Houston Lands a Coveted International Art Festival for First Time, Celebrates in Food Hall Style: It’s a World Class Coup for H-Town

What: Nuit Blanche Houston 2019 Kickoff

Where: The soon-to-open Lyric Market in downtown

PC Moment: Festival Nuit Blanche is an acclaimed worldwide art bash, founded in Paris in 2002 and staged in different spots around the world each year since. In 2019, Festival Nuit Blanche will finally hit Houston, after previous iterations in world class cities such as Toronto, Melbourne, Singapore and Madrid.

Chairs Sofia Adrogué and Judy Nyquist held court over an internationally flavored, intimate gathering to celebrate Houston’s landing of the art festival.

The venue was the much buzzed-about Lyric Market, a soon-to-open, photogenic foodie destination nestled in the heart of downtown near the Theater District at 411 Smith Street.

About 60 well-heeled guests clinked cocktails – including a decadent concoction from Houston-based French wine importers BCI – al fresco in a toast to the hard work of Adrogué, Nyquist, and project director Laura Matesco, previously involved with Paris’ Nuit Blanche, in securing the vaunted festival for Houston.

Phoenicia catered the bites, including impressive fromage et charcuterie plates.

The artsy crowd was among the first to witness a sneak peek of the anticipated new food hall, and the first to learn the featured artists of Nuit Blanche 2019, including major headliner Leandro Erlich, a former MFAH Core Fellow, now based in Argentina, who will reprise an experiential public art piece previously staged in Paris.

Save the date: The free, city-wide celebration of contemporary art, Nuit Blanche 2019 arrives Saturday, April 6, 2019, in and around downtown Houston.

PC Seen: Debbie McNulty, director of the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, with artist husband Dean Ruck; Lyric Market’s Jonathan Enav; Visit Houston’s Jorge Franz; art advisor Lea Weingarten; Kathryn Rabinow; Robert McKinley with LD Systems; Abigail Ciscomani; Zenia Quintana; painter and UH professor Aaron Parazette; gallerist Cindy Lisica and María Inés Sicardi; Minnette Boesel; U.S. Trust’s Silvia Salle; collector and gallerist Mariana Valdes Debes and husband Bob Debes; conceptual artist and photographer Jan Rattia; figurative painter John Whaley Jr.; and Houston Grand Opera’s Hadia Mawlawi.