The Center For Land Use Interpretation
Texas Oil: Landscape of an Industry
January 17 – March 28, 2009
Opening Reception: January 16, 6 – 8 p.m.            

The Center For Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) is a research organization based in Culver City, California., that studies the landscape of the United States and how it has been put to use and understood. Projects created by the CLUI are presented in the form of informational exhibitions, guided tours, and an online database of sites across the country. Texas Oil: Landscape of an Industry at Blaffer Gallery will be the CLUI’s first major exhibition in Texas and one of its most ambitious projects to date. The exhibition will include photographs and informational texts on approximately 50 Texas sites that the CLUI has framed as discrete anecdotes in the overarching story of how oil has sculpted the state’s terrain. In addition to the Blaffer exhibition, the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts in collaboration with the Buffalo Bayou Partnership is organizing various public events in conjunction with project.

The Center for Land Use Interpretation’s exhibition Texas Oil: Landscape of an Industry is organized by Rachel Hooper, Cynthia Woods Mitchell Curatorial Fellow at Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston. The exhibition and publication are presented in collaboration with the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts.

Electric Mud
January 17 – March 28, 2009
Opening Reception: January 16, 6 – 8 p.m.
  
Blaffer Gallery is pleased to present Electric Mud, guest-curated by David Pagel, art critic for the Los Angeles Times and associate professor of art theory and history at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. Featuring the work of Brian Calvin, Anna Sew Hoy, Ron Nagle, Michael Reafsnyder, James Richards, and Patrick Wilson, the exhibition focuses on the physical similarities of clay and paint. By exploring the basics of each medium, Electric Mud confounds the boundaries between clay and paint and representation and abstraction. The works in the exhibition question differences between art and craft, painting and ceramics, form and function, leisure and labor, and still life and real life. The six artists, all based in California, strive to make their materials “misbehave."

Electric Mud is organized for Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston, by David Pagel, Assistant Professor of Art Theory and History at Claremont Graduate University. The exhibition and publication are made possible, in part, by The Cecil Amelia Blaffer von Furstenberg Endowment for Exhibitions and Programs and Houston Endowment, Inc.

Existed: Leonardo Drew
May 16 – August 1, 2009
Opening Reception: May 15, 6 – 8 p.m.

In summer 2009, Blaffer Gallery is pleased to host the first major exhibition in a U.S. museum dedicated to Leonardo Drew. A fully illustrated publication, featuring an essay by Blaffer acting chief curator Claudia Schmuckli, will accompany the exhibition. Born in Tallahassee, Florida, Drew received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1985 from Cooper Union in New York City. Throughout his career, the artist has created works that reflects cultural memory. In 2002, Drew began to create paper sculptures replicating his ongoing collection of found objects. In the installation conceived for this exhibition, Drew will create his grandest and most ambitious piece to date. Its composition will connect individual elements within a web of drawings applied directly to the museum’s walls. The installation’s flexible format and its variable dimensions will allow adaptation to any space for presentation purposes. This new installation will be complemented by a selection of 12 major pieces realized between 1991 and 2005 and nine works on paper made between 2005 and 2008 that offer a representative survey of Drew’s artistic development.

Existed: Leonardo Drew is organized by Claudia Schmuckli, Acting Chief Curator, Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston. The exhibition has been made possible, in part, by the Eleanor and Frank Freed Foundation and The Fifth Floor Foundation. Support for the catalogue was provided by Sikkema Jenkins & Co.