Internationally acclaimed Art Festival NUIT BLANCHE will be transforming Downtown Houston on Saturday April 6th for its inaugural debut! The city will be under Nuit Blanche’s spell from noon to midnight, transformed by the magic of art with unique installations dotted around City Hall and the Houston Public Library.
This unique celebration, free to the public, will engage both highly regarded international artists and local luminaries as well as school children.
1. “Inside Out project - DiverseCity” by JR
Diversity is key to Houston's identity, and we want to shed the light on Houston’s incredibly diverse youth. 2011 TED Prize winner, named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2018, JR owns the biggest art gallery in the world: the Street, where he exhibits freely, catching the attention of people who are not typical museum visitors. This powerful installation, features hundreds of giant portraits of Houston’s children (students from Poe Elementary, Las Americas Newcomer School, House of Tiny Treasures and Amaanah Refugee Services) on an emblematic location, Houston’s City Hall. Their portraits will travel the world thanks to JR’s “Inside Out” global participatory art project.
Where: Hermann Square - 900 Smith St, Houston, TX 77002 - Noon to 9pm
In partnership with the Houston Center for Photography
Starting on March 26th, some posters will be on view at the Houston Center for Photography. 1441 W Alabama St, Houston, TX 77006.
Thank you to the volunteers photographers: Anne Houang, Ceci Norman, Sandy Hartley and Olivier Modr.
2. "Architecture for the People" by Yona Friedman
Nuit Blanche Houston presents "Yona Friedman, Architecture for the People”, an exhibition on the visionary work of Paris-based artist and architect Yona Friedman, laureate of the 2018 Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts.
Architect, urbanist, artist, thinker, and writer, Friedman is a legendary figure in the architecture world, and his ideas have inspired architects worldwide. He advocates for architecture without plans to adapt to people’s desire. His proposal of the mobile architecture theory addresses a global issue today, given the migrations, nomadic populations and housing crises. “People’s architecture is architecture that anybody can do, says Friedman. It is a game, and everybody can be part of the movement.” Workshops based on Friedman’s work will be held at multiple libraries in March.
Where: Central Library, 1st Floor, 500 McKinney St., 77002
On view from March 16 through June 30
In partnership with Page Think and SteelCase
3. “Space Chain” by Yona Friedman
Yona Friedman champions the inhabitant as designer and inventor of his own living space. For Nuit Blanche Houston, visitors are invited to build their own “space chain structure” on Houston’s Central Library plaza. Each installation, built using hula hoops, is assembled spontaneously, creating a gigantic sculpture with new variations of space with each turn.
Where: Barbara Bush Literacy Plaza, 500 McKinney St., 77002 - Noon to 9pm
4. “African Tales” by Yona Friedman
A series of ten poetic films inspired by ancestral African tales. The soundtrack is taken from UNESCO African music library. Produced by Yona Friedman and his wife Denise Charvein, between 1960 and 1963, the films were broadcasted in Africa by ethnologist and moviemaker Jean Roch, and encountered great success. They won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival in 1962. The films were restored in 2007 with the help of the National Center for Edition, Art and Image in France.
Where: Central Library - March 16th to June 30th, 2019 - Noon to 9pm
5. "I can't remember" by Olivier Modr
A unique and ephemeral piece of art created for the Julia Ideson Library, one of the most historic buildings in Houston, by French artist Olivier Modr. The installation, a kinetic digital mobile, represents a suspended cartography whose fragments float vertically, suggesting fragments of information, superimpositions of memories recorded or lost due to the evolution of new technologies. The computer randomly selects the video files that are projected on the mobile, drawing into the artist's archives.
Digital obsolescence is inevitable: Olivier Modr proposes a reflection on the fragility of our digital memories caused by the continuing evolution of computer systems. Our lives are now preserved as 0s and 1s. Could our collective memory of the early 21st century be obscured?
Where: Julia Ideson Library - 550 McKinney St, Houston, TX 77002, Noon to 9pm
6. "Paradise" and "The World is Yours" by Hakima El Djoudi
Paris-based artist Hakima El Djoudi depicts the multiform artistic symbiosis between cinema, video and installations. A true film buff, she works with old Hollywood movies, from which she isolates luminous cabaret signs. She looks into cult images of flashing signs that claim "Paradise" or "The World is Yours", evoking the heyday of a society of leisure now gone and haunted by mythical gangster figures. Through a skillful montage, she gives new life to these places of perdition and games, and project them “illusionistically” into public spaces.
Where: Batanga 908 Congress Ave, Houston, TX 77002, 6pm to 10pm
In partnership with the FMAC (Fonds Municipal d’Art Contemporain de la Ville de Paris) and the Cultural services of the French Embassy
PARTNERS
1. Star-Cross'd: a serial web opera
Join HGOco in an exploration of 21st-Century opera viewing with a new streaming series themed on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Based on personal experiences, the project shares true stories produced into a standalone, operatic short film. In each episode, Bard aficionados will be able to catch a line direct from the Shakespeare text.
Episode 1 – “Boundless” Alma seeks personal fulfillment at a crossroads in her life, and begins a relationship with an artistic soul 16 years her junior. When a shadow looms over their happy ending, Alma guides her lover Luc to his destiny. Based on a true story by Aryana Rose.
See the debut of trailers for Episodes 2 “NOW and 3 “A Rose”
Where: Jones Plaza in partnership with Houston Grand Opera and HOUSTON FIRST - A rotating program every 30 minutes from 6.30 to 9.30pm
2. Open House by Havel Ruck Projects
The artistic duo, Havel Ruck Projects, made up of local artists, Dan Havel and Dean Ruck, transformed a previously abandoned house into an interactive temporary public sculpture. Havel and Ruck stripped the structure’s interior and exterior to create a “Swiss cheese” appearance, and collaged the interior walls with vintage images sourced from family, friends and local resale shops representing the city’s people, places and past. Visitors can walk through Open House, viewing both the modern skyscrapers of Downtown Houston and the landscape of Sam Houston Park through the holes that have been carved out of the house. At night, the house will be lit from within, creating a magical lantern effect.
Where: Sam Houston Park (Opening Hours to be confirmed)
In partnership with DOWNTOWN DISTRICT
3. “Secret Walls”
Secret Walls brings together the best artists in teams, which go head-to-head to each design a mural in 90-minutes. DJ BBC will be spinning your favorite jams.
Artists: Chaz from The London Police - Official (England), Coler / Erik Delrio (Houston), Dread / Robin Munro (Denver), Galo (Italy), Jake Merten (Los Angeles), Jc Rivera (Chicago), Matt Gondek - Artist & Illustrator (Los Angeles), Mez Data (Austin), Studio FLOP (Brazil), w3r3on3 / Gelson Danilo Lemus (Houston)
Where: Market Square (Art battle 8 pm - 9:30 pm)
In partnership with DOWNTOWN DISTRICT and UP ART STUDIOS
PUBLIC ART
Nuit Blanche Houston is an opportunity to highlight the public art collection of the City, among them:
1. “Geometric Mouse X Sculpture” by Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg is a Swedish-born American sculptor known for his innovative and humorous reconstructions of everyday objects in both large-scale public installations and soft materials. Since the early 1960s, Oldenburg has played with the image of the most iconic of all animated characters, Mickey Mouse. As in Oldenburg’s other artworks, this image blends high and low art. The artist has even suggested that the Geometric Mouse is his alter ego: “The Mouse, that’s me!,” he has said. Associated with the Pop Art movement, the artist lives and works in New York, NY. Today, his works are included in the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Tate Gallery in London, and the Kunstmuseum Basel, among others.
2. “The Houston Oracle in Two Parts” by Stephen Korns
This site-specific installation includes repurposed building facades, voices of Houstonians asking questions about life in the city, portraits of Houstonians from 1870 to 1970 from the Houston Public Library photo archive, video footage of Earth from NASA's High Definition Earth Viewing Experiment, and a lighting program that changes with the phases of the moon, similar to the lunar-cycle lighting in the adjacent Buffalo Bayou. As stated by artist, the intent of this work is, "To activate a central downtown location for pedestrians and motorists, asking the question: What might we ask a friend, a stranger, or someone from the past to better understand what we have in common?"
3. “Virtuoso” by David Adickes
Born in Huntsville, Texas, David Adickes earned his undergraduate degree in physics and mathematics from Sam Houston State College (now University). The summer after graduation, he attended the Kansas City Art Institute and realized that art was what he really wanted to do! Adickes used his G.I. Bill to study painting in Paris with the modern master, Fernand Leger. He returned to Houston and began painting full-time. In 1983, he was commissioned to make his first monumental sculpture, Virtuoso, which now resides at the Lyric Center in downtown Houston. He is known for the large statues he sculpts.
4. “In Minds” by Tony Cragg
At the corner of Bagby and Walker streets stands the two-part sculpture “In Minds”, dated 2001- 2002 by internationally renowned artist Tony Cragg.
Tony Cragg is a British sculptor known for his exploration of unconventional materials, including plastic, fiberglass, bronze, and Kevlar. Craggs’ sculptures embody a frozen moment of movement, resulting in swirling abstractions. “In Minds” work was cast in Germany (lives and works in Wuppertal) and shipped to Houston from the Port of Rotterdam in Holland.
“Expedient industrial production systems produce simple geometries – a world of boring and repetitive forms. Sculpture is the opposite of that”, says Cragg.
