THANK YOU MEMBERS, VOLUNTEERS, PARTNERS, AND SUPPORTERS !!!

It is because of you that:

ART CITY AUSTIN turned the center of downtown into a celebration of art, culture, and creativity

ART NIGHT AUSTIN showcased an array of artists and spaces that reflected the diversity of our city

DOWNTOWN HOLIDAY STROLL filled Congress Ave with creative energy and animated light projection

PECHAKUCHA inspires with insightful presentations that display the breadth of contemporary creativity

2013 Outstanding Volunteer and Partner Awards

become a member  —>>>  JOIN TODAY  <<<—  deepen your commitment to Art Alliance

We’re saying THANK YOU for volunteering by offering a discounted membership to Art Alliance.

We hope that your experience volunteering was fulfilling, rewarding, and fun! For many of  our volunteers Art Alliance Austin becomes an extended family, because we are a tight network of friends that share a common vision: to advance the city through art, culture and creativity through public life. Today we’re asking you to consider deepening your commitment to Art Alliance Austin and become a member. Our members are critical to this organization’s sustainability and any future growth is directly tied to your membership.

For the rest of the month of May we’re offering a reduced base membership of just $25 for those who have volunteered with us over the past year. The base membership includes member events/parties, staying up to date on projects, events, and happenings, and most importantly that great feeling of knowing that YOU are integral part of art in Austin.

Thank you for all that you do for us. We are forever grateful to our wonderful team of volunteers because without you this truly would not be possible.

Please visit our membership page to join today. Click here.

 

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BE A PART OF PUBLIC ART! – Make origami cranes at Art City Austin  and have your work installed as part of the alleyway project: 20ft WIDE.

Creative Action welcomes all ages to help fold 1,000 origami Peace Cranes during Art City Austin. The Peace Cranes, a symbolic reference to the ancient Japanese story that promises that anyone who folds a 1,000 cranes will be granted a favorable wish, will be incorporated into a sculptural installation in downtown Austin’s Alley #111 as part of 20ft Wide, a collaborative exhibition with Art Alliance Austin, opening the following weekend. Each Peace Crane maker, no matter their age, will include their wish for Austin’s public spaces, representing the collective action required to create the future city they desire.

Creative Action inspires thousands of young people to become creative artists, courageous allies, critical thinkers and confident leaders through high quality arts education.  www.creativeaction.org

For more information on the alleyway project please click the poster below:

The post make Peace Cranes for 20ft Wide at Art City Austin appeared first on Art Alliance Austin.

Art Night Austin: preview EAST
Enjoy a curated experience showcasing a dynamic selection of east Austin creative spaces on the evening of 11/8/12.

EXPERIENCE: Domy Books | Fisterra Studio | Caroline Wright + AgavePrint + El Chavez | Delta Millworks | Co-Lab Projects | Tiny Park Gallery | Haehnel House

EAT: Buenos Aires Cafe | Takoba | Tamale House East | Me So Hungry | Hillside Farmacy | Goodpop | Sugar Shack BBQ | Frank

DRINK: Drambuie | Bombay Sapphire | Deep Eddy Vodka | Avion Tequila | Austin Beerworks | Midnight Moon Moonshine WINES: Llano Estacado Winery | Multicarte Wine & Spirits | Kobrand Wine & Spirits | Small Vineyards | Becker Vineyards

RIDE: Enjoy continuous shuttles to each location throughout the night!

DANCE: DJ Gmau | DJ Ariel | DJ Jah Karma | DJ Willington Blastoff | DJ Sean | Snapping Chowsky

Download your event program HERE!

Purchase your tickets HERE!

Pick up your tickets at will-call! 1101 East 11th Street. Starting at 4pm!

Volunteers recieve discounted tickets! To sign up click HERE!

The post Art Night Austin: E.A.S.T. appeared first on Art Alliance Austin.

In partnership with the Downtown Austin Alliance, Art Alliance Austin is one of the 105 Finalists for the ArtPlace Grant. We are excited to be a part of this team!

A little more about the Grant from ArtPlace’s website:

“ArtPlace is a collaboration of 13 leading national and regional foundations and six of the nation’s largest banks. ArtPlace also seeks advice and counsel from close working relationships with various federal agencies, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the departments of Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Education, and Transportation, along with leadership from the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Domestic Policy Council.

The selected applicants represent the best of the 1,225 letters of inquiry from across the country. Inquiries came from 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and American Samoa.

Finalists were chosen for their potential to transform communities through placing art and culture at the heart of portfolios of integrated strategies that drive vibrancy and diversity.”

The post 2013 ArtPlace Grant Finalist in partnership with the Downtown Austin Alliance appeared first on Art Alliance Austin.

Art Night Austin 2013 features 2 pop-up gallery spaces in the 2ND Street District. 

One will be curated by Sonia Dutton, the brilliance behind Champion Contemporary. That space will feature new work from artists Dan Sutherland, Bethany Johnson and Brad Tucker showing new paintings, drawings, and sculpture that undo and unravel ideas of form.

Bethany Johnson. Born 1985. Lives and works in Austin. Johnson was born in LaPorte, IN and earned her BA in studio art at Kalamazoo College, MI in 2007 and her MFA in Painting from University of Texas at Austin in 2011. She has exhibited at the Visual Arts Center, Austin, Creative Research Laboratory, Austin, with a solo show at Moody Gallery, Houston, in 2012. She has upcoming solo shows at AMOA-Arthouse, Austin, and the McKinney Avenue Contemporary, Dallas. Among other honors, Johnson is the 2011 recipient of the Art League of Austin Scholarship, and has held residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and Denkmalschmiede Höfgen in Germany.

For a full list of details on this amazing night click here.

For tickets click here.

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Farfalle (Italian for butterflies) takes audiences of all ages on a unique journey through the lifecycle of a butterfly. Compagnia TPO, a visual theatre group from Prato, Italy, uses digital technology and multimedia to transform the stage into a beautiful, virtual landscape filled with images of plants, insects and vibrant colors where dancers gracefully weave the story against a backdrop of light and sound.

Check out other videos of TPO and their upcoming performance in Austin during Art Night Austin, tickets are available now:

The post Compagnia TPO at Art Night 2013 appeared first on Art Alliance Austin.

And, whether you enjoyed Art Night Austin 2013 or missed it. You can feel like you’re reliving it here:

on instagram

at austin360

on ynn

LOVED ART NIGHT? Here are more ways to support everything that Art Alliance does:

Become a member of Art Alliance Austin!

Make a tax deductible donation!

The post Art Night Austin – Thank You appeared first on Art Alliance Austin.

Art Night Austin 2013 features 2 pop-up gallery spaces in the 2ND Street District. 

One will be curated by Sonia Dutton, the brilliance behind Champion Contemporary. That space will feature new work from artists Dan Sutherland, Bethany Johnson and Brad Tucker showing new paintings, drawings, and sculpture that undo and unravel ideas of form.

Dan Sutherland. Born 1966. Sutherland received his MFA from Syracuse University and his BFA from James Madison University. Dan lives and works in Austin Texas and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Texas at Austin. He has exhibited his work thoughout the country including; the Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas- Fort Worth and is represented by Moody Gallery, and affiliated with David Shelton Gallery in Houston and Dutton, Austin.

For a full list of details on this amazing night click here.

For tickets click here.

The post Art Night Austin 2013 Artist: Dan Sutherland appeared first on Art Alliance Austin.

 20ft WIDE: activating alley #111 on 9th between Congress and Brazos

April 17th to April 21st

A case study in transforming a downtown alley into a vibrant public open space—the activation includes a mix of installations and multi-generational happenings connecting us with the dynamic past, present and future roles of Austin’s urban alley system.

20ft Wide derives its name from the 20 feet that serve as the standard width for Austin’s downtown alleys as noted on the 1839 city map by Edwin Waller.

Schedule of Events Overview

Scroll down the page for details….

ARTIST STATEMENT

Austin’s downtown alleys remain largely unnoticed. Yet, these public spaces are in danger of being removed by super-block developments, which will alter the character and scale of the city fabric. 20ft Wide seeks to bring awareness and appreciation to this urban space, to foster discussion about the role of the alley in the city, while simultaneously generating new possibilities for its use.

Active with service functions and vehicular deliveries, the alley must be envisioned as a new kind of public space – something temporary, dramatic, multi-use, and pop-up. Our intention for 20ft Wide is two-fold. First, is to underline the features of the alley, to elevate its presence and expose its utilitarian beauty. Second, is to transform the experience of the space. The installation creates a backdrop or context for new public activities to occur in this space in-between.

The design approach is simple yet dramatic. Inspired by a child’s craft, colored twine knits the architectural elements of the alley, creating a sculpture of floating planes that soar above and extend out of the alley. These layers reshape the alley and provide an ever-changing perspective as one moves through the space. Integrated into these geometric forms, hundreds of paper origami cranes, created by local children, spring from a single fire stair, take flight, and spread into a natural formation as they head toward the sky. Together, these elements set the stage for the activities and people that will give this public space new life.

ARTIST BIOS

1,000 PEACE CRANES:  By Creative Action

Engaging the public through their after school programs and at Art City Austin, Creative Action teaching artists and young people across Austin, hand-folded 100s of origami paper cranes to be incorporated into the overhead sculptural installation seen in Alley #111. 1000 Paper Cranes is drawn from the ancient Japanese legend where anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish. Here in Austin, we invite the public to share their wishes for a peaceful future through making their own origami peace crane.

About Creative Action: The mission of Creative Action is to spark and support the academic, social and emotional development of young people. Through interactive classroom performances, after school arts residencies and community-based programs, Creative Action’s professional teaching artists inspire youth to be creative artists, courageous allies, critical thinkers, and confident leaders in their community.

For more info on Creative Action visit their website: creativeaction.org

find all 4 sound pieces on our soundcloud page

SOUND DESIGN By Steve Parker in partnership with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology:

In collaboration with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, performer, educator and arts collaborator, Steve Parker has created a soundscape that uses the an array of Central Texas bird calls that are both nocturnal and diurnal.

Based in Austin, Steve Parker is active as a performer, educator, and arts collaborator. He is presently on faculty at The University of Texas at San Antonio and is Artist-In-Residence at the Blanton Museum of Art and the Asian Arts Initiative in Philadelphia.  He previously worked as a J. William Fulbright Scholar in Germany and a Donald D. Harrington Fellow at The University of Texas at Austin.

As a soloist, Steve has performed in the US, Europe, Asia, and South America, with performances at the Spoleto Festival, futureplaces (Portugal), Santa Fe New Music, Bowerbird (Philadelphia), Roulette (NYC), BACKFABRIK (Berlin), HPR’s From the Front Row (Houston), and the Gene Siskel Film Center (Chicago).An advocate of new music, Steve has commissioned or premiered over 100 new works, working with composers Helmut Lachenmann, Corey Dargel, Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe, and David Lang. He is an artist of Ensemble Signal, described as “a new music dream team” (TONY), with appearances at Tanglewood, the Guggenhem Museum, Le Poisson Rouge, and the Bang on a Can Marathon.  His performances can be heard on NPR’s Performance Today, PBS Newshour, and on Bridge, Cantaloupe and Mode Records.

In the orchestral realm, he has performed with the Malaysian Philharmonic, Jacksonville Symphony, Sarasota Opera, Artosphere Festival Orchestra, and New World Symphony, with fellowships at the Lucerne Festival with Pierre Boulez and Ensemble InterContemporain, Music Academy of the West, and the National Repertory Orchestra.

Winner of the 2012 Austin Critics’ Table Award, Steve is the founder and director of SoundSpace at the Blanton Museum of Art.  SoundSpace is a concert series that features simultaneous, cross-disciplinary performances throughout the museum’s galleries.

Steve holds degrees from UT Austin, Rice, and Oberlin in Mathematics and Music.

SPATIAL DESIGN By TBG’s Chris Jackson and Nicole Warns:

DESIGN INTENT

Nestled between historic limestone walls and suspended fire escapes, the utilitarian alley will be temporarily transformed into a comfortable, pop-up experience. Contradicting the stereotype associated with alleys, the initiative will encourage and support a variety of uses including, but not limited to, yoga, coffee house (wi-fi), live music, yard games, mini-library, outdoor dining, idea generation and presentation, etc.  Using elements synonymous with service, function, and even waste found in a typical alley, the design morphs these features into shapes and textures that encourage social interaction. For example, stacked pallets as staging, seating, and planters, polystyrene foam as steps, seating and display, and burlap bags stuffed with donated clothing as cushions.  All of these elements will encourage a life cycle and re-use of materials in nonconventional ways.  Finally, “pop-up” vegetation will be utilized as a symbol of nature’s perseverance and regenerative ability, even in the most impervious and harsh urban places.  This composition will display the opportunities and potential for one of the most neglected public environments of our cityscape.

DESIGNER BIOS

BIRD SILHOUETTES:  Designed and Painted by Griffon Ramsey with Assistance by Burl Norville

Griffon Ramsey is a visual artist, committed to the creative transformation of space with the use of everyday materials; paper, paint, wood, fabric and found objects. Beginning her career in theatrical design, she learned to make highly artistic creations with often limited resources. Recently she designed and helped coordinate the installation of new playground markings at all of the elementary schools in the Austin Independent School District. Not only do the markings promote “active” learning by engaging the children physically, socially and mentally during free time, they have also been incorporated as an outdoor classroom tool.

Burl Norville is a local artist who lost his hearing a decade ago, and has since been working to use visual art as his creative outlet to replace his former preference and self-proclaimed obsession – Music. Art and drawing has always been a part of his life, and he is thankful to have it as an outlet.

Schedule of events – details:

OPENING PARTY DETAILS:

 More information coming weekly … so check back soon and learn about how you can get engaged in this project.

The post 20ft WIDE appeared first on Art Alliance Austin.

More than 100 temporary outdoor galleries are set against the streets, plazas, and green spaces along Cesar Chavez where the award-winning Austin City Hall rests on the banks of Lady Bird Lake. Featuring work in mediums ranging from paint and photography, metal and wood, sculpture and paper, fiber and succulents, meet more than 100 artists exhibiting at the outdoor art fair in the 2ND Street District, Austin’s flourishing and hip downtown retail and cultural district. We’re proud to announce this year’s list of artists…

Art City Artist Image Index

Artists:

 BUYING ARTWORK? Transport your art purchases in style!

Ask artists for YellowCab vouchers, redeemable for a free ride from the festival grounds to your car!

MORE ART …

KEEP EXPLORING and learn all about Art City Austin through the links below:

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912 Congress: April 5th to May 5th

The temporary hub will investigate the role of contemporary culture in advancing the vision of a vibrant, people oriented Congress Avenue. A retail space in transition, the site will be activated with a diversity of artist-led uses to understand the potential and responsibilities of improving quality of place. Project funded in part by the Downtown Austin Alliance.

Schedule of Events Overview

Scroll to the bottom of the page for details….

See Wha’m Sayin’

Saturday April, 27th & Sunday April, 28th

Salvador Castillo will host a series of artist interviews conducted in a Late Night talk show format. 16 episodes will be produced to air during the Spring Season 2014. Interviews will address the overarching question of “How does Austin make art?” with the first half dozen interviews focusing on collectives and partnerships.  Collectives include MASS, Up Collective & Ink Tank.

 912 Congress will play host to 2 of the 12 artists participating in transFIGURATION

transFIGURATION is a visual arts collaborative project that includes elements of performance and a series of reflections on identity, authorship, memory, and ritual in art production. It is based on a concept developed by photographer Rino Pizzi and will unfold as a process of exchange, transformation, and appropriation in collaboration with 12 visual artists. Artists will initially sit for a photographic portrait, then they will receive a print that they will damage/destroy it in their own terms. For many of the artists this stage of the process will take place as a public event, such as a performance or a “happening” during the Fusebox Festival (see schedule). In the second stage artists will restore, reintegrate or mend the damaged/destroyed images, again with complete freedom with regard to the extent and nature of the restorations, techniques, imagery and media involved.

 

JADE WALKER

Thursday, April 18th, 5:30pm

April 18th’s edition features the work of JADE WALKER titled Sharing and includes three characters (fitter, bouncer, maker), a skin-toned work space, one large mirror and a set of wearable prostheses. During the course of this intimate performance, Walker invites viewers to become participants in an ongoing examination of the human body intersecting with inanimate objects that fill our livable spaces. The performance will include an active workspace dedicated to producing wearable versions of the body, refashioned through the lens of the artist’s portrait.

Walker received her BFA from the University of Florida and her MFA from The University of Texas at Austin. She was the venue coordinator at the Baughman Center, a division of the University of Florida Performing Arts Center and held a position at the Austin Museum of Art before becoming the Visual Arts Center Director at UT Austin. Her work has been exhibited throughout Texas and at Centro Cultural de Nuevo in Mexico.

 

CATHERINE LEE

Monday, April 22nd, 10am to Tuesday, April 23rd at 5pm

“Having grown up in the panhandle of Texas and being a minimalist at heart, I will both obliterate my portrait and create a new abstract painting in one action lasting approximately 16 hours. A stop action film will be produced of this process, which will of course prove the preeminence of abstraction over realism.” — Catherine Lee

912 Congress will play host to an archive of the multitude of work performed in alley #111 as part of the 20ft WIDE project. Including the work of Dan Cheetham, Michelle Tarsney, Creative Action, TBG, Matthew Winters, Steve Parker and more.

Austin’s downtown alleys remain largely unnoticed. Yet, these public spaces are in danger of being removed by super-block developments, which will alter the character and scale of the city fabric. 20ft Wide seeks to bring awareness and appreciation to this urban space, to foster discussion about the role of the alley in the city, while simultaneously generating new possibilities for its use.

Active with service functions and vehicular deliveries, the alley must be envisioned as a new kind of public space – something temporary, dramatic, multi-use, and pop-up. Our intention for 20ft Wide is two-fold. First, is to underline the features of the alley, to elevate its presence and expose its utilitarian beauty. Second, is to transform the experience of the space. The installation creates a backdrop or context for new public activities to occur in this space in-between.

find all 4 sound pieces on our soundcloud page

Schedule of events – details:

WED. April, 17th

THR. April, 18th

FRI., 19th

SAT. April, 20th

SUN., 21st

MON. April, 22th & TUE. April, 23rd

SAT. April, 27th  & SUN. April, 28th

Here’s an overview:

The post 912 Congress: April 2013 appeared first on Art Alliance Austin.

Come hear a lineup of musical performances that reflects the diversity and quality of the Austin and Texas music scenes. From Texas folk, to rock, to gospel, to positive hip-hop, soul, and world rhythms. Here is this year’s lineup with brief descriptions…

Musical lineup:

Details …

Listen NOW! …

KEEP EXPLORING and learn all about Art City Austin through the links below:

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Food this year will be a taste of Austin through food trucks. Check out who is coming below.

Beer this year will feature Real Ale’s Lost Gold IPA (Blanco, TX) and Alamo Beer (San Antonio, TX).

Food Trucks …

KEEP EXPLORING and learn all about Art City Austin through the links below:

The post ART CITY AUSTIN 2013 – EATS & DRINKS appeared first on Art Alliance Austin.

Every year the Kids Block invites kids to create and play with fun arts activities. Expect the same this year!

Learn how to make origami peace cranes with Creative Action. Then give your cranes to be installed in a public art project that activates a downtown alleyway along with other art installations and events. The purpose is to test how various public spaces can be used – including in different and unusual ways.

Additional activities include making marble paintings with Abrakadoodle, exploring with the Austin’s Childrens’ Museum, making masks with Mexic-Arte Museum, a project called Build a City with Umlaud Sculpture Garden and much much more!

Art Alliance Austin’s Kid’s Block is supported by Time Warner Cable.

Activities …

KEEP EXPLORING and learn all about Art City Austin through the links below:

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Where is Art City?

Downtown Austin – Cesar Chavez Street at Austin City Hall (from Lavaca Street to Lamar Boulevard) including the S. 1^st Street Bridge. North entrance located on Guadalupe and south entrance on the S. 1^st Street Bridge.

View Art City Austin 2013 in a larger map

The Art City experience begins on the way here. Celebrate the city and the event with the choices you make:

01) Ride your bike using a safe route — check out Ride the City or the City of Austin’s bicycle map. Use the  bike valet service at the First St. Bridge and get in free to ArtCityAustin.

02) Use our free parking and shuttle from MLK and Congress, near the Bob Bullock and Blanton museums. Click here.

03) Plan your transit trip with Capital Metro. Free admission to Art City Austin with a valid Capital Metro same-day or monthly pass.

04) Take a walk on the Lady Bird Lake Trail. Let the Trail Foundation’s interactive map  be your guide.

05) Pick up a smart car from car2go. Find an available vehicle here.

06) Drove to the fest and buying artwork? Transport your art purchases in style! Ask artists for YellowCab vouchers, redeemable for a free ride from the festival grounds to your car!

07) Download the RideScout app. With the RideScout app, users can access car2go and Capital Metro in one simple interface. Download here.

KEEP EXPLORING and learn all about Art City Austin through the links below:

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