Calling All Art-Fanatics: 18 Exciting Art Happenings Across the Country
Destinations News:
California
- Presidio “My Park Moment” Photo Contest: The Presidio in San Francisco has launched “My Park Moment” photo contest, where the public can submit a photo of their favorite park memory through May 28—a family picnic, a camping trip, their last hike in the Presidio or anything else they love to do in their favorite park. This fall, approximately 400 photos will be selected for a free and family-friendly outdoor photo show at the future home of the Presidio Tunnel Tops. Debuting in spring 2022, the Presidio Tunnel Tops project, comprising 14 acres of new national park land—will be an iconic “must see” San Francisco destination.
- LACMA Partners with Snapchat: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and Snapchat recently debuted the “Monumental Perspectives” experience, which brings together artists and technologists to create virtual monuments that explore some of the histories of local communities in an effort to highlight perspectives from across the region. Visitors can experience the augmented reality monuments online or at site-specific locations across Los Angeles including LACMA’s Wilshire Boulevard campus, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and more.
- Napa Wrap Art and Art Walk: Napa Wrap Art is a new outdoor public art project debuting this spring, featuring transformed utility boxes into works of art around Downtown Napa. Thirteen regional artists were selected to create diverse designs that provide an opportunity to turn ordinary objects into something special that both locals and visitors can enjoy. Later this summer, Downtown Napa will welcome a new rotation of the Napa Art Walk sculptures – a true outdoor treasure hunt for art that is a perfect activity for kids of all ages.
- Desert X: The third installment of the internationally acclaimed biennial desert art exhibition returned in 2021 through May 16. The 2021 Desert X artist lineup includes a diverse group of 13 artists ranging from locals like Kim Stringfellow to international representatives like Zahrah Alghamdi. Visitors can explore new outdoor art installations across the desert region for an exciting socially distant experience.
Texas
- San Antonio’s McNay Art Museum just opened Limitless! Five Women Reshape Contemporary Art, which includes an ever-popular infinity mirror room installation. San Antonio Museum of Art opened No Ocean Between Us, featuring art from Latin American artists of Asian descent, while the Briscoe Western Art Museum will open Still in the Saddle: A New History of the Hollywood Western in time for Memorial Day Weekend.
- Designed by Steven Holl Architects, the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts completes a decade-long campus redevelopment project. Opened to the public in late 2020, the building finishes a trio of spaces that make up one of the largest art museums in the country. On the first floor is a black-box gallery dedicated to immersive installations. Second-floor galleries highlight photography, decorative arts, prints and drawings, and the top floor features thematic exhibitions on art from the 1960s onward. Additionally, the space features a 215-seat theater and a fine dining restaurant.
- The Dallas Museum of Art recently unveiled Cubism in Color: The Still Lifes of Juan Gris, the first US exhibition in over 35 years dedicated to the Spanish artist Juan Gris, this exhibition reconsiders the legacy of this important yet underappreciated modernist master. Co-organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and the Baltimore Museum of Art, Cubism in Color: The Still Lifes of Juan Gris highlights the artist’s pioneering and revolutionary contributions to the Cubist movement by focusing on his fascination with subjects drawn from everyday life.
Rapid City, South Dakota
- “Legends in Light” Laser Show at Crazy Horse Memorial – Beginning Memorial Day weekend and occurring nightly through Labor Day, the “Legends in Light” laser show at Crazy Horse Memorial turns the carved mountainside into a 500-foot remarkable display. Each night at 9:30 p.m., viewers can take in the story and rich heritage of Native Americans.The show presents colorful animations and features music with choreographed lasers and sound effects.
- Gift From Mother Earth Art Show – Every June, Crazy Horse Memorial hosts The Gift From Mother Earth Art Show – an exhibition that celebrates a blend of arts and crafts that represent Native American cultures and the New West. From Friday June 18th – Sunday June 20th, artists of custom-made clothing, jewelry and other similar items will showcase their pieces starting at 8 a.m. each day.
- Native POP: People of the Plains – Featuring original Native work by established and emerging Native American Artists, Native POP is a one-day fine art show located in Main Street Square in downtown Rapid City. This cultural celebration will take place on Tuesday, July 20 from 9:00 a.m. to 8 pm. and will feature Native culture bearers sharing their Native knowledge and artistry. Visitors to Rapid City can also experience Native American art, culture and history at Prairie Edge or Journey Museum and open-air murals painted by local artists at Art Alley throughout the summer.
St. Pete/Clearwater, Florida
From museums devoted to big-name artists to incredible street murals adorning the buildings around St. Pete’s Central Avenue, art—and the cultures it celebrates—is all around in St. Pete/Clearwater. Spring/Summer 2021 is an exciting season for St. Pete art, with new exhibitions, venues, and events to explore.
- From Margins to Mainstays at Museum of Fine Arts St. Pete – This exhibition, on display April 24 – September 26, features masterworks from MFA’s photography collection that were made by artists whose careers and personal lives were sidelined, ignored, or impacted by their gender, race, sexuality, or nationality. From Margins to Mainstays illustrates how the canon of photography has changed since the medium first began being shown in museums in the 1940s, with particular emphasis on rectifying the small percentage of women and artists of color historically acquired by and displayed in public collections. The exhibition includes works by Berenice Abbott, Lotte Jacobi, Carrie Mae Weems, Lee Miller, Cornelius Marion Battey, James Van Der Zee, and Manuel Álvarez Bravo.
- Fairgrounds St. Pete at The Factory – Art enthusiasts will fall in love with The Factory, an 8-warehouse St. Pete arts center spread over 6.5 acres in the heart of the Warehouse Arts District. Fairgrounds St. Pete, opening Spring 2021 at The Factory, is a 15,000 square foot artist-made environment. Fairgrounds functions as an immersive, choose-your-own-adventure experience where visitors are invited to explore a world of playful art and technology exhibits that highlight weird, wacky, and wonderful Florida. The inaugural installation gives 60+ local and nationally recognized artists a platform to showcase their work and experiment with the unexpected. Fairgrounds aims to compensate artists fairly for their contributions by paying not only for their work, but also a portion of the profits from ticket sales while their work is on view. Through exhibits, events, workshops, and creative education programs, Fairgrounds will be a leader for arts innovation and an economic engine for local artists and craftspeople.
Hotel/Attraction News:
Estancia La Jolla Hotel & Spa
Kicking off in May, Estancia La Jolla Hotel & Spa has partnered with local artists and galleries to create the “Art in the Garden” exhibit. The gallery spread out across the property’s 10 acres of gardens will be open to both guests and the local community, free of charge, and Estancia will be providing a guided art brochure that showcases the various pieces and maps them out across the property. Art pieces including murals, statues and galleries have been created and provided by locals including Channin Fulton, Stefanie Bales, Billy Pease, Thomas J. Galleries and more.
New Orleans – The National WWII Museum
The National WWII Museum’s newest special exhibit “SOLDIER | ARTIST: Trench Art in World War II” explores the unique military pastime of creating art, souvenirs and tools out of the discarded materials and waste of war. Featuring more than 150 artifacts, many of which have never been exhibited, the collection also includes a background on the creators, providing a rare glimpse into the circumstances of war and the ingenuity and resourcefulness of servicemembers in the field. Such items range from souvenirs, such as ashtrays and jewelry made by servicemembers for their loved ones at home, to forbidden items like radios and musical instruments made by prisoners of war. The exhibition will be open to the public through January 2, 2022.
Daxton Hotel – Birmingham, Michigan
Daxton Hotel has opened its doors in the affluent community of Birmingham, a city 30 minutes north of Detroit. The hotel features a minimalist-luxe design with more than 400 original pieces of cutting-edge art curated from around the world by renowned Saatchi Art. The incredible collection of mixed media brings whimsical and energetic flair throughout as vibrant colors flood spaces throughout the hotel, featuring a chartreuse lobby, deep-burgundy guest rooms and lavender parlors, an ideal composition juxtaposed with the art collection, avant-garde architectural lighting and furniture in bold shapes. Daxton Hotel brings a blend of provocative yet sophisticated style, offering artistic freedom of expression throughout the use of light rays, shadows and reflections creating an ethereal mood. The hotel offers a Beauty + Bubbles event, where visitors get an intimate tour of the public art collection curated by Saatchi Art on the first Friday of every month. The tour features work from 160 artists representing nearly 40 countries. The artwork crosses multiple mediums including painting, photography, collage, drawing and sculpture of some of the best international, national and regional artists.
The MC Hotel – Montclair, NJ
Located just 45 minutes outside of NYC, the 159 room MC Hotel is at the intersection of culture and community in the heart of Montclair’s thriving artistic community. With art curated from established and up-and-coming artists in every room, the hotel is part art gallery, part meeting place. Currently on display are pieces from painters Ryan Chin and Siona Benjamin-Kruge as well as mixed-media artist Basia Goszczynska to name a few. At guest check-in travelers will be met by a sculpture of a flower from Karen Kimmel that stretches across two walls. The sculpture features textiles that were meticulously hand-punched then painted onsite. On the lobby wall of the bar guests will see a sculpture from Goszczynska which is made from salvaged oyster farming bags, marine rope and steel wire. He also continues this unique interpretation of upcycling to shelves of the bar which displays Rainbow Collections, a piece featuring crowdsourced microplastics and salvaged baby food jars.
Crossroads Hotel – Kansas City, MO
With 2,000 square foot dedicated to public art, local artists and artists with historic ties to Kansas City, Crossroads is not just community-driven but art-driven. The gallery program is a thoughtful effort to reflect and contribute to the surrounding art district. Exhibitions, artist commissions, performances and unexpected artist-driven experiences intimately connect visitors to the creative scene thriving in the area. Along with the public gallery and local creative contributions to the interiors, amenities and delicacies, Crossroads is thrilled to support an artist in residence program. Curated by Hesse McGraw (director at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston) and Kansas City’s el dorado inc., the hotel’s architecture firm, the program provides another meaningful way for Crossroads to contribute to and support the artistic, social and cultural flourishing happening in the city. Current artist in residence Nick Miller is showcasing Wild Stallion, is a sculptural installation representing unseen and unstoppable algorithmic forces of technological innovation done with duct tape. Previous exhibits have come from Peggy Noland whose car makeovers are nothing short legendary and Glyneisha Johnson whose Watering Place paidhomage to the plants as a source of refuge for Black, Brown and Indigenous people.
Hewing Hotel – Minneapolis, MN
Since opening its doors in 2016 the 124-room luxury lifestyle Hewing Hotel has provided an unmistakable all-Minnesotan experience in the bustling North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis. The former farm implements showroom and warehouse built in 1897 has been reborn as a cultural center for the community retaining its original brick and timber rustic charm. Immersing guests in Minneapolis, the hotel offers unique experiences with Minnesotan flair such as a monthly music series, Alley KAT! Perkins Pop Up Concert in the adjacent alley with season 6 The Voice semi-finalist Kat Perkins. The visual art of the area is on display through regularly rotating installations of local artists. The current collection includes works from Minneapolis-based artists Roko and Toni Gallo reflecting the beauty and talent within the area.
