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Gabriele Galimberti - The Ameriguns & Toy Stories: Artist Talk & Reception
Internationally acclaimed Gabriele Galimberti’s first US exhibition of “Ameriguns” & “Toy Stories” comes to Austin! The people in these images are from all walks of life, with no particular political party, race, culture, or gender in favor. Ameriguns and Toy Stories deliver striking images exploring the timely issues of gun culture and the impact of modern inequalities on children.Fri. Apr. 12, 6pm-9pmLydia Street Gallery -
Sponsored Listing
Romeo y Juliet
A bilingual adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s most cherished works, Romeo y Juliet recounts the tale of two star-crossed lovers, daughters from the feuding houses of Capulet and Montague, reimagined in Alta, California in the 1840’s prior to the annexation of California to the United States.Apr. 10-21UT Theatre and Dance
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Arts
Offscreen
Alamo Dankhouse Feasts
Celebrate the highest of holidays with a selection of stoner classics at Drafthouses around Austin. Pick from Friday, Half Baked, Inherent Vice, Mallrats, or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, all accompanied by a special 4/20 feast of Kool Ranch Popcorn Munchie Crunch, Midnight Snack Mac & Cheese, and Puff Puff Parfait. Even if you miss the whole day, you’ll get a chance Tuesday to satiate those 4:20pm munchies with Super Troopers. – Richard WhittakerSat., April 20Alamo Drafthouses -
Arts
Visual Arts
Austin Fashion Week
Discover new designers at the 16th annual Austin Fashion Week at the Domain Simon Center. More of a weekend, the show kicks off Thursday with Emerge, a runway show featuring up-and-coming artists. Austin Area Urban League presents the Black Designer Showcase Friday, highlighting Black designers from across the globe. Austin Fashion Week also promotes young artists: The Discover and Incubate runways celebrate student designers from Round Rock ISD, University of Texas, and Austin Community College. Finish out the weekend at Ode to the OGs, which focuses on longtime Austin Fashion Week designers. Don’t feel like buying a ticket? Drop by pop-up shops to peruse runway looks and vendors. – Madeline DuncanApril 18-20 -
Arts
Visual Arts
“Ode to the Book”
In a gear-up for Independent Bookstore Day on April 27, Bolm Arts offers up a new exhibit, “Ode to the Book.” Musicians Jade Parx, Jac Carson, Amir Neubach, Liz Emme, and Nico Little will play as visitors peruse a diverse collection of illustrations, letterpress prints, book shrine sculptures, art books, and art made from books. “Elevating them beyond their functional purpose, artists Stephen Dubov, Sandra C. Fernandez, Emily Mitchell, Kyle Schlesinger, Jennie Tudor Gray and Beckette Rivera have created their own unique tribute to books,” writes the gallery. For more bookworm content, check out a talk by author Eric Heisner, a Western-loving screenwriter, actor, and filmmaker who will speak on the Austin Book Trail April 27. – Lina FisherOpening reception: Thu., April 18. Open gallery hours: Sat. & Sun., 12-4pm, until May 4 -
Arts
Visual Arts
Beneath the Persimmon Tree: Poetry and Process
Austin, where even the suburbs keep it weird and artsy. That’s definitely true of the Georgetown Art Center and their carefully curated local exhibits. Take a trip up north and enjoy the latest from multimedia artist Kelly Wagner Steinke. Her strikingly textural works find beauty in chaos, rejoicing in the boundaries of materials like wax, pigments, and birch panels. Oddly hypnotic and comforting, they’ll definitely spark some thought. Check it out and ponder the art’s meaning while walking through the “most beautiful town square in Texas.” – Cat McCarreyThrough April 28 -
Arts
Visual Arts
Creating Encuentros: Changarrito 2012–2024
Traveling in Mexico, you frequently encounter changarritos – portable food carts or tienditas run by hardworking entrepreneurs. The carts usually operate outside of any formal regulation and, in that way, mirror the resilience and creativity of Mexican culture. In 2005, artist Máximo González appropriated the concept of the changarrito as a way for artists to take their work directly to the people. The idea came to Austin’s venerable Mexic-Arte Museum in 2012, with dozens of artists displaying art and interacting with the public outside the Downtown gallery. The concept is back and will run through August. – Brant BingamonThrough August 25 -
Arts
Theatre
Drug Stories, Live!
Bat City Cinema, purveyor of 16mm and 35mm “classics and oddities,” presents what they term “a hallucinogenic head trip into a world of punks, drunks, jokers, tokers, pill-poppers and flip-floppers. A lysergic lesson in the do’s and don’ts of drugs.” The screening is a collaboration with the American Genre Film Archive and Something Weird Video, a distribution company based in Seattle that specializes in “the very best in exploitation cinema from the 1930s to 1970s.” It’ll be hosted by the “World’s Biggest Joint,” whatever that means. Why not find out! – Lina FisherSat., April 20 -
Arts
Visual Arts
Gabriele Galimberti: The Ameriguns & Toy Stories
They say Texas is the gun capital of America; no arguments here. And many gun collectors treat them almost like toys, taking pride in amassing safeloads of the things and procuring the latest gadgets. Internationally acclaimed Italian photographer Gabriele Galimberti set out to capture images of American gun owners among their massive collections of weapons for “Ameriguns,” resulting in some stunning imagery. This series is juxtaposed with children showcasing their toy collections for “Toy Stories,” for which Galimberti also made observations about socioeconomic and other factors influencing the subjects’ relationship to their possessions, making for a thoughtful and provocative exhibition. – Kat McNevinsThrough May 12 -
Arts
Visual Arts
Greater Austin Clay Studio Tour
Oh my love, my darling, why not have your own Patrick Swayze/Demi Moore moment with the Clay Studio Tour? Try your hand at the wheel through pottery demos and workshops. Or just support those magical mud-makers and buy some art. So sorry, but you can’t use location as an excuse not to go – these tours are happening throughout the Austin area, from Pflugerville to Manchaca and everywhere in between. Get messy and make financial mistakes while witnessing some truly staggering claywork. – Cat McCarreySat. & Sun., April 20-21Multiple locations -
Arts
Visual Arts
Holly Roberts Opening Reception
Across the 40 years of her artistic career, there’s been a softening in the work of New Mexico artist Holly Roberts. Her 1980s output came with a menacing shadow, a threat of violence at the edges. In the past decade, her post-millennial experiments with collage and hybrid photography/painting have given way to a new era of portraiture and equine studies that plays with the wildness of naive art with utter control. Catch the latest stage of her evolution with new prints in a joint show with Jon Langford, Lisa Brawn, Bruce Lee, and Kerry Smith. – Richard WhittakerSat., April 20 -
Arts
Theatre
Into the Woods
Who’s ready for a bedtime story? Because there’s nothing like Stephen Sondheim’s grand unification theory of the Brothers Grimm’s collection of German fairy tales. All your childhood folklore favorites become tangled up in the search for the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, and the slipper as pure as gold. Underneath the toe-tappers and cunning one-liners, there’s a fable about the perils of getting what you wished for and not paying attention to what you have, a moral reiterated by a witch who’s not good, not nice; just right. – Richard WhittakerThrough April 21 -
Arts
Visual Arts
Karn Knutson: Inside the Moments
How do we experience each singular second of our lives? An enormous question for an event listing, sure, but that’s exactly what artist Karn Knutson tackles in her current exhibition. “Knutson attempts to show us ourselves in moments of reflection,” the show description reads, “contemplating the transitions through life, processing the struggles, finding ways forward with knowledge, sometimes hard lessons from our past, and learning from our choices good and bad. She aims to represent the things we all feel but can’t always express until we see something that lets us talk about it outside ourselves.” Maybe the something that unlocks your inner feelings is waiting just inside Link & Pin, ready to unleash all those singular seconds. – James ScottThursdays-Sundays. Through May 12 -
Arts
Visual Arts
Molly Sydnor’s “After the Rain Part I”
A piece of Dallas artist Molly Sydnor lives in Austin this spring thanks to “After the Rain Part I,” a Big Medium pop-up exhibition of bright textiles. Like a touchable rainbow, the multicolor weavings run ceiling-to-floor in a tiny room of the arts organization’s South Congress Avenue gallery space. The claustrophobic container may “evoke anxiety,” the artist notes, but for Sydnor, the act of weaving is a meditative process. Catch the display from 7 to 9pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or weekends from 11am to 4pm. – Carys AndersonThrough May 12 -
Arts
Theatre
Overheard on a Train
All aboard for a theatrical adventure with the latest innovative journey from the experimental geniuses of Cheerful Secrets. This time, the audience is the cast: As you board the train, you’ll be handed your script, and you and three friends will be playing the parts of either the band or the bachelorette party. Intermission is at Black Star Co-op at Crestview before you board the train and return Downtown for the second act. Read more online. – Richard WhittakerSaturdays through May 25Red Line Downtown Station -
Arts
Theatre
The Prom
OMG, it’s prom season, y’all! And what could make it better than four Broadway stars making it all about themselves? Zach presents the catchy tale of desperate thespians trying to gain relevance by “helping” a small town prom be less bigoted. Set to toe-tapping tunes, this musical entertains and educates. There will be laughs, love, and you know, someone might just learn something along the way. – Cat McCarreyThrough May 12
All Events
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Arts
Theatre
A Year With Frog and Toad
For generations of children, Arnold Lobel’s stories of amphibian best buds Frog and Toad have been a charming guide to the complexities and joys of friendship. Now the pair take to the stage for this delightful Tony-nominated musical. It’s truly a family affair, adapted by Lobel’s son-in-law Mark Linn-Baker with music by Robert Reale and book & lyrics by his brother, Willie. This new production, directed by Best of Austin winner Sara Burke, features Jillian Sainz and Victoria Brown donning the signature jackets and trousers of Frog and Toad, respectively. – Richard WhittakerFridays-Sundays. Through May 12 -
Arts
Theatre
Disaster! The Musical
The first night on a giant floating casino/discotheque just off Manhattan: What can possibly go wrong? Well, since this is the 1970s, the decade of the disaster movie, how about earthquakes, tidal waves, rats, explosions, and deadly slot machine handles? Jack Plotnick and Seth Rudetsky’s Broadway jukebox musical features toe-tappers from the decade of AOR and disco, so there’s no better place to be for a night of mayhem and Chuck Mangione. Just watch out for the sharks … – Richard WhittakerFridays, Saturdays, and Sundays through April 21 -
Arts
Visual Arts
Art & Parks Tour
This sweet opportunity comes to us from the Downtown Austin Alliance, the Pease Park Conservancy, and Ride Bikes Austin – so we know it's a damned good thing indeed. Take the self-guided Art & Parks Tour to explore the best of what Downtown Austin art and parks have to offer through this selection of curated murals, artworks, and green spaces. You can sign up anytime, so click that URL and get ready to learn the most vibrantly visual parts of your city soon – live and in person. -
Arts
Visual Arts
Atelier Dojo: Remote Studios
The local powerhouse of figurative painting, the art school that's the smart school for artists of all kinds, they've got a painting-along-at-home series going to help you keep your skills honed in these socially restrictive times, featuring live costumed models posing on camera and a thriving community of creatives rendering that lovely human biotecture from their separate studios. "Join us for a three-hour costumed-model drawing session. Use any supplies you wish, listen to music, share your work, chat with others. It’s a great way to stay connected with your art community!"Tuesdays, 1:30-4:30pm; Fridays, 6:30-9:30pm; Saturdays, 9:30-12:30pm. $5. -
Arts
Visual Arts
“Circular Body”
Alejandra Almuelle has been responsible for some of the most compelling works of clay sculpture ever created in this city, many of them predicated on the human body and its potential as a record of experience. This latest exhibition of her artistry, a solo show at Women & Their Work, brings the human form front and center, clayborne with additions of graphite, beeswax, paper, resin, and gold and silver leaf. Adorned, embellished, emboldened, the flesh created from clay comes full circle, a cycle of memory and magic powered by beauty, the viewing of it an experience we recommend recording via your own wonder-hungry rods and cones. – Wayne Alan BrennerThrough May 9 (Opening reception, Sat., March 23, 7-9pm) -
Arts
Dance
Ballet Austin: Classes
Learn your way to physical grace with a dance class at Ballet Austin. There are so many varieties to choose among – ballet, barre, contemporary dance, hip-hop, tap, cardio dance fitness, Pilates, and more – and all taught by professional instructors. See website for details.$3-7 per class. -
Arts
Theatre
Born With Teeth
The worst myth about William Shakespeare was that he was a unique genius who penned his greatest plays and sonnets in pristine isolation in his home in Stratford-upon-Avon. Lizzy Duffy Adams’ scathing comedy gets to the reality: that he was a jobbing playwright, a controversial upstart crow in Elizabethan London’s vibrant, tumultuous theatre scene. A long day with his contemporary, the radical Christopher Marlowe, becomes an examination of collaboration, influence, politics, desire, and the wild energy of life behind the stage. Austin Playhouse’s production runs Thursday-Sunday through April 28. – Richard WhittakerThursday-Sunday, April 5-28 -
Arts
Comedy
Cap City Comedy Club
That's right: Cap City Comedy Club, the longtime cornerstone of Austin's comedy scene for nearly four decades is at a new venue in the Domain. And here's Valerie Lopez with a closer look at what's in store for the scene via the venue. Click for details! -
Arts
Comedy
ColdTowne Theater
ColdTowne's new brick-and-mortar place is totally open, and who knows what they'll shake this city with next? But one truth remains: ColdTowne is a designated den of gold, baby, sweet comedy gold. -
Arts
Visual Arts
Creekside Studio
Creekside Studio is a women-owned printmaking studio and gallery, located in Canopy on the Eastside, specializing in fine art prints pulled by hand using archival materials and matrices: engravings, photogravure etchings, monotypes, woodcuts, copperplate etchings, and linocut.Saturdays, noon-1pm916 Springdale, Bldg 2 #103B -
Arts
Comedy
East Austin Comedy Club
Founded by comedians Raza Jafri and Andre Ricks, this club that operates out of Tiger Den on the Eastside is the city's only BIPOC-owned comedy venue. -
Arts
Comedy
Esther's Follies
Esther's Follies – Austin's not-so-secret weapon in the fight against ennui – the comedy gem that still dazzles this growing urban hub – returns to the weekly live and in-person stage of their club on Dirty Sixth, the whole troupe bringing back old favorites and debuting a new program of hilarity with topical, ripped-from-the-headlines sketches and musical numbers. And you do need a laugh or two, right about this time, don't you, citizen? (And how about a margarita to go with that?) We'd add that the mind-boggling illusions of magician Ray Anderson are a bonus in the night's clever spectacle … but, the way that arch maestro conjures mystery and delight, "bonus" would be an insult.Thu., 7pm; Fri.-Sat., 7 & 9pm. $30-40. -
Arts
Visual Arts
Ex Voto
Albuquerque-based artist Beedallo utilizes bold colors and startling imagery in their paintings, many of which depict animals, humans, and religious figures in various states of distress. Their current show, “Ex Voto,” takes up the Recspec Gallery’s new Annex, created for “our artists to explore space and transform a simple shipping container into an entirely different dimension,” the gallery states. Within the container walls, Beedallo’s art digs into the urge to pray even without specific religious faith. “An Ex Voto is made as an offering to a saint or to God,” their artist’s statement reads. “This is often a work in the image of what needs to be fixed.” After the show’s opening date, it’ll run the next three Saturdays in April. – James ScottSat., March 30 -
Arts
Comedy
Fallout Comedy
This hotbed of local performance is carrying on even more than usual, with an eclectic mix of live, mind-rocking comedy from some of Austin's best, all week long. Hey! The place is our cover story, as reported by Valerie Lopez! And, srsly, who would ever disagree with the sentiment of Monday night's Fuck This Week show? Check the website for details. -
Arts
Visual Arts
Fictions More Precious
Works by the annual Tito’s Prize Winner for Visual Arts – yes, that’s the Tito’s Handmade Vodka Tito, tyvm – are presented, as ever, by the community-forward creatives at Big Medium, and this year’s honoree is Trinidadian artist Rodell Warner. Come explore the new Big Medium space on South Congress, its gallery recently refurbished after a fire and freshly bright with Warner’s provocative digital interventions that fictionalize the Caribbean’s fraught past and interrogate that region’s historical photographic archive. – Wayne Alan BrennerThursdays-Sundays. Through April 20 -
Arts
Visual Arts
Hill & Adamson: The Clarkson Stanfield Album
Art conservation can be a contradiction: to destroy to preserve. Thus it is with the HRC and its efforts to restore the Clarkson Stanfield album, one of the most remarkable volumes in the history of art photography. More correctly known as “100 Calotypes by D. O. Hill, R.S.A., and R. Adamson,” the collection of over 100 salted paper prints was collated by the photographers for landscape artist Stanfield and depicts the lords, laborers, clergy, and scientists of 19th-century Scotland and the landscapes in which they lived. Currently undergoing repairs, the center staff are using its deconstructed state to display 39 plates, along with more works from Hill and Adamson, as separate works since the first time they were bound. – Richard WhittakerThursdays-Sundays. Through June 2 -
Arts
Visual Arts
Jen Garrido: Shapes That Listen
As a glasses-wearer, my vision unobstructed by assistive frames reveals a world of shapes – formless, edgeless, but colorful wonders nonetheless. Take a glance at Jen Garrido’s work, and you’ll feel as though your glasses have fallen away, too. The artist’s process, as she puts it, is “a delicate balance of choice and process.” She gravitates toward shapes that “tangle, overlap, sit, lean and lay” as a vessel for personal narratives and internal dialogues. While first looks may reveal only color and texture, Garrido’s paintings invite projection – so project your meanings any Tuesday-Sunday before the show’s April 28 end date. – James ScottThrough April 28 -
Arts
Visual Arts
Laguna Gloria
This local treasure of a venue, run by those Contemporary Austin folks who also bring us the Jones Center shows Downtown, is all about the outdoors – which is perfect for these trickily navigated times of ours, n'est-ce pas? Recommended: Stop by and breathe in the air, enjoy the lawns and gardens and the many examples of world-class sculpture arrayed across the property, and (as Frankie used to say) r-e-l-a-x.Thu.-Fri., 9am-noon; Sat.-Sun., 9am-3pm -
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Visual Arts
Landmarks: Self-Guided Walking Tour
Use your smartphone to access self-guided tours of the outdoor public art sited by UT's award-winning Landmarks program any time you feel like it. BONUS: There's also a free, docent-led tour starting at Marc Quinn's "Spiral of the Galaxy" (1501 Red River) on Sun., Jan. 8, 11am. -
Arts
Visual Arts
Martha's Contemporary: Hokey Pokey + What You See Is What You Get
Here's a two-person exhibition that features painting, installation, videography, and sculpture by Moll Brau and Wes Thompson. It's a deep dive into a pool of loneliness, triumph, and rebirth. It's a forest of mazes where fireflies provide the light. It's a show of creations from a pair of terrific, hardworking local artists and you don't want to miss it. -
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Visual Arts
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Visual Arts
Museum of Illusions
Enter the fascinating world of illusions in this new venue that boasts a stunning array of intriguing visual, sensory, and educational experiences among new, unexplored optical wonderments.$20-24.11010 Domain #100 -
Arts
Visual Arts
Old Bakery Gallery: Fantastical Flora
This multimedia exhibition is a comprehensive exploration of the beauty of botanical forms, expressed realistically and in the abstract, featuring the work of local artist Francine Funke.Opening reception: Sat., Jan. 20, 1-4pm. Free. -
Arts
Visual Arts
Scent of Austin
Flowers are an integral part of the lives of the Broq-Pa peoples of the Indian subcontinent, a constant adornment for both men and women. The interplay of human and floral forms has fascinated artist Ziesook You and become the prevailing theme of her work onward from 2016. Since relocating to Austin two years ago, the internationally acclaimed artist has given a local twist to that body of work with this new collection featuring single mothers, seniors, and people with multicultural backgrounds as living vases for local flora. – Richard WhittakerThrough April 20 -
Arts
Comedy
South Austin Comedy Club
South Austin’s first dedicated comedy venue is spearheaded by local comics Martin Henn, Andre Ricks, and Raza Jafri, and brings top-notch acts to South Austin every Wednesday through Saturday. Note: The upcoming comics – including nationally touring acts, local sweethearts, and everyone in between – will be listed on Instagram each night.Wed.-Sat., 7:30pm -
Arts
Visual Arts
Stephen L. Clark Gallery: Kate Breakey
This exhibition of new work by Kate Breakey showcases hand-colored photography of the natural world, particularly of Texan and Australian landscapes, animals, and insects. -
Arts
Books
Story Circle Network
Nonprofit organization for women, offering monthly reading and writing circles and more, in North, Central, and South Austin. -
Arts
Theatre
The Black Feminist Guide to the Human Body
Black cultural studies scholar Lisa B. Thompson’s “theatrical love letter to Black women and girls” premieres to a sold-out crowd this Friday at the Vortex. The choreopoem – which incorporates music, movement, and design, and culminates in an audience dance party – is “about embracing the ‘soft life’ for Black women, whose labor and dedication has sustained people, communities, and institutions,” says Thompson, who conceived of the idea during her 2021 MacDowell artist residency. The show was subsequently developed during a 2023-24 Texas Performing Arts and Fusebox residency, and includes songs co-written with composers Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. and Vince Anthony, as well as collaborations with choreographer Sadé M. Jones. The show runs Thu.-Sun. through May 4, and tickets are selling fast! – Lina FisherThu.-Sun through May 4 -
Arts
Visual Arts
The Blanton: The Floating World
The opportunity to witness, in person, the creative expression of different times and diverse cultures is one of the perks of city-dwellers everywhere – and exemplified by the collections and traveling exhibitions hosted by UT’s acclaimed Blanton Museum of Art. The Blanton’s newest show displays masterpieces from Edo-period Japan, on loan from the Worcester Art Museum through June 30. These “pictures of the floating world” depict the lifestyle, pleasures, and interests of the urban population – samurais, geishas, kabuki actors, boat parties, palaces, and lush landscapes. As then, so now: Much of who we are is what we do with our lives. – Wayne Alan BrennerFeb. 11-June 30 -
Arts
Comedy
The Creek and the Cave
This snazzy spot for local and national stand-up acts has shows almost every night of the week. -
Arts
Comedy
The Hideout
The diverse lineup of hilarious, always surprising improv shows continues, with Pgraph and Maestro and the Big Bash and more, for the most unexpected delights of in-person entertainment.$10 and up. -
Arts
Visual Arts
The Stuffed Animal Rescue Foundation
Yes, the SARF is welcoming visitors every Saturday – to say hello, apply to adopt special stuffies who need homes, and be dazzled by "the creative endeavors of the most talented stuffed minds ever assembled."Saturdays, noon-4pm. Donations accepted. -
Arts
Comedy
Velveeta Room
The legend of Ronnie Velveeta lives on at this storied 'stablishment of a stand-up stage, where some of the country's hottest comics come to make the floorboards quake with laughter every weekend on Dirty Sixth. Brandie Posey: Sat., May 20, 8 & 10pm. Jake Flores: Sat., May 27, 8 & 10pm.$10. -
Arts
Visual Arts
WPA: Elizabeth Olds
Minneapolis-born and -raised, Elizabeth Olds lived to a sturdy 94 but didn’t get the attention she deserved in her lifetime. The Harry Ransom Center’s new exhibit, which opened Feb. 3 and runs through July 14, aims to rectify that with a first-of-its-kind look back at more than 100 of her prints, paintings, drawings, and illustrations from the 1920s to the 1960s. Of particular note: her depictions of social and political change from her time as a Works Progress Administration printmaker. Want to go deeper? Drop in for one of the daily docent tours. – Kimberley JonesFeb. 3-July 14 -
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Visual Arts
Wyld Gallery
This is Ray Donley's gallery of art by Native Americans, located in that company of artistic glory called Canopy and resplendent with creations from the original people of our struggling country.Call for appointment -
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Visual Arts
Yard Dog: Paul Rodriguez
Yard Dog presents the vibrant works of Paul Rodriguez, a printmaker from San Miguel de Allende. "And some very cool new paintings by Harry Underwood."Opening reception: Fri., Jan. 19, 7-9pm
