Houston’s Special Art Land Co-Op — Archway Gallery Does Things Differently, Driven By Artists Coming Together

Fluxus icon Joseph Beuys expanded the discourse on art and art history with his oft-repeated, ubiquitous statement: “Everyone is an artist.” Along with other Fluxus group artists, Beuys also elevated the idea of artists working collaboratively. The latter is exemplified at Houston’s artist-owned Archway Gallery, which brings Beuys’ beliefs to modern life. Archway will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year. This summer, the gallery hosted its 17th Annual Juried Exhibition,.

Forty-one works were selected to be exhibited in Archway’s front gallery, culled from a record-setting pool of 387 submissions from 226 artists. Curators Kay Sarver and Cecilia Villanueva decided on placement and arrangement of artworks in the front gallery. From this group of 41, juror Rick Lowe chose a list of winners after viewing and evaluating the artworks.

Lowe is well-known in the Houston arts community as the former executive director and co-founder of Project Row Houses. A MacArthur fellow currently represented by Gagosian, he also works as a professor of interdisciplinary practice at the University of Houston. His community-centric approach meshes with Archway’s ethos of artists unifying to create a democratic space where artists control how their art is presented.

“Because the work is a representation of the community, I wanted the exhibition to be that as well,” Lowe says. “How can I find work at the highest level, but in different mediums and different processes?

“There really is astounding variety in the exhibition. The formal elements of work that people are producing is really incredible. There’s work that is political. There’s serious work, work that makes you laugh. All the work in this show is worthy of being recognized.”

Lowe selected Mathieu JN Baptiste’s acrylic, oil and ink on canvas painting Ce Qui Dort en Moi (What Sleeps Within Me) as this year’s first place winner. Baptiste will receive a $500 cash price and guest artist privileges at Archway Gallery for the month of August. 

David Delgado won second place for his Pokemon x Oreo Tower made of bronze cast on granite. Lowe chose Michelle Vo’s Resilience, a stained glass work, for the Third Place award. Artists in the honorable mention category include Tuong-Phi Le, Lenie Caston-Miller, Alessandra Albin, Maddie Casagranda and Karla Garcia Burgos. 

The beneficiary of this year’s juried exhibition is Brave Little Company, a collective which occasionally stages theatrical works at Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston (MATCH). 

The jurying process was multi-layered. As Archway Gallery director Harold Joiner explains, jurors first view the submissions digitally, as the volume is so high that the gallery cannot physically accommodate every piece. However, the prize-winning works are selected in person. 

“I think it’s hard to get to know what the work is by looking at it from a photo or an image, so seeing it in real time and real light makes all the difference in the world,” Lowe says. “You get to see the texture of things and see the application of paint. You see details in ways that you can’t see (digitally).

“And when you see a work in person, you’re seeing the hand of that person — the human element. And that resonates. It has a feeling, an emotional impulse within it that touches you.”

Lowe emphasizes the importance of form in his jurying process.

“Looking at this group of works, there is a respect for form – just the form of making work,” he says. “The content varies. Some political, some humorous. But what I was most interested in was the way people really dig deep trying to keep alive this notion of form. Whether it’s in painting, sculpture or whatever. People are trying to push the boundaries of that.”

The Archway Gallery Mission

Originally hailing from New Mexico and residing in Houston for many years, Archway Gallery director Harold Joiner is both a retired architect and an artist known for creating sublime landscape paintings. He sees curation as a unique, important aspect of the gallery’s mission. 

“One thing that sets us apart from other artist-owned galleries is that we do curate the gallery,” Joiner tells PaperCity. “It isn’t entirely up to the individual artist as to how their work is hung. It makes us visually more stunning.”

Liz Conces Spencer, a co-chair for the exhibition alongside fellow artist Becky Soria, values the high-caliber output reflected in submissions for the juried exhibition at Archway. 

“As the artists brought the works in, one by one, every piece was ‘Wow, look at that…Wow, look at that!’ Every single piece elicited a really strong response, and we are thrilled to have a show of this caliber up in our gallery,” Spencer says. “It’s one of the strongest shows we’ve ever had.”

She also values the work of curators when it comes to presenting and assembling the 41 artworks exhibited in the show. 

“It’s interesting to watch the curators work,” Spencer says. “They will move things around two or three times to see how things sync together and communicate that unspoken visual effect on the viewer that we are trying to accomplish.”

Archway Gallery is located at 2305 Dunlavy Street. Learn more here. More information about Brave Little Company is available here.