This last September, Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University in Houston opened up its newest exhibition and residency project with New York City-based artist Matthew Ritchie. Ritchie’s exhibition Demon in the Diagram is part of Rice University’s ongoing cross-campus and community effort to create transformative encounters with the arts. Ritchie’s site-specific installation explores history, human nature, and time diagrams that thread through multi-layered mythologies and allegories. Ritchie’s work here — through interactive soundscapes, movable paintings, VR technology, and wall works — allows the viewer to explore methods for mapping history and science. Glasstire contributor Paul Middendorf spent a recent morning with Ritchie in Houston to dig a little deeper into his process, and chat about his cumulative experiences of making and showing work in Texas.
Paul Middendorf: Tell us about the exhibition, how it came about, and your process as it unfolded (upon your re-investigation of Texas)...