Err, or on second thought, keep your parts in their appropriately-covered places and leave the modeling to the professional in the room. After a four month long hiatus, this Sunday, October 3rd marks the highly anticipated chapter re-launch of Dr. Sketchy Austin. The group is now under new leadership boasting new ideas, new themes and models announced months in advance, as well as a new venue. more ›

Ahh, Toy Joy... no other business can capture the overstimulating ethos of Keeping Austin Weird quite like they do. This Thursday, everyone's favorite retailer of inflatable horses, sushi shaped erasers, and self-adhesive mustaches is hosting their second annual art show, The Fine Art of Fun. This family friendly art spectacular will feature work that exemplifies Toy Joy's adoration for all things cute and creepy. Thursday's show will appeal to kids and grown-ups alike with pieces created by local artists, some of whom are part of Toy Joy's talented staff. The Fine Art of Fun is a free, one night only show and takes place on Thursday, July 8th from 7pm to midnight. Musical entertainment will be provided by Achachay, The Sour Notes, Mother Falcon, and The Department of Public Safety. Tasty sponsors of the show include GoodPop, Tom's Tabooley, Sugar Mama's Bakeshop, and Maine Root. Chew well! more ›

Looking for something to do tonight? Experience some high-brow culture on a low-class budget at the Blanton's Third Thursday event. Admission to the Blanton is free every Thursday, and on the third Thursday of each month, they stay open until 9pm and host special events. The evening kicks off with yoga in the galleries starting at 6:30pm. Yogis of all levels are invited to stretch and bend right alongside some inspiring works of art. At 7:30pm, Blanton curators will lead a tour and discussion with art collectors Mike Chesser and Faith and Dewayne Perry. Both Chesser and the Perrys recently donated new art to the Blanton that is being displayed in the summer exhibition New Works for the Collection. New Works features more than sixty new acquisitions and strengthens the museum's already strong collection of printmaking works, contemporary paintings, sculpture, and new media art. more ›

Arthouse's annual 5x7 art show and sale is right around the corner so we decided to ask this year's Guy In Charge to fill us in on the details. You may recognize James Moody from the Mohawk, or Transmission Entertainment, or Fun Fun Fun Fest, or Austin Monthly's Bachelor Issue, or well, he's just about everywhere these days. Moody is also the chair of the 5x7 committee and the mastermind behind this year's happenings. On Thursday, join Moody for the 5x7 Art Splurge - this swanky, catered affair will be the first opportunity to purchase art from over 900 participating artists. On Friday, the Art Social will feature music by Balmorhea and snacks from Frank. Due to construction at Arthouse, this year's 5x7 will be held at the Whitley Printing Building (at 301 Brazos) and the exhibit will only be on display in Austin Thursday through Sunday. Tickets to Thursday and Friday night's happenings can be purchased online and admission to the show on Saturday and Sunday is free. Proceeds from the sale of art (all pieces cost $100) go directly to the Arthouse's programs, exhibits, and education events which are always free to attend. more ›

Next week, Arthouse is continuing another annual art tradition by presenting this year's installment of their FIVE x SEVEN art show and sale. Each year, Arthouse asks hundreds of artists to contribute one (or more) pieces of art measuring five by seven inches to the exhibit. Each work is then sold for $100 - to keep the playing field level, and to assure that everyone is buying art because they like it (a novel idea, we know!), the artist's identity remains a secret until a purchaser has handed over a crisp Ben Franklin. Artists participating this year include Sterling Allen, Leah DeVun, Sam Sanford, Fritz Haeg, and nearly a thousand others. Although each artist is constrained by a small canvas size, many do amazing things and we've seen some amazing three dimensional and multi-media pieces at 5x7's past. more ›

rt Week Austin heats up with Pecha Kucha Night Volume 8 this Thursday. In the Starr Building, starting at 8:20 pm sharp, a line-up of 12 local mavens will have just 600 seconds each to provide insights about their respective creative fields. This Tokyo-born tradition of straightforward slide presentation keeps things dynamic with a time limit of 20 seconds per image. more ›

Art Week Austin is warming up with an opening Art Talk taking place tonight at the Carver Museum. This evening's speaker, Dan Cameron, is a New York based curator with ties to the New Orleans. After Katrina, he organized Prospect New Orleans, the premiere biennial of international contemporary art in the nation. The first Prospect, which took place at the end of 2008, temporarily turned the Big Easy into a contemporary art metropolis. Tonight Cameron will be in Austin discussing Prospect New Orleans and how it helped invigorate our neighbors to the east. An accomplished curator himself, Cameron will also provide insight into current trends in the vast (and often daunting) world of contemporary art. He will also discuss the selection process for the next Prospect New Orleans which is scheduled for November 2011 through February 2012. more ›

On Thursday, New York based Sina Najafi, the editor-in-chief of Cabinet Magazine, will be in town as part of the on-going Visiting Lecturer Series presented by Arthouse. The series began last fall as a way to bring world renowned figures in contemporary art to Austin to benefit our visuals artists and art community. In conjunction with the free lecture series, the program also brings art professionals to conduct studio visits with selected area artists. more ›

This Saturday marks Art Alliance Austin's 7th Annual Art Night Austin. Accompanying the visual feast from premier local galleries will be mouthwatering sides from culinary partners ranging from Botticelli's South Congress Italian to Frank's artisan sausage, all between sips of wine. The private peek showcases artist work that won’t be on public display until Art Week Austin 2010 in late April, the city’s largest and longest running outdoor fair, culminating April 24-25 with Art City Austin (formerly the Austin Fine Arts Festival). Attendees of this weekend's exclusive event will have the opportunity to visit eight unique gallery spaces with a chauffeured event shuttle offering curbside service to each exhibit's doorstep throughout the night. more ›

February is the month in which to celebrate all things hot and sexy; never mind that we're sopping wet, freezing cold, and that a stupid rodent prophesied six more weeks of winter. Lucky for us, the Blanton Museum of Art is ushering in February in style with their new exhibit, Desire. The group show, which opens on Friday with a very special B scene art party, includes recent work by international contemporary artists responding to the complex human emotion of desire. This major exhibition, commissioned by the Blanton, includes a full roster of events including special guest speakers, a film series, and gallery tours. Singer songwriter Suzanna Choffel and DJ Nicknack will entertain at Friday's B scene opening reception. Attendees can tour the new exhibit, participate in art activities, and join the Austinist crew to play an interactive game designed to facilitate mingling, art appreciation, and maybe even love connections! As always, the Blanton will provide free appetizers, tours, and access to a cash bar, and because this month marks the opening of a new exhibit, museum members get free admission to this event (general public tickets cost $12). more ›

Those of us struggling to make our livings following our creative passions have been hit especially hard by the economic downturn. Luckily, here in Austin, we're in good company - surrounded by countless talented artists, we have people to turn to for advice, collaboration, and most of all support. In that spirit, Domy Books has teamed up with Chicago based Temporary Services to present Art Work: A National Conversation about Art, Labor, and Economics. Art Work is a newspaper and website consisting of writing by artists, academics, and activists responding to the recession and discussing how it has affected the creative process and artistic compensation. Domy will act as the Austin distribution hub for the publication and is hosting tonight's discussion which is being organized by Claire Ruud, editor of ...mightbegood, and artist Kate Watson. The 32-page paper will be distributed throughout the country and in Puerto Rico and includes pieces from New York Time Art Critic Holland Cotter, author Julia Bryan-Wilson, and many visual artists. more ›

In Central Texas, we have limestone and water to thank for creating some of our favorite natural destinations; Barton Springs, Hamilton Pool, and Inner Space Caverns are just a few of the rock and water formations we seek out on a regular basis. Houston artist Kia Neill has spent the last few years recreating structures that have been perfected in nature by rendering them in everyday materials like paper-mache, chicken wire, Christmas lights, and typical craft store standbys like paint, glitter, and rhinestones. On Saturday, her latest exhibit Terrain opens at Women and Their Work Gallery. For Terrain Neill will focus on the above ground landscape where us terrestrial beings haunt. Inside the gallery, patrons will walk through an environment of artificial rocks, handmade stalagmites, and geodes sparkling with the help of crushed CDs and LED lights. The opening reception for Terrain will start at 6pm and Neill will give a talk about the installation at 7pm. more ›

In 2007, Jake Bryer and Joel Ganucheau began devoting their weekends to starting a gallery for local artists and local art buyers. Six months later, they quit their day jobs and Austin Art Garage became their full time gig. Tonight, the savvy entrepreneurs are celebrating the grand opening of Austin Art Garage's new exhibit space, an expansion that nearly doubles the size of the existing gallery. The first exhibit in the new space showcases over forty pieces by Catherine Hart. Her abstract illustrations are soft and organic, reminiscent of natural forms, particularly underwater scenes. more ›

Despite the fact that it is still pretty sweltering outside, this evening offers the perfect opportunity to check out a few Austin galleries after hours. Art Palace, on East Cesar Chavez, is presenting two solo exhibitions: Use Your Illusion: Sterling Allen and Rx Garden: Jessica Halonen. The exhibitions will be on view through October 10, and the opening reception will take place tonight from 8 to 10pm. The aptly titled Use Your Illusion, features a new works by Austin-based artist and co-founder of Okay Mountain Gallery, Sterling Allen. Through video, photography, sculpture, and drawing, Allen plays out his experiences with optical illusion, visual perception, and trickery. more ›

Times of turmoil are always expressed in the cultural output of troubled societies, and our current economic crisis is no exception. For better or worse, these uncertain times do provide inspiration for artists (many of whom have additional time to create thanks to layoffs and company cutbacks); as a result Austin's contemporary art magazine, Cantanker, has picked "Anxiety" as the conceptual theme for its most recent issue. On Saturday, Cantanker will celebrate the release of the latest issue as well as the opening of the accompanying group exhibit at Pump Project. The reception will also mark the release of the first Cantanker Artist Series T-shirt, designed by Austin designer and animator Eric Power. more ›

Registration is now open for the City of Austin's Cultural Arts Division's workshop "Discovery and Dialogue: Public Art on its Head". The full day symposium is scheduled for September 12th and will feature keynote speaker Ned Kahn who will join the group for lunch. Participants of the "Discovery and Dialogue" workshop will learn about Austin's public art program, how to create successful proposals for public art projects, and insider tips on getting projects selected. more ›

In a city geographically and culturally close to Mexico, Austin sees a fair amount of influence from our south of the border neighbors reflected in the art exhibits around town. Pump Project recently displayed a Lucha Libre mask collection, and the Mexic-Arte Museum is wrapping up their twenty-fifth anniversary show featuring an impressive exhibit of art, masks, and artifacts from their permanent collection. What we are shown often reflects the elite of Mexican culture - the professionally lit and theatrically staged Lucha that gets international TV coverage, or the well studied works of Diego Rivera and Arturo Garcia Bustos. The new exhibit Libres y Lokas opening this Saturday at Domy Books provides us with a glimpse of the polar opposite. The gritty documentary is the result of a collaboration between OTIS IKE and Ivete Lucas, both photographers and filmmakers who have landed in Austin to study their craft. more ›

For many designers and artists, typeface is an obsessive indulgence; after all, we are constantly visually inundated by the twenty six forms that make up our alphabet. An exhibit honoring the art of type is opening tonight at Domy Books. Alphabet will feature dozens of artists and their innovative interpretations of our lettering system including hand drawn illustration, experimental typography, found objects, and mixed media. Work by well known type designers including Ken Barber and Ed Fella will be joined by that of rising artists such as Hjärta Smärta and Andrew Jeffery Wright (who had a solo exhibit at Domy back in March). more ›

In these tough economic times, wouldn't we all just relish the opportunity to pretend to be wealthy? Well, luckily Pump Project Art Complex is providing one such chance with their Pretend You Are Rich Art Auction taking place on Saturday. The faux-riche event centers around the art auction where bidding starts at $3,000; winning bidders are then granted a $3,000 instant rebate. There will be a silent auction, running from 7-10pm, and a live auction hosted by Coldtowne Theater's Arthur Simone that will begin at 8pm. Both auctions will raise money for Pump Project Art Complex, a non-profit art studio and gallery space that is no doubt feeling the recession pinch. more ›

Usher in the summer in style tonight at the Blanton for yet another B scene art party. This month's event marks the final big celebration of the museum's impressive multi-disciplinary Birth of the Cool exhibit. The show covers visual art, architecture, interior design, music, and film from Midcentury Modern masters such as Charles and Ray Eames and Miles Davis. In fact, Austin's own jazz trumpeter Jeff Lofton and his quartet will be performing a Miles Davis Tribute set to get everyone in the mood to be cool. more ›

Our coverage of Art Week Austin continues with a rundown of today's events: Art Talk: Art Critics, Critique, and Community Panel: Join the conversation about arts writing with a panel that includes writers from the Statesman, Fluent Collaborative/Might Be Good, Austin Film Festival, and Fusebox Festival. The panel will be moderated by Robert Faries from the Chronicle. The discussion takes place at Domy Books and begins at 4pm. more ›

Art Week Austin events will come to a peak with Saturday's Art After Dark party. The event is being held at City Hall and along the 1st Street Bridge, offering party goers spectacular views of the city at night. Art collectors and appreciators who have enjoyed the daytime events of Art City Austin will be entertained by DJ Chicken George and headliners Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears. Food will be provided by Austin's Word of Mouth Catering along with area restaurants including the Belmont, the Salt Lick, Tacodeli, and the Cookie Lounge. Twin Liquors and Bacardi are on board as the night's wine and beverage sponsors. Tickets to the party cost $75 a piece with art collector badges and VIP options available for groups. more ›

Our coverage of Art Week Austin continues with a rundown of today's events: 12:19 Project at AMOA: Also an ongoing project of the Fusebox Festival, this open collaboration encourages people to document a single minute in their lives. A project of local non-profit Refraction Arts, anyone is invited to create an image (a photo, video, audio file, text, map, etc.) of their experience at 12:19 on any given day. Participants may also call 524-9772 to record one minute of their life. Presented in a real life and online "library" of sorts, the resulting documentation of everyone's short history will be on display at AMOA until May 2nd. more ›

Tomorrow night, the Austin State Hospital's Volunteer Services Council are holding a benefit art show and auction. The event will feature art by Daniel Johnston as well as work by professional artists and State Hospital patients. Johnston's work colorfully features his whimsical other-worldly character sketches, while other donations range from the simple geometric figures of Jerry Walters to Piercarlo Abate's striking portraits of asylum patients from 1915 Venice. The hospital's patient art is bold and often abstract, combining mediums and themes to create true outsider art. more ›

On Friday, IF+D, the warehouse district interior design store, will be hosting Finery, a fashion, ceramic, and photography exhibit in collaboration with Art Seen Alliance. Inspired by the idealistic and often sexually charged film culture of the 1920’s & 30’s that helped distract and entertain away the woes of the depression, Finery aims to examine the expensive, the ostentatious, and the decorated . more ›

On Good Friday (that's tomorrow, for all you non-observant readers), two gods among mortals in the Austin art world, Michael Schliefke and Ian Shults, are curating a holy showing of art entitled Biblical Proportions. The exhibit will be split up between two East Side studios, Blue Genie and Bearded Lady, where the focus will be on art from the Old Testament and the New Testament, respectively. The over one hundred participating artists have been asked to create a piece of art based off of a story from the Bible. more ›

There are so many great upcoming and ongoing art events taking place this weekend, here's a rundown of the highlights: Tonight the Blanton is celebrating all things art with yet another B scene party. This month will focus on "art in motion"and will feature the Cohen New Works Festival, a biennial exhibit organized by the UT Department of Theatre and Dance. more ›

This year marks the third Texas Biennial, and the independent survey of contemporary art from all around the state has adopted a new structure that builds upon previous events. For the 2009 event, organizers are once again planning a group exhibition but have added four more focused solo shows that were given to one artist from each of the four corners of Texas. Additionally, the Texas Biennial is collaborating with Austin's Art in Public Places to install temporary outdoor projects in a handful of spaces around town. more ›

On Sunday, the Blanton Museum of Art debuts their latest special exhibit, Birth of the Cool. The show focuses on art, design, and culture from the West Coast from around the mid-century. This ambitious exhibit encompasses not only visual art, but also the architecture, furniture design, film, and music that have come to exemplify the mid-century modern aesthetic. more ›

Bearded Lady Printing is celebrating their seventh year in the screenprinting business with a group art show entitled simply, Friends of Bearded Lady. The show which opens on Saturday will run through March 6th and features fourteen of the studio's favorite artists. The exhibit will feature a diverse group of artists who work in a wide range of media; a departure from the space's usual display of Bearded Lady's own printing work. more ›