Pow Wow: Contemporary Artists in Houston 1972-1985 with Pete Gershon

Pete Gershon, program coordinator for the Core Residency Program and author of “Painting the Town Orange: The Stories Behind Houston’s Visionary Art Environments” (History Press, 2014) reads from his work-in-progress Pow Wow: Contemporary Artists in Houston 1972-1985.

For this project he draws upon primary archival materials, contemporary newspaper and magazine accounts, and extensive interviews with dozens of significant figures to present a creative non-fiction narrative that preserves and interweaves the stories and insights of the artists, collectors, critic, patrons, and administrators who transformed the city’s art scene.

What were the highlights, the detours, the noble failures? How did the city influence these artists, and how did they in turn influence life in the city? How did contemporary art activity in Houston reflect, oppose, or presage trends in the regional and national arts communities? Was there really any such thing as a “Houston school,” and if so, what was it?

From Gershon: “In the 1970s and ‘80s, Houston emerged as a significant city for the arts, fueled by an oil boom and by the arrival of several catalyzing figures including museum director James Harithas and sculptor James Surls.

Harithas was a pioneer in championing Texan artists during his controversial tenure as the impassioned, uncompromising director of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. He put the state’s native artists on the map, but his renegade style was too hot for the museum’s benefactors to handle and after four years of fist fights and floods (and of course, some truly innovative programming by both Texans and artists of international stature), he wore out his welcome.

After Harithas’ resignation and departure from the CAMH, the chainsaw-wielding Surls established the Lawndale Annex as a largely unsupervised outpost of the University of Houston’s Art Department. Inside this dirty, cavernous warehouse, a new generation of Houston artists found itself and flourished. Both enterprises set the scene for the emergence of an array of small, downtown artist-run spaces including Studio One, the Center for Art and Performance, Midtown Arts Center, and DiverseWorks.

Through it all, the members of formally and informally organized groups such as the Women’s Caucus for Art, the Urban Animals, and the Core Residency Program supported and challenged each other’s creative pursuits.

Finally, in 1985, the Museum of Fine Arts presented Fresh Paint: the Houston School, a nationally publicized survey of work by Houston painters curated by Barbara Rose and Susie Kalil. The exhibition capped an era of intensive artistic development and suggested the city was about to be recognized, along with New York and Los Angeles, as a major center for art-making activity. The mid-‘80s oil bust temporarily sapped the scene of energy and resources, but the seeds had been sown for the vibrant community of visual art that Houstonians enjoy today.”

Pictured: CAMH, circa 1973.