Austin: Arts & Culture

Because of the natural beauty of its surroundings, as well as its friendliness toward artists and artistic pursuits, Austin has long served as a Mecca for painters, printmakers, jewelry makers, musicians, potters, muralists and devotees of nearly every other artistic expression. And the future only gets brighter for this thriving haven for the arts as Austin will soon be home to the Long Center for the Performing Arts.

The Long Center, on the site of the old Palmer Auditorium, will feature three acoustically superior theaters under one roof. It will serve more than 250 performing arts groups in Central Texas as well as area school children and celebrate musicians and the artists throughout Texas.

Lights, Camera, Austin!

Austin’s reputation as a center for movie production has been growing. Today, film shoots are not uncommon and stargazing has joined bat watching as a local pastime. In the past few years, locals caught glimpses of Robert Rodriguez shooting Spy Kids, Spy Kids 2 and Spy Kids 3-D, Dennis Quaid in The Rookie, Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality and Hope Floats, Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused and Skeet Ulrich and Dwight Yoakam filming The Newton Boys. Most recently, The Alamo and Second Hand Lions were filmed in Austin. Actress Sandra Bullock, producer Lynda Obst and animator/ filmmaker Mike Judge are among a growing number of movie industry luminaries who have called the Austin area home.

A partnership between the city and the Austin Film Society created Austin Studios, 20 acres of film/video production facilities close to downtown Austin. This facility, which has been booked solid with motion picture productions since its opening, features an 8,000-square-foot production office building and 79,000 square feet of production space. This includes areas for set construction, wardrobe, soundstages as well as acres of paved parking.

Recognized as a leader by people in the industry, Austin boasts the wildly successful South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival and Conference and the equally prestigious Austin Film Festival. Both originating in 1994, these festivals have won national acclaim, attracting directors, stars, producers and film shoots to the Lone Star State. Within six years, the two festivals blossomed in prestige as well as attendance. Held each March as part of a series that includes a music festival, a conference and an interactive festival, SXSW has grown into a national event.

Meanwhile, the Austin Film Festival, which focuses on screenwriters, is held every year in October. Past winners of the festival’s screenplay competition include Max D. Adams, whose screenplay Excess Baggage took the top prize in 1994 and was later made into a feature film starring Alicia Silverstone and Christopher Walken. All this acclaim adds up to a new era in moviemaking—Austin-style.

The New Blanton Museum of Art

Art is the ultimate experience at the new Blanton Museum of Art. In April 2006 a new cultural era began for Austin as the Blanton opened the doors to its splendid new home. Housed at last in an architectural space worthy of its remarkable collections, the new Blanton is located at Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and Congress Avenue adjacent to downtown.

As if the museum's inspiring permanent collection of over 17,000 works weren't enough, visitors now have a choice of programs and events designed to catch the interest of seasoned enthusiasts and first-time museum-goers alike. Offerings range from artist talks, art history classes, and seminars to yoga in the galleries, tango lessons, live performances by Austin bands, and late-night art encounters.

The new Blanton is interactive. In the eLounge visitors may browse digital databases of art information, books, and magazines. And, the new Acoustiguide tour, Uncommon Commentary, incorporates voices and perspectives of Austinites from many walks of life along with curators and other university scholars.

Innovative installations and diverse special exhibitions are hallmarks of the new Blanton experience. The museum's unsurpassed collections of Latin American and American art hang side-by-side in a groundbreaking inaugural installation, America/Americas. Renaissance and Baroque European paintings, many newly conserved and seen for the first time, are a revelation. Masterworks on paper, from Rembrandt to Picasso, are assembled in the new print galleries. On the first floor, New Now Next: The Contemporary Blanton, showcases many recent acquisitions.

With the completion of this new landmark, visitors can now enjoy two incredible museum experiences on a single corner of the city-the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum and the Blanton Museum of Art, just a few steps apart, form a distinctive cultural corner in this creative capital.