The 2012 Texas Prize

AMOA-ARTHOUSE PRESENTS THE 2012 TEXAS PRIZEEXHIBITION,

FEATURING WORK BY FINALISTS JAMAL CYRUS, WILL HENRY, AND JEFF WILLIAMS,

AS THE CENTERPIECE OF THE JONES CENTER SUMMER SEASON

Ushering in the museum’s summer programming, AMOA-Arthouse is proud to present the opening of the 2012 Texas Prize exhibition, an ongoing initiative supporting and promoting emerging and under-recognized professional artists working in the Lone Star state. Spotlighting new work by the three finalists vying for the revered Texas Prize award, the exhibition will be on view from May 5 to July 22, 2012 at the museum’s Jones Center location at 700 Congress Avenue in downtown Austin.

The Texas Prize celebrates talented Texas-based artists who have made significant, innovative contributions to the state’s contemporary art scene. Originally presented every two years, the Texas Prize is now a triennial award. Eligible artists must have resided in Texas for the past three years and not had a solo show at a major museum. An internationally-respected jury selects three finalists for each Texas Prizeexhibition, which involves publication of a full-color catalogue and the chance to win the $30,000 AMOA-Arthouse Texas Prize, the largest regional visual arts award for emerging artists in the country. In the fall of 2010, AMOA-Arthouse announced the three finalists for the 2012 edition of Texas Prize: Jamal Cyrus (Houston), Will Henry (Houston), and Jeff Williams (Austin). The winner of the award will be announced on May 18, 2012.

“This substantial prize helps artists working in Texas through exposure to an international jury, a publication with diverse perspectives on their work, and an exhibition at the Jones Center,” Rachel Adams, Associate Curator of Exhibitions and Public Programs elaborates. “Over the past seven years, the Texas Prize has remained committed to encouraging artists to stay and enrich the Texas art community.”

The 2012 Texas Prize jurors include Bill Arning, Director, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; Gary Carrion-Murayari, Associate Curator, New Museum; Philipp Kaiser, Director, Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Katrina Moorhead, 2007 Arthouse Texas Prize Recipient; and Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson, Director and Chief Curator, Aspen Art Museum.

Finalist Jamal Cyrus (b. 1973) is a mixed media artist living and working in Houston. Heavily informed and inspired by black history–most notably the 1960s civil rights movement–his politically-charged art addresses race, revolution, social upheaval, and the African Diaspora. Cyrus interweaves real historical references and objects with imagined narratives to create new, poetic hybrids of fact and fiction. For Texas Prize, Cyrus has designed his own stage and sculptures for sound performances inspired by New York’s experimental avant-garde jazz scene of the 1950s and 60s. Live and documented performances will activate his installation, beginning with Texas Fried Tenor, at the Members’ Reception on Friday, May 4 at 8 pm

Also based in Houston, finalist Will Henry (b. 1969) is a painter of surreal landscapes and nightscapes. Infused with dry wit, mystery, and rugged beauty, Henry’s works employ text and West Texas cultural references as subtle riffs on tradition. Stylizing the desert terrain and expansive blue skies of the American West, Henry speaks to human presence and absence in these rugged expanses. His new work for Texas Prizeincludes vibrantly-hued paintings and works on paper.

Humorous nods to Western iconography and culture abound; viewers can spot tumbleweeds, movie sets, Minimalist art references, and even hints of extraterrestrial life. These paintings continue Henry’s interest in the vastness of space and the unique personality of this geographical area.

The third finalist is Austin-based artist Jeff Williams (b. 1976). In site-specific installations heavily relying upon construction techniques, Williams responds to and reveals the history latent within a particular place and structure. Of interest to Williams is the narrative told by a building’s architecture, and his techniques often add to or subtract from the very fiber of a site in order to reveal the story at its core. Objects such as fossils resting in chemical pools and dripping paint consider the effects of time and atmosphere on materials His sculptural installations–always temporary and ultimately disassembled–find a parallel to the real-life inevitability that time is always breaking everything down. Williams’Texas Prize installation will respond to the architecture of the Jones Center’s Second Floor Gallery and draw attention to the elements that change and sculpt our built environments.

On view from May 5 to July 22, 2012 in the Film & Video Gallery is Amie Siegel’s 2010 project Black Moon Set in the foreclosed housing developments of Florida and California, the work borrows from multiple storytelling genres: post-apocalyptic drama, action, and science fiction being a few. Nostalgia and historical disorientation are key themes. In addition to the film itself, Siegel’s exhibition includes a two-channel video installation entitled Black Moon / Mirrored Malle and two photographs from the series Black Moon / Hole Punches.

Also part of AMOA-Arthouse’s summer 2012 exhibitions at the Jones Center are two video projects. Projected on the face of the building after sunset and viewable from the street, Ezra Wube’s Amora (on view April 2-June 10, 2012) will be part of this season’s SCREEN Projects. Wube’s silent stop-motion animation video features script from an ancient language overlapping nomadic figures traversing an indistinct map. Fragments of past and present are painted directly onto Wube’s studio window, the Sumi ink washing away between scenes connected by the narrative thread of a popular Ethiopian love song. The humorously animated video short Venus by Julia Oschatz (May 2-June 17, 2012) will also be on view this summer as part of LIFT Projects.