If you haven't gotten your fill of the meta-fantastic Private Universes exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art (or the cutesy Summer Spotlight tour's film tie-ins, if Titanic sparks your artistic curiosities), be advised: this is the final weekend to see those features and Willie Doherty's Requisite Distance in house. The museum is offering free admission on both Saturday and Sunday to commemorate the changing of the walls.
The menu of art isn't all that's changing for the DMA and the Arts District this fall. A showcase opening Sunday nods to a major event in the culture hub, a reminder that a big moment in Dallas arts history is growing ever closer. The $354 million Dallas Center for the Performing Arts opens October 12 to anticipation from arts patrons and advocates who believe the complex is the crowning piece that's been missing from the city's haven for galleries, education strongholds, specialized venues and historic architecture. Civic-minded neighbor that she is, the DMA is pulling more than 100 works from her collections that illuminate "the human impulse for performance around the world and throughout time" in honor of the center's debut for All the World's a Stage: Celebrating Performance in the Visual Arts.
According to a release from the museum, popular pieces the curatorial team chose as a group to display are Pablo Picasso's The Guitarist (1965) and a series of Edgar Degas' pastels of ballet dancers. An actual performance space will be part of the exhibition's design so dance, theater, film and music can be shown with the works that pay homage to those arts. A video of interviews with Dallas-area performers will be included, too.
A free inaugural tour of All the World's a Stage is offered at 3 p.m. Sunday. For more on free programming offered this weekend, including music from films set in Europe and a classical lute concert, visit the museum's online calendar.