The Orange Show celebrates the transformation of common objects into works of extraordinary imagination. In the fall of 2022 we offered an encounter with the art and music of one of the foremost self-trained visionaries of the American South. Lonnie Holley first visited the Orange Show in 1995, and he returned to Houston to lead a two-day workshop featuring a group of advanced students drawn from fine arts programs at the University of Houston, Rice University, Texas Southern University, and Houston Baptist University. The group worked under Holley’s direction over the course of two intensive, daylong sessions to create an original sculptural installation using castoff material collected from JD Metals, from Reuse Warehouse, and from the junk shops, streets, and curbsides of the city of Houston. The results were a site-specific stage setting for a residency-closing concert on Saturday night featuring Mr. Holley’s frequent musical collaborators Marlon Patton (drums/bass pedals) and Dave Nelson (trombone/synthesizers/loops).

The collaborative sculptural installation will remain on view in the Orange Show’s dock space during the early part of October, with tours for classes and other organized groups of six or more by appointment.

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ABOUT LONNIE HOLLEY

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Lonnie Holley (b. 1950, Birmingham, AL) is a bona fide art world superstar and now a favorite on the music festival circuit.  Known primarily for his found object assemblages and immersive yard art installations, Holley is an alchemist who deftly transforms the cast-off detritus of society into resonant talismans that critique, question, or commemorate. His music works in a similar way as Holley delivers his improvised songs with an incantatory passion. This residency culminates in a live performance within a temporary sculptural environment built during an intensive workshop with a curated group of university-level Houston sculptors. Holley’s art is shown in museums and galleries around the country but his visit to the Orange Show focuses on community and the experience shared between artists and audience. 

Following a chaotic childhood with stops in foster homes and reform school, Holley’s life as an artist began when he carved sandstone grave markers for nieces who died in a house fire in 1979. The Birmingham Museum of Art collected, exhibited, and advocated for his early work, which through the 1980s evolved to include indoor and outdoor found-material assemblage, and later painting and drawing. Since 2000, he’s parlayed an interest in home-taping into a series of acclaimed records on small indie labels and a second career as a touring musician. Through four decades of multimedia work, Holley’s practice has been described as a “narrative retelling of Black American history,” celebrating the successes of the Civil Rights movement and commenting upon the struggle that remains. His sculptures can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

“He keeps people spellbound with his oratory, humor, and insights into art making. He makes the kind of sculpture–and produces the kind of music–that changes people. It gets into their emotional and intellectual core and forces them to rethink art and history, as well as their own assumptions about how the world works." SF Weekly

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