Culture Club

I’m standing about 10 paces back from Lawrence Weiner’s "Brought Up to Speed," a 12-by-10-metre installation of black and blue vinyl type spelling out commonplace phrases-"brought up to speed," "brought down to earth," "catch as catch can"-on a blank white wall. I’m on a tour of one of the world’s most expensive new galleries, built in 2009 for $1.15 billion, or about the annual GDP of Bhutan. I don’t know all the artists in this three-million-square-foot space (that’s the thing about galleries; whatever their size, they make the casual observer feel small) but I do know Weiner, one of the founding fathers of conceptual art. The piece is a poetic statement about competition, and like the other 18 works commissioned by philanthropist Gene Jones, it seems entirely fitting: the gallery is part of Cowboys Stadium-home to the Dallas Cowboys (which happen to be owned by Gene’s flamboyant husband, Jerry) and site of Super Bowl XLV, hitting this city for the first time on February 3rd.

If the uninitiated know anything about Dallas, it’s probably that for 50 years it’s been stomping grounds for the Cowboys and their bronzed and buxom cheerleaders; that the capricious J.R. Ewing once ran his fictional roost from here; and that you can’t swing a lasso without finding a good barbecue joint. All true. But Dallas has also evolved in recent years into a sophisticated commercial hub-American Airlines and AT&T-and with all that money has come increased interest from the corporate elite in establishing some cultural cred.

The Jones collection, which I attempt to take in during halftime at a Dallas-Tennessee game in the 108,000-capacity Cowboys Stadium, speaks to one stereotype that holds true of Texans: they don’t do anything small. Jerry Jones reportedly asked his architects to create "a modern-day Coliseum." As I take in the oversized surroundings, I have no doubt the Romans would have approved: I’m enthralled by monumental conceptual art, though most of my fellow patrons seem more wowed by a 160-foot-by-70-foot HDTV screen, the largest video screen in the world (a surface area equivalent to four city buses parked inline, seven lines high) or the cage-dancing cheerleaders on end-zone platforms. The stadium art-boldly placed above concessions, in VIP lounges and at all the entrances-has to compete with all this, but somehow, it does.

Impressive as the stadium and its art is, much more notable in scale and scope is the cultural transformation of downtown Dallas, 35 kilometres east. City planners decided almost 40 years ago that they wanted to turn a drab 68-acre plot of industrial wasteland into a dedicated cultural district, relocating galleries, performance halls and museums from other parts of the city while at the same time raising the architectural bar. Today it is, by one estimate, the largest urban arts district in the nation, with showcase buildings from four Pritzker Prize-winning architects-I.M. Pei, Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas and Renzo Piano-in one contiguous block.

My first stop is the Meyerson Symphony Center, home of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. It was designed by Pei, the Chinese-American architect responsible for the Louvre’s controversial Pyramid extension, and my first impression is that the sternly geometric hall isn’t anything special to look at-Pei himself has described it as "very conservative." But it’s regularly ranked as one of the world’s top symphony halls for its meticulous acoustical features, a boast that proves true the night I’m there for a concert with Liza Minnelli, ahem, and the DSO. I can clearly hear Liza’s glass of whatever-over-ice tinkle as she takes a sip between sets.
More visually stunning is Renzo Piano’s Nasher Sculpture Center. The light-filled museum, with its unique barrel-vaulted glass ceiling, fully embraces the indoor-outdoor ethos, with over 300 modern and contemporary sculptures-from Matisse, Picasso and Mirò to David Smith and Henry Moore-spilling out from the 55,000-square-foot stone-and-oak interior into a 1.4-acre elm-and-oak-lined garden. In a city that can induce headaches with its dull roar of jackhammers and constant gridlocked traffic, the garden-and particularly James Turrell’s zen-like "skyspace" installation built into a landscaped berm-is a welcome respite.

But the district’s lynchpin is the AT&T Performing Arts Center, which combines the Rem Koolhaas-designed Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre and the Norman Foster-designed Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House. It’s the architectural equivalent of the Cowboys signing Peyton and Eli Manning, and arguably the most ambitious arts complex to be built since New York’s Lincoln Center. I have tickets to Henry IV on Saturday night and, as I arrive, limo after limo disgorges black-tie-clad men and bejewelled women with such élan that notwithstanding the hot, dry air, I feel like I’m on the Upper West Side.

That said, it’s the following day’s real clash-Cowboys versus Titans-that gets the entire city jacked up. My black tie is swapped for a Tony Romo jersey, and canapés and Veuve give way to nachos and Miller Lite. Watching the crowd cheer on "the boys" in a losing effort, it’s easier to remember where you are. I watch as some of the 91,000 fans file out of the building, glancing up at Annette Lawrence’s philosophical "Coin Toss", an hourglass-shaped tangle of suspended steel cables, as they exit. Dejection may hang thick in the air, but at least there’s something to distract them, something to think about, as they head for home.