{"id":263808,"date":"2026-04-24T03:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T03:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/263808\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T03:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T03:35:12","slug":"uts-landmarks-program-unveils-multistory-glass-artwork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/263808\/","title":{"rendered":"UT’s Landmarks program unveils multistory glass artwork"},"content":{"rendered":"

Landmarks<\/a>, UT Austin\u2019s public art program, is celebrating the unveiling of a new work Thursday by pioneering Black artist Howardena Pindell.<\/p>\n

Autobiography: Circles is a multistory composition on the glass facade of the College of Education\u2019s George I. S\u00e1nchez Building. It depicts a constellation of colorful dots, some of which have arrows or numbers on them. Each contributes to themes of social justice and forward movement \u2014 ideas that have been constant in the 83-year-old artist\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

The genesis of the circle comes from a trip Pindell took through the Deep South with her father as a child. The pair stopped at a root beer stand where she noticed the bottom of her mug had a red dot.<\/p>\n

\"Howardena<\/p>\n

Howardena Pindell’s art career has spanned 50 years. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe asked her father, \u2018What is this?\u2019\u201d Landmarks Deputy Director Kathleen Stimpert said. \u201cHe explained to her that that is how dishes were marked for Black customers in the South during that time. It made such an impact on her that she decided when she became an artist to take ownership of the circle and to turn this really negative experience into something beautiful and powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dots can be found scattered throughout Pindell\u2019s collages, paintings, prints and now on the glass installation. The numbers on the piece serve a twofold purpose, representing her father \u2014 who taught math \u2014 and the badges that enslaved people were forced to wear. The arrows symbolize forward motion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what she is calling a legacy project, because she’s quite older,\u201d Stimpert said. \u201cThis is such a monumental work for her because it includes elements of symbols and motifs from across her career all combined into this one project.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Landmarks program, best known for the canoe sculpture outside the Norman Hackerman Building, maintains a collection of modern and contemporary works installed across the UT Austin campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe wonderful thing about public art is that it is available free of charge, 24\/7, and students can engage with it on their own terms,\u201d Stimpert said.<\/p>\n

Landmarks approached Pindell to create the work five years ago. After the artist completed the composition, the arts program worked with a fabricator in New York to infuse high-resolution scans into glass, a process known as \u201cceramic frit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

A close up of \u201cCircles\u201d by Howardena Pindell at the George I. Sanchez building at the College of Education on the University of Texas at Austin campus. <\/p>\n

This is Pindell’s first public art commission in Texas. <\/p>\n

Stimpert says it was an honor to work with her.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was one of the founding members of a gallery called A.I.R<\/a>., and it was all women that were artists working in New York, back in the \u201970s,\u201d Stimpert said. \u201cThey became sick of not being represented and not having the same type of exposure and opportunities that male artists did. In art history, it’s really considered an important gallery for women [and] Black artists.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added that the gallery centered female artists and artists of color during a time in which they were marginalized.<\/p>\n

Landmarks will celebrate Pindell with curator Valerie Cassel Oliver at 4:30 p.m. Thursday at the George I. S\u00e1nchez Building.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Landmarks, UT Austin\u2019s public art program, is celebrating the unveiling of a new work Thursday by pioneering Black…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,98792,31778,98793,4039,4100,2471,98794],"class_list":["post-263808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-autobiography-circles","tag-college-of-education","tag-howardena-pindell","tag-public-art","tag-university-of-texas","tag-ut-austin","tag-ut-landmarks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}