Thanks to the coronavirus, Dallas Museum of Art is still closed to the public — but luckily art isn't always confined to four walls and a roof.
The DMA has curated a list of 13 outdoor artworks that you can appreciate from the safe distance and comfort of your own car. Starting in the heart of Dallas, the public art tour presents an expansive view of how artists have made their mark on our city.
Follow the map to discover the creative highlights and iconic views of Dallas — from sculptures to murals to memorials — and learn about each piece with fun facts and tidbits of context along the way.
Starting everything off is perhaps the DMA's most recognizable landmark, Mark Di Suvero's Ave. The 12,000-pound, bright-red steel sculpture is a part of the museum's contemporary art collection, and sits proudly outside the building on Ross Avenue Plaze.
Made in 1973, Di Suvero's work originally signaled the doorway into the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts at Fair Park before it marked the entrance of the DMA when it moved to the heart of the Dallas Arts District.
Let interim chief conservator Fran Bass give you a closer look at Ave in the video below, while also learning how museum staff have refreshed it after so many years outside.
As winners of the Tiny Desk Contest, Cure for Paranoia will record their own Tiny Desk concert and go on tour.
Few live recording studios or musical web series have the cultural sway of NPR's Tiny Desk, and a Dallas band is poised to make an impactful debut: Cure For Paranoia, an alternative hip-hop project by rapper Cameron McCloud and producers Tomahawk Jonez and Jay Analo, has won the high-stakes annual Tiny Desk Contest for 2026.
They'll record their official Tiny Desk show "soon," the announcement by NPR says.
Winning the concert also means Cure for Paranoia is going on tour. The only Texas stop will be at Emo's Austin on June 24.
Tiny Desk is known for platforming both niche and majorly successful artists — NPR posted a new Foo Fighters set on YouTube on May 13 — for stripped-down sets that are literally played behind former All Things Considered director Bob Boilen's old desk. (Fun fact for Texans: Tiny Desk was created because folk artist Laura Gibson was disappointed with the sound at her South by Southwest show in Austin in 2008, and she wanted a redo.)
Most artists who appear on Tiny Desk more than 15 years later are already well-known, at least in their specific circles. But the Tiny Desk Contest, which launched in 2015, helps a growing group of newer, unsigned artists get their foot in the door. Contestants record one video of them performing a single song behind a desk, and a jury of radio staff and musicians chooses their favorite.
In their audition video, Cure for Paranoia gathered 11 musicians around a truly tiny desk and in front of downtown Dallas' iconic gigantic eyeball sculpture. They played the song "No Brainer," a frenetic track that starts with clever boasts and becomes a criticism of racism in the United States.
McCloud, a pre-school teacher, is known independently of Cure for Paranoia for rapping to his social media following about politics and current events. Some of those lyrics made it into "No Brainer." He says he started the group because he found that music was more helpful than medication for coping with bipolar depression and paranoid schizophrenia.
Alex Marrero, host of the Austin-based KUTX show Horizontes, was one of the judges this year. He was impressed with the visuals in Cure for Paranoia's audition.
“When this popped up, I immediately felt something different," he wrote in a blurb for the announcement. "It just jumped out. The visuals were super cool and creative, BUT I could still totally envision them bringing the heat behind the Desk.”
Madison McFerrin, jazz vocalist and daughter of the famous singer Bobby McFerrin, was one of the musical judges.
"Cure For Paranoia’s energy is infectious, fresh and distinctly theirs — exactly what you want in a Contest winner!" she wrote.
McCloud's post on Instagram announcing the group's win has only been up for three hours at the time of this article's publication, and it already has more than 8,000 likes. The YouTube audition has garnered 74,000 views.
