HOUSTON, TX.- John and Dominique de Menil, arriving in Houston from France in 1941, built one of the world’s great art collections, championed modern architects and filmmakers, and became passionately involved in human-rights causes. In the process they transformed the cultural landscape of their adopted city. The lavishly illustrated Art and Activism: Projects of John and Dominique de Menil is the first book to examine the couple’s wide-ranging interests over half a century – from art and architecture to philanthropy and politics. The de Menils established university art and media-studies departments; gave early architectural commissions to Philip Johnson and Renzo Piano; sponsored individual scholarships and funded civil-rights campaigns; built an ecumenical chapel with the painter Mark Rothko; presented one of the nation’s first exhibitions of racially integrated contemporary artists; brought Michelangelo Antonioni, Jean-Luc Godard and Roberto Rossellini t