OUR STORY

Over the course of 1982-83, Gallagher, Hassell, Laguarta along with many other artists including Deborah and Virgil Grotfeldt and Melissa Noble, volunteered their time and talents to create a professional space for exhibitions, video screenings, music, performances, and community forums. In the following years, the upper floors were renovated to include artists’ studios and in 1984 Doug Laguarta, Beth Secor, James Bettison, Lisa Shoyer, Billy Hassell, and Don Redman became the first Artists-in-Residence. In November 1985, DiverseBooks opened, solidifying our role as a community gathering place for all sectors of the arts community.

During these years on Travis Street, the staff grew to include Deborah Grotfeld, Michael Peranteau, and Caroline Huber, with Peranteau and Huber becoming co-directors in 1987 when Gallagher left to pursue his own artistic career.

On February 9, 1989, a devastating fire rendered the Travis Street location uninhabitable and DiverseWorks relocated to a large warehouse space just north of downtown at 1117 East Freeway, which would remain our home until 2012. At East Freeway (also known as The Docks). This new space included gallery and performance areas as well as a new iteration of DiverseBooks which sponsored PhoneWorks, a phone-in poetry-reading service, for many years. Following Peranteau and Huber’s respective departures, key administrative and artistic leaders were Emily Todd, Sara Kellner, Loris Bradley, Sixto Wagan, and Diane Barber. Elia Arce, The Art Guys, Pat Graney, Rachel Hecker, David McGee, Suzan-Lori Parks, William Pope.L, and Urban Bush Women are just a few of the hundreds of artists whose work was presented at the Docks.

In 2012, Elizabeth Dunbar became Executive Director, and, with the building in need of repairs and intending to eventually move into the soon-to-be-completed MATCH—Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston, we moved to a smaller warehouse space at Fannin and Cleburne Streets in Midtown. Also at this time, Rachel Cook joined as Assistant Curator, becoming Curator in 2016. New commissions presented at Fannin included works by Tony Feher, Liz Magic Laser, Heather & Ivan Morison, and Wu Tsang, among others. It was also at Fannin where the long-running Diverse Discourse Lecture & Studio Visit Program began.

In 2015, Xandra Eden became Executive Director & Chief Curator. She added Ashley DeHoyos Sauder to the team as Curator in 2018 following Rachel Cook’s departure. Also in 2015, we moved into the new multi-tenant MATCH facility where we have presented in the gallery, all four theater spaces, and the breezeway. Among the artists presented at MATCH are Jocelyn Cottencin & Emmanuelle Huynh, Li(sa E.) Harris, Kate Gilmore & Heather Rowe, Autumn Knight, taisha paggett, Sheila Pepe, Sondra Perry, and Nick Vaughan & Jake Margolin. In 2023, we celebrated our 40th Anniversary and artist James Surls’ 80th Birthday with a major outdoor sculpture exhibition, A Gift from the Bower, on the grounds of Locke Surls Center for Art in Nature @ Splendora Gardens in Cleveland, Texas.

While located at MATCH, we have also become committed to decentralizing the Houston contemporary arts community and taking an adaptive approach to physical space. To that end, we developed the Project Freeway initiative, producing performances and projects in a variety of neighborhoods and unconventional sites across the city. Artists take the lead, in conversation with DeHoyos Sauder and Eden, in deciding where and how their projects will be presented to the public.