Douglas Newby Insights - Page 18
Residential Angle
One of the great things about bringing work out of the DMA archives is that we have a chance to see great art that has been hidden. We also have the opportunity to see works of art we know and be reminded of the art collectors who donated the work to the Dallas Museum of Art. In Dallas, Roger Winter is a much-admired artist. I have always loved his work and even more his artist friendship with David McManaway, a longtime friend, neighbor and an artist I revere. Artists have a way of integrating art into their lives and incorporating their studios into their homes, or in some cases their home into their studios. I saw this early on from the home and studio of James Surls and many important Tremont artists who did much of their early work in Munger Place. Deep Ellum is a neighborhood with which I was very involved in the rezoning, preservation and early revitalization. I would visit the original 1800s formal living quarters over an original office or retail shop. This painting by Roger Winter, for me, is both nostalgic and hopeful. On the corner of the mixed-use neighborhood, you see the neoclassical columns that lead to a second-story residence over the Oasis restaurant. Streets are not closed off, forcing people to inhabit Disneyland-like plazas. Cars are still allowed on streets and pedestrians are still shown on the sidewalks with park benches nearby. The neighborhood looks like it might have had a better past and that it might have a better future, but it conveys opportunity and affordability and a pleasant scale that is lost with government subsidized five-story apartment buildings. *Residential Angle
#RogerWinter #MixedUseNeighborhood #ResidenceOverShop #Dallas @DallasMuseumArt #DMA #Painting #ArtOpening #Neighborhood #Residence #Home #art #artexhibition
Home Sweet Home
When I see affordable housing in the form of government projects, I recoil at how grim they are or will become. Whenever I see a modest single-family home in person, or a shotgun house, or simple houses depicted in art, I feel so happy that a low-income person can claim a home as their own. In the last few generations there are many prominent Dallas residents who spent their youth in sod houses such as architect David Williams, or Dogtrot frame houses, or small cottages, or even childhood homes like that of our former great city manager, John Ware, who was raised in a home with polished dirt floors. Aesthetically, I find this home poetic and beautiful—its materials, context, simplicity and what it represents. *Home Sweet Home
#AffordableHomes #SimpleHome #Art #PaintingOfHome #TinRoof #MetalRoof #Painting #Low-IncomeNeighborhood #ArtMuseum #ArtOpening #ArtExhibition #DMA @DallasMuseumArt #Dallas #Neighborhood
Lovers of Houses
Here is a house that I think @IngridFetell would love—a house that provokes dreams of joy. Here architecture and art from a distance transform, and as one gets closer, into a sense of play, an underrated aspect of any home. Flower boxes and cupid—what better way to bring in spring. *Lovers of Houses
#JoySpotting #Cupid #Neon #NeonSculpture #House #Windows #Home #Sculpture #ArtMuseum #DMA @DallasMuseumArt #Design #ContemporaryArt #DallasNeighborhood #DowntownNeighborhood #ArtsDistrict #DallasArtsDistrict #ArtOpening #ArtInstallation #ModernHomeDallas #art #architechture #home
For a Dreamer of Houses
For a Dreamer of Houses. This Dallas Museum of Art installation is a perfect exhibition for someone like me who likes looking at art that celebrates houses more than going through a conveyor belt of generic houses. Most real estate agents and many others love going through any house. I don’t particularly love going through houses, but I do love spending enormous amounts of time in a home that captures my imagination. It might be the proportions, the materials, the relationship to the site, the context to the neighborhood, city, history, or might provoke a feeling of contentment, nostalgia, or optimism. I maybe even love more looking at art about homes. Art, whether it is photographs, paintings, sculpture or mixed media, goes deeper on why homes impact us in such a powerful and sometimes unknown way. Why does one enter one home and feel good and then enter another home and feel like one’s consciousness has just taken a beating? This exhibition curated from the DMA’s permanent collection conveys grand homes, futuristic spaces, modest homes and sacred spaces, but each piece provides a sense of exhilaration and is a reminder of the impact residential space has on the essence of one’s being. As you enter the art exhibition, you will see at the end of a long approach a simple classic shape of a pitched roof house framed by a glorious and grand barrel vault. This is the perfect site for a house framed by neon tubes generating joy. *For a Dreamer of Houses
@DallasMuseumArt #DMA #Art #Neon #VideoArt #ContemporaryHouse #BarrelVault #Dallas #DallasArtsDistrict #ArtExhibition #DowntownNeighborhood #ArtOpening #Sculpture #ArtsDistrict #ContemporaryArt #ModernArt #House #Home
Morse Curate and Illuminate
Jed Morse curates and illuminates the Barry X Ball Remaking Sculpture exhibition and animates the Renzo Piano-designed Nasher in the heart of Dallas’ downtown neighborhood. The translucence of stone sculptures intensely lit radiates a jewel-like quality while exuding equal parts historicity and technology. We are so lucky to have Nasher Director Jeremy Strick and Curator Jed Morse in Dallas bringing an outstanding series of exhibitions to Dallas and the Arts District. Thank you, Jeremy and Jed. *Morse Curate and Illluminate
@barry_x_ball #barry_x_ball #JedMorse #JeremyStrick #NasherSculptureCenter #ArtsDistrict #DallasArtsDistrict #Dallas #MuseumOpening #ArtOpening #Art #Artist #Sculpture #StoneSculpture #DallasNeighborhood #Design #ModernArt #ContemporaryArt #DowntownDallas #Downtown #Exhibition #modern #city
History Files
History is filed in so many ways. The history of neighborhoods is exhibited like the rings of a tree. Newspaper files are a treasure trove of illuminating the history and the provenance of houses, architects, and events that shape a city. The hidden artwork stored in museums express the collecting fashion of past eras. A chronological sequence of presidential portraits, whether seen while in line at the original Highland Park Cafeteria, or at the Presidential Portrait Museum in Washington, D.C., provides a synopsis of U.S. history. What a fun surprise to see busts of historical figures at the Royal Academy mined from the archives. This exhibition reminds us how the temporal importance of an individual today fades to memory, while the impact of that person might linger forever. Historical exhibitions can seem like a dreary trudge through time, or like this vibrant collection of portrait sculptures, they can heighten one’s energy and awareness. I am still smiling at the visual of a bust of historic figures mounted on a file cabinet pedestal. Down the hall of the Royal Academy, one can see the retrospective and evolution of self-portraits of Lucian Freud—another march through history. At the National Gallery in a nearby neighborhood, the exhibition of Paul Gauguin portraits provided me the best understanding of Paul Gauguin as an artist in the time period in which he lived. Portraits capture the essence of the moment. Art retrospectives give us our clearest view of history. *History Files
#Busts #RoyalAcademy #History #HistoryFiles #Archives #Art #Sculpture #Neighborhood #Portrait #London #Exhibition
Archer Tales
Is there a better living storyteller than Jeffrey Archer? One of the things I love about Dallas is that prominent readers, artists, and authors will come through Dallas and one has a chance to meet them in a very intimate setting, where in New York one might be relegated to a back room for videofeed. Outside of Dallas, London is my favorite city because it is large and imposing like New York, but it has incredible intimacy and accessibility like Dallas. At Hatchard’s, my favorite bookstore, Jeffrey Archer spoke for over an hour and conversed for almost another hour with about 70 people that included his wife, son, original publisher that is pictured, his current editor, and many of his friends at the 40th Anniversary of the publication of Kane and Abel. I have always enjoyed his writing through the years, but there is something special about listening to an author, their thoughts, approach, and personal interest that gives even greater depth to their stories. Jeffrey Archer’s most current book Nothing Ventured is another one of his books I could not put down and read within a day or two. Thank you Hatchard’s for being such great literary sherpas and bringing in authors that revere Hatchard’s as much as we revere the authors. *Archer Tales
#JeffreyArcher #Author #BookSigning #Neighborhood #London #Books #Hatchards
Art Floods Architecture
One of my favorite pieces of art is from the collection of Heidi Dillon, a photograph of a model of a flooded room by James Casebere. Now to see at the Royal Academy an extraordinarily elegant and important historic room really flooded with a saline solution of clay by Antony Gormley was breathtaking. This transgression violates all principles of great architecture and yet it celebrates architecture. Rather than the panic that comes if a room in one’s own home floods, here there is a tranquility that transpires by the reflective depths of this flooded surface. The room is solid, it still stands, and might be even more beautiful as art floods the floor. *Art Floods Architecture
#AntonyGormley #RoyalAcademy #BurlingtonHouse #Architecture #Neighborhood #Gallery #Architect #Artist #Art #Sculpture #Historic #Modern #ContemporaryArt #HistoricallySignificant #Exhibition @heididillon_hfd
Architecture and Art
The Royal Academy is always one of my first stops in London. The approach to the Burlington House is a splendid prelude to the art and architecture one is about to see. Rather than an academy thwarting creative expression, it gives art and architecture a thoughtful curatorial foundation. The combination of artists and architects comprising the Academy tends to tether the artists by the precision and engineering of architects, and architects, in turn, might be provoked to work outside a grid. This combination of the influences of the Royal Academy always creates shows in an imposing historic space that is beautifully composed, exquisitely proportioned, and beautifully hung. The work of Antony Gormley creates additional appreciation for the architecture of each space that submitted to his strong work, with different expressions cascading from one gallery to the next. Art and architecture is so different, which makes both more powerful when it is intertwined at the Royal Academy. *Architecture and Art
#BurlingtonHouse #RoyalAcademy #AntonyGormley #Gallery #LondonNeighborhood #Architecture #Architect #Artist #Art #Sculpture #Historic #Modern #ContemporaryArt #HistoricallySignificant #Exhibition
Café Pacific – Menu for Holiday
New red menus were just published for the holiday season at Café Pacific. Jack Knox’s iconic Highland Park restaurant is on the holiday menu for so many in Dallas. Its clublike atmosphere has the best combination of great food by the talented chef Terry Cook, the finest wait staff in Dallas, tradition and vibrancy that transcends the age and wealth of many of its longtime patrons. Holiday cheer exudes from Café Pacific for those returning to Dallas, those currently living in Dallas, and those new to Dallas that quickly discover Café Pacific. No restaurant says Highland Park and Dallas better than Café Pacific. Thank you, Jack Knox! And many thanks to all of those that contribute to the service, fun, and civility that one always enjoys at lunch or dinner—Manager Dieter Krappl, Elizabeth, Emory, Peter, Mark, Lazlo, Walter …
*Café Pacific – Menu for Holiday
#CafePacific #JackKnox #HighlandParkVillage #Holiday #DallasRestaurant #DallasInstitution #HighlandPark #Dallas #dallasneighborhoods