This year the Houston Museum District Day is on August 18th, 2007 from 10am to 5pm
Parking in the Museum District
There are numerous places to park throughout the Museum District. Parking is available in the free lots at the MFAH on Bissonnet and Main and Main and Oakdale; The Menil Collection, Holocaust Museum Houston; John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science; Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and Houston Zoo. Paid parking garages and lots include: the lot at The Children’s Museum of Houston; the MFAH garage on Binz; Houston Museum of Natural Science garage; Rice University and the Park Plaza Hospital parking garage.
METRORail
If you take the METRORail to the Museum districtdistrict, you may park your vehicle at the South Fannin Park and Ride Lot for the entire day. For METRO information please visit www.ridemetro.org.
Houston Museum of Natural Science, One Hermann Circle Drive in Hermann Park, (713) 639-4629, www.hmns.org
From a giant T-Rex to gems the size of your hand — HMNS is a treasure trove of the rare, beautiful and record-breaking. Museum District Day visitors can enjoy free general admission to the permanent exhibit halls, a world-class facility with three floors of exhibits ranging from dinosaurs, to the world-renowned Cullen Hall of Gems and Minerals, the Texas-size Wiess Energy Hall, the John P. McGovern Hall of the Americas, and the Welch Chemistry Hall. Please note: Admission to the Wortham IMAX ® Theatre, Cockrell Butterfly Center, and Burke Baker Planetarium require separate paid tickets.
The Children’s Museum of Houston, 1500 Binz, (713) 522-1138, www.cmhouston.org
Fourteen galleries of hands-on exhibits and activities offer young visitors and their families a myriad of fun and educational activities.
John P. McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science, 1515 Hermann Drive, (713) 521-1515, www.museumofhealth.org
Learn why it’s really important to wash your hands and watch what lives in a single drop of water at Microbes: Invisible Invaders, Amazing Allies. Check out amoebas, paramecia and other protists through powerful, easy-to-operate microscopes. Watch microbes gobble up an oil spill. Learn more about microbes – the harmful and beneficial – through a scavenger hunt. Afterward, learn more about your body and how it works through the Hickox Amazing Body Pavilion, a fantastic larger-than-life walking tour through the human body where visitors receive informal anatomy lessons about everything under their skin. In addition, there are Brain Train activities, Discovery Carts, mini-classes and the hugely popular dissection demonstrations in the McGovern Theater.
Holocaust Museum Houston, 5401 Caroline, (713) 942-8000, www.hmh.org
Bearing Witness: A Community Remembers, the museum’s permanent exhibit, features authentic documents, artifacts, film reels and photographs from the Holocaust era, interspersed with personal stories from Houston-area survivors and liberators. Special exhibitions include: Anne Frank: A Private Photo Album, an exclusive presentation of photographs taken by Otto Frank before his family was forced into hiding from the Nazi’s during World War II. Additional exhibitions include butterfly inspired artwork by students of The Awty International School of Houston, Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933-1945 and Gumoil photography by Karl P. Koenig.
Lawndale Art Center, 4912 Main Street, (713) 528-5858, www.lawndaleartcenter.org
Lawndale Art Center launched the Billboard Series to present the work of local and regional artists while the gallery is closed for renovation. The billboard is located at the northeast corner of Highway 59 and Montrose on the route the free METRO bus shuttles will travel on Museum District Day. Houstonian Mark Wade has created Manifest Destiny an artwork that presents a chilling historical photograph documenting the Battle at Wounded Knee (1890) and its resulting massacre of the Sioux. Lawndale is dedicated to the presentation of contemporary art with an emphasis on work by Houston artists.
Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC), 4848 Main Street, (713) 529-4848, www.crafthouston.org
Potters, blacksmiths, weavers and metal artists will make objects on site at the “Gathering of the Guilds” on Museum District Day. Houston area artisans from the Polymer Clay Guild, The Houston Area Fiber Artists, Houston Metal Arts Guild and the Houston Area Blacksmith Association will be on hand to answer questions and share information. Additionally visitors are invited to build garden walls, move dirt and plant at a work day in the Craft Garden. HCCC is dedicated solely to craft, with an emphasis on objects of art made primarily of glass, fiber, clay, metal or wood.
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet, (713) 639-7300, www.mfah.org
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston houses a magnificent collection of more than 45,000 works of art from around the world. Visitors can view works from the collection and special exhibitions in the Audrey Jones Beck Building, the Caroline Wiess Law Building, the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden and the Glassell School of Art. Special exhibitions include: Aaron Siskind: Centennial Celebration; Taos Modern: Paintings by Herbert Dunton from the Stark Museum of Art, Orange; A Creative Collaboration: Museums, Teachers, and Students Teacher Workshops at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Patrons Choice: The Silver Anniversary of The Museum Collectors, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Visitors can see the MFAH’s recent acquisition of Rembrandt’s “Portrait of a Young Woman,” one of only two portraits by the Dutch master on view in Texas. From 2 to 4 p.m. enjoy a living re-enactment of Rembrandt’s masterpiece by the Invisible Bus in front of the Audrey Jones Beck Building.
The Jung Center, 5200 Montrose, (713) 524-8253, www.cgjunghouston.org
The Jung Center is an educational institution dedicated to individual growth, development and community service. Through classes, programs and collaborative outreach efforts, The Jung Center provides a forum for psychological, artistic and spiritual discourse that inspires change and adds meaning to daily living. Enjoy the vibrant paintings of Margaret Scott Dobbins in Moving Elements. From Noon to 2 p.m. take a movie break with therapist Karen Magee. She will screen clips and discuss the relationship between psychology and the movies during a half-hour presentation. From 3 to 4:15 p.m. artist Suzan Kraus will teach visitors how to make a corsage in one fun and easy lesson.
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, 5216 Montrose, (713) 284-8250, www.camh.org
Explore how contemporary art and culture are defined and presented in a global context through How Latitudes Become Forms: Art in a Global Age. The exhibition presents work by 28 international artists from seven countries ranging from drawings and architectural structures to new media installations and documentary films. Also on view is Perspectives 142: Boys Behaving Badly, which features works of art that examine male
adolescent behavior. The exhibition presents photographs and videos that explore the influence of societal expectations and contemporary culture on male development. Throughout the day, the Museum’s FAQTeam (Frequently Asked Questions Team) — a group of specially trained young, knowledgeable and fascinating artists and art historians—will be available to give instant tours of the exhibitions, answer visitors’ questions and engage in general conversation about contemporary art. Outside on the lawn, visitors will be entertained by the sounds of the HSPVA Jazz Band.
The Menil Collection, 1515 Sul Ross, (713) 525-9400, www.menil.org
The Menil Collection, always open free to the public, is part of a “museum village” that includes the Cy Twombly gallery and a rainbow of fluorescent light by the renowned minimalist sculptor Dan Flavin at Richmond Hall. The permanent collection includes Surrealism master works by Rene Magritte, Max Ernst and Yves Tanguy. The Oceanic and African art collections set in light-filled atrium galleries include totems, masks,
musical instruments and ceremonial objects from a range of African and Indonesian cultures. On the front lawn The Menil will present the water fountains of Jean Tingley and the percussive rhythms of D.R.U.M. (Divine Rhythm United Motion).
The Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum, 4011 Yupon, (713) 521-3990, www.menil.org/byzantine.html
The Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum is the repository for the only intact Byzantine frescoes in the western hemisphere. These masterworks from the 13th century were stolen out of a chapel near Lysi in the Turkish-occupied section of Cyprus, cut into pieces, and smuggled off the island by thieves. The fresco fragments were rescued by The Menil Foundation and restored through a painstaking process with consent of the Church of Cyprus. They reside on long-term loan from the church in an intimate chapel near The Menil Collection.
The Rothko Chapel, 1409 Sul Ross, (713) 524-9839, www.rothkochapel.org
The Rothko Chapel and its fourteen paintings by Mark Rothko was commissioned for Houston by John and Dominique de Menil and dedicated in 1971. An intimate sanctuary where the experience and understanding of all traditions are encouraged and made available, the Chapel is alive with religious ceremonies of all faiths. The Chapel also provides diverse programs to engage audiences intellectually, artistically and spiritually by addressing issues and concerns before they are generally recognized and popularized. It is located on the southwest corner of Sul Ross and Yupon, near The Menil Collection.
Houston Center for Photography, 1441 W. Alabama, (713) 529-4755, www.hcponline.org
The Houston Center for Photography (HCP) is dedicated to the study of photography as an expressive medium as well as an investigative tool. The Meaning of Objects, on view in the Main Gallery, is a group exhibition that focuses on still life and examines the allusive meanings contemporary artists find in everyday objects. The exhibiting artists are Cynthia Greig, Laura Johansen, Laura Letinsky, Douglas Mellor, Johnny Miller and Celia A. Shapiro. A Gallery Talk with the artists will be at 1 p.m. In Gallery X, enjoy Seamless by Koye Abe; and in Gallery Y, Bye-Bye Baby by Michelle Sank.
Rice University Art Gallery, 6100 Main, Campus Entrance 1, Ground floor of Sewall Hall (713) 348-6069, www.rice.edu/ricegallery
Rice University Art Gallery does something no other university gallery, and only one other public museum in the country does exclusively, which is to commission site-specific installation art. On view will be a new installation by internationally acclaimed artist Jessica Stockholder, whose work features highly imaginative, oftentimes hilarious, combinations of objects united by broad planes of brilliant color. Vivid yellow and red shag carpet, an eccentric wall supported by lamps, and large household appliances are some of the elements Stockholder will use at Rice Gallery. Enjoy free ice cream, cold water and a chance to relax in the shade of Rice’s famous live oaks.
Buffalo Soldiers National Museum, 1834 Southmore, (713) 942-8920, www.buffalosoldier.com
The Buffalo Soldiers National Museum works to educate the public about the contributions of African-American soldiers toward the development and protection of the United States. The soldiers of the 9th and 10th Cavalries were nicknamed “Buffalo Soldiers” by the Cheyenne Indians who admired the men for their fierce fighting ability.
The museum charts their accomplishments from the Revolutionary War to present day battles through more than 4,000 historical artifacts, documents, videos, prints and other historical memorabilia. Special exhibitions include: Women in the Military, WWII and Black Chaplains in the West. Guided tours of the permanent and special exhibitions will be available throughout the day. Beginning at Noon and presented every hour until 5 p.m., enjoy a performance about the life of General Harriet Tubman of the Underground Railroad.
Miller Outdoor Theatre,enjoy a free performances in Hermann Park. For information please contact (713) 284-8350 or visit www.milleroutdoortheatre.com.
For details about Museum District Day call (713) 790-1020 or visit www.houstonmuseumdistrict.org.
