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Mary Ellen Carroll — NYC

@mecstudios

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Thank you to everyone who attended POWER on Saturday and the speakers and Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. One attendee wrote: "It could not have been a more brilliant and lucid panel." Speakers
 Jayshree Desai, CFO, Quanta Energy, Photovoltaic, Wind Energy, and Storage Jesse Dickerman, Interim Executive Director, Harris County Pollution Control Services | Solar For All | Margo Weisz, Executive Director, Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute (TEPRI) Moderator 
 Dr. Gökçe Günel, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Rice University (Infrastructure, Energy, Climate)
 POWER, co-convened by renewable energy developer Joey Romano and conceptual artist Mary Ellen Carroll, considered the present and offers a forward-looking perspective on power from the unique vantage point of Houston—the “energy capital” of the world. The forum was presented in conjunction with Carroll’s career survey, How To Talk Dirty and Influence People, at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, curated by Rebecca Matalon. It emerges specifically from SHALL, a new work created by Carroll for the exhibition.
 People are talking about Texas turning from red to blue — but it is already green. It is the leading producer of renewable power in the United States and is the nation’s market-driven leader in utility-scale renewable generation: abundant land, a comparatively permissive development environment, and the declining cost of wind and solar have made renewables among the least-expensive additions to its power mix. By total renewable electricity generation, Texas now exceeds California—despite California’s role as the mandate- driven pioneer, shaped by ambitious policy, leadership in distributed solar, and the integration of battery storage.
 
 Paradoxically — this transformation is visible everywhere, yet it is difficult to see.
 The dashboard that brightwire built shows the power usage by CAMH and what part of the mix is renewables in real time. Why a contemporary art museum? The transformation of energy cannot be understood solely in technocratic terms as a problem of engineering or economics. It is a question of imagination —ethically, and in its materiality. by @mecstudios
3
a day ago
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Texas has a dirty little secret.... Please join us to hear what it is at POWER this Saturday, September 26, 2026 from 2 pm to 4 pm. Organized by Mary Ellen Carroll and Joey Romano Contemporary Arts Museum Houston 5216 Montrose Boulevard, Houston, Texas 77006 SPEAKERS Jayshree Desai, CFO, Quanta Energy, Photovoltaic, Wind Energy, and Storage Jesse Dickerman, Interim Executive Director, Harris County Pollution Control Services | Solar For All Margo Weisz, Executive Director, Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute (TEPRI) Moderated by Dr. Gökçe Günel, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Rice University (Infrastructure, Energy, Climate) ____________________________ The most significant shift in power in the world is underway. While fossil fuels still dominate the American narrative about energy, Texas and its electrical grid are increasingly powered by renewables. How is this significant shift in power receiving so little attention and sustained public discussion? What does its relative invisibility reveal about the cultural, political, and economic infrastructures through which power is produced, distributed, and understood? POWER, a public forum organized in response to these questions, brings together key individuals across the public sector, government, and industry who are actively transforming the field to make visible the materiality and infrastructure shaping this transformation. The forum is presented in conjunction with Carroll’s career survey, How To Talk Dirty and Influence People, at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, curated by Rebecca Matalon. It emerges specifically from SHALL, a new work created by Carroll for the exhibition. Geoff Kaplan and Cheyney Thompson designed and programmed the graphic for POWER utilizing a packing algorithm that determines the most efficient arrangement of a set of elements within a defined space. RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/public-forum-power-materiality-and-infrastructure-tickets-1999395121631 LINK in BIO by @mecstudios
2
7 days ago
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It takes the agility of an institution like CAMH @camhouston and their operations team (Mike Reed) and curator Rebecca Matalon who received support from @teigerfoundation and directly from Midnight Interests and the N2Foundation to realize the new work SHALL for How To Talk DIrty and Influence People. SHALL is conceived around the proposition that a museum exhibition can be realized without producing waste. The work is realized through three: 1) designing a circular system for the exhibition to eliminate building waste such as drywall by using @layher_usa_canada ’s state of the art modular scaffolding as its structure and by employing reusable materials in the exhibition design (by architect Juliana Ziebell with @camhouston ’s head preparator Jeff Shore); 2) transporting the exhibition from New York City to Houston by electric cargo truck with @buoyfas Buoy Fine Art Services—understood to be the first long-haul EV transport for an art exhibition in the world—and 3) Charting CAMH’s energy usage and the renewable energy sources with this dashboard developed by @brightwiretx to make visible the renewable sources for the museum’s power and using renewable offsets. It is an unusual proposition: a work of art that takes the making of a museum exhibition as its material becomes the catalyst for a public forum on the present and future of power, making a systemic transformation visible to the public. Join us for the public forum POWER on September 26th. POWER Saturday, September 26, 2026, 2 to 4 pm
 Organized by Joey Romano and Mary Ellen Carroll Contemporary Arts Museum Houston 5216 Montrose Boulevard, Houston, Texas 77006 RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/public-forum-power-materiality-and-infrastructure-tickets-1999395121631 The Materiality and Infrastructure of Power, Jayshree Desai, CFO, Quanta Energy, Photovoltaic, Wind Energy, and Storage Jesse Dickerman, Interim Executive Director, Harris County Pollution Control Services | Solar For All | Margo Weisz, Executive Director, Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute (TEPRI) Moderated by Dr. Gökçe Günel, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Rice University (Infrastructure, Energy, Climate) by @mecstudios
0
15 days ago
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POWER Saturday, September 26, 2026, 2 pm to 4 pm Organized by Mary Ellen Carroll and Joey Romano Contemporary Arts Museum Houston 5216 Montrose Boulevard, Houston, Texas 77006 SPEAKERS Jayshree Desai, CFO, Quanta Energy, Photovoltaic, Wind Energy, and Storage Jesse Dickerman, Interim Executive Director, Harris County Pollution Control Services | Solar For All Margo Weisz, Executive Director, Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute (TEPRI) Moderated by Dr. Gökçe Günel, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Rice University (Infrastructure, Energy, Climate) ____________________________ The most significant shift in power in the world is underway. While fossil fuels still dominate the American narrative about energy, Texas and its electrical grid are increasingly powered by renewables. How is this significant shift in power receiving so little attention and sustained public discussion? What does its relative invisibility reveal about the cultural, political, and economic infrastructures through which power is produced, distributed, and understood? POWER, a public forum organized in response to these questions, brings together key individuals across the public sector, government, and industry who are actively transforming the field to make visible the materiality and infrastructure shaping this transformation. POWER, a public forum organized in response to these questions, brings together key individuals across the public sector, government, and industry who are actively transforming the field to make visible the materiality and infrastructure shaping this transformation. The forum is presented in conjunction with Carroll’s career survey, How To Talk Dirty and Influence People, at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, curated by Rebecca Matalon. It emerges specifically from SHALL, a new work created by Carroll for the exhibition. Geoff Kaplan and Cheyney Thompson designed and programmed the graphic for POWER utilizing a packing algorithm that determines the most efficient arrangement of a set of elements within a defined space. RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/public-forum-power-materiality-and-infrastructure-tickets-1999395121631 LINK in BIO by @mecstudios
0
18 days ago
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Join us for POWER, a public forum that makes visible the material, economic, political, and infrastructural systems shaping the transformation of energy in Texas.⁠ ⁠ From the unique vantage point of Houston—the “energy capital” of the world, the forum considers the present and offers a forward-looking perspective on POWER — co-convened by renewable energy developer Joey Romano and conceptual artist Mary Ellen Carroll.⁠ ⁠ 🎤 Public Forum | POWER: MATERIALITY and INFRASTRUCTURE⁠ 🗓️ Saturday, September 26, 2026 | 2–4PM⁠ ⁠ Speakers:⁠ ⚡️Jayshree Desai, CFO, Quanta Energy, Photovoltaic, Wind Energy, and Storage⁠ ⚡️Jesse Dickerman, Interim Executive Director, Harris County Pollution Control Services | Solar For All |⁠ ⚡️Margo Weisz, Executive Director, Texas Energy Poverty Research Institute (TEPRI)⁠ ⁠ Moderated by Dr. Gökçe Günel, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Rice University (Infrastructure, Energy, Climate).⁠ ⁠ This event is FREE to attend. Please RSVP via the link in @camhouston's bio 🔗 by @mecstudios
2
21 days ago
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MENOPAUSE — While everyone including @melindafrenchgates in their recent opinion piece in the @nytimes is talking about it, the artwork The Hand of Fatima (1989) currently on view since the fall opening of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston in the career survey exhibition curated by Rebecca Matalon — How To Talk Dirty and Influence People: Mary Ellen Carroll in the section on BEING “calls into question the un-assimilability of the feminine-as-abject.” It is on view until November 1. ______________ The Hand of Fatima (1989) Gelatin silver prints and photostats 45×198 inches overall The text appearing as captions in the small frames: Fig. 1. Estrogen starvation Fig. 2. Atrophying breasts Fig. 3 IMAGE and Text: Typical appearance of the desexed woman found on our streets today. They pass unnoticed and, in turn, notice little. Fig. 4. Increased facial hair Fig. 5 Deepening of the voice Fig. 6. Coarsened features Fig. 7. Enlargement of the clitoris Fig. 8. Gradual loss of hair Fig. 9. General stiffness of muscles and ligaments Fig. 10. Obesity Fig. 11. Vapid cow-like feelings Fig. 12 Shrivelling vagina Fig. 13 Natural defeminization Fig. 14. Anxiety and irritability First exhibited in 1989 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Catherine Lord who was the Dean of the School of Art at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) was on the jury that awarded Carroll the Edward. L. Ryerson Fellowship for this work. It was next exhibited in 1992 in "Dirt and Domesticity: Constructions of the Feminine" at the Whitney Museum of American Art. From the essay "Foreign and Familiar Bodies" by Frazer Ward: In Carroll’s The “Hand of Fatima”, in particular, abjection becomes information. Carroll displaces the avant-gardist, transgressive potential of abjection in favor of a practice in which the abject is as much a found text as is a 1950s medical journal or a Christian myth. Her work demonstrates an awareness of the power and fragility of the prohibitions which impinge upon feminimity, but it does not accept a generalized subjective relation to them. The Hand of Fatima has many margins. It insists on a communicative model of cultural practice. by @mecstudios
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22 days ago
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de Certeau, Aby Warburg, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and "nonce taxonomies" — all appear together (and thankfully) in "Tactial Resistance: Mary Ellen Carroll at CAM Houston" by Michael Dango in @momusart — an independent platform for art writing and criticism based in Toronto, Canada. @arthistoryrice @ricecswgs #MichaelDango Carroll began speaking Cebuano fluently in Taguibo and Mati in the Philippines where the pronominals rely on context, syntax, and case-marking rather than gender — hence, THEY. And, nonce in the neologisms for the work, "I Don't Know Why ..." (1986). ___________ POWER Saturday, September 26, 2026 2 to 4 pm Contemporary Arts Museum Houston ___________ The fall start of the exhibition — How To Talk Dirty and Influence People Mary Ellen Carroll Contemporary Arts Museum Houston through November 1, 2026 by @mecstudios
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22 days ago
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“Whether in Busan or Houston, Carroll’s work pays repeat attention to the many ways in which spatial realities are collapsed in media but never quite are. Photography is a familiar offender, along ‘Benjamin-Banham-Colomina-Zimmerman’ theoretical lines. Carroll observes, ‘Architecture always goes back in—within space and place and location.’” Anthony Paletta’s @whynotanthonypaletta research and deep consideration of the work and its relation to architecture and the "financial, legal, and political apparatuses"—and much else—is evident in his review for The Architect’s Newspaper @archpaper of How To Talk Dirty and Influence People. Thank you for doing the work and feeding the algorithm with facts and substance— @prototype180 , FEDERAL, and the unique Korean contract, the "jeonse" (that economists love, btw) and noted as a material that was the foundation for the commission, No.18, for the 2012 Busan Biennial directed by Roger Buergel with Ruth Noack, and includes the models made by Joshua Jow at Diller, Scofidio + Renfro all the other works referenced. And, get ready for the public forum— POWER Saturday, September 26, 2026 2 to 4 pm CAMH Co-organized with Joey Romano How To Talk Dirty and Influence People Mary Ellen Carroll Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Curated by Rebecca Matalon Until November 1, 2026 Exhibition Design— Juliana Ziebell Head Preparator — Jeff Shore And, thanks to the rest of the stellar individuals at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and Architect's Newspaper —Jack Murphy (yhprumkcaj) and photographer @hatnimlee. The featured image (left to right) is from the series: In Reverse (2007)— the commission at Art Omi @art_omi Why I Quit (2004)-- [using architecture....} (Upper Right) All the men who think they can be me. (Lower Right) @onestarpress by @mecstudios
2
a month ago
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FEDERAL—That's a wrap. Thanks to everyone at the River Oaks Theatre and CAMH for the 7th screening (in the world) of FEDERAL. ROT has the most comfortable seats by far and to everyone in attendance throughout the 24 hours for both the north and the south facades. Thanks to Michael Isabell and Kenneth Trice for technical support and documentation and David León. There is always something revealed and one notable moment was the placement of flowers at a tombstone in the LA National Cemetery for a WWI / WWII veteran with the FEDERAL building in the background. Conversations held with Jameson (Fred) centered on FEDERAL as policy and the NATIONAL as war—two forms through which state power is constituted and exercised and so clear at moment at 11:11 am with the NATIONAL in the foreground and the FEDERAL in the background. And, importantly, to Dolly Parton. What an immeasurable loss—a meteoric talent and an extraordinary human being. by @mecstudios
6
a month ago
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Thank you @snelsonus for standing and acting. by @mecstudios
0
2 months ago
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FEDERAL, 2003 Black and White Edition 24 prints in an edition of 5 A photograph was taken every hour on the hour of the Federal Building in Los Angeles with a medium format camera during the making of FEDERAL, the 24 hour movie. Silver Gelatin Prints — 24 photographs 16 x 20 inches — paper 12 x 16 inches — image area @galeriehubertwinter Thanks to Jonathan Flatley for the conversation and the recent studio visit David and the discussion of Jameson and the placement of the work. The Federal Building located at 11000 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles was designed in 1969 by Charles Luckman. After beginning a career in architecture, Luckman found success in business, rising to the position of CEO at Lever Brothers. He was inspired to return to architecture in part by his commissioning Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill and working directly with Gordon Bunshaft to build Lever House in New York. Luckman’s Federal Building has been described in architectural guidebooks as the “embodiment of bureaucracy.” Mary Ellen Carroll’s project Federal acknowledges Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles and Empire by Michael Hardt and Antoni Negri; but it is not about building as icon, nor is it an interpretation of what was an au courant political theory. Federal is the articulation of an image of what is presently legally, socially, and politically nonrepresentable and embodied in the typology of bureaucratic modernism. The work utilizes duration as an atmospheric condition that evidences how abstract and performative the mechanics of structures can be over time, if we only choose to frame and see them in this manner. It also questions the device of typology in photography, a strategy that has been institutionalized and over-utilized. This series is the end of a ten year project where Carroll was documenting all of the Federal Buildings in the United States and other federal buildings in the world. United States national security in the post-911 socio-political landscape focuses on surveillance and counter-surveillance, highlighting the need to protect these symbols of Federal government’s authority and the public’s access to them as public space. by @mecstudios
5
2 months ago
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Join us at River Oaks Theatre for a 24-hour, twin-screen showing of Mary Ellen Carroll's FEDERAL (2003).⁠ ⁠ Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) will present a non-stop screening of Mary Ellen Carroll’s FEDERAL at the River Oaks Theatre in Houston. The 24-hour twin-screen movie was made by filming the north and south facades of the Federal Building in Los Angeles for an entire day in 2003.⁠ ⁠ 🎥 Screening | FEDERAL⁠ 🗓️ 9AM on Tuesday, August 25–9AM on Wednesday, August 26, 2026⁠ 📍River Oaks Theatre | 2009 W Gray St⁠ ⁠ This event is FREE to attend. RSVP is requested through the link in @camhouston's bio. 🔗 ⁠ ⁠ Seating is first come, first served. If the theater is full, attendees are welcome to wait in the lobby and bar area until seating is available. Attendees are welcome to attend at any time over the course of the 24-hour program.⁠ ⁠ This screening is presented in conjunction with Carroll’s exhibition How To Talk Dirty and Influence People, on view at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston through November 1, 2026. by @mecstudios
7
2 months ago
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