The Big Show 2017 Opening Reception

Lawndale Art Center presents The Big Show 2017. Exhibition On View: July 7 – August 12, 2017. Opening Reception: Friday, July 7, 2017, 6 – 8 PM, Awards announced at 7 PM.

The Big Show is an annual juried exhibition showcasing new work in all media by artists living within a 100-mile radius of Lawndale Art Center.

The 2017 iteration of The Big Show will be juried by Toby Kamps, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Menil Collection.

Organizing Theme
It is a truism that life moves fast and that change is a constant. In the 21 st century, rates of change in our ecological, economic, and political lives are accelerating are increasing at breakneck speed. Even consciousness itself is under constant pressure as new technologies transfer images, messages, and memes from the screen to the mind at the speed of light.

Introducing the “Rate of Change” as its organizing principle, The Big Show 2017 seeks works of art addressing change – in its myriad forms – and made within the last change-filled year.

ABOUT THE JUROR:

Toby Kamps
Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art
The Menil Collection

Toby Kamps, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Menil Collection, Houston, has organized solo exhibitions of work by artists including Vanessa Beecroft, Ellsworth Kelly, Danny Lyon, Claes Oldenburg, Haim Steinbach, Luc Tuymans, H.C. Westermann, Wols (Wolfgang Schulze), William N. Copley, and Torolab, a Tijuana design collective.

He has organized numerous group exhibition and catalogue projects such as Silence, Small World: Dioramas in Contemporary Art, Space Is the Place, and, with a team, Baja to Vancouver: The West Coast and Contemporary Art. His exhibitions The Old, Weird America and From Baja to Bar Harbor, won best traveling exhibition nationally and best regional university gallery project awards from the U.S. and New England sections of the International Association of Art Critics, respectively.

In previous curatorial positions at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, the ICA at Maine College of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, he has served on leadership teams and committees, managed membership groups, and developed programs and partnerships with other organizations.

A graduate of the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art and the Getty Museum Leadership Institute, he has written for exhibition catalogues, monographs, and magazines. Currently, Kamps serves as advisor to the Spotlight section of the Frieze and Frieze Masters art fairs in New York and London, respectively. Spotlight features one-person exhibitions of work by twentieth-century artists from around the world.

Artists selected for the exhibition include:

TBA..

The Big Show is Lawndale Art Center’s annual open-call, juried exhibition. It has been an important venue through which emerging and under-represented Houston area artists gain exposure since the show’s conception in 1984.

“The Big Show” was formerly the “East End Show,” sponsored by the East End Progress Association, at Lawndale’s original location.

Each year Lawndale Art Center invites a guest juror to select from work submitted by artists living within 100 miles of Houston. Artists are invited to bring up to three works of art, not previously shown in Houston, to Lawndale Art Center where the work is juried on-site for a chance to be included in the show and a shot at $3,000 in cash awards.

Ticket Information

Free.

Individual Dates & Times*

* Please check with the presenting organization or venue to confirm start times and/or duration.