Sawzall-wielding housecutters Dan Havel and Dean Ruck have been carving up 3 condemned homes (from Midtown, the Museum District, and the Third Ward) to gather the raw materials for their latest exhibition, which opens tomorrow in the Art League of Houston gallery, on the occasion of their being declared the Art League’s “Texas Artists of the Year.” Collected wall parts will be stacked in a “bowl-like structure” in the complex’s main gallery (see photo above).
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To fund their dusty demo and reconstruction work on this project, the artists have been fundraising on Indiegogo:
The campaign will continue for a couple of weeks after the opening, but so far they’ve raised about 45 percent of the $15,000 they’re aiming for to recoup exhibition costs.
Havel and Ruck are best known for the temporary sculpture called Inversion they created 9 years ago out of 2 former Art League bungalows on the same 1953 Montrose Blvd. site, memorialized (until recently) by photographic window stickers on the Inversion Coffee House that went up in its place.
- Three Houses by Havel Ruck Projects [Indiegogo]
- 2014 Texas Artists of the Year and Texas Patron of the Year:Â Havel Ruck Projects and Stephanie Smither [Art League of Houston]
- Previously on Swamplot: Houston Demo Artists Sue Honda for Copying Their Vortex-Sucking House Plan; Explosive Fifth Ward Bungalow Bandshell Just About Ready for Its Breakout Jam Session, Fifth Ward Journey: Since When Did This House Become Art?, DeLuxe Theater Breakaway Sculptors: All They Want for Christmas Is Some 117 Siding, Given and Taken: The Hole in the House and the Museum Piece, Does Your Home Belong in a Museum?
Photo and video: Havel Ruck Projects
