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Houston’s Art Car Museum is a Collection of Extraordinary Proportions

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Tony Maples Photography

 

Many call it the “Garage Mahal” of Houston. It’s the Art Car Museum, and it’s absolutely filled with cars that are literal works of art. They’re plastered with all sorts of items imaginable, not to mention the paintings that are applied to them! As far as strange museums in Texas go, this one ranks up there among the ones you won’t find elsewhere, and you won’t want to miss!

A trip to the Art Car Museum in Houston isn’t hard to arrange or to make. It’s located at 140 Heights Boulevard, and it’s open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. It originally opened its doors in 1998, paying homage to contemporary art from a variety of artists who rarely get visibility in mainstream exhibits and museums. The reason being that their art comes in the form of cars, trucks, and other vehicles of that nature. According to the museum website, its goal is “to encourage the public’s awareness of the cultural, political, economic and personal dimensions of art.”

Houston’s Art Car Museum is a Collection of Extraordinary Proportions

Photo: Flickr/A Yee

The Museum supports the art car movement in the Bayou City, including the Art Car Parade. The movement found its influences in the modern custom of personal expression through art, exercising personal choices in imagery as well as subject matter. It also supports the vision of diversity as it’s reflected in the underlying changes in pop culture and consciousness.

The Art Car Museum supports “fine, folk and public art.” Visitors are amazed with the imaginative and elaborate pieces on display, including low riders and motorcycles, and all manner of mobile and revolving exhibits. The artists hail from Texas, across the U.S., and around the world. And, each year, the opportunity to submit their artwork in response to a topic of importance selected by the museum is available to everyone through an open call show!

Houston’s Art Car Museum is a Collection of Extraordinary Proportions

Photo: Flickr/Ross Harmes

Supporting the public’s view of Houston as the ‘Art Car Capital,’ the Art Car Museum features the greatest number of art cars in any city and prides itself on its displays of “fine art essentially free of the conventions and contradictions of the marketplace and the art world.” Take a tour of the Art Car Museum in Houston in the very near future. Its distinctive exterior (also created by a car artist) lends only the slightest hint as to what lies within and what type of extraordinary art will be revealed to you on your tour!