Glasstire

Jessica Fuentes speaks with Glasstire's recently appointed News Editor Nicholas Frank about growing up in Milwaukee, his artistic practice, and his writing career. “I felt right at home here... [Milwaukee and San Antonio are both] cities where the major redevelopments in the city are based on old German breweries. Both cities hinge their downtown redevelopment on the River Walk... they are both lo...

William Sarradet speaks with Jhonny Langer, a paint conservator and object restoration artist living in Galveston, about the history of the city and paint conservation on the Gulf Coast. “I’m starting to step back and look at what I’ve done over a period of time and realize that it is interesting. Before it was just a job, and now it is fascinating.” See related readings here: https://glasstire.co...

Jessica Fuentes and William Sarradet discuss summer exhibitions that are on view or opening later this season throughout Texas. “A Houston show I was very excited about was the “Tomashi Jackson: Across the Universe“ show that just opened at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. It's a midcareer survey, and it includes several bodies of work by Jackson, and they are all so powerful and compelling.”...

Brandon Zech and Jessica Fuentes talk about artistic legacies, including Damien Hirst's posthumous paintings, artists who have launched work into space, and artist foundations. “A lot of artists consider what happens with their body of work — with this momentum they’ve created during their lifetime — after their death. But, historically, people haven’t thought about the continuation of art making...

William Sarradet speaks with artist, lecturer, and Glasstire contributor Renee Lai about the inaugural Friends Fair and the Affordable Art Fair in Austin. “Every room that I went into, I looked in the bathroom first... I got my impression from each booth by what was going on in the bathroom. The more outrageous or custom or funny the bathroom was, the more it predisposed me to whatever else was in...

Jessica Fuentes speaks with art educator and author Laura Evans about her recently published book, “The Atlas of Art Crime: Thefts, Vandalism, and Forgeries.” “I remember learning about the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner theft… and then going to visit the museum in grad school and confronting those empty frames, where those works of art were stolen from, was really sobering. Seeing these holes, the...

William Sarradet speaks with Dallas artist Hava Toobian about the art, culture, and manuscripts they encountered during their recent trip to Ireland. “I didn’t know what to expect in a national contemporary art museum for the Republic of Ireland, and it was beautiful. It was an astute mixture of contemporary mediums and works in a historical building.” See related readings here: https://glasstire....

Jessica Fuentes, William Sarradet, and Brandon Zech discuss the trends they found at the 2025 Dallas Art Fair and the Dallas Invitational. "It stuck out to me thematically that there seemed to be a lot of landscapes and interiors — interiors of houses, some still lives. Overall the work felt a little more conservative to me than the Dallas Art Fair normally feels. Dallas is generally the most adve...

Jessica Fuentes and William Sarradet discuss recent news stories in Texas, including the controversy surrounding Sally Mann's work, the destruction of artwork installed at the Austin Convention Center, and the closure of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum. "The Modern (Art Museum of Fort Worth) had a notification at the entrance stating that the exhibition (Diaries of Home) contained mature co...

William Sarradet talks with gallerist Bart Keijsers Koning about the Dallas scene and the role galleries play in the art ecosystem. "An artist going directly from studio to museum is problematic because the language hasn't had a chance to encounter an audience and see what is clear, what isn't working and kind of fine tuning it. The museum's responsibility is to represent and clarify history, cult...

Jessica Fuentes and Gabriel Martinez talk about the book Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma and some of the cultural creatives who have committed monstrous crimes. "There aren't good celebrities and bad celebrities. They're all just people. There is a spectrum of behaviors with people. There's nobody that's purely good, and there are maybe a few people who are purely evil, but it's rare. It's kind of ridic...

Jessica Fuentes and William Sarradet discuss the role artists play in enacting political change in their industry and beyond. "What do we expect out of artists in these critiques? Do we expect the artist to make the change? — to be productive in forcing change? or is bringing awareness enough?" See related readings here: https://glasstire.com/2025/02/23/art-dirt-political-expression-in-the-arts If...

William Sarradet and Gabriel Martinez discuss two films from the late 70s whose protagonists embark on slow journeys and a third film that stages "Hamlet" inside "Grand Theft Auto." "I was completely awestruck. I was really grateful to see that yes it is true that you can make fictional film that is relatable and doesn't have to rely so much on artifice to be interesting or entertaining." See rela...

Jessica Fuentes, Gabriel Martinez, and Brandon Zech discuss the different types of immersive art spaces and the historical work that paved the way. "I've realized that the spaces that really affect me are the ones that put me into a weird situation and take me out of wherever I am, take me out of my body a little bit, and make me have to negotiate. But not everyone is gonna want something that cha...

William Sarradet talks with artist and educator Dr. Estelle Voisin-Fonteneau about the loss of Eros, the architecture of sacred spaces, and the written language of patriarchal societies. "I'm very interested in the idea of the sacred within the profane. The profane comes from the word profanum which is the space before the temple and that is where most of the rituals took place. It wasn't in the t...

Brandon Zech and Gabriel Martinez discuss memorable art events, exhibitions, and changes in the Texas art scene from 2024. "When budgets need to be cut the arts are always seen as expendable and even though the money that's funding the arts both locally in different cities across Texas and nationally through the National Endowment for the Arts is pennies compared to the overall budget, to the publ...

Jessica Fuentes and Gabriel Martinez talk about the cultural and political potential of Latinx Futurism. "A key component of Latinx Futurism is connecting back to past and ancestral knowledge – pre-colonial cultural ways of knowing. Seeing how different artists infuse that into their work is interesting to take note of...It's an acknowledgment of the knowledge and technology that existed." See rel...

William Sarradet and Gabriel Martinez review the photography, painting, and installation exhibitions that stood out this season. "This is one of the magical things about photography. It can be completely constructed and artificial or it can be as close to a document of reality as humanly possible." See related readings here: https://glasstire.com/2024/12/01/art-dirt-fall-roundup/ If you enjoy Glas...

William Sarradet talks with artist Jacqueline Overby about developing affordable art studios and their significance in building community. "MotherShip's presence there has helped solidify the scene in a way. By creating the San Marcos studio tour we've given the art community something that everybody gets to participate in. Everybody gets to come together and celebrate and it's something to be pro...

Brandon Zech and Gabriel Martinez discuss their experience visiting "Radio Tave," the new Houston branch of the Meow Wolf franchise. "One of the things about Meow Wolf and about the individual, but ultimately collective, authorship is that in someone's room, it doesn't say who the artist is, with a little plaque on the wall. It's about the experience — it's about the feeling that the room creates....

Jessica Fuentes talks with Christian Cruz about the challenges of performance work and the difficulties of its documentation. "I'm interested in investigating invisible labor, as opposed to any physical labor. Lately my work has been closer to what I call pink collar instead of blue collar which means it is the work of those that are caretakers." See related readings here: https://glasstire.com/20...

Jessica Fuentes and Gabriel Martinez discuss the Surrealist century and the slate of upcoming shows celebrating this influential movement. "It was important for María Elena Ortiz (curator of "Surrealism and Us") to use the term surreal because she was talking about this worldwide conversation. This is a movement that spanned great distances across the world." See related readings here: https://gla...

Gabriel Martinez talks with Robert Boyd about Charles Burns, Gary Panter, and the art of underground comics.  "The publishing industry doesn't work the way the art industry does. You have a royalty system. Whereas if you resell a painting, unless you're in California, the artist doesn't get anything." See related readings here: https://glasstire.com/2024/09/22/art-dirt-robert-boyd-on-the-art-of-un...

William Sarradet talks with Brian David Johnson about his time in Austin's robust art scene and his experience running Cloud Tree Gallery. "There's more art-making than there's ever been in the history of the world and I feel like that's only going to continue towards this notion that we'll all be artists someday." See related readings here: https://glasstire.com/2024/09/08/art-dirt-talking-with-b...

Jessica Fuentes and Gabriel Martinez discuss this summer's group exhibitions and upcoming fall shows. "Altering photographs has always been a possibility and a practice. I think sometimes people forget that or only think about the seemingly limitless possibilities now in the digital age and with AI, but photographers since the beginning of the camera have been altering images in different ways. "...