Scope and Contents With the weather becoming more bearable and life beyond the hedges calling, new activities to explore in Houston are a high priority for many students. Never fear, the Thresher is here with a couple of places worth checking out to explore art — and take some cool photos too. Some are outdoors, most are free and all are fun; here are some of our favorite unusual art venues.1. Rothko Chapel Houston Located beside the Menil Collection and nestled between trees, this...

Scope and Contents Mark Rothko’s final decade is typically thought of as a journey into darkness, when the American abstract expressionist’s furnace-bright hues of the 1950s all but vanished. His canvases, huge as stage curtains, grew doomy with maroons, browns and blacks. The great smouldering Seagram murals, commissioned for a corporate dining room but withdrawn by the artist and donated to galleries, were followed by the Rothko Chapel in Houston: this fusion of art, spiritual architecture and a clear-eyed...

Scope and Contents Mark Rothko’s abstractions, recognizable for their rectangularly shaped floating forms and thin washes of color, have been said by critics and historians to invoke the metaphysical. The Russian-American painter relied on these formal elements to imbue his canvases with grand meaning. He famously remarked his works comprise the basic tenets of human feeling: “tragedy, ecstasy, doom.”The artist is remembered for his disdain for the art establishment as well. Though Rothko rejected...

Scope and Contents Design Award of Excellence: Rothko ChapelDescription: "A Civic/Institutional Design Award of Excellence is given for the restoration of the Rothko Chapel, a mid-twentieth century masterpiece begun in 1964 as a collaboration between Philip Johnson and Mark Rothko and completed in 1971 by Eugene Aubry and Howard Barnstone. The long-awaited restoration was initiated in anticipation of the Chapel’s 50th anniversary with the goal of restoring the visitor’s sense of awe and creating a...

Scope and Contents ... Solange (also known by her full name, Solange Knowles), is the younger sister of mega-famous singer Beyoncé. She has earned critical acclaim for her albums A Seat at the Table (2016) and When I Get Home (2019), both of which blend rap, soul and alternative R and B elements with eclectic electronic sounds.Outside of these releases, Solange has branched into the visual arts, creating digital and performance art that often incorporates her music or lyrics. In 2017, for Tate...

Scope and Contents Houston's art space just got a little bit more interesting. The freshly launched Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit is the newest creative hub to open, adding to the city's already flourishing artscape. In the exhibit, guests witness a 360-degree experience that plops them right into the mind of the decorated painter. What's more, the building where it occupies promises to remain a staple for upcoming performances, exhibits and attractions for years to come.More on the future of the...

Scope and Contents CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A local trailblazer in civil rights died over the weekend after a long battle with Parkinson's disease.Frances Tarlton “Sissy” Farenthold died six days shy of her 95 birthday, according to family.Sissy was born in Corpus Christi in 1926 and spent her life working for equal rights and social justice. Researchers have created holograms of people with a sense of touch featured byIn 1968, Sissy was elected as the only woman in the...

Scope and Contents HOUSTON – Frances “Sissy” Farenthold, a Texas trailblazer in civil rights, died at the age of 94 on Sunday after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.Sissy was born in Corpus Christi in 1926 and spent her life working for equal rights and social justice.She was one of the first female Texas State Representatives, a candidate for governor, wife and mother of five, and a champion of equal rights for everyone. And that list only scratches the surface....

Scope and Contents ‘So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.’ T.S. Eliot, The Four QuartetsIn Lyrical Landscapes, HOTA’S recent exhibition of William Robinson’s grand, panoramic landscapes full of somersaulting and aerial perspectives, there are numerous allusions to dawn, dusk, day and night. In Nocturne, we have the chance to look closely at the special ways this artist explores the hours between dusk and dawn, and the way in which he folds and refolds physical...

Scope and Contents ... "Anderson also found inspiration during his formative years at Houston’s Rothko Chapel. Named after Russian-born abstract painter Mark Rothko and again founded by John and Dominique de Ménil, the space serves as a non-denominational cathedral as well as a work of modern art. Anderson remembers being particularly transfixed about 30 years ago by an exhibition that encompassed all of Rothko’s career. “Only in seeing the entire course of his work did I sort of get it,” Anderson...