When the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth commissioned Red Grooms and ten other artists to contribute to the rodeo-themed 1976 exhibition The Great American Rodeo, Grooms spent a year observing rodeos, including the city’s annual Stock Show and Rodeo held at the neighboring Will Rogers Memorial Center.
Think back to your first visit to an art museum as a child. Before entering, it’s likely that the first words out of the mouth of your chaperone were, “Don’t touch anything.”