The Other Side of Day for Night: How the Music Fest Uses Historic Venue to Make Art Nirvana

By Catherine D. Anspon // Dec 17, 2016

1/0

Day for Night art rules. Shoplifter's ethereal site-specific "Ghostbeast" holds court in an area of the cavernous first floor.

Setting up for Day for Night at the reborn site of the former Barbara Jordan U.S. Post Office, downtown Houston

The loading dock of the decommissioned post office gives clues to its former purpose.

Day for Night producer Omar Afra.

A wall label for one of the world-class light + sound installations: AV&C + Houze's "Phases."

On the second floor of the former main post office for the City of Houston, Russian collective Tundra's "Outlines."

The day before with Free Press Houston's Elizabeth Rhodes and PaperCity's music critic Matthew Ramirez.

A planetary moment by United Visual Artists entitled "Musica Universalis."

The art creations also spill outside: Golan Levin's "Ghost Pole Propagator."

Day for Night brings a concert lineup to Houston that is drawing national interest and international headliners. But what about the other part of the programming — the art component?

After a gritty walk through and behind the scenes tour the day before VIPS were admitted, a new reality became clear. The art of year two of this winter music festival lives up to the hype — and then some. While mega musical luminary and MoMA-exhibited Björk’s installation was still off limits and being tested, it will no doubt be extraordinary. The post-feminist iconoclast recently reclaimed her personal power after a rocky breakup with mega art star Matthew Barney, a breakup her music and installation are expected to allude to (through the filter of a fantastical world).

Still, there were plenty of new media light and sound artists to take in, that add depth and texture to one of the most extraordinary art venues in Texas —who would have thought that the former Barbara Jordan U.S. Post Office in downtown Houston could be the site of an art experience that would be the envy of many museums and also draw greater attendance than all the art fairs in Houston and Dallas combined. (It doesn’t hurt to have a surreal, postal relic with 1.5 million square-feet of indoor/outdoor space to play with.)

Credit Day for Night main man Omar Afra with once again tapping Manhattan-based producer of experiences (and artist) Alex Czetwertynski. Czetwertynski created music spectacles for talents ranging from Beyoncé and Madonna to Stevie Wonder and Santana, while at the same time also having a Masters in Philosophy from the Sorbonne studying questions on the juncture of the Body/Mind. Czetwertynski’s CV also includes running a film production company in Paris and directing a graphics firm in L.A. that worked on a super scale. It is his curatorial chops and ability to summon artists who traverse and seem to leap over the mere art world — from Paris-based, Tate London-shown Nonotak to Russian collective Tundra — who create dizzying environments to that give Day for Night its immersive, dystopian, hypnotic edge-of-the-universe flavor.

Like many adventures in art and life, Day for Night is ephemeral. If you don’t experience it now, like Woodstock, you’ll have to make do with mere images and stories from those who were there later.

Check out the complete schedule and ticketing info for this all-day Saturday and Sunday Day for Night here.