyle Hancock in conversation with Alison de Lima Greene, curator of modern and contemporary art. Learn more & watch the video
• Thursday, August 12, 6:30 p.m.
Vik Muniz in conversation with photography curator Malcolm Daniel. Learn more & watch the video
• Wednesday, September 29, 6:30 p.m.
Julie Mehretu in conversation with Alison de Lima Greene, curator of modern and contemporary art. Learn more & watch the video
• Monday, October 11, 6:30 p.m.
Ellen Lesperance and Teresa Margolles discuss “Collectivity in Art” with Latin American art assistant curator Rachel Mohl and prints & drawings curator Dena Woodall. Learn more & watch the video
• Monday, November 1, 6:30 p.m.
Amalia Mesa-Baines and David Taylor discuss “The U.S./Mexico Border” with photography curator Malcolm Daniel and Latin American art curator Mari Carmen Ramírez. Learn more & watch the video
• Thursday, November 11, 6:30 p.m.
César Augusto Martínez and Vincent Valdez discuss their work in context of the themes “Border” and “Witness” with Latin American art assistant curator Rachel Mohl. Learn more & watch the video
• Thursday, December 9, 6:30 p.m.
Jason Salavon and Norwood Viviano discuss “Data-Driven Art” with robotics technologist Rashed Haq. Associate photography curator Lisa Volpe introduces the talk. Learn more & watch the video
Norman Rockwell: American Freedom
Norman Rockwell, Golden Rule, 1961, oil on canvas, cover illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, April 1, 1961, collection of Norman Rockwell Museum. © SEPS: Curtis Licensing, Indianapolis. All rights reserved. www.curtislicensing.com
Norman Rockwell, Freedom from Want, 1943, oil on canvas, illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, March 6, 1943, collection of Norman Rockwell Museum. © SEPS: Curtis Licensing, Indianapolis. All rights reserved. www.curtislicensing.com
Norman Rockwell, Freedom of Speech, 1943, oil on canvas, illustration for The Saturday Evening Post, February 20, 1943, collection of Norman Rockwell Museum. © SEPS: Curtis Licensing, Indianapolis. All rights reserved. www.curtislicensing.com
The Annual Ruth K. Shartle Lecture Series
December 15, 2019–March 5, 2020
This series of lectures complemented the exhibitions Norman Rockwell: American Freedom and The Four Freedoms Reimagined.
• “Art for a Civil Society: Norman Rockwell in the 1960s”
Presented by Stephanie Haboush Plunkett, deputy director and chief curator, Norman Rockwell Museum
• “The Four Freedoms: Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Vision of America”
Presented by Douglas Brinkley, author of “Rightful Heritage: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Land of America”
• “Freedom to Think & Freedom to Speak: A Rockwell Case Study”
Presented by Brian Allen, former chief curator, the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts
• “For Freedoms: Where Do We Go from Here?”
Presented by photographers Emily Shur and Wyatt Gallery
• “Rockwell’s Home Front Imaginary”
Presented by Jennifer Greenhill, associate professor of art history, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
Degas: A New Vision
The Annual Ruth K. Shartle Symposium
October 16–December 15, 2016
In this series of lectures, renowned Degas scholars celebrate different aspects of Edgar Degas’s restless genius as revealed in the exhibition Degas: A New Vision.
“The Private Collection of Edgar Degas”
Presented by Gary Tinterow, director of the MFAH and organizing co-curator of “Degas: A New Vision”
“Degas’s Families”
Presented by George Shackelford, deputy director, Kimbell Art Museum
“Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty”
Presented by Jodi Hauptman, senior curator, department of drawings and prints, the Museum of Modern Art, New York
“Degas & the 20th Century”
Presented by independent scholar Richard Kendall
“Edgar Degas’s Sculptures: An Inside Look”
Presented by Shelley Sturman, head of object conservation & Daphne Barbour, senior object conservator, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
About the Annual Ruth K. Shartle Lecture Series
Inaugurated in 1975 by Alice Pratt Brown (Mrs. George R. Brown), a major benefactor who served 26 terms as a trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, this annual event was established in memory of Ruth K. Shartle, a longtime Museum benefactor. William C. Agee, director of the MFAH from 1974 to 1982, described the series as a commemoration of Ruth K. Shartle’s “unstinting friendship, intellectual curiosity, and generous spirit of sharing her enthusiasm for man’s creative accomplishment, and most of all, her unselfish, fresh spirit and unfailing joy of life.”
The Ruth K. Shartle Lecture Series is made possible by a generous grant from The Brown Foundation, Inc.