Abilene, Through the Looking Glass
A monumental blown-glass installation inside a sparkling new library reflects a city—one grappling with an AI boom and an insurgent book-banner—that’s defined by its slippery cultural identity.
Art
His Pet Monsters
Trenton Doyle Hancock uses '80s kid culture and an expansive fantasy world to explore identity, racial politics and growing up fundamentalist Christian.
‘Through the Repellent Fence’ Celebrates Art that Transcends Borders
In "Through the Repellent Fence," artists speak passionately of the centuries-old importance of cross-border relationships.
Why Did the City of Dallas Censor (and then Reinstate) a Public Art Project It Helped Fund?
This isn’t the first time Dallasites have gotten cold feet after agreeing to host public art that grapples with issues of race and class.
Adiós Utopia, Hello Texas
The first major U.S. show since 1942 of Cuban art comes to Houston.
The 10 Best Observer Stories of 2016: ‘Isn’t It Iconic?’
The price tag on a new public sculpture in San Antonio renews a 20-year debate over whether a city program creates art — or just controversy.
If These Walls Could Talk
The pictographs of the Pecos River have lasted millennia in a tempestuous desert, surviving mostly in silence. Now an archaeologist has cracked the code — and they can begin to speak again.
The Big Picture: Painting White Supremacy
San Antonio painter Vincent Valdez unveils a monumental work on the persistence of white supremacy in America.
Rattling Cages
Dallas artist Sedrick Huckaby’s new work portrays the grief of incarceration for black men and their families.
Meet the Texas Scholar Who Unearthed Walt Whitman’s 19th Century Clickbait
A closer look at the poet’s musings on “Manly Health.”