for Wed., May 19

Recommended

Arts

Visual Arts

Visual Arts Center: Small Refusals

This is a three-woman exhibition featuring work by students from UT's 2021 Studio Art MFA graduating class: Magdalena Jarkowiec, Heather Canterbury, and Ania Mininkova. Uncanny experiences in Home Depot aisles, found diaries, and mythologies of the American landscape are revisited in sculpture, photography, and video works for a show that celebrates the everyday as a sea of unexamined alternatives to dominant narratives. Recommended: There's an Artist Talk via Zoom on Fri., May 7, 5pm.

Through May 23. Wed.-Sat., noon-5pm

Visual Arts Center

Arts

Theatre

10 Ways to Survive Life In Quarantine

Texas School for the Deaf’s performing arts program presents this new play by Don Zolidis, a virtual presentation (streamed on-demand) full of handy solutions learned and life lessons shared when the recent lockdown left us to entertain (and sometimes fend for) ourselves. Directed by Brian Cheslick, voiced and captioned for all audiences.

Through May 22. $5.
Direct Link Right Here
Arts

Visual Arts

Northern-Southern: Baton

This is a group show by relay, begun in July of 2020 as a method of socially distancing a community in the height of the pandemic: Artists took turns alone in the space, each adding to the exhibition. Now, as it nears its close, the exhibition resembles a community in which work converses and overlaps. With Adreon Henry, Vy Ngo, Dawn Okoro, Leon Alesi, Matt Steinke, Sev Coursen, Stella Alesi, and more.

Closing reception: Sat., July 24, 3-9pm

Northern-Southern
Arts

Visual Arts

West Chelsea Contemporary: Icons & Vandals

It's the swanky venue's "most monumental" show yet, featuring works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ai WeiWei, Roy Lichtenstein, and a slew of other creative provocateurs who have subverted the contemporary art world throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Bonus: The closing reception features an artist talk with "The First lady of Graffiti," Lady Pink.

Closing reception: Sun., July 11, 3-5pm

West Chelsea Contemporary

All Events

Arts

Theatre

A Portrait of My Mother

An artist remembers their mother, spinning a modern Mexican Cinderella tale as we follow the trials and tribulations of one woman's journey into motherhood – from her humble beginnings in the town of Laredo, Texas, to her journey to Chicago, and everything between. Written and performed by Carlo Lorenzo Garcia, directed by David R. Jarrott. Note: Now available for viewing on Vimeo.

Through July 31. $5.
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Arts

Visual Arts

ChingonX Fire: Group Exhibit

Inspired by the Mexican American Cultural Center's annual La Mujer celebration – and by the first feminist of the New World, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz – this online group exhibit is curated by April Garcia and features womxn-identifying and nongender-specific artists whose artwork is tied to activism, feminism, cultural. and gender identity storytelling, environmental protection, and socioeconomic parity.

Free.
Direct Link Here
Arts

Visual Arts

Cloud Tree Studios: Connection – Series I

Okay, you want a deeply wonderful, life-enriching experience in this town right now? Go here. See this show. See this exhibition of Prentiss Douthit's oil-on-linen portraits of random strangers, portraits that are paired with the pictured ones' answers to questions posed by the artist. Note: Bring your earbuds, so you can hear the recordings of those questions and answers while you drink in the well-rendered draughts of humanity Douthit has so carefully provided.

Through May 30

Cloud Tree
Arts

Classical Music

Conspirare: (un)Hidden Music

Here's a curated program of heart-opening music, featuring a solo performance by Conspirare’s own Craig Hella Johnson, giving you the lowdown on the acclaimed company's musical mission.

Streaming through July 15. Donations accepted.
Direct Link Right Here
Arts

Visual Arts

Davis Gallery: Nuevo Mundo

Now here's a show that's well worth seeing: The new exhibition from Gladys Poorte, displaying paintings and drawings of a new world populated with unknown peoples, animals, and plants. A world rife with untold treasures and dangers. A place, as wrought so colorfully by Poorte, that it might've been the homeworld for that legendary Codex Seraphinianus.

Through June 12

Davis Gallery
Arts

Visual Arts

Landmarks: Self-Guided Walking Tour

Use your smartphone to access self-guided tours of the outdoor public art sited by UT's award-winning Landmarks program any time you feel like it. BONUS: There's also a free, docent-led tour starting at Marc Quinn's "Spiral of the Galaxy" (1501 Red River) on Sun., Jan. 8, 11am.

Click Here for Details
Arts

Visual Arts

Lora Reynolds Gallery: Twenty-Eight Skies

Witness these large new works on paper by Jason Middlebrook, in the artist's fifth show at the gallery. "Much of this work can be imagined as bearing witness to a mortal struggle between man and nature," say the gallery notes, "a struggle between frenetic geometric patterns and the humble flora we too often overlook and take for granted."

Through June 19

Lora Reynolds Gallery
Arts

Visual Arts

Mexic-Arte Museum: Mexico, the Border, and Beyond

Mexic-Arte Museum presents an exhibition of selections from the Juan Antonio Sandoval Jr. collection, an array of work that is considered one of the most important Latinx art collections in the United States.

Through May 30

Mexic-Arte Museum
Arts

Visual Arts

Prizer Arts & Letters: A Cartography of Solitude

Stephen Pruitt, a mensch in so many creative industries – whether behind the scenes, designing the lights and sets of the better theatrical experiences in this town, or on the stage itself, performing explications of science as if he were some fearless combo of Laurie Anderson and Andy Kaufman – this Pruitt's revealing a show of stark and atmospheric photography at the Prizer gallery on East Cesar Chavez. Listen: "For years, I’ve taken long adventures with just my camera and journal for company, and in those travels, I’ve experienced some stunning places that seem to revel in their remoteness, in their quiet, in their inhospitality, unless you’re willing to accept their terms – no easy meals, no water, no roads – and stay only as long as you can be self-sufficient. This installation is both an exploration of those places – places that emphasize how small and ephemeral we are, how big the world is – and the many different ways that we experience solitude internally.” Suggestion: Avail yourself of this opportunity, citizen. Bonus: The photographs will be illuminated every night (8-11pm) and can be seen from viewing platforms outside the gallery.

Through June 19

Prizer Gallery
Arts

Books

Read Across Texas with Chris Barton and Nancy Wayson Dinan

The Texas Center for the Book invites book lovers statewide to register for this author event featuring Texas writers Nancy Wayson Dinan and Chris Barton, moderated by KUT’s Jennifer Stayton.

Wed., May 19, 6pm
Direct Link Right Here
Arts

Visual Arts

Recspec Gallery: Quarantine Drawings

New drawings created during pandemic quarantine by that maestro of color and balance, Adrian Landon Brooks.

Through May 31
Direct Link Right Here
Arts

Visual Arts

SAGE Studio: Spring Work

Here's a two-person exhibition featuring the work of Dallas-based abstract painter Charlie French alongside the vibrant pastel drawings of Austin's own Emily Dodson. The work is "a visual representation of the season as well as the collective rebirth many are feeling as the weather warms and things begin to lighten."

Through May 31

SAGE Studio
Arts

Visual Arts

The Blanton: From the Collection of Jack Shear

In 1999, the photographer and art collector Jack Shear co-organized an exhibition at New York’s Drawing Center: "Drawn from Artist’s Collections." This new show at the Blanton is curated by Shear "in an exploratory, free-flowing manner in which the forms, compositions and colors on the sheets respond to one another in a playful, non-traditional hang."

Through Aug. 22
Click Here for Details and Reservations

The Blanton Museum of Art
Arts

Visual Arts

Wally Workman Gallery: Spring and All

"Patrick Puckett's paintings are known for their bold colors and strong leisurely figures, executed with confident interaction between paint application, shape, color and texture." Like, the feeling you get when you've had your second vaccine, and you've suffered through that One Day of Bleh, and now, even though there's still a pandemic going on, you feel so much safer and ready to take on the world again, just as things are starting to reopen and spring is launching into its brightest phase of green beauty before summer comes a-blazing down our paths again? That feeling? This show – Puckett's work in general – captures that feeling. Welcome yourself back to Austin, we suggest, at the Workman Gallery sometime this month.

Through May 29

Wally Workman Gallery