Insider Notes

As Dallas Contemporary turns 35, Charissa Terranova surveys the venerable yet agile art space’s history, while Dan R. Goddard looks at how San Antonio’s art scene is spreading beyond the gentrifying Blue Star Arts Complex.

Houston Cinema Arts Festival dominates the city’s art film venues with an array of offerings, including a little red carpet action, when Richard Linklater arrives to receive the Levantine Cinema Arts Award. Dallas arts writer Lauren Smart gives us the rundown on this year’s festival.

Just as you might expect, the holiday theater season has a sprawling range of offerings, from Stages Repertory Theatre’s world premiere of The Great American Trailer Park Christmas Musical to Kitchen Dog Theatre’s edgier choice of David Mamet’s searing drama, Race. Tarra Gaines’ flash tour will give you lots of ideas to get the family out of the house. Keeping my holiday Grinch in check, I let my Nutcracker geek come out in Performania.

Impressed by work he saw in the Texas Biennial, which wraps up this month, Dallas artist Benjamin Terry asked Denton artist Matthew Bourbon and Houston artist Debra Barrera, both of whom have work in TX 13, about their practices. We enjoyed their conversations and think you will too.

In his Loose Ends column, Devon Britt-Darby unpacks the many surprises found in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s American Adversaries: West and Copley in a Transatlantic World, from an exquisite 16th-century Parmigianino drawing to sharks’ teeth implements to the way the show addresses race and empire.

In a new iteration of our Cultural Warrior column, this month we launch our partnership with Center for Arts Leadership at University of Houston, in the first installment of a quarterly series profiling Texas arts leaders.

Do check our web digs for additional reviews, interviews and features. And finally, it’s November, our third issue, time for gratitude.

Thanks for reading,

Nancy Wozny

Editor in chief