Scope and Contents Gary Tinterow, the director of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, sees a critical moment ahead for both his museum and his country.Early childhood education is cutting back on arts and humanities and political division has rarely been greater in America. Houston’s art museum, which he believes to be a remedy to these ills, is about to complete the final stages of its $450 million campus expansion and redevelopment that will add 500,000 square feet in new construction....

Scope and Contents My first encounter with HIV was a copy of the book And the Band Played On. My dad handed it to me, wordlessly, one day in our suburban kitchen. I was still in high school, and we hadn’t talked about the spectrum of my gayness just yet, or at least not in words, although it sat on every dinner plate and dollhouse and stray tile and stair; the subject of queerness in general had only come up sparingly, usually in whispers about neighbors, or unmarried family friends, or the cousins no one had...

Scope and Contents His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela are towering figures in any context, but at Rothko Chapel, these crusaders of social justice and their work to advance human rights reverberate with both poignancy and uplift within the modern artworked walls of the Houston, Texas, institution.And though Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was slain a few years prior to the Chapel’s opening in 1971, his memory looms particularly large here, embodied in the Barnett Newman...

Scope and Contents The envelope arrived about a week after the online request was made. It contained a smaller envelope sealed with black wax stamped "J." Inside were a mirrored coin and a card which, when scratched, gave off a faint whiff of password.And that's just how you register for tickets for "Bottling the Impossible," the latest show from Chicago magician Jeanette Andrews. Small groups will watch Andrews's performance in an undisclosed location in an intimate, conversational space that the...

Scope and Contents Work on the Rothko Chapel is moving forward so the Houston institution is ensuring its board is ready to meet the needs of those who enjoy the space by filling out its board of directors.David Leslie, executive director of the Rothko Chapel, recently announced that Troy Porter, the Rev. Laura Mayo and Dr. Kate Rothko Prizel are its newest board members. The three new members will serve on the board for a three-year term from 2019 to 2022. Recommended VideoAccording to...

Scope and Contents VIENNA — Mark Rothko is hardly an unknown artist. Awarded with major American museum retrospectives during his lifetime, he has been the subject of a full-scale biography by James Breslin as well as massive recent revisionist discussions. There are various commentaries on his chapel in Houston, the most important such project by any American painter. And thanks to his son Christopher, Rothko’s book-length essay on aesthetic theory, The Painter’s Reality, was published posthumously in...

Scope and Contents The name Mark Rothko is synonymous with sensitive canvases that feature arrangements of rectangular panes in vivid hues. The artist was a skilled colorist. The great joy of experiencing his paintings is looking at how the colors, shapes, and backgrounds interact with one another, particularly around the edges. The soft, brushy borders that surround his color fields create one mood, while the sharper, straighter lines of the central forms elicit another. Alternate juxtapositions of similar or...

Scope and Contents Solange, who released her fourth album When I Get Home in March alongside a contemporary art-filled 33-minute video of the same name, is teaming up with museums around the world to debut an extended version of the film. Screenings will come to Brooklyn Museum, LACMA, MCA Chicago, Nasher Sculpture Centre in Dallas, MFA Houston, New Orleans Museum of Art, Perez Art Museum Miami, the Chinati Foundation, and the V&A in London beginning July 17 and wrapping up on October 13. The film will be...

Scope and Contents The Rothko Chapel in Houston has received a $2 million grant from the Houston Endowment, which will go toward funding the chapel’s master plan for renovation. Thus far, the space, which displays 14 paintings by Mark Rothko, has raised $12.5 million for the first phase of its plan. To support the renovation, titled “Opening Spaces,” the chapel has launched a $30 million capital campaign.Long Chu, the program officer of the Houston Endowment, said of the organization’s decision to...