Monkeyfist.com

The Texas Museum Scene

Thursday, 23 March 2000

.....

Cy Twombly, Leda and the Swan, 1962. Oil & pencil on canvas.

The Menil Collection in Houston is one of my favorite places on earth. I have spent a lot of time there, most of it with my old friend, and new Monkeyfist collaborator, Collin Williams, and a good bit of that time was spent pondering the abstract lyricism of Cy Twombly. My routine was to meet up with Collin at University of Houston, usually the art building, then we'd head over to the Menil, followed by a visit to the nearby Rothko Chapel, also on my favorite-places short list. We used to make whole days of studying at the Menil, reading at the Rothko, grabbing a burger at Luke's near University of St. Thomas, and then ending up at Brazos Bookstore, spending money I didn't have. I learned to love independent bookstores by visiting Brazos regularly. Thinking about all of this makes me want to move back to Houston.

By comparison, Dallas suffers terribly; the Dallas Museum of Art is simply not first class, and the Dallas art scene is rather a joke. Houston has, in addition to the Menil, the Museum of Fine Arts and the Contempory Arts Museum. The Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth is really top-notch, though it lacks the intimacy of the Menil and the collection isn't nearly as interesting.

This is The Texas Museum Scene <http://monkeyfist.com/articles/365>