Moriah Alise (photo by Troy Monte) and a detail of 'Watch from Afar' by Demetrius Wilson
Enter artist manager, curator and art-business educator, Moriah Alise. In addition to managing, mentoring, and advocating for artists under the umbrella of the Alise Art Group, Alise uses her popular YouTube Channel “Dear Glory” to highlight living painters, explore art history, and unpack the sometimes uncomfortable connections between creativity and art market indices, as in her most recent video “Art Market Secrets.” “It’s all based on education, advocacy and support,” says Alise of her multi-hyphenated endeavors.
Alise’s latest project is conceptualizing and curating In Tender Peaks, Grace Unfolds, a deeply personal group show opening Feb. 16 at Mitochondria Gallery. The exhibit explores the nature of vulnerability and resilience, and features an international cast of eleven artists, including Houstonians Colby Deal, LaMonté French and Ryan Williams, alongside artists from Ghana, Rwanda, and Nigeria. (Deal and French, along with Erika Alonso, are managed by Alise Art Group.) Alise credits Mitochondria for encouraging her to explore the range of contemporary African artists. “They’re such a dynamic gallery,” says Alise. “They are pushing limits in a way that will put Houston within the ecosystem it deserves to be in.”
Born and raised in Beaumont, Alise attended the University of Houston, where she earned a bachelor’s in Public Relations, with a focus on fashion PR. She was working at Apple when an intern position at Stella McCartney opened up and to her surprise, Apple transferred her job to New York and left her position in Houston open should she decide to return. “It was a really exciting time,” says Alise. “But I realized how crazy people are in the fashion industry!”
After a successful but stressful five months, she returned to Houston and began teaching art to high school students. In the wake of an ill-timed attempt to open and co-run a gallery, Alise Art Group was born in 2021, with French as her first artist/client. Something clicked, and their first show together at Sanman Studios sold out in 24 hours. “We took a risk on each other, and it worked!” says Alise of her collaboration with French.
With In Tender Peaks, Grace Unfolds just days away from opening, Alise is taking the show’s title to heart, and making time when she can for self-care and moments of grace. “I’m getting ready for it,” says Alise of the show. “I can’t wait to see it all, and how people respond to it.”
Colby Deal's 'Reclamation'
Moriah Alise (photo by @kenin3d)
'Airborne Double' by Black Art Houston artist Derek Fordjour
At the time — in the midst of a pandemic that refused to disappear, and global protests led by the Black Lives Matter movement — the cultural landscape of Houston was changing, as institutions across the country began to seriously rethink how the arts could be presented to a more diverse public. Coming in as a “blank slate,” though well-armed with a Ph.D. in Art History and Visual Culture, Bateman was relieved to find herself among colleagues willing to address the tropes and social dynamics that impede collaboration between museums and initiatives to reach broader audiences.
Bateman (photo by Asaaf Hinden)
Tschabalala Self's 'Sprewell'
“What if we broke down those walls that kept us separate and do something on a massive scale to show that we have a common interest?” says Bateman. “That’s what Black Art Houston is.”
Masterminded by Bateman and realized as a collaboration between the MFAH and an impressive range of community partners, including the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Holocaust Museum Houston, and the Community Artists’ Collective, the inaugural Black Art Houston is a sprawling, citywide celebration of contemporary Black art and culture, featuring museum and gallery exhibitions, public programming, and open artist studios. The events — and there are several — take place Feb. 17-19, and a detailed schedule is available online.
A few of the many exhibitions on view during the weekend include the MFAH’s Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage, curated by Bateman; Here and Now: Cultural Expressions at the Community Artists’ Collective; and Microcosm by NEGRASSO at ART IS BOND gallery. Public programming includes the Ninth Annual Citywide African American History Parade & Symposium on Feb. 17 with former principal dancer of the Houston Ballet Lauren Anderson as grand marshal; and a Sunday morning meditation session with the Black Man Project and Black Woman Project. Some of the Houston artists hosting open studios include Christopher Paul, Anthony Suber, Tay Butler and Randy WROSIV.
The idea for Black Art Houston was sparked by Bateman’s first MFAH curatorial assignment to oversee the programming for Afro-Atlantic Histories, an expansive and multilayered exploration of the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade as seen through the eyes of artists from around the world. The exhibit opened in Oct. 2021, while the CAMH had The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse on view, and Bateman recognized the shows were in conversation with each other, but the two institutions had yet to collaborate. She proposed a program in which Houston-based installation and performance artist Viktor Givens guided a procession of museum visitors from the grounds of the CAMH and into the MFAH’s exhibition. The event was a success, and both institutions made it clear they were open to hearing new ideas on how to connect with visitors and speak to the times we’re living in.
“We have our mainstay blockbusters, but then we have more experimental shows, which in a lot of ways, is what the Kehinde Wiley exhibit is,” says Bateman, referring to Wiley’s monumental An Archaeology of Silence, another popular show she curated and that is currently on view at the MFAH. “There are people who said they never thought to come to MFAH who are now coming because of the roster of exhibitions we are planning.”
Born and raised in Memphis, Bateman began her academic career as a biology major at Williams College, with every intention of becoming an anesthesiologist. She took an art history class to balance out the time she had to spend in the lab, and after a fateful field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, fell in love with art history. She switched her major and went on to earn a Bachelor’s in Art History, and a Master’s degree in Modern and Contemporary African Art of the African Diaspora and the aforementioned Ph.D. in Art History and Visual Culture from Duke University. Maybe it’s a Southern thing, but Bateman is no staid academic and remains fully committed to amplifying local artists’ voices and celebrating the spaces where they live, work and show.“Houston allowed me a lot of free time to discover who I was as a curator,” says Bateman. “I like talking to people about their interests and really understanding how it is that I can utilize my resources, not only my position, but my own energy to help someone out.”