Hanging Around Austin

Hanging Around Austin: 4 November art shows to spice up your life

November is a great month for art. In addition to the East Austin Studio Tour, which is held November 14-16 and 21-23, there is a bounty of beautiful shows across town. From the haunting to the esoteric, our selections for this month's can't-miss shows run the artistic gamut.

HEIRLOOM: Featuring Adrian Landon Brooks and Megan Kimber
grayDUCK Gallery, through November 23

The arresting mixed-media work at grayDUCK this month is inspired by folk mystery and the sacred esoteric with hints of animalistic spirituality. Both artists bring haunting mythological depth to everyday objects in their work, and Brooks' bold figures on wood and paper mesh well with Kimber's disquieted pictorial stories of feral women and children.

Ellen Heck: Connections
Wally Workman Gallery, through November 29

This is Bay Area printmaker Ellen Heck’s fourth show at Wally Workman, and this time she's bringing an exhibit that's an exploration of identity, belonging and vulnerability through images of the gentle desperation of childhood. These thoughtful, softer images are crossed with color studies in tidy, sectioned circles, rigid in form but abstract, depicting places and things in synesthetic mind maps.

Miradas: Ancient Roots in Modern and Contemporary Mexican Art, Works from the Bank of America Collection
Mexic-Arte Museum, through November 30

It turns out that Bank of America has been amassing an excellent art collection over the last century or so, and Mexic-Arte invites you to explore a timeline of paintings, prints and photographs that illustrate the development of visual expression in artistic communities on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border. National Museum of Mexican Art Visual Arts Director Cesáreo Moreno serves as guest curator.

Scott Bickerton: Totemic Explorations
Gallery Black Lagoon, through December 7

Scott Bickerton’s work is an endless collaboration with gravity — that most persistently mysterious of cosmic forces — in which each assists the other in expressing images and concepts that neither alone could bring to life. Most days an appointment is required to browse the exhibit, but the doors are open to all during Black Lagoon’s annual WEST of EAST exhibition on November 14, 15, 22 and 23.

Megan Kimber at HEIRLOOM at grayDUCK Gallery.

Megan Kimber grayDUCK Gallery

Megan Kimber at HEIRLOOM at grayDUCK Gallery.

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Historic Austin museum will close for more than a year for restoration

Photo courtesy of the City of Austin

The Elisabet Ney Museum will close at the end of 2024 and reopen in mid-2026.

Every building needs some maintenance here or there, and the historic Elisabet Ney Museum needs some extra-special care. Formerly the art studio and residence of its namesake, it's been standing since 1892. It'll spend 2025 in relative solitude, as it undergoes renovation for a year and a half with no visitors allowed.

The museum will close to the public December 30, 2024, and open again in the summer of 2026 if all goes according to plan, a news release from the City of Austin shares. It'll be a quiet period compared to the 21,000 people visiting from around the world each year.

According to a museum overview on the city's website, Elisabet Ney, a European portrait sculptor, bought the property and called her new studio Formosa. She worked on sculptures depicting important Texans like Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston, and collected works of European contemporaries.

The building at 304 East 44th St. includes 3,700 square feet of museum space, which was converted by Ney's friends after her death in 1907. It retains its unique look that juxtaposes a Neo-Classical main studio from 1892 with a later addition from 1902 including a tower for her husband, Edmund, to write in. It is also on 2.5 acres of land, which has largely been restored to its natural state with native species.

A press release lists these tasks (verbatim) within the scope of the new work, referred to as the Capital Improvement Project (CIP):

Restoration of original exterior wood doors and windows
Upgrades and replacement of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system
Replacement of the exhibit and general lighting systems
Repairs to the roof, masonry, plumbing, and interior finishes.

There will also be work to do outside of the building. Workers will replace the pedestrian bridge across Waller Creek, stabilize a 20,000-square-foot portion of the bank, and make the grounds more accessible by adding new pathways.

Funding comes from several sources, according to a release: "the 2012 Bond, Proposition 14, the Parkland Dedication Fund, the Historic Preservation Fund, Partners in Preservation through the National Trust, and contributions from the Friends of the Elisabet Ney Museum."

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