Menil Fiesta mashup

Art on aisle 12: Artists hijack supermarket for boundary-bending exhibition of paintings

Attention, shoppers. The UH School of Art unveils a new exhibition this week at one of the city's busiest and least-likely venues — the Fiesta megamarket across from Reliant Park.

Conceived by professors Aaron Parazette and Gael Stack, the "Menil/Fiesta" project has become a rite of passage for UH painting majors, a challenge designed to dilute the traditionally-held boundaries of where art can and cannot exist.

Students in their junior year are asked to visit both the Menil Collection and a Fiesta grocery store, gathering images and ideas to form the basis of an original series of paintings.

"We want students to approach these places with an eye for both contrasts and similarities."

"We want students to approach these places with an eye for both contrasts and similarities," Parazette tells CultureMap. "These complex questions of context and commercialism that arise, and each student has to find a way to present them."

Since the project was launched, artistic solutions have ranged from sharp juxtapositions, like donuts atop a Picasso portrait, to abstract fusions common grocery items and iconic modernist tropes (imagine green bell peppers and Barnett Newman "zips").

In celebration of the program's 10th year, the UH School of Art has partnered with Fiesta to display the paintings of an actual grocery store. The exhibition, which includes 21 past and recent works, winds itself above the shelves and end displays of the Fiesta Mart at 8130 Kirby, just south of the Texas Medical Center.

"I couldn't be more pleased with the show," says Parazette, laughing that the store's 22,000 weekly transactions are giving the young painters an audience of a lifetime.

"Museums and galleries are non-competitive spaces for art, which gets all this breathing room. But here, these paintings have to compete with balloon and freezer cases . . . And it's wonderful to see how well the pieces hold up."

The Menil/Fiesta show officially opens Thursday at the Kirby Fiesta with an artists' reception from 7:30 to 9 p.m. in the frozen food section. The in-store exhibit remains on view through the end of the nearby Houston Rodeo on March 23.

The exhibit remains on view through Mar. 23.

$UH School of Art hijacks Kirby super-Fiesta for new painting exhibit\ufeff February 2014$

Photo courtesy of Aaron Parazette

The exhibit remains on view through Mar. 23.

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MFAH expands

Houston museum acquires historic Masonic lodge property for new greenspace

Holland Lodge No. 1, A.F. & A.M./Facebook

The building at 4911 will be torn down for the new greenspace.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston has acquired a prime parcel to expand its campus in the Museum District. On Tuesday, December 23, the museum announced it has purchased a two-acre parcel of land at 4911 Montrose Blvd that will bring its total footprint to 16 acres.

Located just north of the Glassel School of Art, the property will be developed as a greenspace that will serve as a community lawn as well as be utilized for future museum events and parking. MFAH has retained landscape architects Nelson Byrd Woltz — the firm responsible for work at Memorial Park and the recently-opened Ismaili Center — to create the design for the new greenspace.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston greenspace rendering A rendering offers a bird's-eye preview of the new greenspace.Image by by Cong Nie/Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

At this time, the museum does not have plans to build anything on the property, according to a press release.

To make way for the greenspace, the property’s existing building, Holland Lodge No. 1, will be torn down. Built in 1954 as a home for the oldest Masonic lodge chapter in Texas, the building features a sandstone mural facade. It has been for sale since at least 2005, according to a report in the Houston Chronicle.

Demolition on the site is expected to begin in spring 2026 with the greenspace opening in approximately two years, according to press materials. In addition to the Glassell School, the museum’s campus includes the Audrey Jones Beck Building, the Caroline Wiess Law Building, the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden, and the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building.

“We are delighted to contribute to Houston’s greenspace access with this new initiative, which will expand the museum’s 14-acre campus to a thoroughly walkable 16 acres,” Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams chair of the MFAH, said in a statement. “While the primary objective for the purchase of this property is to secure land for any potential future expansion of the museum, our priority now is to create a welcoming community lawn. Thoughtfully designed by Nelson Byrd Woltz, one of the leading firms in sustainable landscape practice, the site will serve as public greenspace and provide additional parking for museum visitors.”

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