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Project Row Houses

When unveiled in 1993, this rehabilitated row of 1920's one-room-wide shotgun cottages in Houston's historically African-American Third Ward pioneered new ideas about indigenous art and domestic architecture. Twice a year, Project Row Houses selects artists (local and international, emerging and established) to create site-specific installations for each of the eight interiors. From the street, the row of identical white-painted houses recalls a Warholian montage. The changing artworks within—whether geopolitical in nature, poignantly autobiographical, or focused on sheer beauty (as was one installation created with hundreds of yards of gossamer drapery)—vividly drive home the project's mission of revitalizing neighborhoods through the power of art.