Marti Mayo discussing Comarde Mauser by William Kentridge

Contemporary art can be provocative, and executive director Marti Mayo and the staff
of the Contemporary Arts Association of Houston are experts at preparing audiences for new experiences. “When people walk into our building, they have several ways to find out about the art on view,” explains Ms. Mayo.

“There’s the art phone, which is an electronic guide. There are explanatory labels on the walls. And we have the FAQTeam, who are young artists and art historians typically recruited from Houston universities.They give on-the-spot tours, provide insight and answer questions about the material on view or about anything you want to know about contemporary art.”

The Contemporary Arts Museum (CAM) was one of the first of its kind in the nation when it opened in 1948. Even today it is the only major museum in Texas devoted solely to the presentation and interpretation of regional, national and international contemporary art. Ms. Mayo says, “The museum was founded by seven very enterprising Houstonians who were determined to bring to their city interesting new art that they had seen in Europe during the war and in New York at the then-fledgling Museum of Modern Art. The first two shows, which were held at the Museum of Fine Arts, were so successful that they determined almost immediately that they needed their own building.”

An A-frame building was erected downtown and in the 1960s was picked up and moved, with great fanfare and a parade, to Holcombe and Fannin. When it became apparent that the museum had outgrown the A-frame, the association purchased land and built its current building, which opened in 1972. “That really heralded a complete professionalization of the organization, which had long done exhibitions of important contemporary work and also had brought in a number of performances,” says Ms. Mayo. “Our mandate originally included dance and literature as well as the visual arts, but as time passed other organizations arose to focus on those activities.”

CAM currently presents five major exhibitions each year in its large, upstairs gallery and six or seven smaller shows in the downstairs space. “Downstairs we do a series called Perspectives, which began in 1979. It has one purpose, and that’s to feature
new work by known and unknown artists to Houston audiences.”

Whether upstairs or downstairs, Ms. Mayo and the CAM staff offer programs that help audiences understand the art on display. When CAM presented a retrospective of work by internationally acclaimed South African artist William Kentridge, the museum hosted a lecture by him and produced a number of educational programs to help audiences appreciate his art, which depicts both the politics and history of his homeland.

CAM’s catalogues also add depth to people’s understanding and appreciation of contemporary art. “We are an institution of scholars,” declares Ms. Mayo, “and the catalogues we write preserve the exhibitions, which are gone in six or eight weeks.
The books remain and take the messages of the exhibitions across the country and around the world.”

She adds, “Art museums are one of the few places left where you can have a dialogue about topics of interest, and exhibitions often stimulate these discussions. We’re a community and a nation of diverse people from diverse cultures with diverse points of view. We don’t seek controversy for controversy’s sake, but we’re pleased if one of our exhibitions promotes dialogue. Houstonians are really quite adventurous and willing to consider different points of view. I think the key is to provide more than one way for people to access the meanings of these works of art. That’s as important as bringing the art here in the first place.”

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