Jack Massing at a 2022 exhibition in Genoa, Italy, the place he collaborated with artists Sean Miller and Philip Nook.
The Orange Present Heart for Visionary Artwork’s govt director, Jack Massing, kissed lots of people in Might 2008—and never all the time on the face. This isn’t a scandalous revelation. It’s immortalized in Nothing To It, a recording of a night’s efficiency at Massing’s alma mater College of Houston. Titled Kiss Piece, Massing and his late artistic associate, Michael Galbreth, got down to smooch each member of the Wortham Theater Heart viewers. If all of it sounds extremely foolish, then congratulations. You perceive what the Artwork Guys had been all about.
The formal title for Massing and Galbreth’s collaboration and meta mission ran from 1983 till Galbreth’s passing in 2019. “We tried to do the whole lot we might underneath the guise of artwork and share our manufacturing and develop tasks that we each had been actually curious about for no matter motive,” Massing says. “We jumped round an excessive amount of. I believe we simply went from one thought to the subsequent a bit bit too quickly, as a result of it was enjoyable.”
Chasing curiosity and creativity has all the time been his aim, even from childhood. Born and raised in Tonawanda, New York, Massing grew up with a father who labored as each a chemical engineer at Union Carbide and knowledgeable artist. His dad, who had an artwork studio within the basement, would usually invite his youngsters into his world, taking them to gallery exhibits and museums after hours. Early publicity, mixed with the liberty to discover inventive matters on his personal, led Massing to search out inspiration in French artist Marcel Duchamp and his work within the avant-garde sensibilities of Dadaism, an early-twentieth-century motion characterised by absurdity, randomness, experimentation, and protests in opposition to capitalism and conflict. “I do not suppose I sat down and studied it to attempt to be like them. I believe their tone and their concepts struck me as right, so I simply carried that with me,” he says.
The Orange Present Heart for Visionary Artwork, now overseen by Jack Massing, whose early profession exploring and, later, working at Earl W. Brydges Artpark State Park actually ready him effectively.
New York’s Earl W. Brydges Artpark State Park, nevertheless, was “essentially the most influential factor” to his then-burgeoning arts profession. He and his father would go to Artpark collectively, the place they’d meet artists engaged on their newest tasks. “If the general public got here by to speak, they couldn’t shoo them away. They needed to be accessible,” Massing says. “…I used to be taking a look at their work and simply considering, ‘Oh my gosh. I didn’t even know this was doable.’ I acquired tremendous jazzed, and so did my dad.”
Massing signed up for lessons at Niagara County Neighborhood School (NCCC) as a result of the college had a detailed relationship with Artpark, usually setting college students up with internships. He labored there for 3 summers, attending to know the artists who created out within the open and making connections that he’s maintained all through his life. Working with Artpark would result in alternatives to help artists in Seattle, Washington, and Amarillo, Texas, in addition to at house in New York state, prompting him to drop out of NCCC to soak up all he might concerning the artwork world. “[Artpark was] the place my thoughts was modified, and I met quite a lot of actually influential folks to me to this present day, who had been dabbling in the whole lot that you can imagine: land, artwork, sculpture, movie, efficiency,” Massing says. “It was simply a tremendous factor for me.”
When his father moved the household to Spring, Texas, in 1979, he tagged alongside to assist and subsequently determined to remain in Houston, enrolling within the prestigious Core Residency Program on the Museum of Positive Arts, Houston’s Glassell Faculty of Artwork, which opened that very same 12 months. Globally famend sculptor and artwork professor James Surls, who taught at College of Houston (UH), dropped by Massing’s studio sooner or later. The long run Artwork Man solely lasted at Glassell for a 12 months earlier than working off with the Cougars and into the annals of artwork historical past.
Surls invited Massing to be a part of an exhibition, and fellow artwork pupil Galbreth assisted with the hauling. Massing and Galbreth bonded over a disinterest in creating works made for the artwork market, preferring to play with concepts by stretching them into curious shapes. “Once I met Mike, it was like two tuning forks collectively, working effectively, and we acquired actually enthusiastic about speaking about these totally different concepts, and it simply labored,” Massing says. They formalized their Artwork Guys partnership in 1983 with their first of many video works, by which they dipped their arms in paint and shook them over a canvas to create the aptly titled The Artwork Guys Agree on a Portray. “Conceptual artwork is constructed upon concepts, not all the time difficult, typically easy. Typically they grow to be difficult concepts,” he says. “However with that handshake, we grew to become the Artwork Guys by a humorous give and take and joking round, speaking about it, which grew into a really difficult thought.”
The Artwork Guys Massing (left) and Galbreth (proper) displaying their 1997–1998 work SUITS: The Garments Make the Man, at present on view on the Museum of Positive Arts, Houston.
This straightforward sketch advanced into a fancy, decades-long mission embodying the anarchic spirit of Dadaism. The Artwork Guys weren’t video artists, or visible artists, or efficiency artists, and even sound designers: Relying on the media and the concepts they had been exploring, they had been all the above and extra. Kiss Piece, for instance, might solely be carried out dwell, as literal smooches had been administered by Massing and Galbreth. Behavioral artwork occasions, equally, needed to happen in particular places at designated instances. For Blue Sunday, Massing and Galbreth stood in entrance of Houston Metropolis Corridor on a Sunday, promoting gadgets that had been prohibited from retailer cabinets on that day resulting from Texas’s draconian blue legal guidelines. For Cease N Go, the duo labored a 24-hour shift at a comfort retailer within the Museum District.
Plunging by the depths of the Artwork Guys’ portfolio exhibits not solely an virtually improv-like fascination with saying, “Sure, and” to a suggestion and batting it round from there, but in addition a honest love and appreciation for the banal—their work revels in discovering artwork within the on a regular basis. “Artwork isn’t what it’s. It is what it may very well be or what it may be, and folks which are making issues are making issues to find what extra is on the market,” Massing says. Among the many performances in Nothing To It, there consists of a totally choreographed musical quantity exalting plywood; the lads silently adorning each other with repurposed wrapping paper, bows, and ribbons; plus soundscapes designed with packing tape.
A profession dedicated to discovering magnificence in life itself and celebrating all its contradictions, mundanities, and absurdities made Massing a super match to take over as govt director of the Orange Present Heart for Visionary Artwork in 2024. Based in 1980 because the Orange Present Basis, the location originated to protect native put up workplace employee Jeff McKissack’s people artwork set up, devoted to his favourite fruit. Since then, it has grown to incorporate the Beer Can Home (precisely what it seems like) within the Heights; the folks artwork–centric Smither Park; the beloved Artwork Automobile and Artwork Bike Parades; and annual exhibitions of cutting-edge artwork that will not go well with a extra conventional gallery setting. Even earlier than ascending to directorhood, Massing partnered with the Orange Present on a number of events, citing it as an area that conjures up folks and opens them as much as new concepts. “They let their guard down, they usually understand that you may make something out of something, and it’s enjoyable and liberating, and it’s an train in being human,” he says. “We don’t try this a lot anymore, as a result of we’re within a unique bubble the place we’re attempting to be productive…monetary duties slightly than inventive duties.”
Along with his ardour for the humanities, Massing, who as soon as thought-about learning forestry, has a fascination with the pure world and a dedication to ecological preservation, environmentalism, and sustainability, which he incorporates into his artwork and management. The Orange Present will improve its recycling and reuse insurance policies—Massing believes this helps people uncover their very own artistic voices (he believes that viewing the rejuvenation of a fabric could encourage reflection on the rejuvenation of the self). Massing additionally lately debuted Waste Stream at Buffalo Bayou. Dubbed “the efficiency with out an viewers,” the present concerned attaching a 12-foot plastic skeleton to the again of a kayak and amassing plastic waste from the water. The detritus was repurposed into an set up now on show on the Silos at Sawyer Yards, a part of its Sculpture Month 2025 exhibition; Massing will later recycle it. Cleansing up litter and microplastics, to him, is a type of sculpture, similar to the subtractive technique of carving a work out of marble. “I believe ‘woke’ is actually vital proper now. We have to get up and see what’s taking place round us,” he says. “Sadly, the political divisiveness has made one thing that’s an attribute appear ugly. I’d slightly be woke than broke.”
The plastic collected from Waste Stream, pictured right here from Massing’s August 2025 kayak journey by Buffalo Bayou, is now on show on the Silos at Sawyer Yards.
There’s a direct line between loving the planet and the folks on it that’s endemic to Massing’s works. Claiming of the oft-contradictory state, “Texas is hyperbole with a wink,” Houston has offered him with what he sees as one of many nation’s most enthusiastic and supportive visible arts scenes. “It’s wonderful, the camaraderie right here, and the perspective from one artist to a different, the generosity and the helpfulness that they share right here is unmatched,” he says. “I don’t know another place that exists that’s so open and sharing, no less than that’s my notion of it…I believe it has to do with the Southern hospitality meets the West growth thought.”
Having lived and labored within the thick of all of it since 1979, Massing has loved a really distinctive alternative to each observe and immediately form the native arts over the previous few a long time. He’ll additionally oversee an upcoming capital marketing campaign for Orange Present, aiming to increase the group’s bodily campus and, subsequently, enhance the variety of alternatives for artists of all backgrounds to study, play, and discover alongside the best way. When he displays on his journey, the folks he has met and the locations he has been, Massing likens himself to Tom Hanks’s Oscar-winning character Forrest Gump. “I believe the Orange Present, engaged on this as a mission, is type of a crowning jewel in my life,” he says. “It’s already a tremendous, cool place, however we’re increasing…I’m devoted to attempting to make that the most effective factor that I can.”
That stated, there’s nonetheless a lot extra to Massing than a visionary artist overseeing a visionary artwork group. “I actually like canine, and I visited Europe a pair instances. And popcorn is certainly one of my favourite meals to eat as a snack,” he says.
