CIVIC TV 2014 - 2020

CIVIC TV WAS A COLLABORATIVELY-ORGANIZED, ARTIST-RUN, NOMADIC ART SPACE BASED IN HOUSTON, TEXAS.

Founded in 2014 by artist and art organizer Terry Suprean, Civic TV opened its first art space in a warehouse developed into an exhibition/work/live space by a small collective of artists.  After operating out of this space for two years, Civic TV moved two more times before evolving into a nomadic art space.

As an early pioneer of the nomadic art space model, along with other Houston based arts organizations such as FLATS Presents, Civic TV's mission was an experiment in community based "no-profit" arts organizing that helped pave the way for a generation of locally-focused alternative arts spaces in the gulf coast region.

On this website is the near complete archive of Civic TV's 6 year life.  The Arts Space/Exhibition Archive page contains a complete archive of exhibitions and a partial archive of the sound events we hosted.

In the summer of 2020, after the completion of Civic TV's largest exhibition to date ("9", a guest curated exhibition for the 2020 FotoFest Biennial), Civic TV swept the floor and turned off the lights for the last time amidst the backdrop of a pandemic.  

RECENT EXHIBITIONS 

MARCH 14TH - APRIL 19TH

OPENING: SATURDAY, MARCH 14TH, 6 - 9PM

LOCATION: Sabine Street Studios - 1907 Sabine St, Houston, TX 77007

9, a Civic TV collaboratively curated nomadic exhibition in conjunction with the 2020 FotoFest Biennial, showcases the overlapping Cosmologies illustrated by the diverse offerings of nine Houston-based artists presenting the polylithic nature of Houston’s African diaspora. In this exhibition Blackness and Otherness refuse the notion of a simplified or schematized existence.

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For more information about the exhibition, the artists, educational resources please visit www.9exhibition.com

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For more information about the Opening Reception and to RSVP please visit our Facebook event page here or our Houston Arts Alliance event page here

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This exhibition is made possible through the support of The Idea Fund. The Idea Fund is a re-granting program administered by DiverseWorks, Aurora Picture Show, and Project Row Houses and funded by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

This exhibition is funded in part by the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance. 

FEBRUARY 8TH - MARCH 8TH

OPENING: SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8TH, 6 - 9PM

CLOSING: SUNDAY MARCH 8TH, 5 - 7PM

LOCATION: BS Projects

Civic TV presents a nomadic exhibition, Guest Curated by Tex Kerschen

Featuring artists Heath Flagtvedt and Danny Kerschen

Graciously hosted by BS Projects

4540 West 34th Street, Houston, TX 77092

Live music at 8:30 with sets by Studded Left and Darsi

More Information about the Opening Reception can be found here.

More information about the Closing Reception can be found here

MOST RECENT EXHIBITIONS

DECEMBER 7TH - DECEMBER 18TH

OPENING: SATURDAY, DEC. 7TH, 6 - 9PM

LOCATION: ARC House

Civic TV and ARC House are pleased to present Fountain, an exhibition of Berlin & Houston-based artist Elisabeth Mladenov’s latest work, a series of large-scale paintings exploring process-based abstraction. Evolved through spontaneous, unplanned movements akin to improvised dance, the exhibition examines the notion that a painting can act as a record of a body's performance with a canvas.

Fountain is a Civic TV Nomadic Exhibition graciously hosted by ARC House.

PREVIOUS EXHIBITION

FEBRUARY 2ND - FEBRUARY 7TH

OPENING: SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2ND, 6 - 9PM

LOCATION: AURORA PICTURE SHOW

Civic TV is pleased to present the second installment of our Give Me Shelter exhibition series, Give Me Shelter (Aurora), a Civic TV Nomadic Exhibition graciously co-produced by Aurora Picture Show, and curated by Terry Suprean and Luke Harnden.   

Co-developed by artist collectives Civic TV Laboratories (Houston) and Beefhaus (Dallas), the Give Me Shelterexhibition series was conceived to catalyze new methodologies for organizing encounters between artists and artist-run spaces across the state of Texas.  Artists included in the exhibition are Houston artists Shannon Crider, London Ham, and David Janesko, and Dallas artists Alison Starr and William Sarradet.  The work in the exhibition examines new strategies for the deconstruction and recontextualization of video and the media it spawns through sculpture, performance, installation, and print.

PREVIOUS EXHIBITION

JULY 14TH - AUGUST 25TH

OPENING: JULY 14TH

NEIL EBBFLO

PORTAL: VISUAL ITERATE FUNCTION SYSTEMS DIRECT & EXTERNAL

Civic TV, in collaboration with Flatland Gallery, is pleased to announce the opening of video artist Neil Ebbflo’s exhibition “Portal: Visual Iterate Function Systems Direct and External”; our first nomadic exhibition after the closing of our Freeman Street location. The exhibition explores connections between feedback loops, topological systems, and the phenomenon of pareidolia through a three-part interactive installation that deconstructs the moving image into a multifaceted sensorial experience. Neil Ebbflo, the pseudonym used by Neil Jody for his various video projects, is a professor of mathematics at San Jacinto College and an expert in analog video synthesizers which he uses to sculpt light and sound frequencies into process based abstractions that reveal a nuanced world behind our traditional experience with the time-based medium. In addition Ebbflo will release the first book of his work entitled “Totems” at the opening, a publication of the Free International University -Texas.

PREVIOUS EXHIBITION

JUNE 2ND - JUNE 30TH

OPENING: JUNE 2ND

GIVE ME SHELTER

Civic TV is pleased to announce the opening of “Give Me Shelter”, an exhibition by former members of the Dallas based Beefhaus collective in collaboration with members of Civic TV Laboratories. This exhibition marks the start of a series of gestures between Dallas and Houston based artists and collectives aimed at sparking cross-pollination between the two cities.

More Information Here

PREVIOUS EXHIBITION

MARCH 17TH - APRIL 14TH

OPENING: MARCH 17TH

HENRY G. SANCHEZ - PATRIOT GAME

Civic TV is pleased to announce the opening of Patriot Game, an exhibition by artist Henry G. Sanchez.

Patriot Game is a participatory multimedia-based project created by Sanchez in collaboration with fellow members of the Houston Chapter of United We Dream.  The project experiments with redefining the concepts, terms, and vernacular associated with the United States social contract and notions of patriotism.

PREVIOUS EXHIBITION

JANUARY 20TH - FEBRUARY 28TH

OPENING: JANUARY 19TH

CLOSING: FEBRUARY 24TH

TEX KERSCHEN - SWINE

Civic TV is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition of the collage based works of artist, musician, writer, and curator Tex Kerschen.

More information here.

PREVIOUS EXHIBITION

NOVEMBER 18TH - JANUARY 7TH

OPENING: NOVEMBER 18TH

DANIEL HIPOLITO - DEVELOPMENTS 

Hipolito's Developments series is an ongoing Instagram-based photography project. This exhibition chronicles the first three years of the project, and will also be the release of a a photography book of the series published by Civic TV & the FIU-Texas.

For more information on the exhibition and the publication >