Most of the Design District's arts calendar from now through mid-November comes out of one building. At 161 Glass Street, Dallas Contemporary opened Iván Argote's How to Move a Monument on a Tuesday Morning on October 3. Since then the museum has built tours, a community night, a ballet and the local start of a citywide biennial around it. The gallery shows on Dragon and Monitor Streets close one after another around that schedule. So for anyone living a few minutes away in Uptown, Turtle Creek or Victory Park, the useful question is the order to go in.
The Argote show runs through January 31, 2027, so it isn't going anywhere soon. Most of the events built around it happen only once, and they fall over the next four weeks.
What is inside 161 Glass Street right now
The exhibition is curated by Pilar Tompkins Rivas and looks at monuments, history, power and collective memory through video installation, sculpture and bas-relief. The centerpiece is Levitate, a three-channel video from 2022 about the removal of colonial-era monuments in Rome, Madrid and Paris.
The galleries also hold new pieces from Argote's Wild Flowers series. Arte al Día reports that for these he reproduces fragments of Christopher Columbus monuments, hollows them out, casts them in bronze and plants them with flora native to the region where they are shown. A concrete-based Print series, which combines painting with sculptural technique, completes the show.
The first piece many visitors see stands outside the building. DIGNIDAD is a mobile monument Argote made with Floating Museum and curator Carla Acevedo-Yates. According to the same Arte al Día report, it was installed outside Dallas Contemporary in September, weeks before the indoor galleries opened. It matters because one of the season's events is organized around it.
Three more ways into the same show before mid-November
The museum's calendar reads like one exhibition approached from different directions. Each program takes a different angle on the same works.
Sunday, October 25: the Process Tour
From 1 to 2 p.m., a free guided tour concentrates on the materials and process behind Argote's work. The museum recommends it for people curious about how an artist's material choices shape a piece's overall impact. That focus makes it the natural companion to the bronze planters and the concrete Print works. The Stories Tour on Saturday, October 17, centered on the artist's biography, so the Process Tour is the next guided visit on the calendar after that date.
Thursday, October 29: DIGNIDAD Community Day
From 5 to 8 p.m., the museum is hosting a community evening with food, drinks and an artist trunk-or-treat. The listing is named for the monument outside the front door, and so far it says only that more details will follow. This is the season's Halloween-week evening, the one most suited to families, and it runs after the museum's usual 5 p.m. closing time.
Friday and Saturday, November 6–7: Pegasus Contemporary Ballet's "Overgrowth"
Pegasus Contemporary Ballet is staging a new site-specific piece inspired directly by the Argote exhibition. It is choreographed by Elliott Ludovic, with composer Sam Brukhman, founder of Verdigris Ensemble, performing an original electronic score live as BRKHMN. The museum says parts of the score adapt to the dancers in real time, and that the performance moves between the exhibition and a smaller performance setting.
Capacity is limited, and there are four showtimes:
- Friday, November 6, 8 p.m., opening night
- Saturday, November 7, 2 p.m., matinee
- Saturday, November 7, 7 p.m.
- Saturday, November 7, 9 p.m., late night
Tickets are on Eventbrite. Of all the programs this fall, this is the only one that takes the exhibition's subject and turns it into new work.
November 4: the museum becomes the biennial's first stop
The museum is not the only thing changing in early November. On Wednesday, November 4, the AURORA Biennial opens its seventh edition, States of Becoming, curated by Julia Kaganskiy and Tairone Bastien. AURORA's free programming runs at sites across Dallas and Fort Worth from November 4 to 20. A free outdoor finale follows on November 21 from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. at Dallas City Hall, the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library and the AT&T Discovery District. Glasstire reported a lineup of 18 artists across the three-week run.
So far, Dallas Contemporary is the one Design District venue confirmed for the biennial. AURORA's own page says the rest of the locations will be announced soon. The museum's contribution is Alien Technology, two works by Berlin-based Kuwaiti artist Monira Al Qadiri, curated by Bastien and on view from November 4 through December 6. Both pieces deal with the Arabian Gulf's shift from a pearl-based economy to one shaped by oil. One is a large sculpture modeled on an industrial oil drill bit that resembles bioluminescent sea life. The other, Diver, from 2018, is an immersive video of synchronized swimmers in iridescent suits, set to a traditional pearl-diving song.
The public opening reception runs from 8 to 9 p.m. That timing is worth noting. The museum is normally closed Monday through Wednesday, so a Wednesday-night reception opens the building on a day it would otherwise be dark.
The galleries around it close on their own dates
The commercial galleries a few blocks away keep their own schedules, and those schedules run out sooner than the museum's. This is the one part of the season where waiting means missing a show. In closing order:
- Samuel Lynne Galleries, 1105 Dragon Street. Tyler Shields's exhibition, launched with a book-release reception on October 17, runs through November 4. That is the same night as the AURORA reception at Glass Street.
- Laura Rathe Fine Art. Between Worlds, with works by Christy Lee Rogers and Lucrecia Waggoner, opened October 3 and runs through November 6, the opening night of "Overgrowth."
- ALG Fine Art, 1302 Dragon Street. Christi Meril's solo show runs through November 14.
- Galleri Urbane, 2277 Monitor Street. Saskia Fleishman's Contours also closes November 14.
Put those dates next to the museum's calendar and some pairings suggest themselves. A Process Tour on Sunday the 25th leaves time to walk Dragon Street afterward while all four gallery shows are still up. Anyone holding a Saturday matinee ticket for "Overgrowth" on November 7 will still find ALG and Galleri Urbane open, but the Shields and Between Worlds shows will have closed. For music the next night, SILO Dallas lists Alex Farell at Ductwork on Sunday, November 8.
Before you go, and where to eat after
Dallas Contemporary is open Thursday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free, with a $10 suggested donation, and parking next to the building is also free. The museum asks visitors to reserve ahead. The free admission is supported by the Eugene McDermott Foundation, and the museum says it will continue through 2026. Three of the season's events fall outside regular hours: DIGNIDAD Community Day runs into a Thursday evening, the AURORA reception is on a Wednesday, and the ballet runs Friday and Saturday nights.
The newest place for dinner after an evening program is Juliet. The Houston cinema-themed steakhouse opened October 1 at Hi Line Drive and Edison Street. The Dallas Observer reports that founder Jamie Allen positioned the Dallas location as a step up from the Houston original, with executive chef Jeff Auld running a menu split into "Previews," "Film Rolls," "Main Event" and "Co-Stars." The same report describes marquee lights and velvet ropes out front, plus a host stand built like a concession counter, complete with a working popcorn machine. The Observer also points out that Juliet opened the same day as Docent Steak in the Harwood District. That was a busy week for new steakhouses on both sides of Stemmons.
After November, the Argote exhibition stays up through January, and the Al Qadiri works remain through December 6. The dates in between, from the Process Tour on October 25 to the last gallery closings on November 14, are the ones to put on the calendar now.
Living within a short drive of 161 Glass Street is part of what makes the towers along Turtle Creek, Uptown and Victory Park appealing, and Sharon follows that cultural calendar as closely as the buildings themselves. If you're considering a move into one of those towers, or rethinking the home you already have there, Sharon Quist is happy to talk it through. Request a private consultation with Sharon.
