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A conversation with Otis Houston Jr, a self-taught artist who began making art after taking an art class while incarcerated. Since 1997, he has maintained an ongoing presence under the Triborough Bridge on the FDR Drive where he presents impromptu performances and a site-specific installation of signage and sculptures. Many thanks to Gordon Robichaux and Post Present Medium for facilitating the recording of this segment.
Otis Houston Jr. (born 1954, Greenville, SC) lives and works in East Harlem, New York. Houston Jr. is a self-taught artist who began making art after taking an art class while incarcerated. Since 1997, he has maintained an ongoing presence under the Triborough Bridge on the FDR Drive where he presents impromptu performances and a site-specific installation of signage and sculptures. Houston has exhibited his work at Gordon Robichaux, apexart (organized by Sam Gordon), Room East, Socrates Sculpture Park (curated by Chelsea Spengemann), and CANADA in New York; Marc Selwyn Fine Art and Parker Gallery in Los Angeles; F in Houston (organized by Adam Marnie); Rebecca Camacho Presents in San Francisco (organized by Bob Linder); and Cave in Detroit (in collaboration with Miles Huston). Profiles of the artist have appeared in Hauser & Wirth’s Ursula magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Brooklyn Rail, Gradient, and Contemporary Art Daily. Images and videos of his work taken by daily commuters and passersby populate numerous blogs and YouTube. Houston’s album of original songs, America, was released in 2006 on iTunes and as a vinyl record in 2020 published by musician and artist Dean Spunt’s Post-Present Medium label. BLACK CHEROKEE, a 22-minute documentary about Houston Jr., directed by Sam Cullman and Benjamin Rosen, was released in 2012.
Salome Oggenfuss is a filmmaker working across disciplines, born in Switzerland and based in NYC.
An offshoot of Montez Press, Montez Press Radio was founded in 2018 with the goal of fostering greater experimentation and conversation between artists, writers, and thinkers through the medium of radio. This platform is an experiment in broadcasting and community building which allows different corners of the art world to interact with each other in person and on air—a place where media finally meets flesh.