First: a quick reminder that Spring Break affords many ways to experience the city’s cornerstone art collections — and, in some cases, catch up on banner exhibitions without paying. If there’s one day you should make it out, it’s Friday. Here’s more on the convergence of last chances, free programming and unmissable visitors.
- Admission to The Nasher Sculpture Center is free through Sunday. You can see work by Nasher Prize Laureate Theaster Gates ahead of his much-anticipated visit to Dallas next month, and the singular First Sculpture exhibition which mines tools made by the earliest humans for creative intention. The Washington Post has a write-up, and so does the New York Times.
Friday night at the Nasher, an impressive (and free) outdoor lineup for the museum’s Til Midnight series gives the nearby NSFWknd festival a challenge. New York hypnotic experimental-psych band Psychic Ills headlines—they dazzled on a tour supporting Mazzy Star, to give you an idea—and Dallas ritual-pop magician Francine Thirteen opens. She shared with us some exciting news ahead of this show that we’ll in turn share with you very soon in a preview.
Music starts at 7 p.m. A screening of the 1975 Motown classic Cooley High follows the show at 9 p.m.
- Three incredible exhibitions at the Dallas Contemporary were set to close Sunday. One’s been extended until Friday March 23, we just learned: Mary, Queen of Prints looks back at ten years of work by fashion designer and artist Mary Katrantzou. “To Katrantzou, an absolute maximalist, each article of clothing is not complete without some embellishment of lace, tulle, beading, gems, candelabras, or holograms,” D contributor Kathryn Goddard wrote about the show. Still to be taken down: Enoc Perez’s Liberty and Restraint, a riff on architect Philip Johnson’s work in Dallas, is a standout, too; the first ever museum exhibition by New York artist Valerie Keane called The desire to be everything rounds out the trove.
- The Dallas Museum of Art offers free workshops and tours this week from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The programming here for kids is consistently thought-provoking for all. I still remember a prompt by one volunteer years ago to imagine how John Singer Sargent’s Dorothy might feel in the arctic climate of a nearby painting. (Puts the discomfort of those dress clothes in perspective.) Friday’s Late Nights installment, which still costs $10 for the general public, is all about games.
