Hip Houston Art Space Forced to Close Its Dallas Street Doors, But the Show Will Go On

Civic TV Collective, one of the few new punk-inspired burgeoning galleries/art spaces opening around the city, sits down Dallas Street, adjacent to 8th Wonder Brewery, and is part of a larger cultural hub that includes Francisco Practice Studios, GalleryHomeland and other DIY multidisciplinary venues such as The Summit and The Shop. Inspired by underground DIY ideals, New Orleans transplant Terry Suprean (a New Media teacher at St. Agnes) transformed his roughly 2,000-square-foot apartment into a cross-pollinating space for emerging artists to show alongside noise and techno bands.

Borrowing its name from David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (Civic TV was the name of the pirate channel that broadcast the twisted and the macabre in that film), Suprean’s conceptual gallery also functions as a hive for writers, photographers, editors and anyone with an idea to share that falls outside the traditional, elite, sometimes stuffy art scene. The gallery also includes new boutique Instant Crush, founded and curated by Suprean’s girlfriend, Julie Leveque, the other half of the Civic TV endeavor.

Offering jewelry, designer threads and a curated collection of cassettes and vinyl records from performing artists who’ve graced Civic TV’s floor, Instant Crush resides at the top of the stairs, an oasis from the DIY/BYOB party below. Just in: due to a sudden, unpredictable redevelopment of the space, CTVC was forced to close its location at 2119 Dallas.

However the CTVC brain trust will collaborate with Cardoza Fine Art for a performance by Phytosophie and the Invisible Man on Saturday, November 14 at Cardoza Fine Art. civictvcollective.com.