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Best Museum

The Menil Collection

It's still about the building. Renzo Piano's light-washed galleries are the standard by which to measure all other museums. But the building only sets the art in the best light. It's the curators who choose what goes into the beautiful galleries. And chief curator Matthew Drutt, in his first year, has shaken out some of the dust and cobwebs that had accumulated on the de Menils' remarkable collection. Now the works in the permanent collection get changed out on a regular basis -- no more twice-a-year visits. Drutt also commissioned new works by Vik Muniz and Ann Gaskell, whose premieres had the local art crowd buzzing. Next up: his survey of Kasimir Malevich's suprematist paintings, currently eliciting raves at the Guggenheim. The Menil is an exciting place again.

Best Art Gallery

Inman@Lawing

Kerry Inman's stint in Doug Lawing's downtown space has invigorated the gallery owner, her staff and her artists. Coping with all the street construction is enough to keep anyone on her toes; and while Inman's shows have always been hung well (make of that what you will), it's been especially true this past season. The space has not only allowed Inman's artists to really shine (Tommy Fitzpatrick and Emily Joyce were particular standouts) but it's also helped Inman prepare for her new gallery opening this fall on Montrose. And Inman@Lawing's innovative programming -- bringing in Walter Hopps Award nominee Franklin Sirmans to guest-curate a show, Dario Robleto's two-part exhibit last spring -- has kept gallerygoers on their toes as well.

Best Art Gallery

Inman@Lawing

Kerry Inman's stint in Doug Lawing's downtown space has invigorated the gallery owner, her staff and her artists. Coping with all the street construction is enough to keep anyone on her toes; and while Inman's shows have always been hung well (make of that what you will), it's been especially true this past season. The space has not only allowed Inman's artists to really shine (Tommy Fitzpatrick and Emily Joyce were particular standouts) but it's also helped Inman prepare for her new gallery opening this fall on Montrose. And Inman@Lawing's innovative programming -- bringing in Walter Hopps Award nominee Franklin Sirmans to guest-curate a show, Dario Robleto's two-part exhibit last spring -- has kept gallerygoers on their toes as well.

Best Hipness Quotient

Mixture Contemporary Art

If you've been feeling a bit quadrilaterally sharp-angled and clueless lately, go to an opening at Mixture. Between the art (on the walls and elsewhere), by some of the hippest young talent in Houston, L.A., Chi-town and New York, and the youngish hipsters meandering about sipping wine, you'll soon be feeling rounded off and filled in. Under director Lisa Cooley and proprietor Dan Fergus, Mixture is transforming itself into a commercial galley-cum-cultural center ("It's a furniture polish and a desert topping!"), expanding its purview to include performance art and film programs in the courtyard tucked behind the gallery. This place is so hip, we're surprised they let us hang out there.

Best Hipness Quotient

Mixture Contemporary Art

If you've been feeling a bit quadrilaterally sharp-angled and clueless lately, go to an opening at Mixture. Between the art (on the walls and elsewhere), by some of the hippest young talent in Houston, L.A., Chi-town and New York, and the youngish hipsters meandering about sipping wine, you'll soon be feeling rounded off and filled in. Under director Lisa Cooley and proprietor Dan Fergus, Mixture is transforming itself into a commercial galley-cum-cultural center ("It's a furniture polish and a desert topping!"), expanding its purview to include performance art and film programs in the courtyard tucked behind the gallery. This place is so hip, we're surprised they let us hang out there.

Best Use of Old Sonys

Brian Heiss

TV boldly goes where it's never gone before in the artwork of Brian Heiss. An amalgam of architect, sculptor and tinkerer, Heiss is on a crusade to change the way we look at television. Heiss changes both the forms and the electronics of new and vintage sets, creating art objects that also function as innovative design. His show at Lawndale Art Center last spring featured Mercury, an obvious attempt to get people's asses off the couch. Its ergonomic shell of sandwiched plywood requires the viewer to tip, tilt and turn the television over to control volume, change channels and turn it off and on. The similarly interactive TV of Lazy is housed in a tower of opaque Plexiglas. Moving back and forth in front of its motion sensor keeps it on; sitting down changes it into a reading light. But Heiss's Dakkomakura (Nurture Pillow), enhances the couch potato experience with a tiny TV housed in a long blue pillow. Now you can literally curl up with Letterman.

Best Use of Old Sonys

Brian Heiss

TV boldly goes where it's never gone before in the artwork of Brian Heiss. An amalgam of architect, sculptor and tinkerer, Heiss is on a crusade to change the way we look at television. Heiss changes both the forms and the electronics of new and vintage sets, creating art objects that also function as innovative design. His show at Lawndale Art Center last spring featured Mercury, an obvious attempt to get people's asses off the couch. Its ergonomic shell of sandwiched plywood requires the viewer to tip, tilt and turn the television over to control volume, change channels and turn it off and on. The similarly interactive TV of Lazy is housed in a tower of opaque Plexiglas. Moving back and forth in front of its motion sensor keeps it on; sitting down changes it into a reading light. But Heiss's Dakkomakura (Nurture Pillow), enhances the couch potato experience with a tiny TV housed in a long blue pillow. Now you can literally curl up with Letterman.

Best Curator

Kim Davenport

University art galleries aren't typically known for cutting-edge contemporary art. But when Kim Davenport arrived at Rice Gallery almost ten years ago, she transformed a moribund institutional space into a venue for dynamic site-specific installations. The gallery was only the second U.S. institution -- after the Museum of Modern Art -- to host a project by Shigeru Ban, the Japanese architect who has designed everything from cost-efficient refugee housing to the second-place proposal for the World Trade Center site. Last spring Rice Gallery housed 7,000 pounds of cardboard for Phoebe Washburn's enormous vortex of consumer product boxes. Prior years have hosted projects as varied as Michael Shaughnessy's giant hay sculpture, Jennifer Steinkamp's animated video projections and Stephen Hendee's faceted architectural environment (which looked like a techno-green version of Superman's fortress of solitude). It's definitely worth wandering onto campus to see who Davenport brings in next.

Best Curator

Kim Davenport

University art galleries aren't typically known for cutting-edge contemporary art. But when Kim Davenport arrived at Rice Gallery almost ten years ago, she transformed a moribund institutional space into a venue for dynamic site-specific installations. The gallery was only the second U.S. institution -- after the Museum of Modern Art -- to host a project by Shigeru Ban, the Japanese architect who has designed everything from cost-efficient refugee housing to the second-place proposal for the World Trade Center site. Last spring Rice Gallery housed 7,000 pounds of cardboard for Phoebe Washburn's enormous vortex of consumer product boxes. Prior years have hosted projects as varied as Michael Shaughnessy's giant hay sculpture, Jennifer Steinkamp's animated video projections and Stephen Hendee's faceted architectural environment (which looked like a techno-green version of Superman's fortress of solitude). It's definitely worth wandering onto campus to see who Davenport brings in next.

Best Artist

Jeff Shore

Billed as "networked electro-mechanical kinetic sculpture with integrated music," Jeff Shore's work is far more haunting and poetic than its literal description. The artist builds tiny models of everything from low-rent living rooms to airplane interiors. Then his elaborate mechanical contraptions move tiny surveillance cameras through the miniature worlds. The results are screened on nearby video monitors. Add to all that the evocative sound compositions of Shore's Chicago collaborator Jon Fisher, and you've got quirky work that's as hard to categorize as it is fascinating. Shore and Fisher work long hours and self-fund their elaborate, labor-intensive projects, but their efforts pay off in magical, otherworldly environments -- each one more amazing than the last.

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