Fort Worth in 2023: From visual arts, to music and dance to performance art

A new year is coming, and plenty is happening in the Fort Worth arts and culture scene in 2023.

Let’s take a look.

Visual arts

The spring season at Fort Worth’s museums starts, really, in February. Opening Feb. 12 and running through April 30 is curator Alison Hearst’s monumental “I’ll Be Your Mirror: Art and the Digital Screen,” a 50-plus exhibition of artists, such as Nam June Paik, Andy Warhol, Caitlin Cherry and Hasan Elahi, who examined the influence and changing landscape of art and digital technology from 1969 through today.

The first presentation in more than a quarter century to fully examine the late painter Robert Motherwell runs at the Modern from June 4-Sept. 17. The “Robert Motherwell: Pure Painting” retrospective looks closer at his paintings following his career, growth and rise to fame.

Beginning Aug. 13 and running through Nov. 26 at the Modern is “Jammie Holmes: Make the Revolution Irresistible,” the artist’s first solo exhibition. Holmes, a painter, depicts everyday life with the socioeconomic forces and disparities influencing how people fight, survive and thrive.

Running March 12-July 9 at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art is curator Maggie Adler’s “Emancipation: The Unfinished Project of Liberation.” Coinciding with the 160th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, artists including Dallas native and sculptor Hugh Hayden and Fort Worth painter Letitia Huckaby look at the meaning of Black freedom and the legacy of the Civil War.

Running from Aug. 27 through Jan. 7, 2024 at the Carter is a closer look at Louise Nevelson. She was known for black and white gigantic wooden sculptures and site-specific works likened to Cubism. In “The World Outside: Louise Nevelson at Midcentury,” Nevelson is treated as an imaginary abstract expressionist influenced by the world around her.

The exhibition “Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art,” an exhibition of 120 rarely-seen Mayan works, runs from May 7 through Sept. 3 at the Kimbell Art Museum. Made between the years 250-900 and inspired by the gods’ mythical actions, artists produced gigantic sculptures, ornaments and ceramics reflecting the relationships with the ethereal and earthly, looking at the life cycle of the god, from birth to transformation.

Opening Nov. 3 and running through Jan. 28, 2024, the Kimbell presents “Bonnard’s Worlds,” dedicated to the works of French painter Pierre Bonnard. The 70 pieces spanning his career show how he experienced the world and how public and private experiences shaped his practice.

Arts Fort Worth, formerly known as the Arts Council of Fort Worth and Tarrant County, celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2023. In the always bustling Fort Worth Community Arts Center galleries, look for a retrospective of Arlington abstract artist Bill Barter and an exhibit of work by fabric artist Sarita Westrup, the organization’s first Emerging Artist Resident.

Fort Works Arts extends its popular “Kate Simon: The View From The Inside” until Spring Gallery Night on March 25. Known for her celebrity portraits, including of The Clash, Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe in the 1970s and 1980s, this is the portrait photographer’s second show at FWA show. On Gallery Night, she will be joined by sculptors Joshua Goode and Michele Tejuola Turner. Goode uses archaeology and personal memories to create artifacts later dug up. Turner carves gourds, which she learned in Africa. Like Goode’s artifacts, the gourds are sculptures telling different personal stories about the artists’ lives.

Running from Feb. 4-March 19 at Love Texas Art in Sundance Square is “Out Of The Fire,” a rare show featuring the ten women artists in Texas who primarily work in ceramics. They show the medium’s breadth, creating more traditional pottery to conceptual installations. From May 11-June 17, the gallery shows Dallas artist Benjamin Munoz’s interactive exhibit, “Home,” about the erasure of the barrio and the resulting displacement and loss of its culture. He will concurrently display in a printmaking show with printmaker artist David Wolske at LTA’s sibling gallery Artspace 111.

A somber exhibit at Artspace 111 memorializing the late artists Ed and Linda Blackburn opens on March 25 and runs until April 29. The Blackburns were giants in the local and Texas art scene. Each had their own style and interests moving between sparse and dark to ebullient and amusing canvases. They also collaborated, such as in their 1990s era “The Adventures of Eddie Leon” paintings signed under the pseudonym Ray Madison. They died eight months apart.

The Art Galleries at TCU take part in the university’s 150th anniversary celebrations with “150 Years / 150 Artists” running March 24 through May 6. Director and curator Sara-Jayne Parsons’ show features 150 artists who have a connection to TCU’s School of Art, including Marshall Harris and Harmony Padgett and selections from the permanent collection. Opening on Aug. 23 is a show organized by local curator Phan Nguyen featuring multidisciplinary artist Trinh Mai and photographer Ann Le. The Vietnamese American artists reflect on their personal history and identities as Vietnamese and American, reconciling their Americanness with the wounds caused by imperialism and war. Both shows are at Fort Worth Contemporary Arts.

Classical music and dance

Fan favorites, debuts and collaborations are among the options for classical music lovers in the latter half of the 2022-23 seasons.

The Fort Worth Symphony presents a “Night at the Ballet,” a collaboration with Texas Ballet Theater and a world premiere performance set to composer Brian Raphael Nabors’ “Of Earth and Sky: Tales from the Motherland” in April. Nabors is known for fusing jazz, rhythm, blues, and gospel, among other genres, into his work. In May, music, theater and art combine with a semi-staged “Theater of a Concert” concept performance of Haydn’s “The Creation” with Elaine J. McCarthy, the award-winning production and lighting designer, setting the mood.

Visit the symphony’s website for tickets and more information.

The Cliburn continues to expand its North Texas footprint, taking the international junior competition to SMU. Twenty-four competitors between 13-17 years old will duke it out June 8-17. An additional 10 non-competitors will participate. And its concert series continues with Grammy Award-winning singer J’Nai Bridges performing on Feb. 9 at the Modern and Feb. 10 at the Post in the Riverside Arts District. Cellist Joshua Romans returns for a concert at Tulips in the Near Southside on April 26 and a performance at the Kimbell on April 27.

Go online for more information.

The Fort Worth Opera’s season includes the regional premiere of Portland, Oregon-based composer Damien Geter’s “An African American Requiem.” Check out this social commentary about African-Americans who have died from racial violence on Jan. 28 at TCU’s Van Cliburn Recital Hall.

Go online for more information.

On Feb. 11, the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth presents the Dover Quartet, which, according to BBC Magazine is one of the greatest string quartets of the last 100 years. On April 22, the society performs with violist Jordan Bak and pianist Alexander Kobrin to the music of rarely heard composer Albert Rousse and works by Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn.

Go online to get details.

On Feb. 12 the Allegro Guitar Society presents the acclaimed classical guitarist Pepe Romero. The son of the equally acclaimed Celedonio Romero has performed with numerous orchestras and taught worldwide, including at Southern Methodist University.

Go online for more information.

Performing arts

Performing Arts Fort Worth’s 2022-2023 season continues, with Disney’s The Lion King running Jan. 18-29. Running May 9-14 is the musical Tootsie, adapted from the movie, about how actor Michael Dorsey’s desperation to find work leads him to the role of a lifetime. The 2019 Tony Award-winning musical “Hadestown,” a modern adaptation of the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, rolls into town from June 27-July 2.

Go online for tickets and more information.

Stage West’s season continues with two collaborations with Dallas companies. The murder mystery play within a play, “The Play That Goes Wrong,” produced with Water Tower Theatre, runs from Feb. 16-March 5. The jukebox musical based on the cult classic movie “Cruel Intentions: the ’90s Musical,” produced with Uptown Players, runs May 4-21.

Go online for more information.

Circle Theatre’s new season includes two plays with local ties. The downtown theater kick-starts its season with the one-person musical “Lonesome Blues,” Alan Govenar’s and Akin Babatundé’s celebration of the late Dallas resident and blind bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson.

An adaptation of the hit book “I’m Proud of You: My Friendship with Mr. Rogers” by former Fort Worth Star-Telegram writer Tim Madigan has been adapted for the stage. It runs from Oct. 26-Nov. 11.

Check out the Circle Theater’s entire season online.

Opening later this month at Jubilee Theatre is “Moon Man Walk” by the prolific playwright James Ijames. The story is about a young man who falls in love on the way to his mother’s funeral, dives deep into his memories, and learns about his distant father. It runs Jan 27-Feb. 26.

Go online for more information.

Amphibian Stage Productions’ season includes world and regional premieres and the third annual Spark Fest, the statewide acting competition running June 1-17.

Opening their Main Stage season is Leegrid Stevens’s “Spaceman,” following Molly Jennis’ mission to Mars after her husband’s failed, tragic attempt. It runs from February 10-March 5.

The world premiere of “Miss Molly, A Marital Deceit of Honest Intentions” by TCU alumnae Christine Carmela and directed by fellow Horned Frog and onetime roommate Evan Michael Woods, running July 21-Aug. 13. In a press release, it was called Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” with a twist.

Go online for more information..

Texas Ballet Theatre’s 2022-23 season continues with Modern Masterpieces, a series of three performances, Bartok, Image and Imbue, each highlighting different themes and stories about loss and hope and, of course, featuring their standard beautiful backdrops and lighting. It runs March 17-19. Go online for more information.

Ballet Frontier of Texas, when not on tour, presents “Carmen & More” from Feb. 18-19 and the world premiere of The “Sleeping Beauty” from April 7-8. Go online for more details.

And Arts Fort Worth debuts the melodrama and romantic comedy “The Texas Book of Beasts” written by Texas-based playwright Jeff Irvin as part of its Original Works Series program at the Hardy and Betty Sanders Theatre. The story of four characters trying to save a toad’s habitat runs the second, third and fourth Fridays through Sundays in March. Go online for more information.

This story was originally published January 7, 2023 at 12:00 AM.