“It’s art because I say it’s art” is a phrase that I often attribute to my friend Zach Moser, who founded Workshop Houston with Katy Goodman, Seth Capron and Benjy Mason a little more than 5 years ago. I’ve probably butchered the original wording of the phrase since I first heard it a few years ago, but the intent of it remains the same. Zach had used the phrase in an effort to convince a jury of museum curators who were judging him for a prestigious art award that the organization he helped establish in Houston’s Third Ward as a community workshop for basic skills was, in fact, a contemporary artwork. Workshop Houston has expanded its programs significantly since then and even as service-based art practice may have become more widely accepted as a form of contemporary art, the importance of understanding a project like Workshop Houston within the specific context in which it was created remains the same. Institutions which are conceived, established and developed as contemporary artworks have a very deliberate aesthetic language, as much as any other artwork--object-based or not, and appreciating this aesthetic language becomes a critical means of situating service- based art both within an art-historical context and a social service context.  

ABOUT:
Workshop Houston’s mission is to provide youth with creative, technical and educational resources. Our vision is to lay the groundwork for a just society by creating a community that provides youth with support, expanded opportunities and alternative definitions of success. Workshop Houston has five shops that provide resources and support for young people: the Third Ward Bike Shop (do-it-yourself bike repair), the Chopper Shop (welding and metal fabrication), the Beat Shop (hip-hop music production), the Style Shop (fashion design) and the Scholar Shop (tutoring and academic enrichment)