CURTAINS: Call for Proposals

The Center for American Architecture and Design at The University of Texas at Austin is pleased to announce a call for proposal for Curtains.

CURTAINS is a multi-site installation, exhibition, and publication event designed to explore the use of fabrics in contemporary art and architecture—not in the form of rigid tensile structures, nor in the form of cladding or upholstery, but in their more relaxed, natural forms: curtains associated with windows, yes, but also defining and activating spaces indoors and out, billowing overhead as canopies, catching and using wind like sails, creating shade, diffusing light, holding color in their folds, filtering views, absorbing sound, showing the wind, and making theater of the everyday.

The organizers will invite up to four artists/architects who choose a UT location to fabricate and install their proposals. A larger selection of the proposals received, considered solely on their artistic merits, will be published in the 19th volume of the award-winning book series CENTER: Architecture and Design in America as well as exhibited at the Mebane Gallery of Goldsmith Hall on the University of Texas campus entitled “Curtains.” The launch of CENTER 19: Curtains and the opening of the Curtains exhibition, with a keynote address by the artist Christo and an address by Petra Blaisse, is scheduled for October 18, 2013.

Round One of Proposals are due no later than March 14, 2013.

Memories of Blake Alexander

I never had a chance to meet Blake Alexander, who passed away one year ago today, but after perusing his library for the past six months I feel as if I have a strong sense of what he was like as both a professor and a person. One of the many ways he has revealed himself is through the gift inscriptions often found between the endpapers and cover pages of his books. These short, and often charming, messages show what an impact he had on his students as well as the high regard he was held in by his colleagues. I’m always touched when someone inscribes a book to me, and I’m sure Blake especially treasured these books with their sweet and thoughtful notes. Here are some of my favorites: