#10: RUDE MECHS
AUSTIN—Rude Mechs presents the Austin premiere of Now Now Oh Now, an interactive play inspired by evolutionary biology, the Brontës, and LARP communities, Dec. 3-19 at the Off Center.
IMAGE ABOVE: Robert S. Fisher, Lana Lesley, Hannah Kenah, E. Jason Liebrecht and Thomas Graves in the Rude Mechs production of Now Now Oh Now, through Dec. 19 at the Off Center in Austin. Photo by Jeremy M. Lange Photography.
#9: Jackson Pollock’s Black Paintings
DALLAS—You may think you know Jackson Pollock but if Gavin Delahunty and the Dallas Museum of Art are right, you’re wrong. The DMA’s Delahunty has assembled the largest grouping of Pollock’s “Black Paintings” for Jackson Pollock: Blind Spots, which will be on view at the museum through March 20. The paintings, many of which are rarely seen, show Pollock in experimental transition as he turned a corner into new artistic territory before his early and tragic death.
IMAGE: Jackson Pollock, Number 3, 1952. Enamel on unprimed canvas Overall: 55 7/8 x 66 1/8 inches Glenstone Foundation, Potomac, Maryland © 2015 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
#8: Kitchen Dog Theater
DALLAS—Kitchen Dog Theater presents Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s dark political satire The Totalitarians which takes the audience to a fictional Nebraska of all places, through Dec. 19 at The Green Zone.
IMAGE: Drew Wall (Ben), Tina Parker (Penny), Leah Spillman (Francine) and Max Hartman (Jeffrey) in Kitchen Dog Theater’s production of The Totalitarians. Photo by Matt Mrozek.
#7: Why is the Sky Blue? at Ruiz-Healy Art
SAN ANTONIO—If abstraction began as a rejection of representation in favor of a focus on pure form, we’ve come a long way since its philosophical inception; today abstraction is far more charged, both conceptually and politically. Curator Octavio Avendaño Trujillo explores that idea in Why is the Sky Blue? A group show on view at Ruiz-Healy Art through Feb. 13. Featuring the work of twelve artists from the United States, Mexico and Argentina, Why is the Sky Blue? features work which although abstract in nature, is translatable, challenging the viewer in numerous ways, from “the poetic to the political.”
IMAGE: Nate Cassie, Untitled (prop). Acrylic polymer, wood, epoxy, metal leaf.
#6: A Jubilee Christmas
FORT WORTH—Jubilee Theatre presents Do You Hear What I Hear? A Jubilee Christmas, written and directed by Akiń Babatundé, through Dec. 27.
Photo by Cecil Fuqua.
#5: Hilary Wilder at Devin Borden
HOUSTON—Former Core Fellow and Galveston Artist Resident Hilary Wilder blurs the boundaries between landscape, trompe l’oeil and abstraction in her newest exhibition at Devin Borden Gallery, A Lake Turned Inside Out, through Jan. 5, 2016. Her work will also be featured in Island Time: Galveston ArtistResidency.
IMAGE: Hilary Wilder, Avenue Q, 2015. acrylic, oil, spray paint and flash. 60 x 48″
#4: Intergalactic Nemesis
SAN ANTONIO—The Tobin Center presents The Intergalactic Nemesis: Target Earth, a live-action graphic novel, comic book and radio play mash-up on Dec. 12 at the Carlos Alvarez Studio Theater at the Tobin Center.
Photo courtesy of the artists.
#3: Turn Your Face Towards the Sun at Blue Star Contemporary
SAN ANTONIO—Turn Your Face Towards the Sun unites work by San Antonio’s Charlie Morris and Austin’s Liz Rodda at Blue Star Contemporary through Feb. 7. The two artists work in different mediums to explore different themes and ideas but their practice finds common ground in a 21st century understanding of found content as they each explore what contemporary assemblage work can be.
IMAGE: Liz Rodda, Turn Your Face Toward the Sun, 2015, Video with sound, six and a half minutes.
#2: The Little Prince at HGO
HOUSTON— Houston Grand Opera offers an alternative the holiday fare with Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic story The Little Prince, with music by Rachel Portman, libretto by Nicholas Wright and a production by Francesca Zambello, Dec. 4-20 at Wortham Center.
IMAGE: Jeffrey Allison in the Houston Grand Opera production of The Little Prince.
#1: Michael Corris at Liliana Bloch Gallery
DALLAS—Michael Corris’ Emblems is part political art part art-historical reference part humorous send-up of the art world and part documentation of travel and interests, and is on view at Liliana Bloch Gallery through Dec. 23. The show is an occasionally-heady but always enlightening glimpse into the mind of the Dallas-based artist. Corris, who teaches at Southern Methodist University, may reject labels, having explored numerous ways of making art in his career, but it’s hard to deny the conceptual nature of his work. For Corris the idea and the dialogue surrounding it are inextricably part of the art object. In Emblems he explores a wide-ranging series of ideas he equalizes through the use of a simplistic color palette on paper; drawing attention in the process to the work’s extended sub-titles and their role in the viewer’s interpretation of the pieces.
