HOUSTON, TX.- The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s acclaimed Core program awards residencies to emerging visual artists and art scholars. Overseen by the Core Program’s associate director, Mary Leclère, the Core fellows present an exhibition each spring that showcases work made during that year’s residency. This year’s edition opened with works on view in the Laura Lee Blanton Gallery at the Glassell School of Art through April 20, 2012.

The 2012 Core Exhibition features work by artists-in-residence Miguel Amat, Anthea Behm, Lourdes Correa-Carlo, Fatima Haider, Jang Soon Im, Gabriel Martinez, Nicole Miller and Clarissa Tossin. Core critical studies residents Sally Frater, Philip Kelleher and Massa Lemu contribute essays based on their independent research to the Core 2012 Yearbook publication that accompanies the show. For more information about the residents, please visit the website

“The Core residency program is a wonderful forum for emergent artists and critics to discuss and develop their work and, in turn, strengthen the Houston arts scene,” said Glassell School director Joseph Havel. “We hope people will come to the opening reception March 16 to meet and support the 2011-12 artists and critical studies residents.”

“This year’s exhibition is strong in photography, décollage and video work,” added Core Program associate director Mary Leclère. “Essays in the accompanying Core 2012 Yearbook explore everything from the alternative Houston art space, the joanna, to the soundscape work of Nigerian artist Emeka Ogboh.”

Each nine-month fellowship (renewable for a second year) gives the eight artists and three critical studies residents studio space or an office, a stipend and access to the school and museum. These resources allow the fellows to further their practices within a dynamic arts community guided by Glassell School of Art director Joseph Havel, and to engage in creative dialogue with each other and with a host of visiting artists and critics. Since the 1980s, Core fellows have been a vibrant presence within the Houston art scene through teaching, engaging in community projects, interacting with other artists, and sometimes making a permanent home here. The Core program has also established itself as an internationally regarded platform, and Core fellows have gone on to show at such prestigious, international venues as the Venice, Whitney, Istanbul, and Lyon biennials or to assume positions at prominent national art publications, among other achievements.