LOCAL Houston | The City Guide November 2017 | Page 41

1. Jennifer May Reiland: 13 Arenas
Guerrero Projects | Through November 11
Our top gallery pick this month, native Houstonian (and current NYC resident) Jennifer May
Reiland has knocked it out of the park with this jam-packed, ornery new body of work. Expect
a cast of characters, including Princess Di appearing multiple times in various recognizable
outfits, circling a bull ring, working out society‘s various ills with knife-edged humor and a
(tasteful) bit of gore. Warning: These are not your grandma‘s watercolors.
www.GuerreroProjects.com
2. Trenton Doyle Hancock: TEXAS: 1997–2017
The Gallery Formerly Known As Rice Gallery | Through November 17
After Art League Houston was flooded during Harvey, Rice University went all deux ex machi-
na on everyone and stepped in to host the Art League‘s brilliant fall show, a celebration of
20 years of Trenton Doyle Hancock‘s work. The result, in the beautiful, glass-fronted diorama
space that used to be Rice Gallery, is an elegant installation of painted wall text and framed
works that pays homage to the space‘s history as a place for installation art. This tight selec-
tion of Hancocks massive oeuvre, featuring drawings, prints, sketchbooks and sculptures,
doesn‘t disappoint. Not to be missed.
www.ricegallery.org
3. re/thinking photography: Conceptual Photography from Texas
FotoFest | October 20 –November 25
Houston Center for Photography | October 27 - December 3
Featuring more than 15 Texas - based photographers, re/thinking photography is a bien-
nial exhibition organized by FotoFest and the Houston Center for Photography. Spread out
between the two venues, the show includes Houston standbys like the artistic duo MANUAL
[Suzanne Bloom and Ed Hill], along with fresh out-of-town faces like Austin photographe r
Bucky Miller. Centered around the re-framing (no pun intended!) of photography, the pieces
in the show promise to provide new ways to consider the static image.
www.home.fotofest.org
www.hcponline.org
4. Tensile Strength
The Silos on Sawyer | October 21–December 2
Sculpture Month Houston is back with their second round of artists installing works in the
city‘s now-defunct Success Rice grain silos. Still very much a rough and nontraditional
space, the building‘s soaring towers make artists‘ installations take on a whole new feel –
last year's show saw Sharon Kopriva‘s crypt-like still lifes adjacent to the flowing floral won-
derland of Janice Freeman. In a space where artists have the option to completely transform
their surroundings, anything is possible.
www.sitegalleryhouston.com
5. Mickalene Thomas: Waiting on a Prime-Time Star
Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University | Through January 13, 2018
Also at Rice, the Moody Center for the Arts is hosting a blockbuster exhibition of paintings,
photographs, collages and prints by Brooklyn artist Mickalene Thomas. Using glitter, rhine-
stones and out-of-date patterns, Thomas‘ portraits intend to break down assumptions about
women (particularly Black women) in our society. It‘s a fearless show, the highlight of which
is a tableau1970s-style living room that Thomas has constructed using vintage fabric. Don‘t
miss the video of her mother that‘s playing on the TV.
www.moody.rice.edu
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