Our Mission
The mission of the Moody Center for the Arts is to encourage creative thinking and original expression, enrich curricular innovation, and promote cross-campus and community collaboration through transformative encounters with the arts. We are a public-facing institution that connects the arts at Rice to the greater Houston community.
The Moody mounts three exhibitions a year in its galleries, curates numerous temporary and permanent public art installations throughout Rice's campus, and hosts performances, conversations, classes, and hands-on workshops. All of these events are open to the public. By centering these efforts on generative partnerships with artists, scholars, and students from various disciplines, the Moody presents unexpected and everchanging entry points into the arts which bridge communities and areas of interest, thus realizing its mission.
Read on to learn more about our core values, programming, and award-winning building. You can stay informed about exhibitions and events by signing up for our newsletter and you can visit our rental page to explore the state-of-the-art facilities offered in the building. Information about giving and being a part of the future of the arts at Rice can be found here.
The Moody's Core Values
The Moody operates on the belief that exposure to art and ideas should be accessible to everyone and art has the power to foster innovation across disciplines, inspire creative problem solving, and transform lives. By drawing on Rice's interdisciplinary resources and making them available to diverse audiences, the Moody provides a dynamic forum for learning and community engagement.
The Moody's core values shape the pursuits of its leadership, guide staff, and unify its stakeholders. Those values include Excellence, we offer transformative encounters with the arts through thought-provoking exhibitions and programs that aspire to the highest standards of quality; Innovation, we seek to inspire new ideas and foster creative problem-solving through interdisciplinary experiences with the arts; Education, we support engagement with students and faculty to create meaningful encounters with the arts an contribute to new forms of pedagogy; Collaboration, we cultivate and establish partnerships, both on- and off-campus, as a foundation of all of the Moody's work; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, we aim to reflect Rice's commitment to these principles by welcoming and celebrating all voices; and University Engagement, we invest in Rice's values and strategic priorities through all of the Moody's efforts.
A forum for creative partnerships with visiting national and international artists as well as the Houston arts community.
A welcoming and accessible facility that offers world-class art exhibitions and innovative programming.
A flexible and fully-equipped learning environment that supports students, faculty, and the public.
The Moody's Programming
Furthering its commitment to education and engagement, the Moody offers signature programming which includes Dimensions Variable, a series that invites artists of various disciplines to respond to the exhibition on view, and Artists-in-Dialogue, an open and public conversation between artists, practitioners, and researchers in desperate but complementary fields. The organization is also host to the Leslie and Brad Bucher Artist-in-Residence, which provides an on-campus studio, research opportunities at Rice and in Houston as well as classroom and faculty collaborations.
The Moody's event offerings include collaborations that activate the Lois Chiles Studio Theater, the Media Lab, and outdoor spaces. These open and free programs are complemented by ongoing workshops in the Moody's Makerspace that support the research and personal interests of Rice students, faculty, and staff.
In addition to three seasonal exhibitions, the Moody curates temporary public art interventions which include Off the Wall, a yearly installation in the Brochstein Pavilion; the Moody Project Wall hosted in the building's flex space; Platform, a global invitation to artists to create an installation in response to the architecture and areas of study found on Rice's campus; and the Tent Series. The Moody Center for the Arts also helps maintain, curate, and facilitate the permanent Rice Public Art collection in partnership with other entities on campus.
The Moody's Award-Winning Building
The 2017 opening of the Moody inaugurated a new arts district on Rice’s campus that both anchored various departments and created a public gateway. The building conceptually and geographically connects the nearby Shepherd School of Music, Brockman Hall for Opera, and James Turrell’s Twilight Epiphany Skyspace at the Suzanne Deal Booth Centennial Pavilion. The Moody also directly neighbors the future site of the Susan and Fayez Sarofim Hall, home to Rice University’s Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts.
The Moody's emphasis on connectivity extends to the building’s architecture with the majority of the first floor along the principal elevations clad in floor-to-ceiling glass and large picture windows punctuating the articulated brick facade in a playful rhythm that brings light deep into interior spaces. The $30 million, 50,000 square-foot building was designed to support an experimental platform for creating and presenting works in all disciplines, a flexible teaching space to encourage new modes of learning, and a forum for creative partnerships. Due to the success of architect Michael Maltzan's vision, the Moody received the 2017 Design Honor Award from the AIA California Council. The American Institute of Architects, California Council (AIACC) Design Awards Program strives to recognize projects that have inspired architectural design thought and exhibit formal, technological, and spatial innovations.
What does the building contain?
|
|
Michael Maltzan Architecture
Founded in 1995, Michael Maltzan Architecture is an architecture, landscape, and urban design practice committed to the creation of progressive, transformative experiences that chart new trajectories for architecture and the public realm. The Los Angeles-based practice, led by Michael Maltzan, FAIA, has designed award-winning educational and cultural facilities around the world including projects with the Museum of Modern Art, Art Center College of Design, UCLA Hammer Museum, San Francisco State University, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Kidspace Children’s Museum and Inner-City Arts.