January 15, 2010 – 3:33 pm
As of tonight’s grand opening opening, the ground-floor retail space of the Isabella Court Apartments will now be home to four functioning spaces for contemporary art: Inman Gallery, the new Inman Annex space, CTRL Gallery, and the just-moved-here-from-Austin Art Palace, run by the conveniently named Art Palacios. Art Palace has taken over the long-vacant space at 3913 Main St. last occupied by Finesilver Gallery. [Arts in Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Art Palace
Read more about: 77002, Art, Galleries, Midtown, Openings and Closings, Retail
November 23, 2009 – 5:44 pm
Austin gallery owner Arturo Palacios, on why he’s moving his gallery, Art Palace, to the Midtown space formerly occupied by the Finesilver Gallery at 3913 S. Main St. this coming January: “I went to a fundraiser at the Menil Collection and a friend asked me how many people I thought I would know there. And I thought maybe five or six. The event was for the Menil ‘Contemporaries,’ a group that’s under the age of forty who support the Menil on an annual basis. There were four hundred people there! And the whole time, people kept coming up and asking when I was moving the gallery to Houston. Over and over and over again. We were taken aback. I was talking to a collector and he said, ‘looks like it’s time for you to shit or get off the pot.’ And that’s when I decided it was time. That was a month and a half ago. I knew the space [in the Isabella Courts building] had been empty for some time.” [Glasstire; photo]
Read more about: 77002, Art, Galleries, Midtown, Openings and Closings, Retail
Construction on the new 2-story, 5,200-sq.-ft. Sicardi Gallery was supposed to start last year, but architect Fernando Brave says the project was delayed after the owner decided she wanted the new building to be LEED-certified. New target for construction to begin: this summer.
That’ll be charcoal-colored zinc and masonry on the exterior. Inside, there’ll be three connected gallery spaces, and a library upstairs. Two large light wells included in the design were recently axed in favor of more display space. The parking lot will be in front.
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Read more about: 77098, Art, Galleries, Mandell Place, Proposed Developments
Tonight’s art opening at the new Box 13 ArtSpace will serve as a grand opening for the new East End art venue as well.
The space is a 2-story former furniture store on the corner of Harrisburg and Cesar Chavez (or — as the organization’s website uh, “artfully”(?) calls the street — “Cesar Chivas”). It features 13 studio spaces for artists in residence, three interior galleries, a storefront-window display space, and an “outdoor performance exhibition space,” known more conventionally as a parking lot.
The artist-run nonprofit intends to acquire a second building, at 6701 Capitol (directly behind the 6700 Harrisburg building), within a few months. “The Capitol building lends itself toward sculptors and installation artists,” declares the website.
After the jump: A quick tour of the new facilities!
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Read more about: 77011, Art, Art Studios, Galleries, Harrisburg, Institutional Buildings, Openings and Closings, Parking-Lots
A reader who doesn’t sound too happy about the situation sends word that David Adickes has sold his artist-studio building at 2500 Summer St.:
Artists who lease space there have been told they need to leave in less than 6 months. Deborah Colton Gallery resides on his 3rd floor.
Yes, that’s David Adickes, sculptor of large presidential heads.
Read more about: Art, Artist Studios, Buying and Selling, First Ward, Galleries
Here’s a building method that seems well-suited for Houston: It’s fast, it’s temporary, and it involves both shipping containers and fine art. Remember the demolition permit for the site on 11th Street in the Heights we mentioned a few days back? By Friday, it’ll have a completed building on it, according to ’stina, who wrote in her LiveJournal Wednesday:
Today, the shipping containers will be delivered and installed to the new site of the 1400 square foot gallery, and you can see for yourself what this form of construction looks like. They started this morning with merely a few spread footings and grade beams and they’ll finish this evening with all the containers set and a good portion (if not all) of the roof in place.
It’s the new Apama Mackey Gallery, pieced together out of three shipping containers by Numen Development. The gallery will occupy the site for a few years, until the landowner is ready for a more permanent development in that location. Then Mackey will be able to move the gallery to a new lot she hopes to find in the meantime.
Some of the project’s green features, according to ’stina’s report:
- From conception of the idea in March, it has been three short months to a nearly final product!
- The Mackey Gallery is built to be moved and reassembled with less than 5% waste.
- Custom panelized roof and floor system utilizing Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs are extremely energy efficient and virtually eliminate the need for traditional framing while dramatically reducing waste and build time.)
- Clerestory panels and office windows made from Polygal. (An insulated polycarbonate that is more energy efficient than glass, yet less expensive and more secure.)
- The job site for the Gallery will need NO dumpsters because the building process has so little waste.
- Even the parking lot will be made of Permeable Paving squares which are green, and reusable.
Photo: Flickr user Ross Dunn
Read more about: 77008, Demolitions, Development Strategies, Galleries, Green Design, Green Development, Houston Heights, Shipping-Containers
