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EDITOR’S NOTE
April / May 2025
TERRI PROVENCAL Publisher / Editor in Chief terri@patronmagazine.com
Instagram terri_provencal and patronmag
April arrives with the vibrant energy of Dallas Arts Month, bringing an extraordinary lineup of exhibitions and two major art fairs that will welcome over 110 international art dealers to North Texas. Gracing our cover, Marisa Adesman conjures a magic trick in her sumptuous surrealist painting—an artistic prelude to the highly anticipated Dallas Art Fair, which opens on April 10 with an exclusive Preview Benefit. Marisa is represented by Anat Ebgi, a gallery located in Los Angeles and New York, and we expect this booth to receive a lot of traffic. Read about Adesman and 10 other captivating artists in Worldview, showcasing a dazzling array of national and international exhibitors.
In the Dallas Arts District, Nasher Prize inaugurates the high arts season, honoring laureate Otobong Nkanga in its newly established biennial format. Trey Burns explores Nkanga’s work in Clinging to a Landscape Unraveled by Extraction. Next door, at the Dallas Museum of Art, a sweeping retrospective of the late Venezuelan American sculptor Marisol is now on view. Matthew Bourbon takes readers inside this dynamic exhibition in Welcome to Marisol’s Party
Returning for its third edition, the Dallas Invitational finds a new home at the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek. Danielle Avram shares her perspective on this intimate art experience, which founder James Cope describes as “a gathering of like-minded people.”
At The Warehouse, Double Vision merges The Rachofsky Collection with the Hartland & Mackie / Labora Collection. Spanning media and the collecting tastes of two families, it’s a tour de force curated by Thomas Feulmer and Benjamin Godsill. Within The Warehouse galleries, a solo show by Londonbased painter Francesca Mollett titled Elsewhere is breathtaking. Eve Hill-Agnus explores both these compelling exhibitions in A More Perfect Union
This month, the Dallas Contemporary unveils You Stretched Diagonally Across It, an inspiring tapestry exhibition that traverses cultures and continents. Nancy Cohen Israel speaks with curator Su Wu in Threads of Society. Meanwhile, Benjamin Lima previews a private collection of George Condo works acquired by the Karpidas Collection in A Long, Rich History. And Brandon Kennedy returns to Patron ’s pages with a story about Tessa Granowski’s new art space Nature of Things in Chasing Down New Histories on Sale Street. Always in on the act, The Power Station Annex brings Will Boone to the mix for his Gulf Coast Wolf Ghost performance piece.
In Fort Worth, the Kimbell Art Museum presents Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910–1945, an unprecedented exhibition for North Texas. Frank Hettig examines the historical weight these works carry in Masterworks in an Era of Turmoil.
A Room Hung With Thoughts: British Painting Now, at the Green Family Art Foundation and curated by Tom Morton, stands out as a must-see on the city’s bustling art circuit. The fitting title finds connections through the lived experiences of each of these artists, whether born, based, or studying in the UK.
Anna Kunz takes the Studio spotlight this issue in Ephemeral Space of Found Beauty ; her work will appear both at Dallas Art Fair and in The Ecstatic Dream, a solo show at Galleri Urbane.
Our fashion pages take a look at this year’s NorthPark Ambassadors, an honor conceived by Nancy Nasher alongside Kimberly Whitman. This prestigious group of philanthropic individuals make things happen, and each will champion their selected nonprofit organization through the program. Photographed by Luis Martinez and styled by Wendy Mulas within The Sense of Beauty : Six Centuries of Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce, the feature proves to be another visual feast.
Looking ahead to May, TACA will honor Gayle Halperin and Jim Nugent at this year’s Silver Cup Award Luncheon. Lee Cullum offers a closer look at these resolute volunteers and visionary arts patrons in Tip of the Spear
With an art-filled season all for the taking ahead, Dallas is set to shine on the global stage.
–Terri Provencal
TWP | APRIL 2
DOROTHEE SCHUMACHER | APRIL 3-5
CINDY ENSOR DESIGNS | APRIL 3-4
JUAN DE DIOS | APRIL 9
ARDDUN AGENCY | APRIL 10-12
HINE FINE JEWELRY | APRIL 10-12
DEVON LEIGH JEWELRY | APRIL 17-18
ROBERTO CAVALLI | APRIL 17-19
SILVIA TCHERASSI | APRIL 24-25
ZOFIA DAY CO. | APRIL 24-26
CHRISTY LYNN | MAY 1-3
DEEPA GURNANI | MAY 1-3
BENE HANDBAGS | MAY 1-3
ANGELA MIA JEWELRY | MAY 6-7
HILTON HOLLIS | MAY 6-8
FRANK & EILEEN | MAY 8-9
NICKHO REY | MAY 8-10
CARA CARA | MAY 15-17
SILVIA TCHERASSI
FEATURES
76 WORLDVIEW
Dallas Art Fair brings international flair. By Nancy Cohen Israel, Ian Etter, Anthony Falcon, Terri Provencal, and Darryl Ratcliff
86 CLINGING TO A LANDSCAPE UNRAVELED BY EXTRACTION
Nasher Prize winner Otobong Nkanga’s interdisciplinary practice opens portals to hidden depths.
By Trey Burns
92 WELCOME TO MARISOL’S PARTY
Pop art phenom, the Venezuelan American artist’s career survey at the Dallas Museum of Art is relevant and irreverent.
By Matt Bourbon
98 A GATHERING OF LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE
A boutique-scale fair, Dallas Invitational is ready to receive guests at the Mansion.
By Danielle Avram
106 A MORE PERFECT UNION
The Warehouse Dallas Art Foundation’s inaugural exhibitions introduce a generative double helix.
By Eve Hill-Agnus
112 NORTHPARK AMBASSADORS
In its eighth year, the NorthPark Ambassador program merges art, fashion, and philanthropy.
Photographs by Luis Martinez; Styling by Wendy Mulas
124 TIP OF THE SPEAR
Gayle Halperin and Jim Nugent to take top honors at TACA’s Silver Cup Awards Luncheon.
By Lee Cullum
On the cover: Marisa Adesman, The Turn, oil on canvas, 18 x 18 in. Courtesy of the artist and Anat Ebgi, Los Angeles, New York. 92
DEPARTMENTS
10 Editor’s Note
16 Contributors
38 Noted
Fair Trade
52 PROCESS PROFOUND
Emil Lukas, recognized for his thread paintings, seeks to stimulate the mind.
Interview by Piero Atchugarry
Openings
54 THREADS OF SOCIETY
Dallas Contemporary serves up a feast of contemporary woven works curated by Su Wu.
By Nancy Cohen Israel
58 A LONG, RICH STORY
A new show at the Karpidas Collection traces the collector’s fruitful relationship with the artist George Condo.
By Ben Lima
Contemporaries
62 MASTERWORKS IN AN ERA OF TURMOIL
The Kimbell Art Museum tackles the shifts in art and politics from 1910–1945 in Germany.
By Frank Hettig
66 CHASING DOWN NEW HISTORIES ON SALE STREET
Tessa Granowski’s Nature of Things connects the joy of the unknown with the search for community. By Brandon Kennedy
68 COLLECTED THOUGHTS
British Painting Now sees the work of 40 artists born between the ’60s and ’90s, at the Green Family Art Foundation. By Terri Provencal
70 ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS
Will Boone: Gulf Coast Wolf Ghost opens at The Power Station Annex. By John Zotos
72 CHANGE OF SCENE
Halona Norton-Westbrook takes the helm at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. By John Zotos
Studio
74 EPHEMERAL SPACES OF FOUND BEAUTY
Optimism permeates paintings by Anna Kunz in Ecstatic Dream
By Danielle Avram
Furthermore
128 NEW YORK CRAYON ROOM
Drawing by Chris Byrne and Scott Newton
Via del Corso lounge chair by Man of Parts
CONTRIBUTORS
DANIELLE AVRAM is assistant professor of contemporary galleries and exhibitions at UT Dallas and the director of SP/N Gallery on campus. She is also a writer, curator, and project manager. She has held positions at Texas Woman’s University; SMU; The Power Station; and The Pinnell Collection. She writes about the Dallas Invitational in A Gathering of Like-Minded People and visits with Anna Kunz in Ephemeral Spaces of Found Beauty
MATTHEW BOURBON
is an artist, art critic, and professor of art at the University of North Texas’ College of Visual Arts and Design. Matthew’s artwork was featured in two solo exhibitions in 2024, Transmission Voices at San Antonio College and Where Sameness and Difference Meet at Kirk Hopper Fine Art in Dallas. He explored the major Marisol retrospective at the Dallas Museum of Art in Welcome to Marisol’s Party
TREY BURNS
is an artist, writer, and co-founder of Sweet Pass Sculpture Park, a nonprofit initiative supporting experimental and siteresponsive sculpture in Texas. He has served as a moderator for the Nasher Graduate Symposium and authored the keynote essay for the 2025 Nasher Prize Compendium on artist Otobong Nkanga. Trey is a 2024/2025 Research Fellow at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, UK. He lectures at Texas State University.
NANCY COHEN ISRAEL
is an art historian with a background in Northern Renaissance and Baroque art as well as a seasoned arts writer and educator at the Meadows Museum. She delighted in delving into contemporary tapestry with curator Su Wu. She relishes April for the tulips it brings forth and the Dallas Art Fair, for which she enjoyed a sneak peek into the programs at Modern Animals and OMR.
LEE CULLUM covers economics, politics, and public policy. Nothing brings her more pleasure, however, than writing about the arts. She is a senior fellow at the John Tower Center for Public Policy and International Affairs at SMU. She has been a commentator on what is now the PBS NewsHour. Lee highlights TACA Silver Cup Award recipients Gayle Halperin and Jim Nugent in The Tip of the Spear
EVE HILL-AGNUS is a writer, editor, and translator with roots in France and California. She has been a teacher of literature and journalism; a dining critic who also covered art and dance; as well as nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Eve’s expertise is shown in A More Perfect Union, which highlights the inaugural exhibition Double Vision: The Rachofsky Collection with the Hartland & Mackie / Labora Collection at The Warehouse.
IAN ETTER
is an artist, writer, and faculty member at the University of North Texas whose work explores materiality, abstraction, and cosomology. He reviews exhibitions with a focus on process and artistic intent. He is also the co-director of artist-run PeepSpace. In Worldview he examines the work of Patrick J. Harris, Kathrin Linkersdorff, and David Lloyd, whose works will be presented at Dallas Art Fair.
BRANDON KENNEDY
is a Dallas-based artist, book scout/ collector, and freelance curator/ writer. He is the proprietor of 00ps b00ks, a project charting the margins and overlaps of used/ rare/collectible art/ books/culture and the persistent demands of commerce. Chasing Down New Histories on Sale Street takes Brandon inside Tessa Granowski’s new art space, Nature of Things.
BEN LIMA
is the founding editor of Athenaeum Review, the UT Dallas journal of arts and ideas. Born and raised in the Bay Area of California, he studied art history at Harvard and Yale, and has previously lived and worked in Los Angeles, Berlin, and New York. For Patron, Ben discusses George Condo’s career survey plucked from the holdings of the Karpidas Collection in A Long, Rich, Story
LUIS MARTINEZ
is a Kim Dawson model and actor discovery from San Antonio currently based in Dallas who is equally adept as a fashion, beauty, and portrait photographer as well as a videographer. In this issue, he spent a week at the Meadows Museum to capture the NorthPark Ambassadors within the exhibition A Sense of Beauty: Six Centuries of Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce
DARRYL RATCLIFF is an artist and poet with a writing and curatorial practice whose work engages communities by building collaborative, durational cultural projects that help tell community narratives, promote civic engagement, and bolster community health. He is a Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 10 Fellow and founder of Gossypion Investments. Darryl writes of four Dallas Art Fair exhibitors in Worldview
JOHN ZOTOS is an art critic and writer who has written about the arts in North Texas for 25 years. His writing is informed by advanced degrees in art history and aesthetics. In this issue, John writes about Halona Norton-Westbrook, the new executive director of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and Will Boone’s Gulf Coast West Coast performance piece at The Power Station.
PUBLISHER | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Terri Provencal terri@patronmagazine.com
ART DIRECTION
Lauren Christensen
DIGITAL MANAGER/PUBLISHING COORDINATOR
Anthony Falcon
COPY EDITOR
Sophia Dembling
PRODUCTION
Michele Rodriguez
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Danielle Avram
Matt Bourbon
Trey Burns
Chris Byrne
Nancy Cohen Israel
Lee Cullum
Ian Etter
Frank Hettig
Eve Hill-Agnus
Brandon Kennedy
Ben Lima
Darryl Ratcliff
John Zotos
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Jörg P. Anders
Agustín Arce
Kai-Anett Becker
Lucie Berthold
Etienne Frossard
Izzi Galindo
Klaus Göken`
Nathan Keay
Luis Martinez
Xavier Scott Marshall
Peyton Mixon
Monserrat Muro
Johan Pierson
Natalie Piserchio
John Smith
Kevin Todora
CONTRIBUTING STYLISTS
Wendy Mulas
ADVERTISING info@patronmagazine.com or by calling (214) 642-1124
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IN THE HE ART OF IT ALL
HALL Arts Hotel, a 2025 Forbes Travel Guide Recommended hotel, curates artful experiences as the premier hotel in the Dallas Arts District. Savor culinary and cocktail masterpieces at Ellie’s, join a tour of our thought-provoking art collection, or experience a world-class performance at a neighboring arts venue before a stay in our luxury accommodations.
Get inspired at HALL Arts Hotel.
On view through July 6, 2025
Of all the Pop artists of the 1960s, Marisol remains the most enigmatic. By examining and contextualizing her work over its long arc from the 1950s to the early 2000s, this internationally touring retrospective, the most comprehensive survey of Marisol’s work ever assembled, demonstrates the extraordinary relevance of the legendary artist’s unique vision of culture and society.
Marisol: A Retrospective is organized by the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. The exhibition is supported by a major grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. Critical work related to this exhibition and collection was made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The exhibition is curated by Cathleen Chaffee, Charles Balbach Chief Curator of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. The Dallas presentation is curated by Anna Katherine Brodbeck, Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art. This exhibition in Dallas is presented by Bank of America. The Dallas Museum of Art is supported, in part, by generous DMA Members and donors, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and the citizens of Dallas through the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture.
BY
The Party (detail), 1965-66. Marisol. Assemblage of 15 freestanding, life-size figures and 3 wall panels, with
television set, clothes, shoes, glasses, and other accessories. Toledo Museum of Art Museum
Estate of Marisol / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Through September 7
Alex Da Corte: The Whale is made possible through major support from the Texas Commission on the Arts, with additional contributions from the Fort Worth Tourism Public Improvement District, Matthew Marks Gallery, Fort Worth Promotion and Development Fund, Henrik Persson, Gió Marconi Gallery, and Sadie Coles HQ.
Feeling Color: Aubrey Williams and Frank Bowling celebrates the work of two remarkable arti s—exhibited together as a duo for the fir time—and highlights their re e ive contributions to the ory of po war twentieth-century ab ra painting. A er leaving their native Guyana, both arti s based themselves in London; however, Williams (1926–1990) and Bowling (b. 1934) walked separate paths in their re e ive arti ic development and careers.
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NOTED
01 AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM
From Jun.–Jul. 3, the African American Museum of Dallas presents From Africa to the Broadway Stage: Disney’s ‘The Lion King’, coinciding with the national tour of the Broadway production at the nearby Music Hall. This free exhibit showcases original Broadway production elements of The Lion King alongside African art from the museum’s collection The 28th Biennial Carroll Harris Simms, National Black Art Competition and Exhibition continues through Jul. 26. aamdallas.org
03 CROW MUSEUM OF ASIAN ART OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS
Japan, Form & Function: The Montgomery Collection continues through Apr. 14. Saya Woolfalk: Floating World of the Cloud Quilt remains on view through Sep. 7 at the UT Dallas museum. Three exhibitions remain on view at the Dallas Arts District museum: Cecilia Chiang: Don’t Tell Me What To Do displays through Mar. 9, 2026 ; Anila Quayyum Agha: Let One Bird Sing through Sep. 28; and The Shogun’s World: Japanese Maps from the MacLean Collection through Oct. 5. Image: Saya Woolfalk (American, born Japan, 1979), Floating World of the Cloud Quilt (Crow Variation), 2025, multimedia installation: three-
THE LATEST CULTURAL NEWS COVERING ALL ASPECTS OF THE ARTS IN NORTH TEXAS: NEW EXHIBITS, NEW PERFORMANCES, GALLERY OPENINGS, AND MORE.
channel wall video (color with sound), single-channel floor video (color with no sound), infinity loop. Courtesy of the artist and Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects. Photograph by Etienne Frossard. crowmuseum.org
04 DALLAS CONTEMPORARY
Velvet Faith, curated by associate curator Emily Edwards and featuring artists EJ Hill and Martin Gonzales, showcases site-specific installations created during a monthlong residency at the museum, along with new and previous sculptures and paintings. The work will be on view through Aug. 31. Curated by Su Wu and opening Apr. 11, You Stretched Diagonally Across It: Contemporary Tapestry explores tapestry as a medium, presenting 29 artists and designers. Through Oct. 12. Image: EJ Hill, weather patterns (The Santa Anas) , 2025 wood, foam, fiberfill, vinyl, and venechia. dallascontemporary.org
05 DALLAS HOLOCAUST AND HUMAN RIGHTS MUSEUM
A Better Life for Their Children: Julius Rosenwald, Booker T. Washington, and the 4,978 Schools that Changed America examines one of the most transformative initiatives in American history, forged by Booker T. Washington, a Black educator, author, and reformer; and Julius Rosenwald, a Jewish businessman and philanthropist. Between 1912 and 1937, their ambitious program partnered with local communities to build thousands of schools for Black children across the segregated South and Southwest. On view through Aug. 17. dhhrm.org
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07 GEORGE W. BUSH
PRESIDENTAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
Freedom Matters uses rare artifacts and historical documents, interactive activities, and personal perspectives to examine the concept of freedom: where it comes from, what it means, what free societies look like, and the role of the individual in protecting and spreading freedom around the world, through May 31. bushcenter.org
08 KIMBELL ART MUSEUM
Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910–1945 brings together more than 70 paintings and sculptures from the collections of the Neue Nationalgalerie, the distinguished modern art museum of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. It traces the German experience in the visual arts over four decades and is open through Jun. 22. kimbellart.org
09 LATINO CULTURAL CENTER
Ronaldo Bolaños’ Amor Eterno reflects on the intersection of memory, migration, and identity, from May 3–Jun. 6. El Otro by Octavio Solis is on view May 16–31. lcc.dallasculture.org
10 MEADOWS MUSEUM
Through Jun. 22, The Sense of Beauty: Six Centuries of Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce features major works by the leading lights of European and American painting. The exhibition gathers religious and historical pictures by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Angelica Kauffmann; portraits by Joshua Reynolds and Elisabeth Louise Vigée LeBrun; landscapes by Claude Lorrain and Gustave Courbet; and genre scenes by Jean-Léon Gérôme and William-Adolphe Bouguereau. meadowsmuseumdallas.org
11 MODERN ART MUSEUM OF FORT WORTH
Alex Da Corte: The Whale is the first museum exhibition to survey the interdisciplinary artist’s long relationship with painting. Focusing on the past decade of Da Corte’s career, this exhibition features more than 40 paintings, several drawings, and a video that considers painting as a performative act. The Whale will close on Sep. 7. Through Jul. 27, Feeling Color: Aubrey Williams and Frank Bowling , organized by the Modern and curator María Elena Ortiz, celebrates these two artists and their contributions to the story of abstract painting in the late 20th century. Image: Alex Da Corte: The Whale, installation view, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (Mar 2, 2025 – Sep 7, 2025). Courtesy of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. themodern.org
12 MUSEUM OF BIBLICAL ART
Their Portraits remembers the hostages abducted from Israel on
October 7, 2023, through the art of portraiture. Led by artists Nancy Gordon, a former Dallas resident, and Sivia Braunstein, who was in Israel during the attack, the exhibition features over 200 portraits created by eight artists. Chong Chu’s Jacob’s Ladder showcases Chu’s colorful abstracts and remains on view through Apr. 13. Through May 31, Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Females features the work of New York artist Linda Stein and highlights women heroes who opposed the Nazi regime. biblicalarts.org
13 NASHER SCULPTURE CENTER
Otobong Nkanga’s Nasher Prize exhibition runs Apr. 5–Aug. 17. Nkanga’s work reexamines our relationship with the land and the materials extracted from it, engaging a dynamic and deeply considered range of materials within an equally diverse practice Lost Lands and Sunken Fields, featuring work by Haegue Yang, remains on view through Apr. 27 and highlights her hybrid approach that blends folk traditions with modern and contemporary sculpture, informed by her deep engagement with vernacular techniques and cultures. Manfred Pernice: Recent Acquisitions in Context concludes Apr. 13. Image: Otobong Nkanga (Nigerian/Belgian, b. 1974), Anamnesis, 2015, plywood, gauze, coffee, tea, spices, cacao, raw tobacco, peat, 204.60 x 451.20 in. Installation view of Streamlines: Ozeane, Welthandel and Migration. Oceans, Global Trade and Migration at the Deichtorhallen, 2015. nashersculpturecenter.org
14 PEROT MUSEUM
Topaz: A Spectrum in Stone features over 100 topaz specimens from across the globe. This collection displays the scope of crystal structures and colored stones within the topaz family. Step into a dreamlike world of color and light at Glow Lab! Build, play, and explore endless possibilities in a vibrant, illuminated space filled with modular inflatable units that encourage experimentation and collaboration, through May 31. perotmuseum.org
15
SIXTH FLOOR MUSEUM
Colorful Memories, November 22 Through a Child’s Eyes continues through Jan. 4. Filmmaker and writer Richard Snodgrass documented how young children perceived and processed the historic event. Partnering with Sacred Heart School in Prescott, Arizona, Snodgrass worked with a diverse class of first-grade students, capturing their verbal responses and their illustrated memories. jfk.org
16 TYLER MUSEUM OF ART
New to Town, through Apr. 13, highlights acquisitions over the past few years, many on view for the first time. The works vary in style and subject matter but were all created by artists with close ties to Texas. tylermuseum.org
01 AMPHIBIAN
From Apr. 16–May 11, Rift, or White Lie s by Gabriel Jason Dean examines American social tensions through the lens of familial discord. From May 21–24, Steve Coogan plays four roles in the stage adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, at the Modern. amphibianstage.com
02 AT&T PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
Through May 4, Darkfield presents challenging multisensory experiences in Séance, Coma, and Flight. Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: The Super Live brings a 2.5D musical set for Apr. 1. Messiah in America descends on Apr. 9. The Jazz Goes Classical Experience shines on Apr. 13, as do the Shamrock Tenors. Mean Girls is back Apr. 17–19. Alice mounts Apr. 17–27. See Diana Krall on Apr. 22. Champions of Magic stop in on Apr. 27. Michael Feinstein in Because of You: My Tribute to Tony Bennett performs Apr. 29. See Patti LaBelle on May 1, followed by Ain’t Too Proud—The Life and Times of the Temptations May 1–4. Forbidden Broadway—Merrily We Stole a Song is up next on May 6–10. Paul Simon performs May 7–8. Lucy Dacus—Forever is a Feeling Tour follows on May 9. Watch What Crappens LIVE: The Mounting Hysteria Tour brings the Bravo-sphere to life on May 10. AAPI Family Weekend celebrates Heritage Month on May 10. Hee Yun Kim presents Strings Attached Across the Pacific on May 10–11. PNC Patio Sessions celebrates a Pool Party…Sort Of in Sammons Park. The Moth shares personal storytelling on May 15. Couture on Tour: An Emily in Paris Experience on May 22 is sure to delight. Patti LuPone: A Life in Notes follows on May 24. Natalia Lafourcade performs May 29–30. STOMP will celebrate 30 years from May 31–Jun 1. Image: Ain’t Too Proud . Photograph by Johan Pierson. attpac.org
03 BASS PERFORMANCE HALL
Dixie’s Tupperware Party brings the laughs Apr. 2–6. The Cliburn presents Jean-Guihen Queyras and Alexander Melnikov on April 10 at the Kimbell Art Museum, followed by Emanuel Ax on Apr. 22. UNT One O’Clock Lab Band Spring Showcase performs on May 2. MJ returns on May 13–18. The 2025 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition mounts May 21–Jun. 7. basshall.com
04 BROADWAY DALLAS
Experience Swan Lake on Apr. 4. Aziz Ansari brings his Hypothetical Tour on Apr. 12. Mamma Mia! returns Apr. 15–27. May begins with ONEW THE LIVE: CONNECTION IN USA on May 2 broadwaydallas.org
05 CASA MAÑANA
Enjoy The Little Mermaid through Apr. 13. The musical journey continues with ’90s Country from Apr. 8–25. Hear The Music of Laurel Canyon on May 10. casamanana.org
06 DALLAS CHILDREN’S THEATER
See James and the Giant Peach from Apr. 19–May 24. dct.org
07 DALLAS BLACK DANCE THEATRE
The 24–25 season concludes with DBDT’s Spring Celebration, May 16–17. dbdt.org
08 DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
April begins with Sibelius’ Symphony No. 3 from Apr. 3–6, followed by, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring Apr. 10–12; Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony Apr. 17–19; Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezín on Apr. 23; and The Princess Bride in Concert from Apr. 25–27. Jaap van Zweden returns to conduct Shostakovich and Mozart from May 1–3. The Dallas Symphony Children’s Chorus Spring Recital is set for May 4. ¡Bailamos! A Night of Latin Music brings rhythms on May 9–11. Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 from May 15–18, Beethoven X Beyoncé on May 17, and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 –Resurrection on May 30–31 complete the season. mydso.com
09 DALLAS THEATER CENTER
Waitress continues through Apr. 20. dallastheatercenter.org
10 DALLAS WINDS
Catch Fire! sees Richard Strauss perform Festival Intrada ; John Mackey perform Kingfishers Catch Fire, a tribute to Rudy Wiedoeft by Don Lefevre; and Feste Romane by Ottorino Respighi on Apr. 8. dallaswinds.org
11 EISEMANN CENTER
Shelter Me will captivate on Apr. 12. The Pa’akai We Bring is next on Apr. 13, followed by Liverpool Legends—Beatles Experience on Apr. 18. Amirah Sackett & MR MiC perform Apr. 19. Jeffrey Siegel’s Humor in Music will delight on Apr 21. RSO’s season finale, Tchaikovsky & Sibelius, concludes Apr. 26. Don’t miss America’s Diamond—The Neil Diamond Legacy Concert Tribute on May 25 eisemanncenter.com
12 FORT WORTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
At Bass Hall, the Gala Concert with Garrick Ohlsson takes place Apr. 5. Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman mounts Apr. 11–13. On May 3, Storybook: Little Red Riding Hood will be presented at the Van Cliburn Concert Hall at TCU. The Kimbell hosts on May 4,
This season, we celebrate 125 years with exciting programming including:
MAHLER’S SYMPHONY OF A THOUSAND
MOZART’S SYMPHONY NO. 40
PUCCINI’S MADAMA BUTTERFLY
TOP GUN: MAVERICK IN CONCERT
DOLLY PARTON’S THREADS: MY SONGS IN SYMPHONY
ALWAYS FREE. NO LIE.
With thousands of artworks, exciting new exhibitions, and weekly events and experiences, all for free, there’s always something on for you at the Carter.
NOTED:
including works by Mendelssohn, Barber, and Ligeti. The Picasso Symphony makes its US premiere on May 10 at the Will Rogers Auditorium. Hear Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and Symphony No. 39 at the Arlington ISD Center for Visual and Performing Arts on May 17. fwsymphony.org
13 KITCHEN DOG THEATER
The Grown-Ups explores the traditions that change us, what it takes to change them, and how to change yourself when you’re not prepared. Apr. 24–May 11. kitchendogtheater.org
14 LYRIC STAGE
Through Apr. 19, see Jekyll & Hyde set to a pop-rock score by Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse lyricstage.org
15 MAJESTIC THEATRE
Experience A Taste of Ireland on Apr. 2, followed by Stayin’ Alive: One Night of The Bee Gees on Apr. 4. Michael Blaustein: Take Me Tour brings the laughs on Apr. 5, and Josh Johnson takes the stage Apr. 6. KXT 91.7 presents Amos Lee on Apr. 12. Celebrate Aretha Franklin with R.E.S.P.E.C.T. on Apr. 13. Bitch Sesh Podcast appears on Apr. 16, and Killers of Kill Tony is next on Apr. 18. KXT 91.7 presents Kraftwerk on Apr. 24 and Girls Gone Bible on Apr. 25. Matt Mathews brings his Boujee On A Budget Tour on Apr. 26. Enjoy comedy with #IMOMSOHARD: Flashback on May 2, and music from Penny and Sparrow on May 3. The AT&T Performing Arts Center presents Black Violin on May 4, Blackberry Smoke on May 9, Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening on May 21, and Samara Joy on May 28. majestic.dallasculture.org
16 TACA
The TACA Silver Cup Award Luncheon on May 7 will honor Gayle Halperin and Jim Nugent for extraordinary volunteerism. taca–arts.org
17
TEXAS BALLET THEATER
Even in death, Giselle’s love for her faithless suitor saves him from the ravages of avenging ghostly maidens. See Giselle May 2–18. texasballettheater.org
18 THEATRE THREE
Through Apr. 20, Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage explores the life of an early 20th-century African American seamstress in New York City. theatre3dallas.com
19 TITAS/DANCE UNBOUND
Seattle-based Whim W’Him, known for its artistic, innovative choreography, debuts in Texas on Apr. 11. See the satirical Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (The Trocks) on May 2–3 at the Moody Performance Hall. Doug Varone and Dancers return to the AT&T Performing Arts Center on May 23. Image: Whim W’Him. Courtesy of TITAS/DANCE UNBOUND. titas.org
20 UNDERMAIN THEATRE
HK quit their job as a police officer, broke up with their cowboy partner, and has a vendetta with their brother-in-law. Family drama, noir, and romance ensue in Brian Dang’s comedy, H*LLO K*TTY SYNDROME from May 1–25. undermain.org
21 WATERTOWER THEATRE
A Streetcar Named Desire, closing Apr. 6, sees Blanche DuBois cope with life’s harsh realities. watertowertheatre.org
Unrivaled Expertise, Unmatched Luxury
01 12.26
12.26 will have two separate solo exhibitions running until May 3. The exhibitions include a yet-to-be-titled solo show featuring new paintings by Julia Maiuri, and Lauren Spencer King: Measures of Desire. On May 10, the gallery will introduce two more solo exhibitions, continuing through Jun. 14. These will showcase new paintings by London-based artist Gal Schindler and new works by Dallas-based Keer Tanchak.
02 AKIM MONET FINE ARTS
Myths Reimagined: Rodin and the Art of Transformation sees Rodin’s iconic works with modern and contemporary creations, forging a dialogue across epochs to examine the enduring power of myth and art in shaping the human experience. akimmonetfinearts.com
03 ALAN BARNES FINE ART
Alan Barnes Fine Art specializes in 19th- and 20th-century American and European paintings. alanbarnesfineart.com
04 ARTSPACE111
Through Apr. 29, Artifacts, Danville Chadbourne’s latest exhibition , unveils a new collection of works in clay and wood. It features both small- and large-scale sculptures, wall-oriented ceramic reliefs, and an ongoing series of drawings on wood panels. artspace111.com
05 BARRY WHISTLER GALLERY
Tom Orr presents New Sculptures alongside Luke Harnden’s New Paintings from Apr. 12–May 31. barrywhistlergallery.com
06 BEATRICE M. HAGGERTY GALLERY
Zahra Nazari–Between Walls: The Geometry of Emotion continues through Apr. 24 and examines the interplay of aesthetic traditions and their impact on our spiritual selves, influenced by her experiences in the US and her native Iran. udallas.edu/gallery
07 CADD
Contemporary Art Dealers of Dallas is a nonprofit formed in 2007 to promote contemporary art in Dallas. The organization hosts coordinated member gallery days, happy hours, bus tours, scholarships, and other events supporting artists and galleries in North Texas. caddallas.org
08 CHRISTOPHER MARTIN GALLERY
Established in Dallas in 1995, Christopher Martin Gallery displays the reverse-glass paintings of Christopher H. Martin along with 25-plus mid-career artists who work within painting, photography, mixed media, and sculpture. christophermartingallery.com
09 CONDUIT GALLERY
Works by Annabel Daou and Anthony Sonnenberg remain on
view through Apr. 19, concurrent with Renata Cassiano Alvarez in the Project Room. From Apr. 26–Jun. 7, J.C. Fontanive and Francisco J. Marquez will be shown in the Project Room, while David Canright will get his first solo show with the gallery since leaving his position at the Richards Group. Image: Anthony Sonnenberg, Prong Candelabra (Spring Flush), 2025, porcelain over stoneware, found ceramic tchotchkes, and glaze, 17 x 9.5 x 8.5 in. conduitgallery.com
10 CRAIGHEAD GREEN GALLERY
Craighead Green Gallery presents an exhibition featuring Pamela Nelson, Heather Gorham, and Chris Mason. The three shows explore themes of color, perception, and the human experience through painting and sculpture. On view Apr. 5–May 10. Image: Heather Gorham, Ramona, Patron Saint of Questionable Decision Making , 2025, acrylic on panel, 48 x 36 in. craigheadgreen.com
11 CRIS WORLEY FINE ARTS
Through Apr. 12, Shannon Cannings’ Distortions explores themes through vibrant imagery; Paul Winker’s easy does it offers a reflective take on simplicity and minimalism; and Richard Patterson’s Nature Paintings showcase his unique approach to landscapes. From Apr. 19–May 30, Terry Suprean’s The Fatale Softness in the Earth and Trey Egan’s With You From The Start both delve into personal and environmental narratives. Image: Shannon Cannings, Distortion 31, 2024, natural watercolor, gun ink, 5 x 5 in. crisworley.com
12 CVAD, UNT COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN GALLERIES
Through May 9, explore An Irrational Fancy, featuring curated selections from the UNT Libraries Special Collections alongside The World is Not Lucky, an exhibition of work by Eileen Maxson. cvad.unt.edu
13 DAISHA BOARD GALLERY
Silk Route—Our Creative Odyssey, curated by Janak Narayan, continues through May 3. This exhibition spotlights the works of women artists Anindita Dasgupta, Anjali Pai, Bharathi Dev, Janak Narayan, and Mansi Aggarwal, exploring a vibrant journey through creative expression. Image: Anindita Dasgupta, Walk me through it all, 2024, acrylic and oil on canvas, 60 x 48 in.
14 DAVID DIKE FINE ART
Spring Mini Sale is an online-only event featuring a wide variety of work held by the gallery. The online exhibition will be available through spring daviddike.com
15 ERIN CLULEY GALLERY
Continuous nurture features work by Sarita Westrup with an opening reception in conjunction with Dallas Art Fair Design District Gallery Night on Apr. 9. The exhibition will be on view through
18
May 10. Image: Sarita Westrup, nonlinear route II, 2024, reed, mortar, metal, cord, paint, cochineal ink. erincluley.com
16 FERRARI FINE ART GALLERY
Those Who Have Gone This Way Before, a solo exhibition by Mark Russell Jones, is on display during Arts Week , from Apr. 11–May 10. A special event with the artist takes place on Apr. 11. ferrarigallery.net
17 FWADA
Fort Worth Art Dealers Association organizes, funds, and hosts exhibitions of noteworthy art. fwada.com
18 GALLERI URBANE
Through May 3, Sabrina Piersol features an intriguing array of sculptures and works on paper highlighting her unique material explorations and philosophical investigations. Concurrently, Anna Kunz’s The Ecstatic Dream presents new paintings and works on paper that dive into diaristic expressions and cinematic aesthetics inspired by chance encounters. Image: Sabrina Piersol, Out of the Bloom, 2025, oil on canvas, 30 x 26 in. galleriurbane.com.
19 GREEN FAMILY ART FOUNDATION
A Room Hung with Thoughts: British Painting Now, curated by Tom Morton, displays through May 11. greenfamilyartfoundation.org
20 HOLLY JOHNSON GALLERY
The gallery features eight exhibitions per year, primarily oneperson shows, by mid-career and internationally acclaimed artists. The gallery continues to refine and augment the careers of their artists while increasing the appreciation of their art. hollyjohnsongallery.com
21 JAMES COPE GALLERY
Through May 10 the gallery will feature works by Leslie Martinez, Brandon Ndife, and Eli Ping. Along with this, the gallery will participate in the Dallas Invitational, founded by James Cope, from Apr. 10–Apr. 12. Ellen Siebers will have a solo exhibition from May 17–Jun. 21. jamescope.biz
22 JAMES HARRIS GALLERY
Another Day by Squeak Carnwath, through Apr. 26, showcases her continued exploration of human experiences and societal minutiae through vibrant colors, patterns, and textual elements. Mary Ann Peters’ the threads that bind exhibits May 10–Jun 28. Peters, a multidisciplinary artist with roots in the Middle East, uses her work to delve into diaspora narratives. Image: Mary Ann Peters, impossible monuments (the threads that bind), 2023, wood, ink, silk, silk pods, silk threads, glycerin, dimensions variable. jamesharrisgallery.com
23 KEIJSERS KONING
Terrenos, a group exhibition curated by Los Angeles artist Ever Velasquez, remains on view through May 3. Terrenos brings together artists from across California, Texas, Arizona, and Mexico who collectively interrogate ideas of land ownership, inheritance, and community. keijserskoning.com
24 KIRK HOPPER FINE ART
Sculptures from the 1970s by Mac Whitney showcases seminal works through Apr. 19. Following Whitney, Cosmic Gardens by Annabel Livermore offers a visionary exploration of nature and the cosmos from Apr. 26– May 24. The season concludes with a Roger Winter exhibition May 31–Jul. 5. Image: Annabel Livermore, Cosmic Garden 5, 2022, oil on panel, 50.5 x 33 in. kirkhopperfineart.com
25 KITTRELL/RIFFKIND ART GLASS
Modern Masters, featuring a selection of masterworks from the gallery’s best and brightest, will be on view May 10–Jun. 21. kittrellriffkind.com
26 LAURA RATHE FINE ART
Better by the Dozen—Twelve Years of LRFA Dallas, from Apr. 5– May 10, celebrates the gallery’s 12-year anniversary. A group show featuring Gregory Watin, Nick Veasey, and Max Steven Grossman will run from May 17–Jun. 21. laurarathe.com
27 LILIANA BLOCH GALLERY
Ted Kincaid: Towards a Queer Transcendence, on view through Apr. 26, marks a significant evolution in Kincaid’s artistic journey over his four-decade career. Image: Ted Kincaid, Theosophic Study 1022, 2024, acrylic, ink, and iridescent powder on found book cover, 9 x 11.75 in. lilianablochgallery.com
28 LONE GALLERY
Lone Gallery showcases a diverse array of artistic talents, including painters Bradley Kerl, Danny Joe Rose III, and Camille Woods alongside mixed-media artists such as Cruz Ortiz and Heather Sundquist Hall and works by sculptors Aaron Michalovic and Fernando Rojas. lonegallery.com
29 MELIKSETIAN | BRIGGS
Founded in 2012 by Anna Meliksetian and Michael Briggs, the gallery exhibits international contemporary art in various media , including Yifan Jiang and the estate of Bas Jan Ader. meliksetianbriggs.com
30 NATURE OF THINGS
Nature of Things, a space for art exhibitions and cultural events with a focus on emerging contemporary artists and Texas history, will open its doors Apr. 10 on historic Sale Street in Dallas. A
Clean, Well-Lighted Place, will feature a group of artists from Apr. 10–May 31. natureofthings.xyz
31 PENCIL ON PAPER
Pencil on Paper will participate at the Dallas Art Fair for the second time, showcasing Jessica Vollrath and Elyse Hradecky at Booth B10, alongside Nouman Gaafar and Emmanuel Gillespie. Additionally, from Apr. 5–May 1, the gallery will host solo shows for Gaafar and Vollrath at both Pencil on Paper Gallery and the Arthello Beck Gallery at the South Dallas Cultural Center. pencilonpapergallery.com
32
PHOTOGRAPHS DO NOT BEND
Pangeaography will be on view through Apr. 30 and features a global array of photography capturing diverse geographical and cultural landscapes. A book signing takes place on Apr. 5 for William Greiner’s Neutral Ground: New Orleans 1990–2005. pdnbgallery.com
33
POWER STATION
The Power Station opens Oto Gillen’s exhibition Eleventh Avenue on Apr. 11. The photographer/sculptor’s work will be on view through May. powerstationdallas.com
34 RO2 ART
Following Terry Hays’ show through Apr. 5, Ro2 will feature Yasuyo Maruyama’s ethereal oil portraits and Carla Gannis’ maximalist assemblage portraits and a new media video, from Apr. 12–May 17. From May 24–Jun. 28, Brantly Sheffield and T J Griffin explore themes of exclusivity in golf courses. Image: Yasuyo Maruyama, Natsuki 3, 2024, oil painting on wood panel, 16 x 16 x 2 in. ro2art.com
35
SAMUEL LYNNE GALLERIES
Since 2008 , the gallery has showcased a selection of contemporary artists, including JD Miller, Lea Fisher, David Yarrow, and Phil Romano. samuellynne.com
36
SMINK
A showcase of fine design and furniture, SMINK is a purveyor of quality products for living. The showroom also hosts exhibitions featuring Robert Szot, Gary Faye, Richard Hogan, Dara Mark, and Paula Roland. sminkinc.com
37
SOUTHWEST GALLERY
For over 50 years, Southwest Gallery has provided Dallas with the largest collection of fine 19th–21st-century paintings and sculptures. The gallery exhibits hundreds of artists who work in a broad range of styles, all displayed in their 16,000-square-foot showroom. swgallery.com
March 30–
June 22
NOTED: GALLERIES
38 TALLEY DUNN GALLERY
Sedrick Huckaby: Higher Ground continues through May 17. Huckaby’s paintings, drawings, and sculpture metaphorically express universal themes of faith, family, community, and heritage. Image: Sedrick Huckaby, Opal Lee - The Proposal for the State Senate, 2022, oil on canvas, 14 x 11 in. talleydunn.com
39 TUREEN GALLERY
From Apr. 5–Apr. 12, Cow, by Iiu Susiraja, will be on view, with an opening reception on Apr. 5 from 1–5 p.m. A solo presentation by Sonya Kelliher-Combs will highlight Tureen’s booth at the Independent Art Fair from May 8–11. A new exhibition by John Feodorov will be on view from May 17–Jun. 28.tureen.info
40 VALLEY HOUSE GALLERY
Valley House Gallery returns to Dallas Art Fair, Booth F14. At the gallery, Robert D. Cocke’s Timeframe closes Apr. 12, followed by Exhibition of the Texas Collection of Dorothy Garland (1925-2024) from Apr. 19–May 24. Otis Huband’s Recent Paintings will commence on May 31. valleyhouse.com
41 THE WAREHOUSE
Double Vision: A Conversation between The Rachofsky Collection and the Hartland & Mackie/Labora Collection remains on view through Jun. 28. This show presents a comparative look at two significant art collections—the long-established Rachofsky Collection and the more recently formed Hartland & Mackie Family/Labora Collection. thewarehousedallas.org
42 WEBB GALLERY
Webb Gallery presents FD Webb’s Fair & Square on May 3, showcasing new paintings by Heather Sundquist Hall. webbartgallery.com
43 WILLIAM CAMPBELL CONTEMPORARY ART
Promotional
Enigma by Maxine Helfman and Recent Abstractions by Kevin Tolman run concurrently from Mar. 29–May 10, presenting new works by both artists. williamcampbellcontemporaryart.com
44 ZEKE’S PROJECTS
Chloe Scout Nix: i will kill your daddy continues through Apr. 26 at Zeke Williams’ new gallery on Sylvan Ave. zekesprojects.com
AUCTIONS AND EVENTS
01 DALLAS AUCTION GALLERY
Dallas Auction Gallery will hold an Asian art and antique sale
at the end of the month. The Spring Asian Sale: The Collection of a Gentleman, on Apr. 29, features 200 lots of fine Chinese art and antiques from Qing Dynasty porcelains to items from the Royal Palace. dallasauctiongallery.com
02 HERITAGE AUCTIONS
The season starts with the Pin-Up, Glamour, and Romance Illustration Art Showcase Auction on Apr. 3, followed by the American Art Within Reach Showcase Auction on Apr. 4. The schedule continues with Fine & Decorative Arts Auction on Apr. 10, Graffiti Legends: The Art of LA2 on Apr. 15, and the Spring in Bloom Romance Comics Showcase Auction on Apr. 17. Late April features the Photographs Signature Auction on Apr. 29. May brings the Illustration Art Signature Auction on May 2, Silver & Vertu Signature Auction on May 9, American Art Signature Auction on May 16, Prints & Multiples Showcase Auction on May 21, and concludes with In Focus: KAWS Showcase Auction on May 22. More details are available at ha.com
04 DALLAS ART FAIR
Located in the Dallas Arts District, the Dallas Art Fair features a curated selection of modern and contemporary artworks from national and international galleries. Scheduled from Apr. 10–13 at the Fashion Industry Gallery, the event kicks off with a VIP Preview Benefit on Apr. 10, followed by public days from April 11-13. This year’s fair features these Dallas/Fort Worth galleries: Colector, Conduit Gallery, Cris Worley Fine Art, Erin Cluley Gallery, Galleri Urbane, Keijsers Koning, Nature of Things, Pencil on Paper Gallery, and William Campbell Gallery. dallasartfair.com
05
DALLAS INVITATIONAL
From Apr. 10–12, the Dallas Invitational returns for its third year, this time at the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek, showcasing a vibrant mix of modern and contemporary art from an array of leading galleries, including Bel Ami from Los Angeles, Bureau from New York, C L EA R I N G from New York and Los Angeles, and many more from across the globe, such as Empty Gallery from Hong Kong and GRIMM from Amsterdam, New York, and London, as well as Dallas’ own Gallery 12.26. dallasinvitational.com
06
THE OTHER ART FAIR
Saatchi Art’s The Other Art Fair brings 130 artists, thousands of original artworks, and curious encounters to their Dallas edition. Prepare yourself for artworks starting at $100, immersive installations, performances, DJs, and a flowing bar, May 15–18 at Dallas Market Hall. theotherartfair.com
PROCESS PROFOUND
Emil Lukas, recognized for his thread paintings, seeks to stimulate the mind.
INTERVIEW BY PIERO ATCHUGARRY
Within an artist roster steeped in cultural diversity, Piero Atchugarry builds community through a vibrant art program that includes an artist residency in Garzón, Uruguay. The gallery represents established contemporary artists from Uruguay and Latin America as well as Europe and South Africa committed to pushing boundaries through form, texture, and materiality. Space and the environment are paramount to their individual practices, and the work is often sculptural.
Among these recognized artists, Emil Lukas will be a highlight at this year’s Dallas Art Fair. Lukas is best known for his explorations into abstraction, including his thread paintings, which will be on view in the gallery’s booth.
Here, gallery founder Piero Atchugarry visits with the artist.
Piero Atchugarry (PA): In some of your work, you are using living fly larvae to drag ink across a surface. How did you come about this methodology?
Emil Lukas (EL): In the late ’80s I started playing out ideas and experiments that involved patterns from the natural world, like root patterns from germinating seeds, mold patterns from fruit and juices, impact lines on glass, and yes, larvae paths from the common housefly. The main inspiration was stacked sculptures and seeing the connection between all things. Today, 35 years later, the larvae work continues.
PA: In fact, your practice involves new approaches to painting, particularly in abstraction. Will you discuss some of these?
EL: Maybe they are new approaches or maybe they are standard approaches adjusted. For example, the thread work can be broken
Emil Lukas. Photograph by Robin Hill. Courtesy of the artist and Piero Atchugarry Gallery.
Emil Lukas, Irregular 2208, 2024, thread over painted wood and plaster frame with nails, 11 x 1.5 in. Courtesy of the artist and Piero Atchugarry Gallery.
down to light reflection and opacity, the lattice works are two paintings at one time, the wet plate works use subtle shifts in gray scale to make the allusion to photography. All of this plays into a very basic process. When we see something new, we try to visually take it apart, understand, and put it back together.
PA: Your work is often highly controlled, like your lattice paintings, but you also invite opportunities for chance, as with the larvae. Will you talk about these process-based investigations?
EL: “Process-based investigations.” I like this term. The most important process is when the painting goes through the eye and into the brain. That is where something needs to happen. Yes, some of the studio work processes are exciting or even profound. But that is in the privacy of the studio, where nobody ever sees them happen. When the work is sitting in space, in public, that’s totally different. So for that reason I’d rather not distract from the public moment in the gallery by describing the private investigation in the studio. As much as they are deeply connected, they are also two different events.
So let’s talk about the wet plate works. There are two drawing surfaces. First, drawing a drawing on the in-facing side of glass. These drawings are carbon, Japanese sumi ink made in Nara, Japan, from pine soot and deer antler. This ink is the perfect material for ink-on-glass collaborations with fly larvae. Second is a corresponding black-and-white drawing on heavyweight cotton paper. Both works are precisely made for each other. The care in making and their alignment almost convinces the brain that they are a photograph of a historic event.
The beautiful private part not seen is the fly looking for a host to place her eggs. She does, the eggs hatching by the thousands and becoming the most amazing drawing tools, full of articulation and intent. Then my collaboration with light, humidity, and movement with thousands of living lines begins. The thread works and lattice paintings have equal private moments that I hope transform and are conveyed to the viewer’s eye and brain. P
Emil Lukas, Trace Between, 2024, thread over painted wood and plaster frame with nails, 44.5 in. Courtesy of the artist and Piero Atchugarry Gallery.
Threads of Society
Dallas Contemporary serves up a feast of contemporary woven works curated by Su Wu.
BY NANCY COHEN ISRAEL
From Penelope’s never-ending work at the loom to Polonius’ screened hiding place in Hamlet, tapestries have been a part of human culture for millennia. While often thought of as an ancient art, as a medium, tapestry is alive, well, and as relevant now as it was in those long-ago ages. And just as historic tapestries celebrated marriages, commemorated battles won, or retold mythological narratives, contemporary tapestries also reflect their times.
This spring, the Dallas Contemporary opens You Stretched Diagonally Across It: Contemporary Tapestry, featuring 30 internationally
renowned artists and curated by Mexico City–based Su Wu. It is the first exhibition since Lucia Simek officially ascended into her role as executive director of the kunsthalle. With a strong foundation in historic tapestries, Wu thinks deeply about the medium and specifically about the intersection between art, design, and craft. “So much of the exhibition is thinking about what it is that tapestry does, what are the questions it asks, and how they apply to this contemporary moment. What does it mean for something to be handmade in this particular moment?” she posits.
Wu selected works that fell broadly under the subthemes of technological mediation, material significance, and material migration. This first subgroup is a reaction to our technological age. Since tapestry is often associated with craft, Wu wanted to explore how artists look at traditional weave structures through the lens of machine-produced algorithms. The repetitive nature of algorithms, after all, have their roots in human dexterity, particularly in weaving. Christy Matson, for example, hand weaves on a Jacquard loom, creating work, as Wu notes, “that looks deceptively simple, like a brushstroke or a landscape, or a pattern rendered in its own weave structure.”
Jovencio de la Paz is another artist balancing technology and tapestry. “He will run a perfect weave structure through the computer, and when he runs it through the algorithm for cell evolution, it will start to fall apart. The falling apart element is the digital intervention of it, not the human error,” Wu explains.
Material significance plays another important role in the medium. The work of Yann Gerstberger, for example, incorporates nontraditional materials. In this case, he uses mop heads, which he hand dyes using a variety of pigmentation, including traditional, indigenous cochineal as well as modern industrial dyes. His broad range of visual inspirations come from his adopted home in Mexico as well as his native European background.
Yto Barrada and Candice Lin are also concerned with the migration of ideas. Barrada delves into the traditional canon of Moroccan tapestries, which were first catalogued in the early 20th century in a survey commissioned by a French colonial governor in Morocco, based on his own
Christina Forrer, Untitled (on brown background), 2018, cotton, wool, linen, silk and, watercolor, 88 x 123 in. Courtesy the artist.
Caroline Achaintre, Seeker, 2024, hand-tufted wool, 98.37 x 65.75 in. Courtesy the artist and Art: Concept, Paris. Photograph by Annabel Elston. Courtesy of the artist.
OPENINGS
personal preferences. Barrada highlights traditional patterns and designs that were bypassed by this canon. “At the same time, the piece reflects the diagrammatic attempt to visually convey long stretches of time in the color-coded strata of eons in a cross section of a mountain,” Wu explains. She adds that since tapestry traditionally has been associated with communal making by mostly anonymous artisans, it is often omitted from the art historical narrative.
One of the larger works in the exhibition is a 19-foot tapestry by Candice Lin that explores the nature preserve within the Demilitarized Zone between South and North Korea and the flora and fauna that only exist there. It achieves one of Wu’s goals, which is to provide the sense of being enveloped by these woven works.
Scale and narrative migration are other factors Wu considered. “There are certainly a lot of works in the exhibition that achieve a grand scale. They also look at contemporary questions of omniscience, of belief systems, of how it is that we depict the vastness of the unknown.” For instance, Sarah Rosalena uses rustic materials such as pine needles, dyed in Mexican cochineal, to depict an image from the Hubble telescope. Here she blends a simple weave structure into an image of infinity, inspired by contemporary science.
Similarly, Mika Tajima’s work also plays with notions of contemporary life and science. Her large-scale weaving deliberately looks like sportswear. While it may register as modern footwear, it actually depicts a brainwave, rendering this imperceptible action onto a huge scale. Josh Faught is another artist whose work opens the portal to larger issues. Here his woven litany chronicles the variety of materials used in the making of the AIDS quilt and explores how symbols evolve over time. As Wu notes, “In an exhibition that seeks to emphasize material significance of images, this work brings material back into symbolic space, to remind us that the associations around materials are also not static.”
As a medium, tapestry is very approachable. As Wu offers, “Maybe not everyone has touched a painting, but everyone has touched a tapestry. You know what a well-made weaving is by dint of being alive. That question, ‘What is a contemporary ethnographic textile?’ applies to everyone,” she says, adding, “I love these moments in particular where the forms, the histories of one discipline can be applied to another, and when you have that moment where ignorance and knowledge meet, turning one into the other, where they each complicate one another. You very much see where craft is complicating notions of fine art through tapestry but also vice versa.”
Los Angeles–based Kneeland Co. will be setting up in the DC shop in tandem with the exhibition. Founded by Joanna Williams, whose career began as a textile archivist, this collection blurs distinctions between art and design, especially when it comes to functional objects. Notably, the company is bringing utilitarian goods that are made by artists in the exhibition. “There is this hope that there might be the slightest breakdown of that strict hierarchy between art and design,” Wu notes.
Tapestry seems to be having a moment in North Texas. As Wu discloses, “ There is such a rich history of tapestry in Dallas. We are very lucky to borrow from amazing private collections in Dallas, which has been a fantastic thing.” It is an equally fantastic opportunity for admirers of the medium to see how it continues to blossom. P
Christy Matson, Purple Haze, 2022, spray paint and acrylic on paper, linen, cotton, and cashmere, 68.75 x 55 in. Courtesy of Rebecca Camacho Presents. Photograph by Joshua White.
Candice Lin, Papaver somniferum (Tapestry), 2019, Jacquard woven tapestry, 36 x 50 in. Installation view, 13th Gwangju Biennale: Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning, Gwangju, South Korea, 2021. Photograph by Sang Tae Kim. Courtesy of the Artist, Gwangju Biennale and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles, New York.
Yann Gerstberger, Fuentx, 2019, textile collage, 110.25 x 98.37. Courtesy of the artist and OMR. Collection of Fundacion CALOSA.
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Armor of the Nimaitachidō Type (detail). Helmet attributed to Myōchin Yoshimichi. Photo: Brad Flowers
A LONG, RICH STORY
A
new show at The Karpidas Collection traces the collector’s fruitful relationship with the artist George Condo.
BY BEN LIMA PHOTOGRAPHS BY KEVIN TODORA
As light streams in through the skylights and the courtyard windows of the Karpidas Collection’s galleries in the heart of the Design District, steps away from the new Hi Line Connector urban trail, curator Sara Hignite’s team is hard at work installing George Condo: Selections from the Heart of The Karpidas Collection, 30 works that tell the story of the 40-year artistpatron relationship between George Condo and Pauline Karpidas.
Opening April 9 and encompassing bronze sculpture, ink drawings, and, above all, Condo’s arresting paintings, the show is a glimpse into one of the few collections able to showcase the breadth of the 67-year-old, New York–based artist’s work from its own holdings. Seeing works ranging from Relic From My Childhood (1985) to Bullet Head (2019), viewers can discern different moments in Condo’s decades-long practice while also tracking his consistent
emphasis on two of his trademark styles.
The first of these styles, which entails representing multiple mental states in a single figure, Condo calls “psychological cubism,” by analogy with the way that cubist painters represented an object from multiple angles at once. For example, in Parallel Figures, from 2011, a train of overlapping bug-eyed, bow-tied, grinning, gawking figures proceed across the canvas, registering surprise, amusement, shock, and fascination as they go by. Trying to register the full range of effects, a viewer feels a sense of vertiginous disorientation, much as when one attempts to decode the geometry of Picasso or Braque’s cubist still lifes.
Condo’s second signature style is the use of realistic technique to render a subject drawn from his imagination, which he calls “artificial realism.” For example, in The Portable Artist (1995), a blank-faced
George Condo, Parallel Figures , 2011, acrylic, charcoal, and pastel on linen, 74 x 90 in. Courtesy of the Karpidas Collection.
mannequin dressed in Renaissance-style ruff and patterned cape and holding a gold-framed picture in each hand stands in front of a cloudy blue sky. Nearby, in Daisy (2000), a quizzical-looking female figure in a yellow V-neck top, sporting Condo’s trademark grotesque chipmunk-style cheeks and buck teeth, stares at an angle into the distance, as similarly gentle blue clouds (and a few bath bubbles) waft past in the background.
In Condo’s artificial realism (as with his surrealist predecessors), his meticulously convincing details only accentuate the shock of taking in the unreal aspects of his subjects, as in these two figures’ strange faces (or lack thereof). More generally, his distinctive combination of superlative technical and aesthetic chops with an unruly, boisterous wit sets Condo apart from most others. His close friends and 1980s-generation peers Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring shared Condo’s brashness but did not have his devotion to the old masters and their painterly technique.
While many histories of modern art narrate the subject as a series of radical breaks from the past, Condo’s work instantly reveals the through lines that link the present and the past. For example, The Cracked Cardinal, one of the show’s highlights, recalls at once Titian and Velázquez’s portraits of clerics, Francis Bacon’s aggressive modernist revision of their work, and the quirky animated cartoons that are another of Condo’s frequent references. This seamless weave of “high” and “low” references associates Condo’s work with other artists within the category of postmodernism.
Shared with Picasso as well is Condo’s unflinching exploration of
George Condo, The Portable Artist, 1995, oil on canvas, 76 x 72 in.
Courtesy of the Karpidas Collection.
George Condo: Selections from the Heart of the Karpidas Collection, installation view.
how in the gaze of the male artist-viewer, sexual desire is hopelessly entangled with aggression, fear, and the lust for power, projecting all of this onto the female body in the form of violently distorted contours. Just as Picasso’s 1907 Les Demoiselles d’Avignon shocked the world by giving its female nude figures hard, twisted, mask-like faces, Condo explores similar terrain in his acrylic Material Conversion (2001) and bronze Young Woman with Pearl Necklace (2005).
Demoiselles– style aggressiveness, though, is by no means Condo’s only approach to the erotic. His hearty appreciation for the female form is also well-attested throughout the show in more idealized works, ranging from the voluptuous figures in Seated Nude with Teddy Bear (2002) and Purple Female Composition (2006) to the frolicsome figure groups in the 2004 drawings, New Compositions I, II and III.
A third, more comic perspective comes through in four 2014 drawings, the Rodrigo Variations, that chronicle the bawdy escapades of a character Condo has described as “the piano player at a wedding, doing the worst song you’ve ever heard,” In each scene, the hapless Rodrigo confronts, and is outmatched by, the girl power of his lissome nude counterparts.
Similarly, The Picknickers, a 2009 bronze, takes the sophisticated subject of a luncheon with nudes, as seen from Giorgione to Manet, and gives it a rough, modern, Giacometti-style twist. Most striking among the nudes, however, is the elegant strength of Dreams and Nightmares of Mrs. K , whose poised subject stares coolly back at the viewer from behind gray drapery, in front of a dark, moody background, a substantial aquamarine glinting from her left ring finger. Mrs. K. is in fact Pauline Karpidas herself.
Although the show is not organized chronologically, viewers can still discern aspects of the artist’s evolution. Early-career paintings such as Untitled [Landscape] (1983), Trying to Escape from Planet Earth (1984), and Relic From My Childhood (1985) have a rawness that helped associate Condo with the neo-Expressionist artists of those years; they also touch on a broad range of subject matter distinct from the psychological portraiture that later became his most central focus. Meanwhile, more recent paintings, including Beginnings (2014) and Bullet Head (2019), have a self-possession common to artists in their later careers: the faces are each reduced to a single unblinking eye, and their flattened compositions arranged in clear, bold sections.
At the Karpidas Collection, the ancient Greek references of the building’s architecture encourage a sense of connection to history— from the postmodern white colonnade out front to the circular “art sanctuary” containing David Salle’s commissioned paintings of Olympian gods and goddesses that bookend the exhibition. Condo’s work, as it confidently engages both old and 20th-century masters,
George Condo, The Picnickers , 2009, bronze, 17 x 35.50 x 12 in. Courtesy of the Karpidas Collection.
George Condo, Untitled (Landscape), 1983, oil on canvas, 61 x 59 in. Courtesy of the Karpidas Collection.
George Condo, The Cracked Cardinal, 2004, oil on canvas, 29.50 x 24 in. Courtesy of the Karpidas Collection.
MASTERWORKS IN AN ERA OF TURMOIL
The Kimbell Art Museum tackles the shifts in art and politics from
1910–1945 in Germany.
BY FRANK HETTIG
Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910–1945: Masterworks from the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin presents a complex exhibition exploring the evolution of German art through one of the most politically charged periods in modern history. On view at the Kimbell Art Museum and encompassing 70 paintings and sculptures from Germany’s renowned modern art museum, the exhibit comprises a range of works by world-famous to lesser-known artists. “It’s a rare opportunity to see these canonical paintings outside Berlin. In this exhibition, there are dozens of works that have never been shown in the United States before, and only a handful that have been seen in this country in the last generation,” says George T.M. Shackelford, deputy director of the Kimbell.
Spanning the final years of the German Empire, through World War I, the liberal Weimar Republic, the rise of National Socialism, and the devastation of World War II, the exhibition examines the interplay between art and politics. Works by celebrated artists,
including Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Hannah Höch, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Käthe Kollwitz, Gabriele Münter, and Christian Schad demonstrate how modern art reflected and responded to the societal upheavals of the time.
In 1937, the works of these artists were included in the infamous Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition, organized by the Nazi regime as part of its propaganda campaign against modern art. Under Adolf Hitler, the Nazi government sought to purge artworks that did not align with its ideology. This included artwork associated with Expressionism, Cubism, Dadaism, and other avantgarde movements, which were labeled as “degenerate” and deemed un-German and morally corrupt. Many pieces were ripped from museum walls, with the intention of auctioning them in Switzerland. The Nationalgalerie’s collection alone suffered the loss of 500 works. In all, about 20,000 works of art were removed from more than 100 German museums. Approximately 5,000 artworks from various
collections had not been classified as “internationally exploitable,” and were burned. Ironically, despite its intent to discredit avant-garde movements, Degenerate Art became a blockbuster, attracting more than three million visitors.
After the war, with the country cleaved in two, West German museums attempted to buy back works by these artists, whose practice shifted towards abstraction. In East Germany, meanwhile, museums prioritized the representational art of socialist realism, as dictated by the USSR.
The exhibition unfolds in six thematic sections, beginning with Expressionism, the early 20th-century movement that rejected traditional academic styles. Using bold colors and expressive forms to challenge artistic norms, the work of these artists carried strong political undertones. They were despised by the conservative tastes of Emperor Wilhelm II. The exhibition includes Pentecost (1909) by Emil Nolde Pentecost not only shaped the development of Nolde’s visual language but also contributed to his reputation as an artistic rebel.
The section Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) explores the artistic response to the social changes of the Weimar Republic (1919–1933). Rejecting the exaggerated forms of Expressionism, artists in this movement embraced sharp draftsmanship and realism. Works by Kate Diehn-Bitt, Kurt Günther, Franz Radziwill, and Schad are exhibition highlights. Schad’s 1928 painting, Sonja, exemplifies the self-confident androgynous, liberated woman of the era.
In the 1910s and 1920s, German museums and galleries increasingly showcased international modern art. The section International AvantGardes presents portraits of influential art dealers such as Alfred Flechtheim, painted by Dix; Herwarth Walden, sculpted by William Wauer; and Heinrich Thannhauser, depicted by Lovis Corinth. The latter painting was acquired by the Kimbell in 2017. Nazi persecution forced these advocates to close their galleries and emigrate. This section also includes work by other renowned European artists such as Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, and Oskar Kokoschka. The rise of the Nazi party pushed some artists to work in secret while others adapted. Many fled abroad.
During the interwar years, German artists embraced abstract styles, influenced by Cubism and other European movements. The
Emil Nolde, Pentecost, 1909, oil on canvas. Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Purchased from Kornfeld & Klipstein from the Fehr Collection, Muri/Bern, 1974.
Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Fallen Man, 1915–16 (cast by 1972), bronze. Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin. Purchased from the artist’s son, Guido Lehmbruck, Leinfelden-Oberaichen, 1979.
Bauhaus, a revolutionary art and design school, played a crucial role in this shift. The section devoted to Modes of Abstraction features work by Bauhaus pioneers Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger, Klee, Georg Muche, and Oskar Schlemmer while also highlighting their contributions to modern architecture, design, and craftsmanship.
Art of this era directly engaged with pressing political and social issues, often critiquing the establishment. Highlights of the section dedicated to Politics and War include Wilhelm Lehmbruck’s mournful bronze sculpture Fallen Man (1915) and Grosz’s Pillars of Society (1926). Lehmbruck’s sculpture serves as a poignant centerpiece. The delicate figure, collapsed on the ground with its head bowed, is widely interpreted as a symbol of the moral collapse of society during the war and a general plea for peace. Grosz’s painting, on the other hand, offers a biting satire of political and military elites, while Horst Strempel’s Night Over Germany (1945-46) portrays a powerful condemnation of Nazi atrocities.
War and Its Aftermath spans the years from World War I to the end of World War II. It concludes with works by artists who faced exile, censorship, or persecution under the Nazi regime. This section juxtaposes their prewar and postwar works, revealing how their art evolved in response to historical events. Key pieces include Beckmann’s melancholic Self-Portrait in a Bar (1942) and Kollwitz’s powerful bronze sculpture The Tower of Mothers (1938). Inspired by a lithograph she created during World War I after losing her son, this piece symbolizes maternal protection while serving as a warning against repeating past atrocities.
The exhibition presents a unique opportunity for local museumgoers. “When we learned about the possibility of doing a show with the Neue Nationalgalerie a few years ago, we were very interested, specifically because it’s an area of art history that our collection doesn’t touch on and because exhibitions of German modern art are rare in our region,” Shackelford says. Since the finest examples of art are often created during the most tumultuous times within a reeling society, this must-see exhibition is as challenging as it is illuminating. P
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Chasing Down New Histories on Sale Street
Tessa Granowski’s Nature of Things connects the joy of the unknown with the search for community.
BY BRANDON KENNEDY
As I heard it initially, turned backwards in a crowded amphitheater, the Latin phrase was uttered enthusiastically to confused ears. De Rerum Natura, a first-century didactic poem by Lucretius, promotes Epicureanism, a philosophy practicing simple living and healthy relationships. It also serves efficiently as a plain manila envelope newly stamped as a “space for art exhibitions and cultural events…with a focus on emerging contemporary artists and Texas history.” From being misheard in its native tongue between friends at a Terry Allen concert in Brooklyn to the namesake venue in a turn-of-the-century domicile off Turtle Creek Boulevard, Nature of Things invites the curious viewer in to discover new and historical artists alike, and the hidden connections both therein and in between. The juxtaposition of the two, founder Tessa Granowski states, “reminds us of our humanity.”
After leading a somewhat peripatetic existence since the pandemic, Waco-born, Dallas-raised Granowski returns to her hometown to open an exhibition space in a house built in 1905 whose mission and locale sets it apart from the standard white-cube gallery model. Having recently discovered that she is a seventh-generation Texan, Granowski’s “joie de vivre” for her unfolding project is implacable and contagious, infusing a contemporary vitality into a sometimes overlooked past. As it turns out, Sale Street itself used to be a bustling block of antiques dealers, complete with street fairs featuring all manner of art,
Clockwise from above left: Sam Linguist, propellerfrau, 2024, under-glazed stoneware, 6.25 x 4.5 x 2 in.; Jim Franklin behind his painting for A Clean Well-Lighted Place exhibition. Courtesy of Barbara Zabel; Candice C Chu, Swan Dreams, 2021, graphite on watercolor paper, 57.50 x 47.12 in. Courtesy of the artist.
books, collectibles, and furnishings.
Nature of Things will open April 10 with the group exhibition A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, an homage to Texan Dave Hickey, the late art critic, essayist, and gallerist. Hickey’s Austin gallery took its name from a Hemingway short story, which in turn was borrowed for the first show on Sale Street. For her inaugural exhibition, Granowski has invited a group of artist friends from her art-filled life in Los Angeles, New York, Texas, and points beyond, with a few of them harkening back to Hickey’s artist roster half a century ago.
Hickey’s influential gallery’s first show featured the noted Austin artist/underground cartoonist Jim Franklin. While most well-known for his playful illustrations featuring armadillos, Franklin exhibited a selection of hard-edge shaped canvases, abstractions from the late 1960s, for the debut here. Painted in bright hues, these geometric, perspectival-shaded subtle shifters are also welcome to be hung in any orientation, collapsing the mid-century canon of abstraction into an improvisatory dance of intuitive humors.
Ever the sleuther, Granowski set out to learn more about Jim Franklin after first seeing him in the documentary A Poem is a Naked Person by filmmaker Les Blank. This past February, Granowski traveled to Austin to see Terry Allen play yet again and met artist Jim Franklin beforehand to discuss her new project and the possibility of working together in the future.
In addition to the opening exhibition at the gallery space, Nature of Things will also be exhibiting in the 17th edition of the Dallas Art Fair. Granowski had previously participated in 2024 with Brackett Creek Exhibitions, an outfit she joined in 2021 that was started outside of Bozeman, Montana. She visited a few times in 2020 and later moved there to partner with artist Matthew Chambers. Granowski then moved to Brooklyn in November of 2022 to open a satellite space of BCE focused on artist’s editions, complete with a basement speakeasy.
Nature of Things will be exhibiting the work of artists Candice C Chu and Sam Linguist at Dallas Art Fair. Rendered in hatched graphite on large-format watercolor paper, Chu’s shadowy florals filter raking stillness with a wabi-sabi ease of the familiar and domestic. Linguist’s affably offbeat ceramic works court introspection through humor, abstracted fractures of quotidian detailing, giving pause to the commonplace. A native Texan himself, Linguist grew up in nearby Waxahachie, working for Webb Gallery there before decamping for New York to study fashion, then realigning again to follow the call of the art muse.
Granowski reminds me that while the manuscript of Lucretius’ text was almost lost to time, the Roman philosopher postulated within that “atomic matter moves almost by chance, something that wouldn’t have followed rational thought.”
In fact, On the Nature of Things was discovered by chance in a monastery by a book hunter and brought back into the realm of living ideas in the 15th century, as told in Steven Greenblatt’s The Swerve, where Granowski learned of both the discovery and the text itself. In addition to organizing art exhibitions, Nature of Things will hold film screenings, readings/discussions, and other events to further connect with the communities of artists, collectors, looky-loos, and plain curious types. When discussing the artists she has an affinity for, with hopes for exhibiting their work in the future, Granowski always seems to add, “…and they also read books.” Who could possibly argue with that? P
Rose Driver’s Antiques at 2916 Sale Street circa 1972. Courtesy of the Dallas Public Library.
Sale Street Fair in 1984. Courtesy of the Dallas Public Library.
COLLECTED THOUGHTS
British Painting Now sees the work of 40 artists, born between the ‘60s and ‘90s, at the Green Family Art Foundation.
BY TERRI PROVENCAL
Light streamed through the Green Family Art Foundation on a mid-February morning on my private walkthrough with curator Tom Morton, who offered a glimpse into
A Room Hung With Thoughts: British Painting Now. Sunrays played on Pam Evelyn’s Tin Coast, a layered gestural abstract painting, the largest in the show, painted en plein air prior to her studio’s completion; viewers can imagine themselves on an Athens hillside. Next to it, the demure Tourkovounia by Lewis Brander benefits from the pretty day; it’s depicted in a brilliant turquoise subtly disrupted by a diffused sun behind clouds, adding richness to the horizon. Morton takes both paintings in.
“Two nature paintings start us off.”
In an adjacent gallery Mary Ramsden’s io presents a rich purple palette across an epic canvas with bursts of volcanic orange tangled within. Io is one of Jupiter’s moons, named after a mortal woman’s love affair with Zeus, who transformed her into a heifer. Pitying her, the earth goddess Gaia gave Io a violet to eat.
Four young artists arrive to see their work shown among British art stars Tracey Emin, Cecily Brown, and others. London-born and -based, Elinor Stanley says of her Long Parting , 2024, “Often my paintings have two figures and they kind of cut against each other; they are pretty unaware of each other.” Of the extended leg and the smaller nude figure adrift across the canvas, she describes, “I’m interested in trying to have this sense of an uneven kind of bias, of lurch, and gaze, and the sense of more than one perspective and more than one sense of direction.” Brush marks in muted shades of green add painterly
A Room Hung With Thoughts: British Painting Now installation views. Photograph by Evan Sheldon for Green Family Art Foundation. Courtesy of Adam Green Art Advisory.
whim. Stanley and Francesca Mollett, who was there for this show and her solo show at The Warehouse, are good friends. Mollett’s Restful Sleep, 2024, will awaken when the sun moves toward the gallery where it hangs.
Jake Grewal, another London artist, says Me Outside Myself, 2024, was painted after a relationship ended. “I feel like often in relationships you are faced with your own shadow,” he says of the two figures embraced—or perhaps just one figure looking in a mirror. “The darkness of that. Stuff comes up you have to confront. My work is always about confrontation of self.” Grewal will be in a three-person show this summer at Bortolami Gallery in New York. Hurvin Anderson, also in the show, gave Grewal a tutorial at the Royal Drawing School, says he admires Barbershop Series: Short Back and Sides, from 2009, installed next to Ramsden’s io.
Tom Morton joins the conversation and informs that Anderson was compelled to paint the same barbershop from his Birmingham birthplace in an examination of memory and identity of Britain’s Black Caribbean community. In this painting, the mirrors are void of reflection, two empty chairs appear recently vacated, damp towels draped over the arms, hair scattered across the floor.
Nearby, Lisa Brice’s Untitled, 2020, shows a woman holding paintbrushes, peering into what could be a mirror or a Dorianesque canvas of herself. “Is it a reflection or is it a painted image?” muses Morton. The demonic likeness depicted in a brilliant-blue hue bleeds into the legs of the figure looking at it. “It’s one of my favorite Brice paintings,” Morton says.
Adjacent to Anderson’s work, Turks & Caicos PVR M, 2021, by Alvaro Barrington, hangs in its wood artist’s frame backed by metal shutters. “Barrington draws very heavily on his own personal histories,” says Morton. He was born to Grenadian and Haitian parents and is now based in London, a graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art. “The shuttering has a double reference. It’s a very popular building material in certain parts of the Caribbean.” A boldly painted hibiscus echoes the climate. “He tells wonderful stories about being a teenager in New York. He’d ride the trains all night, and he would emerge from the subway just before the shops opened and look at the shuttered
buildings and think about a new pair of jeans he might buy,” Morton offers.
While Michael Raedecker, whose mesmeric momentumizer, 2024, hangs in the center gallery, is one of the more mature artists included, around the corner Fischer Mustin’s Done, damned, 2024, is rendered by the youngest artist shown. He is here and on his first trip to the US. “Fischer is interested in early renaissance art like Botticelli. There’s a lot to work out here. Is there almost this sense of turning to stone?” And what of the Prada bag sporting a Hello Kitty patch?
Of the exhibition title, A Room Hung With Thoughts, attributed to Sir Joshua Reynolds, Morton considers: “It’s a strange, strange, quote. I’ve never been able to find proof that Reynolds actually said this. The earliest reference is from an Irish magazine, which was published 50 years after his death, but it feels like something he would have said.” He adds that “The show had its genesis to think through an exhibition concept at the invitation of the Greens. They have wonderful British paintings in their collection.” As to British Painting Now, Morton says, “Claiming art Britishness is such an odd concept.” There are 23 languages spoken in Kingsland, so he says he’s “claiming artists as British in a very light touch. They all have that point of connection, whether it’s birth, education, or residence.” P
ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS
Will Boone: Gulf Coast Wolf Ghost opens at The Power Station Annex.
BY JOHN ZOTOS
This spring The Power Station keeps things distinctively Texan with a collaborative art spectacle organized and executed by Will Boone. Based in Houston, Boone is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores mediums across the spectrum, from drawing, painting, sculpture, film and video production to performance art, sprawling installations, and the publication of magazines and books.
Specifically for The Power Station, these will all come together as a performative art piece encompassed by the title Gulf Coast Wolf Ghost, performed live by Boone and his collaborators as a constructed environment inside The Power Station Annex. After the performance, the construction will remain in place as an installation artwork. Boone and his group, Easy Sevens, will perform eight musical compositions as a type of release celebration of Guitar Music,
Will Boone’s studio and rehearsal space in Los Angeles. Image courtesy of Will Boone, KARMA Gallery, and David Kordansky Gallery.
Easy Sevens Guitar Music LP cover. Image courtesy of Will Boone and Online Ceramics.
a vinyl LP released by the online Ceramics Label. These events will coincide with the weekend of the Dallas Art Fair. Boone refers to the style of the music on the album as “conceptual in nature; not quite country music, but about Texas and the Gulf Coast.”
Boone himself has lived in New York, where his first solo show was in 2011 at KARMA, and then in Los Angeles, where he had an exhibition at David Kordansky Gallery in 2023. Other exhibitions include the Rubell Museum, Miami in 2014; and Galerie Patrick Seguin in Paris, France, in 2018.
This current exhibition takes us back to Houston in 2019, where a solo show was held at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston titled Will Boone: The Highway Hex. The grand scope and complexity of the show caught the attention of curators at The Power Station, setting in motion the initial discussions that brought everything together.
Boone performed in bands growing up in the Houston area, and the idea for the performance for this exhibition refers to a film he shot in his studio that was included in the CAMH exhibition. Boone created the music and edited the film in a collaboration that included his wife and two assistants. In the film, Boone explains, “a fictional band plays in this dream scene” where “the music is very much like Texas and of the Gulf Coast specifically, imagining what that would sound like.”
Boone’s artistic practice is informed by his obsession with a type of Americana, such that cross-country highway trips, roadside attractions, conspiracy theories, horror films, monsters, and bizarre manifestations in flora and fauna come to life in his work. Specifically, Gulf Coast Wolf Ghost refers to a recent phenomenon Boone came across in Galveston, where coyotes with distinct features had been identified and even embraced by the community.
CONTEMPORARIES
Usually coyotes are seen as pests, whereas these coyotes, which resemble red wolves, are seen as something special, to the point where an association called the Gulf Coast Canine Project was established in 2020. Boone created a series of drawings of these special wolves that will be included in the installation along with brilliant life-size silhouettes in plexiglass onto which specific drawings will be transferred and ultimately hand-painted by the artist.
Red wolves disappeared from the region in the 1980s but must have somehow hybridized genetic information through interaction with coyotes. Locals refer to these animals both as ghost wolves and Gulf Coast canines, which provided Boone with the title of his installation project. The installation will feature a specific use of lighting where the band will play, and “a modified Texas flag is going to hang on the wall along with the sculptures, all coming together to activate the space.”
This project was underwritten in part by Picnic Curatorial Projects, a nonprofit arm of Picnic Surf Shapes founded by artist Gregory Ruppe and Alden Pinnell of The Power Station. As a surf brand and curatorial platform based in Galveston, Picnic creates surfboards as works of art along with apparel and other objects for use in and out of water, some of which will also be incorporated into the installation.
Boone, Ruppe, and Pinnell see the entire project as a way to “create an installation that would honor or sort of refer to the Gulf Coast, Galveston, and Houston.” As a major peripheral event organized around the Dallas Art Fair, the opening of Gulf Coast Wolf Ghost seems all but essential to attend. P
Will Boone and Lucas Gorham recording at the artist’s home studio. Image courtesy of Will Boone.
Los Angeles studio detail. Image courtesy of Will Boone, KARMA, and David Kordansky Gallery.
CHANGE OF SCENE
Halona Norton-Westbrook takes the helm at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
BY JOHN ZOTOS
The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth has appointed Halona Norton-Westbrook, PhD, as the next director of the venerable institution. Beginning July 1, she will replace Marla Price, PhD, who has made an indelible contribution to the museum over the last thirty years; her tenure oversaw the construction of Tadao Ando’s architecturally significant building, which has since hosted a schedule of compelling exhibitions, including the recently opened Alex Da Corte: The Whale, garnering an international reputation.
Armed with a doctorate in museology from the University of Manchester and an MA in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art, Norton-Westbrook studied “the history of museums and their history of collecting—particularly in the 20th century,” making her ideally positioned to embrace a career as a museum director. Her doctoral dissertation delved into “looking at how a handful of museums formed and built up a strategy around what they were going to collect and how.” This expertise adds vigor to the selection of Norton-Westbrook to lead the Modern, where the focus is 20th-century and contemporary art, and expanding its permanent collection is an essential part of its mission.
Norton-Westbrook is excited to lead the Modern, where she’s looking forward to a long career. First, she intends to listen attentively to people in the community, especially people close to the museum, to gain “a deeper understanding of what they see, and the potential of where we can take the museum together, to collaboratively build a vision of where we’re going forward.” She understands the value
of the community and staff who have been part of the museum for years and wants to take advantage of their knowledge because they “have so much wisdom to share.”
In her view, the Modern “is exactly what a museum should be: a gathering place that fosters joy and reflection, but is also very active in the dialogue and conversation around contemporary art and what contemporary art can be.” She’s also drawn to “the vibrancy of the entire DFW area in general, and particularly the art scene, with so many great institutions.”
Norton-Westbrook’s career began at the Toledo Museum of Art, where she held positions as both curator of modern and contemporary art and director of curatorial affairs. She became known for exhibitions that innovated aspects of the field itself, and she oversaw museum acquisitions. To join the Modern, she will leave her current position as director and CEO of the Honolulu Museum of Art, a position she has held since 2020, during which she secured increases to the museum’s endowment and doubled attendance. At the end of her five-year tenure, she’s proud to say, “I’m leaving the Honolulu Museum of Art in a very strong position.”
This last year has been a peculiar time of flux in the DFW art world, since several institutions simultaneously have found themselves searching for new leadership. Beyond the Modern, the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Dallas Museum of Art are actively seeking new leaders. Norton-Westbrook confidently explains, “It’s definitely a time of change and evolution, but you know that it can be real exciting too!” P
Halona Norton-Westbrook. Courtesy Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.
EPHEMERAL SPACES OF FOUND BEAUTY
Optimism permeates paintings by Anna Kunz in Ecstatic Dream.
BY DANIELLE AVRAM
Optimism is in short supply these days. Finding joy in the everyday is a tough task when so much of basic normalcy is constantly being turned on its head. For an artist like Anna Kunz, whose lived experiences directly inform her abstract paintings, optimism is not something that simply exists in the air, waiting to be found, but rather is generated by remaining receptive to the potentialities of the unknown.
“I believe that an open canvas embodies a profound sense of optimism for any artist. It represents the potential for fulfillment and personal expression within formal, psychological, and material spaces,” she says. “I have a desire to communicate optimism, especially in challenging times, when maintaining creative freedom and hope for a better world for future generations can feel
Anna Kunz in her Chicago studio. Courtesy of the artist.
Anna Kunz, Reverie, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 66 x 60 in. Courtesy of the artist and Galleri Urbane.
increasingly ugly and difficult.”
Kunz’s latest exhibition, The Ecstatic Dream , at Galleri Urbane features five new large-scale paintings and seven smaller paintings. The large pieces, which are based off the measurements of Kunz’s own body, are created via her signature floor-based process, in which she sits atop a wooden plank and applies paint onto a canvas using untraditional tools like paint rollers, spatulas, and items sourced from a hardware store. The plank then serves as a plinth for the seven smaller pieces, which are roughly the size of the artist’s head, making the exhibition an expression of Kunz’s mind and body—how information and experiences are taken in and pushed out, as if the paint itself were the physical byproduct of the artist’s own thoughts and emotions.
The exhibition’s title is derived from a journal entry by legendary avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas in which he describes a dream:
“Last night I had an ecstatic dream. Suddenly before my eyes appeared fields and fields of wildflowers. They were passing by my eyes. Field after field, the meadows full of flowers in the most exquisite colors: blue, yellow, red, purple, and they were all so real. I could almost smell them, like in my childhood.”
Kunz came across this passage through a chance encounter with Mekas’ son, Sebastian, while in residency at the Monira Foundation in New Jersey. As luck would have it, Mekas’ archives are housed just down the street, and Kunz took this as a sign to forge a connection with the filmmaker. She found inspiration in the physical qualities of his film work—soft and hard focuses, glitches, and flickers—and the catharsis of Mekas’ “ecstatic dream,” in which time collapsed into a vision so visceral it became a lived experience.
“Mekas’ dream resonates deeply with my current artistic journey, where I recognize the significance of my lived experiences and how these universal emotions connect us through vulnerability,” Kunz explains. “Finding oneself immersed in ephemeral spaces of found beauty can suspend us, buoy us in times of challenge. It’s a small gesture, but it is what I’ve spent my life so far trying to offer.”
The resulting paintings showcase Kunz’s characteristically vibrant color palette, which has been expanded to include colors found in wildflowers. Each canvas boasts an array of colors deposited in various levels of opacity—some thick and almost flat, while others are delicately layered and scraped, diluted to an ethereal degree. In the choreographic patchwork of color fields, one can see the history of painting at work: Helen Frankenthaler’s lyricism, Mark Rothko’s unconscious mind, Agnes Martin’s emotional poetry, and the mystical empiricism of Hilma af Klint.
Galleri Urbane owner Ree Willaford, who has worked with Kunz since 2016, describes the works as “complex, with the layering and depth of color she achieves, but seem effortless, like moving to music.”
Given that Kunz studied printmaking and performance, it makes sense that techniques from each field are evident in her work: the use of tools and processes that are more akin to mark-making and texturization than painted brushstrokes, the layering of colors, and the shapes that lean into and embrace one another, laid across the canvas like dancers on a stage. Kunz’s paintings are emotional and invitational, asking viewers to not stand back and think, but to get up close and experience, to give into the possibility of optimism and hope. P
Anna Kunz, Anemone_Plank, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 13 x11 in. Courtesy of the artist and Galleri Urbane.
Anna Kunz, Swan Attack, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 66 x 60 in. Courtesy of the artist and Galleri Urbane.
WORLDVIEW
DALLAS ART FAIR BRINGS INTERNATIONAL FLAIR.
BY NANCY COHEN ISRAEL, IAN ETTER, ANTHONY FALCON, TERRI PROVENCAL, AND DARRYL RATCLIFF
MEL ARSENAULT GALERIE NICOLAS ROBERT Montréal,
Toronto
Galerie Nicolas Robert highlights the ethereal ceramic sculptures of Mel Arsenault, a Montréal-based artist whose work bridges painting, sculpture, and the alchemy of materials. Arsenault’s tactile, organic forms push the boundaries of ceramic traditions, resulting in enigmatic hybrid structures that feel both ancient and futuristic.
Her new series, Komorebi (2025) and Love Land (2025), delve deeper into the fluidity of glazes and the interplay of color and texture, evoking visions of surreal landscapes and lush, dreamlike gardens. These pieces shimmer with cascading tones of green, violet, and plum, as if bathed in dappled sunlight.
Inspired by the Japanese term Komorebi, which refers to the interplay of light filtering through trees, her works translate this atmospheric phenomenon into ceramic surfaces that appear in constant transformation. Petal-like textures and soft, swelling forms suggest a merging of the botanical and the corporeal. Arsenault’s creative process allows the kiln’s unpredictability to influence the final outcome. The glossy, dripping finishes and layered hues give the impression of organic growth, evoking moss-covered stones, bioluminescent fungi, or aqueous dreamscapes frozen in time. These are liminal ceramics in the most dreamy of ways. –Darryl Ratcliff
Mel Arsenault, Komorebi II, 2025, glazes on stoneware, 18.90 x 14.6 in.; Mel Arsenault, Loveland, 2025, glazes on stoneware, 18.9 x 14.2 in. All courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nicolas Robert.
Mel Arsenault. Photograph by Monserrat Muro
CELESTE RAPONE JOSH LILLEY London
Strategists, Low Hang, Surveyor —these are the three paintings by Celeste Rapone that Josh Lilley will install in his Dallas Art Fair booth. They are sure to be snatched up. Last fall we were enamored with her epic work Night Painting , 2024, installed at the final TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art. The artist interpreted night in a distinct shade of green, where two misshapen figures lounged languidly on a lawn under an exaggerated crescent moon. A sign showing a fine for pet waste contributes to the voyeuristic quality, as does the discarded plastic lid and straw.
Her adept handling of color, temperature, and surface lends to Rapone’s keen ability to push the boundaries of her canvases with figures contorted in such a way as to explore every inch of the space they occupy. “I typically don’t like a rectangle,” Rapone says, preferring instead that her canvases are “just off of being a square.” Here, however, she has taken advantage of an ample horizontal canvas in Strategists. Two figures navigate the length of the canvas across a purple pool table. A light swings between them; cigarettes nearly spilled over in an ashtray hint at a long match; a weight tucked in the strings of a bikini bottom suggests an earlier excursion to the pool, gym, or beach.
Based in Chicago, the New Jersey–born Rapone loves “the unlimited options of painting” and the unlimited doovers” it affords. She paints intuitively with “a lot of active decision making.” While this method could look hurried, in her hand viewers are treated to masterfully executed paintings embracing figuration and abstraction. –Terri Provencal
Celeste Rapone. Courtesy of the artist and Josh Lilley, London.
Celeste Rapone, Strategists, 2025, oil on canvas, 66.14 x 96.03 in. Courtesy of the artist and Josh Lilley, London. Photograph by Nathan Keay.
MOFFAT TAKADIWA & DEVIN B. JOHNSON NICODIM
Los Angeles, New York,
Bucharest
Nicodim brings together powerhouse artists Devin B. Johnson and Moffat Takadiwa, who explore the intersections of identity, material, and memory. Nicodim, known for its keen eye in championing emerging and mid-career artists, presents a compelling pairing that examines both the psychological and the physical residue of lived experience.
Johnson’s latest works, Triplets (2025) and Title Forthcoming (2025), continue his exploration of psychological space, layering memory, abstraction, and figuration. “My painting process is like conducting a symphony,” Johnson shared in a recent conversation. “Layers of oil paint interact like musical notes—some structured, others improvisational.”
Influenced by Carl Jung’s theory of memory and its inherent fallibility, Johnson believes recollections are constantly in flux. “When we recall our own memories, we alter them from their original state. That fallacy of memory is something I try to capture in my work,” he explained.
In Triplets, shadowed figures emerge from a muted background, their forms softened by Johnson’s signature method of layering, dripping, and scraping paint. “The figures feel both present and distant—anchored in the materiality of paint yet floating in a transient psychological space,” he described. Similarly, Title Forthcoming (2025) presents figures engaged in an ambiguous, liminal encounter. “I see my works as vignettes that capture moments existing on the periphery, snapshots of a world in constant transition. The use of drips and blurred edges mimic how memories fade, reappear, and get reconfigured over time,” he said.
Sound is another crucial element in Johnson’s practice. He draws inspiration from ambient music and experimental soundscapes that mirror the fluidity of thought. He cites artists such as African-American Sound Recordings, an experimental sound artist based in Ridgewood, New York, whose collage-based compositions are reflected in the layered, abstract quality of Johnson’s paintings. By incorporating the rhythm of dripping paint and gestural brushwork, he creates compositions that feel both musical and deeply introspective.
While Johnson’s paintings explore the intangible qualities of memory, Moffat Takadiwa’s sculptural works— Blared Vision (2024-2025) and Buttoned Up (2024-2025)—engage with the material remnants of colonialism and global consumer culture. Working from his studio in Harare, Zimbabwe, Takadiwa transforms post-consumer waste—computer keys, toothbrushes, buttons, and electrical cables—into densely layered, tapestry-like sculptures that carry the weight of history. His practice is rooted in the reclamation of discarded materials, turning objects once used and discarded by Western markets into powerful reflections on identity, environmental degradation, and economic inequality. –Darryl Ratcliff
From above: Devin B. Johnson. Photograph by Xavier Scott Marshall; Devin B. Johnson, Title Forthcoming, 2025, oil on linen 36 x 30 in.; Moffat Takadiwa; Moffat Takadiwa, Buttoned up, 20242025, computer and calculator keys, toothbrushes, buttons, and cover button parts, 61 x 84 in. All courtesy of the artists and Nicodim Gallery.
ALEX DA CORTE GIÓ MARCONI GALLERY
Milan
Milan-based Gió Marconi Gallery brings the bold, candycolored world of Alex Da Corte to the 2025 Dallas Art Fair. Known for his exuberant use of color and references to pop culture, Da Corte’s work blurs the boundaries between nostalgia, consumerism, and personal mythology. His multimedia practice spans painting, sculpture, video, and installation, often layering vibrant hues and surreal imagery to reimagine everyday objects.
One of the key works presented at the fair is The Strawberry Alarm Clock , a hyper-saturated, glossy painting of a strawberry-red heart set against an intense green backdrop. The piece plays with notions of desire, artificiality, and memory, evoking the exaggerated textures of advertising and cartoon aesthetics. Da Corte’s work frequently references childhood nostalgia, infusing familiar motifs with an uncanny tension that oscillates between the playful and the unsettling.
His installations and videos often incorporate elements of performance, sometimes featuring the artist himself inhabiting various pop-cultural personas. In previous works, he has reimagined characters like the Pink Panther, Groucho Marx, and Wile E. Coyote, using these figures to explore ideas of identity, desire, and transformation. To see more of Da Corte’s work, visit his solo show currently on view at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. –Darryl Ratcliff
In another example of integrating the popular with the conceptual, Colector brings a solo presentation of Dr Lakra (Jerónimo López Ramírez), showcasing recent monotypes created in collaboration with Taller Sangfer, a renowned printmaking studio in Oaxaca. Dr Lakra’s work often transforms found imagery—from vintage magazines to historical ephemera—by superimposing intricate tattoo-like designs, mythical creatures, and subversive iconography. His monotypes continue this exploration, using traditional printmaking techniques to create compositions that oscillate between the sacred and the profane. He references pre-Columbian art, religious iconography, and countercultural aesthetics, forging a practice that is at once historical and contemporary.
His piece featured at the fair is a striking tiger rendered in bold black ink on a ruddy orange-ochre body, a work that embodies his fascination with tattoo culture, iconography, and mythical symbolism. The dynamic, contorted form of the tiger references traditional Mexican and Japanese tattoo aesthetics while also maintaining the raw, handmade energy of printmaking.
The tiger in particular makes one think of a range of icons, such as Tony the Tiger, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, paper tigers, and a robust masculinity that might be either advancing or retreating, depending on the viewer’s perspective. Either way there is a blending of style, perspective, and culture that gives Dr Lakra’s work a marvelous tension and encourages repeat viewings. –Darryl Ratcliff
Marisa Adesman Anat Ebgi
Los Angeles, New York City
In her evocative painting The Turn , Marisa Adesman skillfully blends realism with the mystique of magic and spectacle. The focal point is semi-translucent fabric so precisely depicted that it appears to flutter in a breeze. This fabric sets the stage for a dramatic act: a bouquet of flowers violently sawed in half by a steak knife, evoking the classic magic trick of bisecting an assistant. Adesman reinvents this trope, replacing the human element with flowers, adding shock yet retaining an odd grace. A poignant drop of blood and a subtly placed ruby necklace enhance the scene’s latent violence and lost elegance, deepening the narrative. The Turn signifies a critical moment when ordinary beauty is transformed through destruction and illusion. It challenges viewers to find beauty in disruption and question the spectacle’s reality, akin to a magician’s deceptive acts. This painting sparks a reflective dialogue on the transient nature of beauty, the consequences of violence, and art’s captivating ability to both reveal and deceive. –Anthony Falcon
Dr. Lakra, Untitled, monotype print on Hahnemüle paper, 23.62 x 35.43 in.; Dr. Lakra. Photograph by Marian Nana + Pacu. Courtesy of the artist and Colector, Dallas, Houston, Monterrey.
Marisa Adesman, The Turn, oil on canvas, 18 x 18 in. Courtesy of the artist and Anat Ebgi.
SARAH RICHANI MODERN ANIMALS
Zurich
In a world in which images flash across screens at lightning speed, a painted canvas provides a portal, offering respite while beckoning us to stop and look. Since opening in 2023, the Zurich-based gallery Modern Animals has focused on a younger generation of artists working in this time-honored medium. The Dallas Art Fair marks the gallery’s first art fair foray.
“I love the simpleness and the complexity of putting something on a flat canvas and then creating these worlds. I’m amazed when I meet new artists and see what they are creating in this century-old, or even older, technique,” notes David Iselin, the gallery’s co-owner, who has a background in art history. And the gallery’s international roster of artists is conjuring vast worlds. As we navigate a seemingly chaotic world, Iselin adds, “Painting has a calm. In a way, it’s kind of a recovery place.”
The work of Zurich-based Sarah Richani offers its own
sense of serenity. Drawing upon memories of her native Beqaa Valley in Lebanon for inspiration, her abstracted works speak of mountainous idylls awash in Mediterranean light. With their suggestion of landscape, Richani’s canvases are equally effective as color field paintings. However, one sees them, Iselin remarks, “It is beautiful work focused on the conservation of memory of place.” The gallery is bringing two of Richani’s newest paintings to Dallas. They reflect the personal and the communal. As Iselin explains, “You don’t have to be from a particular region or need a particular context to understand it, because it is universal in the human experience.”
In addition to Richani, the gallery will also present the work of Swiss artists Dorian Büchi and Noah Di Bettschen. Modern Animals prides itself on taking chances with a broad range of younger artists. The Dallas Art Fair will provide most of them their first exposure to American audiences.–Nancy Cohen Israel
Left: Sarah Richani, The Little Things, 2024, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 55.11 x 74.80 in.; Right Sarah Richani. Courtesy of the artist and Modern Animals.
KATHRIN LINKERSDORFF YOSSI MILO GALLERY
New York City
At the intersection of art and science, the photographs of Berlin-based Kathrin Linkersdorff capture the fleeting beauty of nature’s cycles. Presented by Yossi Milo Gallery from New York City’s Chelsea district, her latest series distills years of research into striking images of decay, transformation, and reunion.
Linkersdorff’s practice draws from two years of studying sumi-e ink painting in Japan, where the philosophy of wabisabi—finding beauty in imperfection and impermanence— shaped her approach. The simplicity and restraint of sumi-e painting sharpened her sensitivity to the momentary qualities of natural forms, influencing her use of minimal gestures and negative space. Expanding upon this foundation, Linkersdorff collaborated with faculty at the Institute of Biology/ Microbiology at Humboldt University in Berlin to explore the biochemical processes within flora. There the artist worked with scientists to develop experimental methods to extract or alter the natural pigments of flowers.
A stunning example of extraction can be seen in Fairies I/9,
where the twirling fiber architecture of the depigmented blossom evokes Degas’ dancers. In Fairies VII, Linkersdorff inverts the translucent flowers and places them in water, where droplets of the previously drawn-out pigment are reintroduced. Captured at the moment of reunion, the photographs reveal the intermingling of separated materials. The dried petals reconstitute, swelling back to life as pigment swirls around them—somber hues of decay are jolted into vibrant motion in a rococo ripple of violet. Linkersdorff notes, “The whirling pigments appeared to me like a metaphor for living in transience.” In this fleeting state, the flowers nearly dissolve into color, suspended between form and flux.
In this deeply poetic gesture, Linkersdorff’s Fairies series recalls natural rhythms of dissolution and transformation. “For me, pigments are an expression of life,” she says. In these works, she subverts the traditional motif of photographing flowers, capturing an ephemeral moment of reconciliation—where pigment and petal, once divided by decay, converge in a brief reunion. – Ian Etter
David Lloyd’s latest body of work compresses 40 years of artmaking into a singular experience—a DMT-like burst of color and form where past and present collide. Presented by SPY Projects in Los Angeles, the CalArts-educated painter has seamlessly integrated AI into his practice, expanding the boundaries of abstraction and materiality. His recent work has garnered attention for its fearless embrace of technology and its constant drive to push artistic boundaries.
Lloyd’s process begins by feeding his archive—decades of paintings and ceramics—into an AI image generator. The program, trained on thousands of visual fragments, produces unpredictable compositions that serve as the foundation for his new works. He describes the process as collaborating with a nonsensical yet occasionally brilliant partner. Printed and mounted onto shaped panels, these digital echoes are then transformed with layers of
paint, collage, and resin.
The process is cyclical. Lloyd often reintroduces altered images back into the system, allowing the machine to reinterpret his interventions. Occasionally he throws the algorithm off course by incorporating unexpected elements—throwaway aluminum sculptures that disrupt his sense of form—complicating the composition in ways that defy digital logic. The resulting works blur the line between the physical and the virtual, resonating with both the tactile presence of paint and the uncanny precision of AI.
Far from seeing AI as a threat, Lloyd views it as a catalyst for creative evolution—a way forward that allows painting to become something it couldn’t be before. With their layered complexity and uncanny familiarity, his works feel distinctly of this moment—a reflection of both technological anxiety and artistic possibility.
–Ian Etter
David Lloyd. Courtesy of the artist; David Lloyd, Kundalini, 2025, oil, acrylic, airbrush, collage, and ink on wood panel, 53.5 x 42 in. Courtesy of the artist and Spy Projects, Los Angeles.
David Lloyd. Courtesy of the artist.
PATRICK H JONES THE SUNDAY PAINTER London
The Sunday Painter started out as an artist-run space in 2009 and has since established itself as one of London’s premier commercial galleries. Among its intergenerational roster, Patrick H Jones stands out for using animal symbolism—birds, fish, horses—to dig into human emotion, control, and ambition.
Jones has long depicted animals as analogies for the human condition, each embedded with historic and personal meaning. “The horse works often represent a sort of herd mentality and how we can all get caught up in that,” he says. “It’s about a sense of belonging—wanting to be part of a group of like-minded people, to feel safe and reaffirmed. These can be positive, lifeaffirming things, but they can also lead you to some odd places.”
Alongside belonging, his horses embody the relentless drive of ambition. The internal pressures and cyclical nature of striving toward ever-elusive goals take center stage in his Target series. Horses rush across the canvas, their bodies abstracted
into inseparable forms. Jones’ thick, broad gestures coalesce in a tangle of limbs, tapping into a surprising sense of angst. Their right-to-left motion disrupts the way we instinctively read an image, adding resistance to their charge. This counter-directional stampede struggles upstream—you can almost feel their bodies tense mid-stride. The paintings churn, pulling the viewer into their turbulence, an echo of the endless push toward goals that always seem just out of reach.
While this tension remains constant in his work, his palette has shifted from somber tones to softer, more open compositions punctuated with bright accents. As always, Jones’ personal experience shapes these changes. Reflecting on the unexpected but healthy evolution of his practice since becoming a father, he notes, “The color palette is still stripped back in these Dallas works, but the small flecks of color have a strong optimism— though with the tiredness of a new parent.” –Ian Etter
Patrick H Jones, Behind, 2025, oil on canvas, 74.80 x 125.98 (diptych).
Courtesy of the artist and The Sunday Painter. Photograph by Ollie Hammick.
Patrick H Jones, 3/3/3/5/6 , 2025, oil on canvas 74.80 x 63 in. Courtesy of the artist and The Sunday Painter. Photograph by Ollie Hammick.
JOSE DÁVILA OMR
Mexico City
Founded in 1983 in Mexico City, OMR has been a venerable stalwart for Mexican and Latin American art for decades. In 2015, Cristobal Riestra assumed its reins from his parents, who founded the gallery, and has led it through generational change. Since then the program has been augmented by the cultural space LagoAlgo as well as through participation in art fairs around the world. This year marks their Dallas Art Fair debut.
The relationships forged with artists and collectors is a key to their longevity. Since several gallery artists, including Jose Dávila, Gabriel Rico, and Eduardo Sarabia, have been featured in exhibitions locally, participating in the Dallas Art Fair was a logical next step. Rico is this year’s honoree at the Annual Collector’s Dinner. Gallery artists Yann Gerstberger and Jorge Méndez Blake also have work in You Stretched Diagonally Across It: Contemporary Tapestry , opening at Dallas Contemporary concurrently with the fair.
Presenting Dávila’s work is especially timely as his reputation continues to grow. One of his works will be installed near the fair’s entry, making it among the first that visitors encounter. “We’re thrilled to present Jose Dávila’s work beyond the traditional white cube, offering visitors a fresh perspective on his practice in a new context—one that invites diverse interpretations,” says Carolina Alvarez-Mathies, senior director of institutional relations at OMR and the artistic director of LagoAlgo. At home among the architecture of the Dallas Arts District, she says, “Dávila’s sculptures, with their delicate balance of concrete and stone, resonate with this architectural language, engaging in a dialogue with the city’s landscape through weight, void, and equilibrium.”
Alvarez-Mathies is the former executive director of the Dallas Contemporary. In her current roles, she is committed to reinforcing the gallery’s connections in Dallas and across the United States. To that end, the gallery looks forward to growing its established relationships locally while introducing new collectors to their dynamic program. –Nancy Cohen Israel
Above: Jose Dávila. Photograph by Thierry B. Burgherr; Below: Jose Dávila, Fundamental Concern, 2025, concrete and boulder, 93.82 x 24.75 x 26.37 in., 945.56 lbs. Courtesy of the artist and OMR. Photograph by Agustín Arce; Right: Jose Dávila, The fact of constantly returning to the same point or situation, 2024, silkscreen print and vinyl paint on loomstate linen, 66 7/8 x 82.62 x 2.37 in.
Clinging to a landscape unraveled by extraction
NASHER PRIZE WINNER OTOBONG NKANGA’S INTERDISCIPLINARY PRACTICE OPENS PORTALS TO HIDDEN DEPTHS.
BY TREY BURNS
Installation view of Otobong Nkanga: Cadence. On view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, from October 10, 2024–June 8, 2025.
Installation detail Otobong Nkanga: Cadence. Photographs by Emile Askey.
Nasher Prize laureate Otobong Nkanga is a cartographer of the unseen, tracing the ties between land, labor, and bodies—connections that bind people to each other and to the earth. Her work reveals the stories embedded beneath every surface, the hidden strata of history and meaning we walk upon without knowing. Nkanga’s practice unfolds like a constellation, spanning sculpture, drawing, textiles, photography, performance, and installation , each medium interwoven with the next.
Known for adapting her work to each setting, Nkanga will present an exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center from April 5 to August 17, opening with a gala celebration. As the recipient of the 2025 Nasher Prize—an award recognizing artists who have made significant contributions to contemporary sculpture—Nkanga will showcase reimagined versions of major projects alongside new works inspired by North Texas’ material culture, ecology, and migration histories, created in collaboration with local artisans.
One such project, Carved to Flow, was first exhibited at documenta 14 in Athens, Greece, and Kassel in 2017. It has subsequently been presented as a multifaceted installation and performance in which Nkanga and her collaborators engaged in soap making and exchange as both a sculptural and conceptual process, evoking ideas of cleansing and healing. The final phase of the project reinvests the sales of soap into the Carved to Flow Foundation, which supports a nonprofit exhibition space in Athens and an
Otobong Nkanga. Courtesy of the artist.
Otobong Nkanga, Carved to Flow: Germination, 2017. Installation view of Otobong Nkanga: Craving for Southern Light, Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (IVAM), Valencia, Spain, 2023. Photograph by IVAM Centre, Julian Gonzàlez. Courtesy of the artist.
Otobong Nkanga (Nigerian/Belgian, b. 1974), Unearthed–Sunlight, 2021, woven textile (yarns: Trevira, sidero, polyester, multifilament, merino wool, Superwash, linen, mohair, Econyl, Fulgaren, Elirex, viscose), remembrance plants, 137.80 x 236.80 in. Installation view of Unearthed at Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2021, on 4 floors; 3rd floor: scorched tree trunk, landscape of rammed earth with pools. Photograph Markus Tretter.
Otobong Nkganga, In Pursuit of Bling, 2014. Installation view of Otobong Nkanga: To Dig a Hole That Collapses Again, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 2018.
organic farm in Nigeria.
Despite her international acclaim over the last two decades, major institutions in the United States have only recently begun to acknowledge Nkanga’s work. For many, familiarity with her practice has come primarily through documentation—a frustrating substitute for work that demands physical presence. Her exhibition at MoMA in New York City, which opened late last year, provided a rare opportunity to experience her work firsthand, setting the stage for her upcoming project in Texas.
At MoMA, Nkanga’s site-specific installation Cadence (2024) commands the museum’s atrium with a sixty-foot-tall, multipaneled tapestry. Along the walls a series of clay tablets bear the artist’s imprints: poems and drawings of flora gently pressed into the surface. Complementing the tapestry’s ascent, thick , dyed ropes stretch from floor to ceiling in varying gradients, suspending glass and ceramic vessels in their knotted lines. Embedded inside the vessels, speakers emit a ten-channel sound piece, filling the cathedral-like space with something akin to a haunted dream.
The tapestry, suspended along the highest wall, is captivating and unsettling in scope and scale. It renders a feverishly intricate landscape woven from over 200 colors and 12 thread types. At the top, kaleidoscopic color evokes something of a nebula or galaxy. From this cosmic haze, a stream of water snakes downward, splitting and curling through the composition of fragmented flora until it meets the darkness of a mycelium forest. Just above
this shadowy thicket, two figures embrace, their gaze fixed on the hollows of a mine.
Within the center of the atrium, the large vertical forms , suspended like raindrops or tears caught mid-fall, rest on dark chunks of anthracite scattered across the atrium’s floor. Anthracite is a “hard coal,” prized during the Industrial Revolution for its high energy output and low smoke emissions. Materially, it is both dense and luminous—its black surface absorbs light while crystalline flecks shimmer, giving it an ethereal quality. Formed from fossilized biomatter compressed over millennia, anthracite carries the weight of deep time and the history of extraction. Its presence in Nkanga’s work anchors the installation in this layered past while evoking the forces that propelled society into the Anthropocene—a term with which the mineral shares a curious linguistic proximity.
Once the awe inspired by the monumental image subsides, the sound in Cadence endures. Nkanga’s vocal performance— shifting between speech, nonverbal tones, breaths, and guttural exhalations—fills the atrium with raw, frantic energy, oscillating between the unsettling and the ecstatic. The ten-channel sound piece travels up and down the suspended glass and ceramic vessels, stretching the height of the space. It vibrates through the body, drawing attention to the floors above as the sound seeps into the galleries beyond.
The sound in Cadence seems to encourage visitors to move beyond the atrium, guiding them through the galleries in search
Otobong Nkanga (Nigerian/Belgian, b. 1974), Double Plot, 2018, woven textile (yarns: viscose, polyester, organic cotton, cashwool, acryl), inkjet prints on five laser-cut Forex plates, 104.20 x 303.20 in.; Alignment, 2022, handmade ropes, three Murano glass spheres, tree trunk, metal connectors, clay granules, lava stones, activated carbon, soil, plants. Installation view of Botanischer Wahnsinn (Botanical Madness) at the Kröller-Müller Museum, 2022. Photograph by Marjon Gemmeke.
of alternate vantage points. From an upper floor, a small portal behind the installation offers an unexpected view: the reverse side of the tapestry. What initially appears as a novelty or technical revelation gradually emerges as a key to Nkanga’s practice. Her work is so often concerned with what lies beneath. This rectoverso encounter disrupts the polished surface seen from below, exposing loose threads and seams—a reminder of the hidden and underpinned labor and interplay of systems at work.
Cadence continues and deepens Nkanga’s long-standing engagement with the broader implications of materiality—how resources move through bodies, markets, and landscapes. It most closely recalls Double Plot (2018), a sumptuous, inky-dark tapestry depicting disembodied arms stretching across its surface, reaching outward into vast networks of supply chains—labor mapped like a star chart.
In Contained Measures of a Kolanut (2012), a performance centered on the cultural and economic significance of the kola nut in West Africa, Nkanga engaged participants in a communal ceremony, weaving personal narratives into the kola nut’s journey from social ritual to global commodity. Similarly, in In Pursuit of Bling (2014), presented at the Berlin Biennale, Nkanga traced the path of mica—a shimmering mineral found in everything from cosmetics to electronics—back to its extraction in Nigeria,
exposing the hidden costs embedded in materials that glitter on the surface.
Still, the figures at the center of Cadence exert a magnetic pull. The most immediate association is with Adam and Eve stepping into a fractured Eden. Yet the landscape also evokes Yggdrasil, the world tree of Norse mythology: a bridge between realms, a symbol of life, death, and renewal. Beneath its branches, Líf and Lífþrasir hid to survive Ragnarök, waiting out the end of the world to sow the beginnings of a new one.
These myths echo in their embrace, but so does something more contemporary. The figures recall Lauren Olamina, the protagonist of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, navigating a world cracked open by ecological and social collapse. Her Earthseed philosophy offers no return to paradise, only the certainty that “God is Change.” Adaptation, transformation, growth through uncertainty.
Nkanga’s figures stand at a similar threshold. They are not escaping; they are holding on within a landscape unraveled by extraction. Life clings precariously here, taking root where it can. And within this precarity lies the certainty of hope even at the world’s end. Nkanga’s vision resists the impulse to return to idealized versions of the past; it gestures instead toward reorientation. Toward a beginning. P
Otobong Nkanga (Nigerian/Belgian, b. 1974). Veins Aligned, 2018, Murano glass, paint, blast furnace fusion, wet sandblasted Lasa Marble Venato Fior di Melo, wooden plinth, 1023 3/5 in. various widths (c. 19.60 x 27.50 in.) Installation view of May You Live In Interesting Times at the Arsenale, 2019. Photograph by Andrea Avezzù.
WELCOME TO MARISOL’S PARTY
POP ART PHENOM, THE VENEZUELAN AMERICAN ARTIST’S CAREER SURVEY AT THE DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART IS RELEVANT AND IRREVERENT.
Marisol: A Retrospective at the Dallas Museum of Art is a welcome reinvestigaton of the late artist’s work. On view are the blocky sculptures for which she is known, combining carved wood with painted and drawn renderings of people, yet this show also endeavors to reveal a broader, more robust look into the work she produced over her lifetime.
When we think about the 1950s innovation in artmaking that incorporated real-world objects into the painting vernacular, Robert Rauschenberg and Jaspar Johns remain front and center. But in the decade that followed, artists continued to merge sculpture and painting into fresh and lighthearted territories. Marisol Escobar, known as Marisol, was one such artist, uniting the traditions of wood sculpture, depictive rendering practices, 1950s assemblage, and a pop sensibility that was willing to focus artmaking on everyday culture. Notions of highbrow and lowbrow were obliterated as the ideology of pop became paramount. Marisol in particular frequently focused her efforts on a kind of newfangled portraiture depicting, among other things, art-world and political luminaries. These “portraits” reveal much about Marisol’s feelings toward her subjects—reverent and irreverent. Her works from this period may seem on the face humorous, and often are, but underneath one finds a sharp-tongued critique of power, greed, and the social mores of her time.
Her work of the early 1960s is a curious mixture of earnestness and farcical trenchancy. Take for example her depiction of the then-sitting pope, entitled not unfunnily John (Pope John XXIII) (1961). In her title she highlights the man, calling him John first. For the Catholic representative of God, this twist of a title reveals the appraisal to come in the artwork, in which she depicts John the XXIII made of a barrel and riding a hobby horse. Further undercutting his usually expected gravitas, she has him barefoot and with double pink hats. The “horse” he is riding is part horse, part woman; the critique is clear and incisive—the concerns of women are often trampled by religious figureheads who recklessly wield power and unjustly use their social influence.
In her 1965/66 work The Party we see the artist at her grandest, creating a slew of wooden women that appear to be mingling at a high-society event. Each woman is distinctive in shape and embellished with painted and drawn renderings combined with found materials, yet each woman displays Marisol’s face, making them all versions of the artist, some depicted by plaster casts, some
with attached photographs, some painted. Marisol seems to have relished the various ways she can indicate personality as well as class hierarchies through dramatic variety among the women and the maid and butler serving drinks and dressed in a formal black or lace servant outfits. As with all the artist’s work, there seems an undercurrent of critique. One woman’s head is a small television playing fuzz, while another has a hairdo that elongates behind her, reminiscent of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti. Are these women of power and privilege meant to appear gaudy in their expensive dresses or, because they all bear Marisol’s face, are they meant to question her own celebrity and how that squares with her seriousness as an artist? The viewer may decide while marveling at this amazingly complex and inventive installation.
Perhaps my favorite from this period is the 1965 work Six Women. Three rectangular blocks stand like furniture cabinets while six carved wooden heads with fragment casts of Marisol’s face rest on top of the configuration, paired in twos. The elegant simplicity of the geometric shapes makes the parts of the artwork contrast
Marisol: A Retrospective installation view at the Dallas Museum of Art. Courtesy of Dallas Museum of Art.
dramatically against each other and especially with the three pairs of shoes on the floor, pointing outward, toward the viewer. The wood rectangles representing the bodies are mostly painted flatly on the outsides; only the inner portions of the horizontally aligned women are painted or drawn as traditional depictions. Two inner sides have mirrors to reflect the paintings. To complicate the work further, each head is carved and smoothed in different manners—some as squares, some rounded or carved with interiors, and one with a unicorn or Pinocchio nose threateningly directed toward the viewer. The fragment of facial casts showing a pink rendition of Marisol’s features feel like a callback to the famous Jasper Johns work Target with Plaster Casts (1955). While Johns’ artwork incorporating cast body parts feels purposefully clunky and rough, Marisol’s Six Women is a masterful example of restraint, a graceful and intelligent balance
of beauty in shape and playfulness of material.
Other periods of her work that stand out are her magnificent drawings, often crafted with a kaleidoscope of colored pencils spiraling around the page. The human body, both beautiful and grotesque. is portrayed in the context of political, feminist, psychological, or ecological commentary, always with a surreal twist. For example, An Elastic Skin Man of 1975, in which hands and mouths are stretching the cheeks of a man as if he were made of rubber or being flayed. Marisol writes below the image:
An Elastic Skin Man such a person can pull his skin out, a considerable distance without feeling pain.
Toward the end of her life Marisol’s drawings became shaky
Marisol, An Elastic Skin Man, installation view Marisol: A Retrospective at Dallas Museum of Art. Courtesy of Dallas Museum of Art.
and savant-like, showing a ferocious directness that is equal parts startling and potent. They are certainly some of her best works.
As with most exhibitions of this magnitude, there is much more than can easily be taken in or digested. In the entrance we see small cast bronzes that feel like lumpy friezes with cavorting figures, like a deftly executed mock-up of Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment. In another room we see Andy Warhol’s intoxicating and famous film of Marisol in a slow-motion kissing session. Then there is the period in which Marisol became fascinated with the ocean and the creatures living below the waterline, carving wooden fish that are smoothly shaped and once again have her visage surrealistically attached. Always innovative, in another standout artwork she highlights her translucent cast face with puckered lips carefully lit from behind. This reads like a lo-fi digital projection—or a haunted house amusement. Then there is the environmentally concerned work; most striking is the panoply of cast masks hanging by ropes and imprinted with rubbish—smashed beer cans, Coke bottles, and metal keys tattoo the faces in this series, like a gallery of the dead.
Through every period, Marisol did not rest, and we see her following her impulses and intellectual curiosities. What is clear and well-documented in this exhibition is how the artist constantly sought to speak about her world in ways that pointed toward pleasure, but also toward the pain of living in and with imperfect political situations and institutions. Maybe we will all see our own time of chaos reflected in her ambitious artwork. P
Maria Haag, You Can Run on for a Long Time, 2025, oil on canvas, 48 x 72 in. Courtesy of James Cope Gallery, Dallas.
Leslie Martinez, Sky Bowl Frequencies, 2025, canvas scraps, used studio rags, used studio clothing, polyester sewing threads, paper fragments, paint chips, modeling paste, acrylic paint on canvas, 48 x 60 x 6 in. Courtesy of James Cope Gallery, Dallas.
David Flaugher, Untitled, 2025, oil on linen, 16 x 20 in. Courtesy of James Cope Gallery, Dallas.
Los Angeles
A GATHERING OF LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE
A BOUTIQUE-SCALE FAIR, DALLAS INVITATIONAL IS READY TO RECEIVE GUESTS AT THE MANSION.
BY DANIELLE AVRAM
Adam Alessi, The Path, 2020, watercolor on paper. 17 x 21 in. Courtesy of the artist and Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles.
HANNAH HOFFMAN
PARRASCH HEIJNEN
Los Angeles
This April marks the third edition of the Dallas Invitational, a boutique, hotel-based art fair founded by Dallas-based gallerist James Cope. While the first two fairs were held Downtown at the Fairmont Hotel, this year it’s shifting locations to the iconic Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek.
“I’m really excited about the new location,” says Cope. “It will still be the same kind of boutique experience. We focus on a smaller group of galleries with curated, purposeful, meaningful presentations in a nice setting. It’s an art fair but I don’t like to call it that. It’s more like a gathering of like-minded people. I think it shows the strength of Dallas that something like this event can happen.”
In addition to a new venue, the fair recently established an advisory council comprising Cope, Hannah Hoffman, former TWO x TWO director Melissa M. Ireland, art adviser Adam Green, and philanthropist Jessica Nowitzki. The fair has also partnered
with the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth to create the Dallas Invitational Acquisition Fund, which allows the museum to acquire select artworks exhibited at the fair for its permanent collection.
Cope’s vision for the Invitational was inspired by the origins of New York’s Armory Show, which began as the Gramercy International Art Fair in 1994, utilizing the rooms and corridors of the then run-down Gramercy Park Hotel. The Invitational follows a similar model (although in decidedly nicer digs), with each gallery occupying a hotel room instead of the traditional art fair booth. It’s a relatively low-stakes endeavor for the participating galleries, and a more relaxed and personal environment for gallerists and visitors alike.
While the Gramercy International lasted only five years before it shifted focus, Cope is letting the Invitational develop slowly via word-of-mouth.
“The first year I did the fair, it was just going to be a one-off, and
La Monte Westmoreland, Charlie with Geisha, 2007, mixed media on paper on panel 18-inch diameter. Image courtesy of Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles.
Teresa Tolliver, Untitled, 1994, ceramic, 18 x 16 x 14 in. Image courtesy of Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles.
then I started getting emails from people asking me if I was going to do it again. I didn’t start it with the intention of becoming an art fair guy. I’m a dealer.”
The 2025 Dallas Invitational features 17 galleries, a small but steady increase from the 13 and 14 who showed in 2023 and 2024. Of the 17, most are US-based, including James Cope, who will show five artists. Among them is Dallas’ own rising art star Leslie Martinez, whose colorful, textured canvases have been acquired by museums all over the US and who recently had a solo exhibition at MoMA PS1.
Dallas native turned LA gallerist Hannah Hoffman has participated since its inception. Foregoing the traditional multiartist roster, Hoffman is presenting a solo exhibition of works on paper by Adam Alessi, whom she recently showed at Frieze Los Angeles. Known for his unflinching portraits of ghoulish figures that combine the aesthetic elements of post-punk, folklore, and 19th/20th-century European symbolism, Alessi is sure to be one of this year’s standouts.
Also from LA is Parrasch Heijnen, which has previously participated in the Dallas Art Fair. Founded in 2015 by Franklin Parrasch and Christopher Heijnen, the gallery represents a wide array of artists, ranging from emerging to mid/late career and posthumous, with a focus on abstract works that highlight material and process. The booth will include works by La Monte Westmoreland, who recently had a five-decade retrospective at the gallery, and younger artists such as Tokyo-based Yui Yaegashi and Chinese Japanese Yukine Yanagi, an RISD graduate who lives and works in Rhode Island.
“The first year I did the fair, it was just going to be a one-off, and then I started getting emails from people asking me if I was going to do it again. I didn’t start it with the intention of becoming an art fair guy. I’m a dealer.” –James Cope
Yukine Yanagi, Visitant (Red), 2024, oil on panel, 14 x 11 inches. Image courtesy of Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles.
Ellen Siebers, Rest, rest, 2025, oil on panel, 10 x 8 in. Image courtesy Parrasch Heijnen, Los Angeles.
HARLESDEN HIGH STREET
London
Antonio Lechuga, St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers, guiding river crossers, 2024, various cobijas (fleece blankets), 174 x 90 in. Courtesy of Harlesden High Street, London.
Echo Seireeni, Devotion, 2024, oil on canvas, 31.51 x 39.37 in. Courtesy of Harlesden High Street, London.
Ronald “Riskie” Brent & Hen Dogg (R.I.P.), All Eyez On Me, 1996, acrylic, spray paint on canvas, 70.86 x 55.11 in. Courtesy of Harlesden High Street, London.
GOOD WEATHER Chicago / Little Rock
Dylan Spaysky, Exhibition view of Reflections, 2022 at Good Weather, Chicago / Little Rock.
Jerry Phillips, Untitled, 2023, graphite on paper, 14 x 11 in., 17 x 13.75 in. (framed). Courtesy of Good Weather, Chicago / Little Rock.
COBRA, Story of eggs (bird gallery for birds), 2023, acrylic on canvas, bird cage, and various other materials, 11.25 x 9 x 16.25 in. Courtesy of Good Weather, Chicago / Little Rock.
EMPTY GALLERY
Hong Kong
Taro Masushio, Untitled (CB #14), 2024, UV print on found cardboard, 25.62 x 26.25 x 2.87 in. Courtesy of Empty Gallery, Hong Kong.
Taro Masushio, Untitled (CB #18), 2024, UV print on found cardboard, 25.62 x 26.25 x 2.87 in. Courtesy of Empty Gallery, Hong Kong.
“We appreciate the Dallas Invitational’s smaller boutique scale of formatting, and the hotel format gives visitors a chance to slow down to spend time with artworks in a way that can be trickier in a traditional fair model. Dallas, with its deep and rich institutional history and respect for the context in which art is shown, seems the right place for this.”
–Kaitlin Chan
Good Weather offers a unique perspective. Founded in 2011 by Haynes Riley, the gallery existed for years inside the North Little Rock garage of Riley’s brother’s home before relocating to Chicago. Riley still curates rotating projects at locations around Little Rock as well as in cities all over the world—London, Tokyo, and Paris, to name a few. Riley has high hopes for the Dallas Invitational “because of its intimacy and collaboration—it keeps fair participation affordable so that market pressure doesn’t play a role in the curatorial vision, thus providing an environment to elevate artists and expose curators and collectors to new, unique practices.” He will bring works by several artists, including Little Rock’s Jerry Phillips, whose ghostly graphite renderings are based on preexisting imagery he sources from found photos, texts, and drawings.
Another new addition is London’s Harlesden High Street. Founded by artist/curator Jonny Tanna, Harlesden is located in a predominantly Afro-Caribbean neighborhood of Northwest London. The gallery’s programming is reflective of a concerted effort to be as much a part of the local fabric as any other business. A 10-point manifesto on the gallery website states: “our core values are formed by our experiences as outsiders navigating the art world.” In addition to artists Tanna will be bringing from London, the gallery will show works by Dallas artist Antonio Lechuga, whose career was nearly cut short after he was shot multiple times while jogging through East Dallas in 2022. Lechuga uses cobijas
Mexican fleece blankets—to create works that address the Tejano experience in 21st-century America. Says Tanna, “Antonio’s practice is unique, and its familiarity speaks to us people from working-class communities.”
Empty Gallery occupies a 4,500-square-foot black-cube space located at the edge of Aberdeen Harbor in Tin Wan, Hong Kong. Founded by Stephen Cheng, Empty follows another untraditional model, operating more like a nonprofit space than a commercial venture, with only three or four exhibitions per year and a program that focuses on “pioneering multimedia commissions, performances, and music, with a special commitment to ephemeral, time-based and non-object-oriented practices.” At the Mansion, the gallery will exhibit works by Vunkwan Tam and Taro Masushio. Tam works in a variety of mediums, including sculpture, video, text, sound, and installation, as does Masushio, whose recent body of work features photographs UV printed on flattened cardboard care packages shipped by the artist’s father from his native Japan to New York City, where Masushio currently lives.
Says gallery director Kaitlin Chan, “We appreciate the Dallas Invitational’s smaller boutique scale of formatting, and the hotel format gives visitors a chance to slow down to spend time with artworks in a way that can be trickier in a traditional fair model. Dallas, with its deep and rich institutional history and respect for the context in which art is shown, seems the right place for this.” P
A MORE PERFECT UNION
THE WAREHOUSE DALLAS ART FOUNDATION’S INAUGURAL EXHIBITIONS INTRODUCE A GENERATIVE DOUBLE HELIX.
BY EVE HILL-AGNUS
Francesca Mollett (British, born 1991), Cortex, 2024, oil on linen, 70.875 x 90.5 in. The Rachofsky Collection
, 2021, US military body transfer cases, aluminum, flicker bulbs, electrical wiring, conveyor belt, pewter, chain, pulleys, aircraft cable, and hardware, overall dimensions: 281 x 202 x 28.50 in.; Low Relief Icon (Figure 2), 2021, US military body transfer cases, aluminum, flicker bulbs, electrical wiring, conveyor belt, pewter, chain, pulleys, aircraft cable, and hardware, overall dimensions: 281 x 202 x 28.50 in.; Right Hand Left Hand, Grinds a Fantasizer’s Dust, 2021, concrete textile, funerary backdrop stand, neon tubing, transformers, spot lights, and silk gauze, 85.50 x 112 x 24 in. All Hartland & Mackie / Labora Collection. Photograph by Kevin Todora.
Behind a familiar-to-the-artworld façade on Inwood Road in North Dallas, austere in raw concrete and slate grays, a subtle but profound change has occurred. Last October, longtime Dallas collectors and philanthropists
Cindy and Howard Rachofsky and young collector
Thomas Hartland-Mackie, president and CEO of his family’s Labora Global Ltd., announced they would be joining together to form a nonprofit arts juggernaut, The Warehouse Dallas Art Foundation—to still be known, as it has been, as The Warehouse. The inaugural exhibition, Double Vision: The Rachofsky Collection and the Hartland & Mackie / Labora Collection , is first fruit of this multigenerational endeavor.
The partnership between two private collections, co-curators Thomas Feulmer and Benjamin Godsill quipped at a dinner celebrating the show’s opening in February, has been similar to the wedding of lovers who haven’t met their in-laws yet but are eager to delve into the lore and family resemblances.
“It’s sort of a new era of The Warehouse.” Feulmer says. “It gives us a different energy and a different idea and a different way to frame what we do. What it has created is a different sense of intentionality.”
During the summer, Feulmer and colleague Caitlin Overton merged with Godsill and Hartland-Mackie’s team to constitute the foundation’s curatorial and educational core. Within the vast
Elaine Cameron-Weir (Canadian, born 1985), Low Relief Icon (Figure 1)
Josh Kline (American, born 1979), Unemployed Journalist (Dave), 2018, 3D-printed sculpture in acrylic-based photopolymer resin foam and polyethylene bag, 21 x 25 x 41 in. Hartland & Mackie / Labora Collection. Photograph by Kevin Todora.
Double Vision: The Rachofsky Collection and the Hartland & Mackie / Labora Collection, The Warehouse, Dallas, Installation view with two works by Rashid Johnson, a work by a Carol Rama, two works by Piero Manzoni, and a work by Calvin Marcus in the background. February 15–June 28, 2025, Photograph by Kevin Todora.
Double Vision: The Rachofsky Collection and the Hartland & Mackie / Labora Collection, The Warehouse, Dallas, installation view with work by Sean Raspet and Marc Quinn, February 15–June 28, 2025. Photograph by Kevin Todora.
warehouse, which also houses The Rachofsky Collection (with its own staff), Double Vision, on view through June 28, occupies 15 of 16 galleries, each featuring a different artist or theme. In that sense the ambitious debut resembles a museum-collection show.
One stand-alone gem is British painter Francesca Mollett’s solo exhibition. This third iteration of the WAREHOUSE:01 series gives an artist carte blanche over one gallery. Nine of her sensitive paintings (six of them completed for the exhibition, including a massive triptych) fill the central gallery for Elsewhere. Her abstract, painterly surfaces, which ripple with intimacy and iridescence, find liminal echoes in the zones that demarcate them. “She had the idea to paint the inside of the doorways, mixing pigment and binder,” Feulmer explains. The effect allows blurred reflections of her canvases’ soft hues to mimic the almost vaporous apparitions of light reflected on water reflected on metal, those glimmering images—of trees or banks or clouds—projected on the underside of a bridge. The very act of entering and exiting the space seems to mirror her utterly atmospheric hold on color and light.
Visitors may not realize when they enter another gallery that they are experiencing a work by Canadian artist Elaine Cameron-Weir that filled a whole room at the 2022 Venice Biennale. The installation is a dark embodiment of that biennial’s theme, The Milk of Dreams : conveyor belts and pulleys act as counterpoint to two metallic military body-transfer cases topped by flickering pewter “candles” with electric bulbs, and neon tubing and silk gauze entwined on a funerary backdrop stand in strange, spectral symmetry. The scene feels like a science lab with a séance atmosphere. Hartland-Mackie purchased the entire room in 2022; the work has not been shown since. “To be able to bring that to Dallas and to give that piece another life and another look,” Feulmer says, is invaluable. Not
Double Vision: The Rachofsky Collection and the Hartland & Mackie / Labora Collection, The Warehouse, Dallas, installation view with two untitled works by Wade Guyton, February 15–June 28, 2025. Photograph by Kevin Todora.
Vojtěch Kovařík (Czech, born 1993), Four Seasons, 2023, acrylic and sand on canvas 118.12 x 393.75 in. The Rachofsky Collection.
1986),
, 2022, biological and synthetic resin and polymers, salt, algae, seaweed, bone, pigments, mineral dust, ocean plastic, glass, and stainless steel structure, 111.43 x 110.68 x 128.87 in. The Rachofsky Collection. Below: Howardena Pindell (American, born 1943), Untitled (Reflections), 2022, acrylic on canvas, three panels: 79 x 118.5 in. each; overall: 79 x 355.50 in. The Rachofsky Collection and Hartland & Mackie / Labora Collection. Opposite Above: Sterling Ruby (American/Dutch, Germany-born 1972), Elliptic
Fait Accompli, 2007, PVC pipe, plastic urethane, wood, aluminum, and spray paint, 179 x 76 x 49 in. The Rachofsky Collection. Photograph by Kevin Todora. Below: Calvin Marcus (American, born 1988), blue devil, 2018, Cel-vinyl, ceramic, and Flashe on aluminum panel in artist’s frame, 36.5 x 24.5 x 5 in. Hartland & Mackie / Labora Collection. Photograph: Kevin
Above: Marguerite Humeau (French, born
Kuroshio
Umbilic/
Todora.
inconsequentially, the installation includes a raised metal floor of the sort used in data centers to provide air flow. Feulmer says, laughing, “That’s not a sculpture you can drop in a corner of your living room.”
It is the sort of sprawling work—like other pieces in the show by Rashid Johnson or Howardena Pindell—that requires space. One gallery, in fact, features a signature of Johnson’s oeuvre, versions of which have been installed at the 500-acre sculpture park Storm King and elsewhere.
The grid-like yellow pyramidal steel structure of open cubes is a niche for potted houseplants. Surrounding it, the artist, whose work probes individual and shared narratives and has been fervently collected by Hartland-Mackie, places his personal artistic language in dialogue with postwar Italian, Korean, and Japanese works from The Rachofsky Collection. “Without the Hartland & Mackie / Labora Collection, you wouldn’t have a young Black artist who’s looking at race, culture, and personal history interacting with these deeply historical pieces,” Feulmer says. The artists Johnson chose also explored the limits of materiality, emotion, and gesture but in the context of a Korea rebuilding itself after Japanese occupation, the Korean War, and an authoritarian government. Or in the context of a post-WWII Japan seeking identity after trauma. “We wouldn’t be able to do that,” Feulmer says of the rich dialogue across themes.
Indeed, six Wade Guyton works emphasize the parallax effect. Four fairly geometric, monochromatic works owned by the Rachofskys are grounded in modernism, whereas the two owned by Hartland-Mackie, drawn from photographs, are connected to more recent interrogations of an image. You see Guyton’s entire career in six paintings.
For Feulmer, numerous discoveries have emerged in the part of the Venn diagram where the realm of art intersects science and technology. San Francisco–based artist Sean Raspet’s pieces in Double Vision make inquiries into the future of metabolic processes. Wall-mounted glass vials contain the physical scaffolding involved in genetically growing animal muscle tissue. Futuristic and eerie, they nevertheless share a space with Mark Quinn’s work, which three decades ago marked the frontier of our understanding of the body. Innoscience, a sculptural portrait of Quinn’s then-infant son, outlines the questions swirling around the relationships between body and science, physical and chemical, membrane and blood. Parallelly, Raspet’s trio of vials exists at the edges of our comprehension. “And I just would never have interacted with that work. It’s so strange and kind of amazing to have that kind of thing in the gallery right now,” Feulmer says.
A second in-house curated exhibition in the fall will continue to pull themes and connections from the Rachofskys’ and Hartland-Mackie’s collections, with access to over 1,300 objects.. “In some ways there’s a sort of straightforwardness to [Double Vision]: you’ve got these two collectors who are very curious, and their collections are very driven and thoughtful,” Feulmer muses. “Neither of these collections is a collection of trophies. They’re just not like that.” Instead, the resonances will come from within. Blending will bring insight. “So in a way it’s [all] yet to be written.” P
WNORTHPARK AMBASSADORS
In its eighth year, the NorthPark Ambassador program merges art, fashion, and philanthropy.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY LUIS MARTINEZ STYLING BY WENDY MULAS
hen NorthPark Center first opened in 1965, its purpose extended beyond a shopping center to become a community gathering place, offering performances, art exhibitions, events, and more to all its visitors. This tradition of giving back and supporting nonprofits has continued throughout the shopping center’s storied history. This year NorthPark celebrates 60 years of retail excellence, providing multiple generations with the unparalleled experience of fashion, dining, art, landscaping, culture, and community that will continue well into the future.
The NorthPark Ambassador Program, launched in 2017, shines a light on Dallas’ top leaders and the causes most significant to them. Each year, Nancy A. Nasher and Kimberly Schlegel Whitman invite local philanthropists to increase support for their chosen organizations through retail events and special initiatives with NorthPark.
The impact of the program is vast. Over the past eight years, 96 Ambassadors have represented 48 charities across many different areas of need, including Children’s Health, Dallas CASA, Dallas
Children’s Advocacy Center, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Dec My Room, Nasher Sculpture Center, Ronald McDonald House of Dallas, The Dallas Opera, The Family Place, The Salvation Army, and many others.
“I feel truly humbled that NorthPark is aligned with our region’s most admired business leaders, philanthropists, and community advocates,” says Nancy. “I have always believed that by working together, we can discover new supporters and provide greater visibility for the work of these important organizations.”
The new class of change makers was photographed at the Meadows Museum, which is also celebrating 60 years in 2025. Located on the beautiful campus of SMU, the museum is home to one of the largest and most comprehensive permanent collections of Spanish art in the world. Through June 22, the Meadows Museum presents The Sense of Beauty: Six Centuries of Painting from Museo de Art de Ponce. The exhibition showcases 60 paintings, ranging from the Italian Renaissance to contemporary Puerto Rican art, reflecting the vision and multifaceted taste of philanthropist Luis A. Ferré.
NANCY A. NASHER
Nancy A. Nasher is wearing Oscar de la Renta from Neiman Marcus and Eiseman Jewels. Available at NorthPark Center. Diógenes Ballester, (Puerto Rico, b. 1956) The Magic of Patchouli, I / La magia del pachulí, I, 1993, encaustic paint on linen. Museo de Arte de Ponce. The Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc.
KIMBERLY SCHLEGEL WHITMAN
Children’s Cancer Fund
As NorthPark steps into its sixth decade and eighth year of the NorthPark Ambassador Program, Kimberly Schlegel Whitman has been a guiding force for the initiative since its inception, alongside Nancy A. Nasher. But her connection to the shopping center extends back to her formative years growing up in Dallas.
“Celebrating 60 years has made me reflect on so many memories that I have at the center from my own childhood,” says Kimberly. “It is so wonderful that I have been able to create memories with my children there, too. From glamorous luxury shopping and delicious meals to playing with the ducks and visiting Santa, NorthPark has been a big part of so many of my family’s milestones.”
As chair of the NorthPark Ambassador Program, Kimberly has highlighted many different nonprofits during her tenure. This year, she selected Children’s Cancer Fund. “Children’s Cancer Fund has touched the lives of so many children and their families as they battle cancer,” she says. “Getting to know the CCF team and the children who are taking part in the event has been one of the greatest honors of my life.”
NorthPark is a sponsor of the 35th annual Children’s Cancer Fund Gala, taking place on April 11. The heartwarming event features 20 courageous pediatric patients modeling looks from Dillard’s NorthPark and raises important funds to advance research and treatment programs in pediatric oncology.
Kimberly Schlegel Whitman is wearing Scanlan Theodore and Eiseman Jewels. Available at NorthPark Center. Osiris Delgado, (Puerto Rico, 1920–2017) Saint / Santa, 1958, oil on masonite. Museo de Arte de Ponce. The Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc.
Porschla Kidd is a model, philanthropist, and art enthusiast whose purpose blends creativity, advocacy, and family. She has dedicated herself to passionately supporting causes that uplift children and strengthen communities.
For her Ambassadorship, she is representing the Mavs Foundation. “As a wife and mother, I understand that building a better community starts with empowering our youth and supporting families,” she says. Over the past 28 years, the Mavs Foundation has provided grant funding totaling more than $11 million to nonprofit organizations serving women, children, and families in need.
On a recent visit to NorthPark, Porschla reminisced about her son, now 15, sliding on the planters in Neiman Marcus Court as a child. “It invoked such sweet memories,” she says. “Seeing that kids still slide down the planters and cheerfully look at the ducks and turtles... It’s something I would take my son to do daily!”
Porschla Kidd is wearing Alexander McQueen from Neiman Marcus and Eiseman Jewels. Available at NorthPark Center. Frederic Leighton, (England, 1830-1896) Flaming June, c. 1895, oil on canvas. Museo de Arte de Ponce. The Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc.
The Mavs Foundation
Kasey Lemkin, co-founder of luxury footwear company Partlow, has made a fashionable mark on Dallas since relocating here in 2021. Originally from Jackson, Mississippi, Kasey worked for many high-profile fashion brands in New York and Los Angeles before settling in the Lone Star State. With a strong commitment to empowering women and enriching her community, Kasey continues to make an impact in her new hometown.
Last year she joined the board of the Dallas Contemporary and chaired the gala alongside Leigh Anne Clark, helping to raise over $1 million. She will expand her support for the museum with her NorthPark Ambassadorship. “As an avid art collector, I believe deeply in the mission of the museum—to advance the discovery
KASEY LEMKIN
Dallas Contemporary
and appreciation of the art of this moment—and know DC will continue to grow as a creative hub for Dallas,” says Kasey.
Dallas is home for both Kasey and her brand, Partlow, named after her grandmother. Partlow redefines the cowboy boot with a modern and innovative approach. The rapidly growing brand combines timeless craftsmanship with contemporary design, challenging traditional norms in the industry. Partlow’s popular styles are available at Neiman Marcus NorthPark.
“What stands out to me about NorthPark is the seamless blend of art and shopping to create a truly immersive experience,” she says. “The collection is stunning and adds a unique layer of enrichment, making NorthPark so much more than just a retail destination.”
Kasey Lemkin is wearing Bottega Veneta and Partlow boots from Neiman Marcus. Available at NorthPark Center. Left: Juan van der Hamen y León, (1596-1631) Virgin and Child in Glory, c. 1628-1630, oil on copper. Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Dr. William B. Jordan. Right: Juan van der Hamen y León, (1596-1631) Christ Child Appearing to Saint Anthony, c. 1628-1630, oil on copper. Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas. Gift of Dr. William B. Jordan.
CHAD DORSEY
Dwell with Dignity
Chad Dorsey is the principal of Chad Dorsey Design, an interiors and architecture practice with offices in Dallas and Los Angeles. Working across a broad range of project types and scales, he’s known for a distinctive aesthetic rooted in a love of natural materials, handcrafted details, and quiet palettes. He recently published his first monograph with Assouline titled Relaxed Luxury
Dwell with Dignity is a natural fit for Chad’s NorthPark Ambassador organization of choice. DWD’s mission is to help families escape poverty, homelessness, and social injustice through design. "Everyone deserves a safe and thoughtful place to call home,” says Chad. “I have loved seeing the families benefit from DWD and the amazing designs that have been created."
Chad moved to Dallas in 2000 and was impressed with the art collection he discovered on his first visit to NorthPark. “It makes a special atmosphere for all visitors,” says Chad. “The architect in me studied and admired the careful attention to detail. The individual storefront designs all occur within the same brick surround detail, which set the bar for architectural integrity for the past 60 years."
Chad Dorsey is wearing Brunello Cucinelli from Neiman Marcus. Available at NorthPark Center. Eugenio Lucas Velázquez, (1817-1870) Moorish Scene at Sunset, 1860, oil on canvas. Museo de Arte de Ponce. The Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc.
ALEX SNODGRASS
North Texas Food Bank
A Dallas dinner party is incomplete without a recipe from Texas-raised cookbook author and creator Alex Snodgrass. With over one million followers across social media, she posts healthy recipes with a Texas twist under her brand The Defined Dish. Alex is a three-time New York Times bestseller and owner of SideDish, a collection of multifaceted dressings to make mealtimes delicious and easy to share with loved ones.
With food at the focus of her career and family life, Alex is committed to supporting the North Texas Food Bank and its mission to close the hunger gap by providing nutritious food to the community. “For me, food has always been about connection—bringing people together, creating comfort, and providing nourishment,” says Alex. “Partnering with NTFB allows me to extend that connection beyond my own kitchen and make a real impact in the lives of those who need it most.”
Through her Ambassadorship, Alex and NorthPark will support NTFB’s new strategic plan, Fulfilling Futures, to create lasting change by tackling the root causes of food insecurity. “Ensuring that families have access to nutritious food is a natural extension of my work, and I feel honored to play a role in supporting their mission,” says Alex.
The author, who lives in Dallas with her husband and two daughters, grew up in Celina, Texas. “Taking a day trip to Dallas to shop at NorthPark with my mom and sister was always a special experience—one of my favorite memories from childhood,” she says. “Even now, when we plan a shopping day together, NorthPark is still my favorite place to go.”
Alex Snodgrass is wearing GANNI and Eiseman Jewels. Available at NorthPark Center. María de Mater O’Neill, (Puerto Rico, b. 1960) Backyard, 2000, oil on canvas. Museo de Arte de Ponce. The Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc.
Power couple Annika and Dennis Cail are partnering with the AT&T Performing Arts Center for their NorthPark Ambassadorship. Annika serves on the board of the vibrant cultural hub that provides, operates, and activates exceptional spaces for artists, artistic organizations, and the community.
“The AT&T Performing Arts Center is special to us because we believe in the mission to be a catalyst for imaginative excellence that enables economic and artistic growth for Dallas,” says the couple.
Dennis, a United States Navy veteran and graduate of SMU’s Cox School of Business, is the CEO and co-founder of Zirtue, the world’s first relationship-based lending app that formalizes loans between family and friends. Annika is executive director and banker at J.P. Morgan Private Bank, working closely with private business owners, endowments, foundations, and family offices that seek a strong institutional presence.
Annika’s first memory of NorthPark is from when she first moved to Dallas after graduating from the University of MissouriKansas City. “With my first paycheck, I bought my very first businesswoman suit from Ann Taylor at NorthPark,” she says. “It felt like such a milestone and a moment that made me feel like a true grown-up.”
ANNIKA AND DENNIS CAIL
Performing Arts Center
Annika and Dennis Cail are wearing Versace and Eiseman Jewels. Available at NorthPark Center. Miguel Trelles, (Puerto Rico, B. 1969) Philanthropist, 2000, oil on canvas. Museo de Arte de Ponce. The Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc.
AT&T
SHELBY GOFF
MD Anderson Cancer Center
Philanthropist Shelby Goff truly immerses herself in the organizations she supports, striving to make a lasting impact. Her NorthPark Ambassadorship focuses on MD Anderson Cancer Center, as she chaired the nonprofit’s A Conversation with a Living Legend fundraising event featuring Taylor Sheridan on March 6.
“Cancer touches everyone at some point in their lives, whether it’s a loved one, friend, acquaintance, or themselves personally,” says Shelby. “My childhood best friend is a current patient. Between her first diagnosis of breast cancer and her new diagnosis of bone cancer, I have witnessed the impact of MD Anderson and learned how vital their research is in the ever-evolving mission of eradicating the disease.”
She is also actively involved with The Salvation Army, Kappa Tablescapes, and her children’s schools, the da Vinci School and Episcopal School of Dallas, with past volunteer experience for Cattle Baron’s Ball, Clayton Dabney for Kids with Cancer, New Friends New Life, and Women’s Auxiliary to Children’s Medical Center Dallas.
Spending time at NorthPark during the holiday season is a special tradition for Shelby; her husband, Travis; and their three children. “NorthPark during the holidays is especially magical,” she says. “Our children love seeing The Trains at NorthPark and visiting Santa. NorthPark has truly stood the test of time, always staying very relevant. Where else can you spend the afternoon shopping, catch a movie, admire beautiful art and design, and savor a fine-dining experience?”
Shelby Goff is wearing Dolce&Gabbana and Eiseman Jewels. Available at NorthPark Center. James Tissot, (France, 1836-1902) L’Esthétique (In the Louvre), 1883-1885, oil on canvas. Museo de Arte de Ponce. The Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc.
SARA MADSEN MILLER
Business Council for the Arts
Creative powerhouse Sara Madsen Miller is the chief operating officer and an executive producer at 1820 Productions, an imaginative production company specializing in captivating video content. Sara and her award-winning team have crafted campaigns for industry giants like Discovery, BET, Frito-Lay, Mastercard, and others.
With artistry and ingenuity in her veins, Sara was eager to represent Business Council for the Arts for her NorthPark Ambassador charity. This nonprofit, originally founded by Raymond D. Nasher in 1988, and spearheaded by Nancy A. Nasher since 2007, encourages, connects, and stimulates support for arts and culture institutions in the North Texas region. “Supporting the arts isn’t just a smart business move; it empowers employees to think more creatively, embrace new perspectives, and bring fresh innovation into their work,” Sara says. “It celebrates our unique creative outlets and makes life richer, more vibrant, and more meaningful. And really, who wouldn’t want that?”
Sara serves on the board of BCA as well as the Dallas Regional Chamber Board of Directors, AT&T Performing Arts Center Endowment Board, and Housing Forward Board, and finds respite at home with her husband and beloved canine companion, Zoë. But she’s no stranger to spending an afternoon at NorthPark for a touch of inspiration.
“NorthPark is more than a collection of stores—it’s a beautifully designed space where art, architecture, and atmosphere come together effortlessly,” she says. “Thoughtfully curated sculptures and elegant design details make every visit feel inspiring.”
Sara Madsen Miller is wearing CH Carolina Herrera and Eiseman Jewels. Available at NorthPark Center. Gustave Doré, (France, 1832-1883) Cadair Idris, 1876, oil on canvas. Museo de Arte de Ponce. The Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc.
MARY MARTHA PICKENS
The Crystal Charity Ball
Mary Martha Pickens’ efforts to improve the North Texas community are far and wide, including chairing major events for the American Cancer Society, Community Partners of Dallas, Girl Scouts, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and the North Texas Food Bank, all while working as a senior vice president and private client manager for Bank of America Private Bank.
She will chair this year’s Crystal Charity Ball, which has been raising crucial funds for children’s charities in Dallas County since 1952. After having a rare bone cancer at twelve years old that resulted in years of chemotherapy and an amputation, she understands the importance of such organizations. “I know firsthand how your life can be impacted in a positive way by agencies committed to improving the health, welfare, and safety of those who are most vulnerable,” says Mary Martha.
When she moved to Dallas in 1990, her husband John was a resident at UT Southwestern. “During his 24-hour shifts, I would spend hours in the evening and on weekends at NorthPark, walking in and out of each and every store for entertainment,” she adds.
Mary Martha Pickens is wearing Oscar de la Renta from Neiman Marcus and Eiseman Jewels. Available at NorthPark Center. Claude Lorrain, (France, 1604-1682) View of a Port, 1633, oil on canvas. Museo de Arte de Ponce. The Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc.
DR. COURTNEY DERDERIAN AND NINA SACHSE
Cattle Baron’s Ball
The largest single-night fundraiser for the American Cancer Society takes place right here in North Texas, and Dr. Courtney Derderian and Nina Sachse are at the center of it all as this year’s Cattle Baron’s Ball cochairs. “Cattle Baron’s Ball represents what 100 women can do when they put all their drive and efforts into a cause,” says Courtney. “And as we’ve seen over 52 years, raising $105 million for the American Cancer Society, they can do quite a lot.” And so can Courtney—the wife and mom of two daughters is a pediatric anesthesiologist at Children’s Medical Center.
Nina, a real estate agent with The Rhodes Group at Compass, lost her mother to cancer in 2011 while she was in her second year of volunteering for Cattle Baron’s Ball. “So many people are affected by cancer all the time,” says Nina. “There is still so much work that needs to be done.”
NorthPark is a longstanding partner of the event, sponsoring photo moments and gathering silent auction items. Nina’s first memory of NorthPark was with her mom on her first visit to Dallas to attend SMU. “My mom and I Ioved shopping together,” she says. “She had an amazing eye for fashion and taught me all about fabrics and how to pick the right pieces. I had never seen a more beautiful place to shop.”
Dr. Courtney Derderian and Nina Sachse are wearing ZIMMERMANN and Eiseman Jewels. Available at NorthPark Center. Francisco Oller y Cestero, (Puerto Rico, 1833-1917) Portrait of Colonel Francisco Enrique Contreras, 1880. Museo de Arte de Ponce. The Luis A. Ferré Foundation, Inc.
TIP OF THE SPEAR
GAYLE HALPERIN AND JIM NUGENT TO TAKE TOP HONORS AT TACA’S SILVER CUP AWARDS LUNCHEON.
BY LEE CULLUM
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN SMITH
“It’s not that I don’t admire seekers,” said playwright Lillian Hellman. “I do very much admire. [But my heart is with those] who have pledged themselves somewhere.” This year’s TACA Silver Cup Award honorees have indeed pledged themselves: dancer Gayle Halperin to the art that chose her, at a very early age; and accountant Jim Nugent, who chose the offbeat arts that drew him out of his world of numbers and into the math of their own operations. He has organized those worlds financially, over and over, usually as treasurer, because he loves creative people. Both honorees insist they don’t deserve the Silver Cup, but of course they do. Without the support of businesspeople like Jim Nugent the arts could not survive. Without the farsighted, charismatic flair of Gayle Halperin there would be no art at all.
I pull up to the Nugents’ house to find in the front yard a campaign sign for Gay Donnell Willis, candidate for reelection to the Dallas City Council. It was she who named Jim Nugent to the Dallas Office of Arts and Culture Commission, a perfect selection, since he is devoted to the individual artists and small, wildly inventive groups that city hall loves to fund.
Jim loves them too, because they bring into being something that never existed before, at least not in Dallas. He has one venerable institution in his portfolio, the Dallas Museum of Art, where he is the designated liaison from the Office of Arts and Culture (OAC). His other two assignments for the city are two of his favorites: Soul Rep Theatre, a theater on the enterprising edge; and Artstillery, a dispenser of artistic experiences to those who otherwise might never find a way to express themselves. This doesn’t mean Jim
is not impressed by what’s happening at the DMA. It’s just that something so established in the art world is new ground for him.
In gender and racial justice, Niloo Jalilvand’s Pegasus Media Project proclaims a theme that runs through many of Jim’s interests. Niloo met Jim on the board of the VideoFest of Dallas and lured him to join her effort giving marginalized voices a chance to be heard by training them in the production of media of all kinds. The project also does a film festival, which must seem familiar to Jim, since he chaired the board of the USA Film Festival years ago. Hanging over his sofa is a memento of those years: a collage/poster with a signed photograph of Audrey Hepburn along with a smaller shot of Jim and Deborah Nugent and his parents.
Jim and Deborah met at PricewaterhouseCoopers, now PwC, where he went after graduating from the University of Arkansas, having grown up in Amarillo. After they married, a nepotism rule sent them both looking for other jobs. Jim gravitated to running the money for law firms, landing finally at Thompson Coe; while Deborah, in time, became chief financial officer of Best Associates. They both got involved in the board of the Undermain Theatre, where Deborah was treasurer. No Dallas theater goes unsubscribed to in the Nugent household—certainly not Second Thought Theatre, where Jim is on the board. To these passions he has added dance, a surprise to Deborah as well as to him. It happened after a stint on the OAC grants committee, when he had to see the applicants perform. Gayle Halperin’s Bruce Wood Dance threw him into the kind of trance known only by the truly mesmerized. He was hooked, which is where he likes to be.
GAYLE HALPERIN
Thomas Moran’s Coastal Scene, 1870, hangs behind Gayle Halperin and Adolph Alexander Weinman’s Descending Night, 1914.
“Gayle’s visionary leadership in dance and arts education, along with Jim’s championship of emerging arts organizations, has profoundly shaped North Texas’ artistic landscape. Their passion, dedication, and generosity have left an indelible mark on our community, and we are thrilled to recognize their extraordinary contributions.”
–Maura Sheffler, TACA's Donna Wilhelm Family President and Executive Director
Gayle Halperin is a born dancer. That much is clear as she opens her door to me looking terrific in black pants, turtleneck and black cowboy boots, with a bolo tie around her neck that carries a winsome sunflower in mother-of-pearl, a turquoise at the center.
It is late January, and three white metal reindeer still stand in front of her house, decked out in red ribbons. A pair of nutcrackers, tall as Gayle or almost, resplendent in holiday lights, stand guard on either side of the stairway inside; sculptures, lithe like dancers, wear Santa Claus caps; and a tree, fully decorated, adorns the dining room, none the wiser that its day is done for now. Gayle does not want to let the season go, even though it faded into memory almost a month ago.
She keeps her memories with her, in family pictures everywhere, elegant photographs of Martha Graham by Barbara Morgan, and glorious gifts from her husband, Jim, including two pianos, one 19th century with engraved motifs from China, the other resting on a base designed by Gilbert Rohde of Herman Miller, plus a kimono that belonged to Rudolf Nureyev. Jim, cofounder and cochairman of Heritage Auctions, knows how to find beautiful things. Not to be overlooked, of course, are the nutcrackers. They remind her of dancing in that fabled ballet when she was 11 and living in Connecticut.
Gayle applied to Juilliard and got in, but didn’t go. Her mother thought she needed a real college degree. Juilliard is real, but not really, not in her mother’s opinion. They struck a deal: Gayle would go to Connecticut College and major in dance, but once she graduated, she could go to New York. She did. Before long she was dancing with the Mel Wong Dance Company and teaching dance at Yale.
She also met Jim Halperin at the Lone Star Café, married him, and moved with him to Dallas. Unable to bear the absence of intense activity, she pursued an MFA at Texas Woman’s University
and became an assistant professor of dance as well. Next came a plethora of boards: the Sammons Center for the Arts, the Dance Council of North Texas, and the Dallas Area Cultural Advocacy Coalition, where she still serves. Gayle cochaired the search committee that brought Charles Santos to TITAS/DANCE UNBOUND as executive director, and she was president of that board for four years.
Her most important work, however, has been recreating and running Bruce Wood Dance, celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. Gayle brought Bruce back to Dallas from New York, where he had retreated after suspending his company in Fort Worth when the accumulating crash of 2008 began to pull everybody under. She brought his company back to life, and she kept it alive after he died, in 2014, at 53.
That was the year Gayle moved Bruce Wood Dance into a new studio in the Design District, having searched hard, she says, to find “completely open floor space without columns.” She adds, “I never knew how to run a company.” She just did it, and that meant managing the work of 15 dancers along with five artistic and administration staff—not easy, she admits, since “I am not a delegator.” It also meant learning how to raise money.
As we talk, Jim bounds down the stairs once or twice from his third-floor sanctuary, where he keeps his collection of Mad Magazine and no doubt other treasures as well, all of them thoroughly documented in his mind for their impact on America culture. “Jim is brilliant,” Gayle tells me, as he starts his three daily crossword puzzles in the kitchen, and “driven.”
“Are you driven too?” I ask. Yes, of course she is.
I hear from Gayle in early February that the tree is down now, the reindeer gone, and the nutcrackers decorated for Valentine’s Day. And so, she moves on, absorbing, assimilating, and making art of everything.
Dia: The New York Earth Room
141 Wooster Street, New York
After Walter De Maria; Drawing by Chris Byrne and Scott Newton
