Rice Public Art enters three-year partnership with Glassell School of Art

‘Off the Wall’ series will commission Core Residency Program alumni for site-specific installations on campus

A partnership between Rice Public Art and the Glassell School of Art will bring the work of emerging artists to the Rice University campus every year for the next three years.

Harold Mendez at the Tiffany hollowware workshop for the 2017 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art.

The “Off the Wall” series will commission an annual site-specific installation by a recent alum of the Core Residency Program at the Glassell School of Art, the teaching institute of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The work will remain on exhibit for one year on the south wall of the Raymond and Susan Brochstein Pavilion, which anchors one end of the Central Quad outside Fondren Library.

Harold Mendez is the inaugural artist in the series. The first-generation American, born in Chicago to Colombian and Mexican parents, integrates photography and sculpture to explore notions of identity and place.

“Off the Wall” will mark his return to Rice. Mendez taught courses in drawing in the Visual and Dramatic Arts Department during his Core residency between 2013 and 2014.

“We are delighted to partner with the MFAH’s Glassell School to commission new work by young alumni of the Core program,” said Alison Weaver, the Suzanne Deal Booth Executive Director of the Moody Center for the Arts, which oversees Rice Public Art. “The Brochstein Pavilion will be activated by a site-specific work each year, fostering dialogue in one of the university’s most frequented locations.”

Brochstein Pavilion houses a popular cafe in the heart of the Rice campus. (Photo by Brandon Martin)

An opening reception and artist talk will be held Sept. 19 from 4 to 6 p.m. at Brochstein Pavilion. The exhibition will be on view at Brochstein, which is open to the public and houses a cafe, from Sept. 19 to Aug. 24, 2020.

Mendez received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2007, a bachelor’s degree from Columbia College Chicago in 2000. His work has been featured in a wide range of institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and Project Row Houses in Houston. Forthcoming exhibitions include the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago and the Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales in Havana.

This program is made possible by Raymond and Susan Brochstein, Deborah Brochstein and Steven Hecht.