photo by Morris Malakoff
Open House ART BLOCKS AT SAM HOUSTON PARK
Open House is the Downtown District’s sixth Art Blocks project, a site-specific installation by Houston-based artist collaborative Havel Ruck Projects (Dan Havel and Dean Ruck). Over the course of several months, the duo transformed a 1940s-era house in Sam Houston Park into an interactive, temporary public sculpture. The artists have wallpapered the interior of the house with thousands of vintage images and then have cut circular holes throughout creating a Swiss cheese effect. Visitors are encouraged to stroll through the house; the openings acting as peepholes to the present through the photos of the past.
Open House is open daily from dawn until dusk through February 2019. In addition, the Downtown District encourages visitors to explore the park’s 10 buildings, along with the Museum Gallery, which serve as historic reference points and exhibition spaces for more than 23,000 artifacts that document life in Houston from the early 1800s to the mid-1900s.
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Spatial Chromointerference BUFFALO BAYOU PARK CISTERN The Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern, a 1926 underground city reservoir that was restored in 2016, is temporarily home to a unique sitespecific environment by world- renowned artist Carlos Cruz-Diez. Considered to be one of the greatest figures of kinetic and optical art, Cruz-Diez conceived an ephemeral and participatory work integrated into the architecture of the underground cavern, the objective being to radically change the visitor’s perception of color and space. Thirty-two projectors have been placed in the cistern to project moving lattices of light on the columns, interior walls and on cubes floating in the shallow pool of water on the cistern photo by Paul Hester
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floor. This dazzling projection, reinforced by its reflection on the water, creates a space where everything loses its materiality. Color becomes not merely a visual object to see but a space to be experienced. On view through January 13, 2019. Open Wednesday through Friday from 3:30 to 6 pm; Saturday and Sunday from 11 am to 6 pm. Admission is $10 per person; $8 for seniors (65+ with ID), youth (9-17) and students (18+ with ID) and free on Thursdays. Please note that children under the age of 9 are not permitted in the cistern. Visitors are encouraged to wear white or light-colored clothing. Timed tickets can be purchased at buffalobayou.org.