Having recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art (OSCVA) is one of the country's leading organizations dedicated to preserving, promoting, and documenting visionary art environments. The organization, led by Executive Director Tommy Ralph Pace, recently announced a major 8-acre expansion by architectural firm Rogers Partners that will transform its campus into a world-class center for outsider art.
OSCVA takes its name from The Orange Show Monument––a monumental work of handmade architecture located in Houston's East End—that was built single-handedly from 1956 until its completion in 1979 by the late Houston postal worker Jefferson Davis McKissack and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. Following McKissack’s death in 1980, Houston’s leading arts patrons and renowned collector of contemporary, outsider, self-taught and visionary art, Marilyn Oshman formed a foundation to preserve the visionary art site, which has since expanded to include three other permanent public artworks and environments, as well as a robust calendar of year-round programming that furthers its founding mission to celebrate the artist in everyone.
In addition to The Orange Show Monument, OSCVA currently owns and operates The Beer Can House, created by local John Milkovisch in 1968, who over a 20-year period transformed his home and yard into a unique work of art by covering it with over 50,000 beer cans; Smither Park, a collaboratively created mosaic park with hundreds of local and regional artists and volunteers; and will soon begin restoring and relocating “Smokesax”—a magnificent 60 ft blue saxophone composed of oil field pipe, Volkswagen parts, and other reclaimed materials by legendary Texas by artist Bob “Daddy-O” Wade—as the first piece of public art along the Brays Bayou.
A highlight of OSCVA’s programming includes the world-renowned Houston Art Car Parade—the city’s largest free cultural event that features 250 art cars from all over North America—which will return from April 6-16, 2023. Enjoyed by an audience of over a quarter of a million people annually and created by the general public as well as renowned artists, the parade entries include anything on wheels, from decorated cars, bicycles and unicycles to lawnmowers, and go-carts that have been transformed into kinetic sculptures.
