Christian's Tailgate (photo by Becca Wright)
B&B Butchers & Restaurant
B&B rooftop (photo by Kirsten Gilliam)
Expect the regular dinner menu on July 4, plus a Texas wagyu hot dog special served with giant steak fries and accoutrements. After dinner, catch a view of Houston’s Freedom Over Texas fireworks from the parking lot — hot diggity dog!
B.B. Lemon
Bloody Mary at B.B. Lemon (photo by Jenn Duncan)
Rise and shine for a July 4 patriotic brunch, lunch or dinner with tunes on the patio by DJ Mohawk Steve. In addition to the regular menu, expect wagyu burgers, hot dogs, beers from the new tap wall, and a festive cocktail special. Catch the great view of downtown Houston’s firework display from the B&B Butchers parking lot across the street. It’s better than a drive-in movie.
Buffalo Bayou Brewing Co.
Freedom Over Texas (photo courtesy Visit Houston)
This third-floor rooftop has prime views of the downtown Freedom Over Texas fireworks, accessible with a ticket ($20, starting at 7pm). Pub food (awesome pizzas!), beers and frozens will be available to purchase a la carte.
Christian's Tailgate
This casual burger joint with three locations will offer all-American hot dogs and tacos for only two bucks, along with $3 draft pints, seven specialty burgers and other rib-sticking pub grub.
CityCentre
CityCentre’s beloved fireworks celebration returns. Leading up to the big 10-minute fireworks show at 9:30pm, there will be live music from 7pm onward (country and pop). CityCentre restaurants will offer a variety of to-go menu options for snacking and sipping under the stars.
Home Run Dugout
Home Run Dugout
On the Fourth, join the sprawling party for build-your-own hotdogs and burgers, a cornhole tournament, a hot dog contest, ice-cold beer and fireworks after dark. Bring the whole family for indoor batting cage fun and great food!
NoPo Market & Bar
Treats at NoPo (photo by Carly Shuttlesworth)
Hurry and pre-order red, white and blue sweet treats from June 29 through July 3 — yummy mini cakes drenched in patriotic colors, decorated sugar cookies and fruit tarts. Closed July 4.
Pier 6 Seafood & Oyster House
Seafood at Pier 6 (photo by Becca Wright)
Head for the water in San Leon for Pier 6's Fourth of July Bash (4-9pm). It’s a family-friendly seaside celebration, with nostalgic snacks including a popcorn machine, snow-cones and cotton candy, plus live music and DJ, face painting — and a local fire truck making daytime rounds through the marina waving American flags.
POST Houston Skylawn
After grabbing a nosh downstairs from the sprawling food market — try Johnny Good Burger or Flower and Cream ice cream — celebrate the Fourth on the largest rooftop park in America! The POST's five-acre Skylawn is the ideal location to view the Downtown fireworks display and experience DJs and bars on-site.
The Laura Hotel
Cool off at two parties on this downtown rooftop deck July 2 and July 4. The Stars, Stripes & Poolside Vibes parties feature live DJ sets, refreshing cocktails and poolside barbecue ($35 per person). Make it a staycation: Fee is waived for hotel guests!
The Loren at Lady Bird Lake
The Loren
Hitting the road for the holiday? Consider this cool new hotel across the river from downtown Austin near the city’s iconic hike and bike trail. Deals include a special room package, a curated picnic basket for the fireworks display at nearby Auditorium Shores, and new seasonal items at Nido’s dining on site — think a griddled all-beef hot dog with elevated fixings. Or watch the fireworks display from the comfort of a lake-view luxury suite with sweeping views of the downtown skyline and Lady Bird Lake, while treating yourself to sparkling wine, chips and caviar.
The Woodlands' Red, Hot & Blue Festival
July 4 in The Woodlands
The forested master-planned community just north of Houston is celebrating the Fourth with food and live entertainment geared toward the whole family. Its fireworks display will be one of the largest shows in the greater Houston area. Live music begins at 6pm and the fireworks start around 9:30pm.
Z on 23 at Le Meridien
Z on 23 rooftop
Experience one of Houston’s highest open-air rooftop bars, perched on the 23rd floor with sweeping city views and a view of the Freedom Over Texas fireworks display. The bar will be open until 10pm on the Fourth.
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William Kentridge in his Johannesburg studio in 2016
Born in 1955 in Johannesburg, Kentridge uses art to explore the colonial roots and horrors of systemic racism and apartheid and the current socio-political realities of South Africa since it held its first democratic elections in 1994. He also investigates (and maybe defends?) the very nature of creativity, and the tools and actions applied in art making.
'Stereoscope,' 1999
'Second-hand Reading,' 2013
'7 Fragments for Georges Méliès,' installation view, 2003
In “7 Fragments for Georges Méliès” — an immersive installation of nine simultaneously projected films, many starring Kentridge in the flesh — Kentridge brings the viewer deep into his studio, a sacred space where creative vision is born out of imaginative free association and (as any working artist will attest) repetitive physical activity. In one film, Kentridge’s wife appears behind him, nude, looking like an apparition in a silent movie but also recognizable as a life partner and a radiant source of archetypical feminine energy.
Without a doubt, In Praise of Shadows is the most provocative and historically acute exhibition the MFAH has hosted since the controversial 2022 retrospective, Philip Guston Now. Kentridge’s art, like Guston’s, is socially conscious, intensely autobiographical, and informed by a strong sense of justice, as embodied by his parents, both of them barristers who represented victims of South Africa’s apartheid system. (Kentridge’s father Sydney led the 1978 inquest into the torture and murder of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko.) Like Guston, Kentridge was born into a Jewish family, and satirical, and often terrifying figurative symbols of white supremacy populate each artists’ work. There are Guston’s notorious Klansmen, cartoonish hooded figures Kentridge himself traces back to Giorgio de Chirico’s surreal images of mannequin heads tightly wrapped in white, stitched fabric, which certainly alluded to Guston’s childhood in Los Angeles in 1919, a time when the city was an incubator and haven for the Ku Klux Klan. Meanwhile, Kentridge’s Soho Eckstein, a recurring charcoal-rendered character inspired in part by Kentridge's paternal grandfather Morris, has evolved over the years from an obvious symbol of colonial brutality and industrial greed, to someone a bit wearier and more confused, a stuffed suit bearing witness to the benefits of white privilege.
Also like Guston, Kentridge possesses a deep knowledge of the whole of Western art, and the sheer range of works on display is a lot for the average museum-goer to take in; from Duchampian constructions that include three Singer sewing machines, each fitted with an external megaphone and timed to “sing” a prerecorded, very South African-sounding anthem; to several hours’ worth of hand-drawn, stop-animation films; to small, black bronze sculptures looking very much like shadows cast as 3D reliefs.
But the MFAH’s thoughtful and (mostly) chronological installation gives the viewer plenty of space and time to take in Kentridge’s oeuvre and learn more about complex history of Johannesburg, a city he loves and adamantly refuses to abandon.
William Kentridge: In Praise of Shadows is on view through Sept. 10.
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