The Orange Show Presents Four Nights of Visionary Art Performances This Fall
Lonnie Holley, R.L. Boyce, Charalambides, and Bread and Puppet Theater descend on The Orange Show campus for immersive installations and concerts
The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art is pleased to announce a series of four dynamic performances taking place this Fall on its campus, celebrating an array of self-taught folk and visionary artists represented across the United States. Each will provide audiences with a unique opportunity to experience different forms of creative expression – from sculptural installation to large-scale puppetry and political activism to experimental sounds and region-specific musical improvisation. The Orange Show’s campus, comprised of The Orange Show Monument, Smither Park, and the Orange Show’s World Headquarters plays an important role in the setting for these four cornerstone events, providing both dramatic environments and a raw urban setting that compels viewers and participants to integrate themselves into the performance landscape, furthering the organization’s mission of celebrating the artist in everyone.
LONNIE HOLLEY – October 6-8, 2022
The Orange Show’s first Artist-in-Residency brings world-renowned, self-trained visionary artist Lonnie Holley to Houston for four days of workshops and lectures, culminating in a performance inside “The Docks.” Known primarily for his found object assemblages and immersive yard art installations, Holley’s practice was born out of struggle, hardship and perhaps more importantly, out of furious curiosity and biological necessity. His work has been described as “a narrative retelling of Black American history,” celebrating the successes of the Civil Rights movement and commenting on the struggle that still remains. His work can be found in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and on permanent display at the United Nations and in The White House Rose Garden. Since 2000, he’s parlayed an interest in home-taping into a series of acclaimed records on small indie labels and a second career as a touring musician.
During Holley’s residency at the Orange Show, he will be engaging with a curated group of advanced student and early-career artists to create assemblage sculptures utilizing castoff material from Houston junkyards. In addition, he will give a lecture at the University of Houston School of Art, and conduct a workshop for children ages 6-14 to teach them about purposeful upcycling of found objects and materials. His performance at the end of his stay will be performed within the sculptures he has created over the course of his residency.
Thursday, October 6 | 6-6:30PM
Artist Talk with Lonnie Holley
Dudley Recital Hall at University of Houston
4188 Elgin St. Houston, TX 77204
FREE TO ATTEND
Saturday, October 8 | 10AM-12PM
Kids Art Workshop with Lonnie Holley
Smither Park, 2441 Munger St., Houston, TX 77023
$10 – TICKET LINK
Saturday, October 8 | 7-9PM
An Evening with Lonnie Holley
“The Docks” at the Orange Show World HQ, 2334 Gulf Terminal Drive, Houston, TX 77023
$25 – TICKET LINK
R.L. BOYCE with LIGHTNIN’ MALCOLM – October 15, 2022
One of the most authentic and original proponents of the hypnotic, spontaneous Mississippi Hill Country Blues, guitarist R.L. Boyce was a protege of R.L. Burnside and Mississippi Fred McDowell. Once a drummer for Jessie Mae Hemphill and in the fife-and-drum bands of his uncle Otha Turner, Boyce turned to the guitar at age 22 and developed his craft slowly through countless gigs at juke joints and house parties. He was past 50 when he cut his first album, and his second album “Roll and Tumble,” recorded primarily in Boyce’s own front yard, was nominated for a Grammy award in 2018 for ‘Best Traditional Blues Album.’
His musical style, which he calls Hill Country Boogie, continues to flourish in and around his hometown of Como, Mississippi where he hosts regular “Picnics” – ditching the big rock festival for an unfiltered, authentic and intimate atmosphere, inviting the whole community out for blues education and tours, visual exhibits, and and all-night jam sessions. Boyce will be joined in Houston by his regular touring partner, Lightnin’ Malcolm, also a Mississippi native who has shared world stages with artists such as Robert Plant, Jimmy Buffet, The Black Keys, Widespread Panic, North Mississippi Allstars, Lucero and Gary Clark Jr.
R.L. Boyce with Lightnin’ Malcolm Live at The Orange Show Monument
Saturday, October 15 | 7-8:30PM
The Orange Show Monument
2401 Munger St. (Parking located at 2334 Gulf Terminal Drive, Houston, TX 77023)
$20 – TICKET LINK
CHARALAMBIDES – November 12, 2022
Among the most potent, enduring, and influential musical units to have risen from Houston’s storied early-90s underground scene, Charalambides is guitarist Tom Carter and vocalist Christina Carter. Their immersive, electro-acoustic soundscapes draw from psychedelic rock and folk music, but transcend any conventional notions of song form, favoring instead free improvisation strategies that shift with each individual performance. Reverb, backwards recording, extended instrumental jamming and the use of found sounds are all emblematic of Charalambides’ sound, and their movement between poles of tonality and atonality, utilizing volume, space, silence, and the scrape and hiss of steel on steel give them a unique and mesmerizing quality.
Charalambides with Jessica Ackerley Quartet Live at The Orange Show Monument
Saturday, November 12 | 7-10PM
The Orange Show Monument
2401 Munger St. (Parking located at 2334 Gulf Terminal Drive, Houston, TX 77023).
$20 – TICKET LINK
BREAD AND PUPPET THEATER – November 22, 2022
Ginormous puppets, fresh bread, and a fiercely progressive spirit are all hallmarks of the Bread and Puppet Theater experience. A community-based, social justice-oriented troupe formed in 1963, Bread and Puppet Theater have presented regular performances in their home state of Vermont, featuring expressive puppets and masks built on a monumental scale, activated by dozens of puppeteers. The group’s philosophical ethos – outlined in the “Cheap Art Manifesto” – declares that art has to be cheap and available to everybody; that it needs to be everywhere because it is inside the world; that art fights against war and stupidity; that while you can’t eat it, art feeds you; and that it does not belong to banks and fancy investors.
Coming to Houston for the first time, Bread and Puppet’s current touring show, “The Apocalypse Defiance Circus,” is, in the words of founder Peter Schumann, “in response to our totally unresurrected capitalist situation, not only the hundreds of thousands unnecessarily sacrificed pandemic victims but our culture’s unwillingness to recognize Mother Earth’s revolt against our civilization.” A rollicking spectacle of protest and celebration, the show features flag wavers, cardboard clowns, prancing blue horses and the Doing-The-Best-We-Can Brass Band. After the show, Bread and Puppet serves its famous sourdough rye bread and garlic aioli to the audience, and offers original posters, cards, banners, and books published by their own Bread and Puppet Press.
Bread and Puppet Theater present The Apocalypse Defiance Circus
Tuesday, November 22 | 6-9PM
“The Lot” at The Orange Show World Headquarters
2334 Gulf Terminal Drive, Houston, TX 77023
$20 or Pay What You Can – TICKET LINK
For the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art’s complete calendar of events, visit www.orangeshow.org/calendar.