Top Things To Do This Weekend: July 19–21
Visual Art
Graphic Design—Now in Production
Co-organized by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, this exhibition highlights the burgeoning field of graphic design. Once a niche interest, the art form now attracts major attention, which Cooper-Hewitt curator Ellen Lupton attributes to the widespread availability of design software like Photoshop. “The technology revolution has just opened up interest in practicing design, even if it’s just people playing around with fonts in their PowerPoint presentations,” Lupton says. See our full story here.
July 20–Sep 29. Free. Contemporary Arts Museum. 5216 Montrose Blvd. 713-284-8250. camh.org
Pop and Jazz
Kid Rock
Mitt Romney’s favorite rock-rapper (Kid Rock, né Robert James Ritchie, agreed to endorse the Republican last year after Romney paid a personal call) brings his posse to The Woodlands, where he is contractually obligated to raise hell, or at least produce a reasonable facsimile of it. Uncle Kracker opens.
July 19 at 7. $20–350. Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, 2005 Lake Robbins Dr., The Woodlands. 281-363-3300. woodlandscenter.org
The Psychedelic Furs
In an ingenious bit of counter-programming to the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion’s Kid Rock concert of the same night, the House of Blues presents English post-punk wizards The Psychedelic Furs, who, it’s safe to conjecture, share vanishingly few fans with the excitable Mr. Ritchie.
July 19 at 8. $23–40. House of Blues, 1204 Caroline St. 832-667-7733. houseofblues.com
One Direction
Now almost as famous for band member Harry Styles’s abortive romance with Taylor Swift as for their ubiquitous single “What Makes You Beautiful,” this English boy band is like catnip for their target audience of tween girls. Houston fathers, lock up your daughters.
July 21 at 7:30. Sold out at press time. Toyota Center, 1510 Polk St. 833-446-8849. houstontoyotacenter.com
Classical
Pixar in Concert
The Houston Symphony performs a compilation of music from each of Pixar's thirteen feature films (including last summer's Brave, their most recent production), accompanied by imagery and video. Conducted by Thomas Wilkins.
July 19–20 at 7:30. $17–79. Jones Hall, 615 Louisiana St. 713-224-7575. houstonsymphony.org
