HOUSTON (July 19, 2024) – Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) and Houston First Corporation (HFC) have formed a new partnership, titled Houston First x CAMH, designed to bring art into highly trafficked public spaces in Downtown Houston.
Officially launched earlier this year with the debut of two art presentations. Houston First x CAMH engages artists to exhibit existing or new site-specific work in HFC’s Partnership Tower office building and the George R. Brown Convention Center. Both spaces see significant foot traffic from both locals and visitors alike, fostering deeper connection between the public and the arts.
Presentations are curated by CAMH’s Senior Curator and Director of Public Initiatives Ryan N. Dennis and Curator Patricia Restrepo, centering local and regional artists with the goal of showcasing Houston’s diversity of artistic expression.
The inaugural installations on the first and second floors of Partnership Tower include work by two Houston-based artists: Kaneem Smith and Gerardo Rosales. Smith’s presentation is part of an ongoing series of fabric wall-based artworks entitled Laborscapes, imaging land-portraits through dyed cotton canvas that merge archeological and ancestral imaginations of space. Rosales’s large-scale mural spans three walls within Partnership Tower, intricately layered with personal symbolism and folk mythology that reflects the artist’s experience as an immigrant in Houston.
“This unique collaboration with CAMH enables us to bring a dynamic rotation of art into our facilities—adding a new dimension to these spaces and introducing the public to Houston area artists,” said Michael Heckman, President and CEO of Houston First.
CAMH is committed to expanding artist’s impact outside of the traditional Museum gallery setting,” says CAMH Executive Director, Hesse McGraw. “We’re thrilled to partner with Houston First to connect Houston’s visitors and residents to the rich contemporary artistic landscape of our city, and amplify our city’s working artists to travelers from around the world.”
Kaneem Smith’s and Gerardo Rosales’s work will be on view through August 4, 2024. The next round of artists to exhibit in the space will be announced shortly, with artwork on view in Fall 2024.
For photos of art, artists featured in Houston First Corporation’s Partnership Tower go here.
Photo above: Artist Kaneem Smith with her pieces in Partnership Tower
About Houston First Corporation
Houston First Corporation is leading the effort to promote Houston as one of the great cities of the world. Their employees operate the city's finest convention, arts, and entertainment venues. A local government corporation formed in 2011, Houston First’s responsibilities include the development of the destination brand strategy, promoting the city worldwide, driving tourism and convention business, operating numerous facilities, producing events that serve the community, collaborating with
About Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH)
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston presents extraordinary, thought-provoking arts programming and exhibitions to educate and inspire audiences nationally and internationally.
Established in 1948, CAMH is one of the country's oldest non-collecting contemporary art museums and is internationally known for presenting pivotal and landmark work by artists recognized as the most important of the 20th and 21st centuries. CAMH’s mandate is to be present, to connect artists and audiences through the urgent issues of our time, and to adventurously promote the catalytic possibilities of contemporary art. CAMH’s programming, both in and beyond the Museum, is presented free to the public and advocates for artists’ essential role and impact in society.
Kaneem Smith (1st Floor Lobby of Partnership Tower)
Kaneen Smith was born in Buffalo, NY, and raised and based in Houston where she is a practicing visual artist and fine arts educator. She studied at Rice University and the Maryland Institute College of Art before receiving her Bachelor of Arts Degree from Sarah Lawrence College, and then her Master of Fine Arts Degree from Syracuse University. Her work has been included in numerous venues such as Artpace, San Antonio; the African American Museum in Dallas; Art League Houston, Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ; Amarillo Museum of Art; National Art Gallery, Athens Greece; Lima Art Museum, Peru; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Among her many accomplishments, exhibitions, awards and residencies, Smith was the recipient of visual arts fellowships through the Edwrd F. Albee Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, Atelierhaus Hilmsen Residency for Artists in Germany, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Aradia, and the Creative Capital Foundation in New York. Kaneen Smith is represented by Nicole Longnecker Gallery, Houston, Texas.
Gerardo Rosales (2nd Floor Landing of Partnership Tower)
Gerardo Rosales, born in Venezuela, is a multidisciplinary artist and educator who has been living and working in Houston, Texas, for 19 years. Rosales first started producing art as a self-taught artist, before attending the Armando Reveron Art Institute in Caracas, Venezuela, where he earned a B.A. in Fine Art. After graduating, he moved to London to study at Chelsea College of Art and Design, where he obtained an M.A. in Fine Art.
Achieving recognition for his distinct and original work in Latin America’s best known art venues, Rosales has continued developing his art career in Houston. Rosales’ art calls attention on issues of class, race, gender and sexuality, at time with biting humor, while other times with loaded, painful drama.
Rosales was previously an artist-in-residence at The Lawndale Art Center in Houston, and was recently awarded the 2019 Support for Artists and Creative Individual Grant from the City of Houston, through the Houston Arts Alliance.
Rosales was the first artist to have an installation in Partnership Tower in 2021 on the 1st Floor Lobby, He is excited to return to the space with his site-specific work for the 2nd Floor.
Contacts
Carolyn Campbell | Director of Corporate Media Relations
Houston First Corporation
carolyn.campbell@houstonfirst.com
Michael Robinson | Marketing and Communications Manager
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
mrobinson@camh.org
