Best Free Museum: The Moody Center for the Arts
The Moody Center for the Arts has it all. It is a museum-quality art gallery; a gallery for experimental artwork, with a sprung wood floor for dance; a multi-media gallery for video and installation art; a flexible studio theater seating up to 150 people; a maker space, including a wood shop, metal shop, paint shop and rapid prototyping area; studio classrooms designed to host a variety of activities from lectures to hands-on making; a tech-issue library for students to check out advanced equipment; audio visual editing booths; offices for visiting artists and scholars; and a café … all housed within a $30 million, 50,000 square-foot building.
Or in other words, it is a dream come true for every artist, be they anywhere between dabbling novice or internationally acclaimed. On any given day, guests may see a choir or dance performance, a full sensory immersion art display, a sand mandala being created, dynamic photographic exhibits and anything else that merits observation, consideration and public consumption.
More than that, The Moody is centrally located within the city at the Rice University campus (translation: It is fitted with plenty of parking and conveniently accessible by car ride, bus route, METRORail, bicycle, pogo stick or roller skate).
The Moody extends beyond just the physical walls of its building, too. The center curates temporary public art interventions which include Off the Wall, a yearly installation in the Brochstein Pavilion; the Moody Project Wall hosted in the building’s flex space; Platform, a global invitation to artists to create an installation in response to the architecture and areas of study found on Rice’s campus; and the Tent Series. The Moody also helps maintain, curate and facilitate the permanent Rice Public Art collection in partnership with other entities on campus.
It also doesn’t hurt that entrance to The Moody comes at the best price in town: free. So … run, slither on your belly, Texas two-step, drive, car pool or use whatever method of transportation preferred to check out this Houston gem.
Rice University, 6100 Main
713-348-2787
moody.rice.edu
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
