Fingers hover over lips and breasts, hair cascades over and around faces, kisses are blown and shared, pleasure is given and received: Ghada Amer’s ceramic sculptures shiver with ecstatic encounter.
Mortal, an exhibition of work by Kiki Smith at the Dallas Contemporary, on view through Dec. 17, spans the last 10 years of the artist’s output and includes the installation of Pilgrim, a set of thirty industrial steel windowpanes of mouth-blown stained glass.
Ambreen Butt’s decorative installations are beautiful on the surface however, upon closer inspection, the works reveal themes of violence and political oppression. Her exhibition, What is left of me, is on view thru Aug. 20 at Dallas Contemporary.
As museums today compete for social media attention, Dallas Contemporary currently finds itself pulling ahead of the pack thanks in no small part to Paola Pivi’s Ma’am (on view through August 21).
The art scene in Dallas has long been influenced by avant-garde women: From the The Betty McLean Gallery, which opened in 1951 as one of the first modern art galleries in Texas, to Valley House Gallery, founded by Peggy and Donald Vogel, to the visionaries of today who show no signs of slowing down.
The DMA has been earnest and intentional in its efforts to acquire works by women and people of color over the past seven years and the current exhibition reflects that.
It’s the start of my whirlwind tour of the Dallas Arts District. Improbably, in all the years I have lived in Houston (23) and all the time I have been an arts writer in Texas (5), I had never been to Dallas. I am here now as a first time arts tourist, eager to absorb the wonders of a new place, open to every experience that might come my way.