“What art does, is it shifts our notion of reality, of what we thought that reality was… [and] once you understand the world, or you see the world differently, you can change the world.” —Mike Galbreth
Once described by the New York Times as “a cross between Dada and David Letterman, John Cage and the Smothers Brothers,” The Art Guys have been making art together since 1983 that has ranged across media, although they are best known for their performance and conceptual works. Consisting of Mike Galbreth and Jack Massing, this year the Houston-based dynamic duo have marked the 10–year anniversary of their controversial project The Art Guys Marry a Plant (2009), the 20-year anniversary of the closing of their groundbreaking year–long performance project SUITS: The Clothes Make the Man (1999), and the 25-year anniversary of their first mid–career retrospective at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. In 2013, on the 25-year anniversary of their seminal performance Art Dudes Dine at Denny’s in December (1988), Houston PBS sat down with The Art Guys to discuss their career and their belief in the power of art and humor to change lives and the world.