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    best february art

    10 vivid and eye-catching Houston art events draw on moments of zen and reel talent

    Tarra Gaines
    Feb 9, 2023 | 11:45 am

    February brings us a moment of Zen and the art of, well ... art with a new exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts.

    Also on our must-see art list: shows that illustrate Houston’s strong art ties to cultures and traditions around the world, the city’s teen artists see their future, and blockbuster spring exhibitions blooming early.

    “Alexis Pye: You really livin: A world that was always full of yellow sun, green trees, a blue sea and black people” at Lawndale (now through March 11)

    Inspired by the writings of Jamaica Kincaid, Pye’s painting for this show reflect on people from her community, using images of lush greenery in place of relationship and gender. Communities depicted in vibrant paintings include where the acclaimed artist lived and grew up, with works depicting the people and landscapes of Detroit’s suburbs, the Midwest, California – and Houston, where Pye has spent her early adulthood.

    "Ellsworth Ausby: Odyssey” at Houston Museum of African American Culture (now through April 8)

    With Ausby’s death in 2011, the art world lost an artist and teacher dedicated to reflecting a deeply rooted African aesthetic and cultural heritage. Now this posthumous exhibition gives Houstonians a chance to explore one of the Afrofuturist, abstract and experimental artist’s most important periods.

    The show primarily focuses on his 1970s work on cut canvas that embody his vibrant geometric forms. Featuring 18 works that Ausby created between 1970 -1976, along with his acclaimed “Space Odyssey” from 1980, these paints reflect Ausby’s achievement of liberating the canvas from rigid structures, allowing them to float freely on the walls and spaces they occupy.

    "The Life and Art of Alice Lok Cahana” at Holocaust Museum Houston (now through April 9)

    Though artist and Holocaust survivor Alice Lok Cahana, passed away in 2017, HMH celebrates her life, artwork and Houston ties in this retrospective featuring 15 mixed-media works including two large pieces, “Have You Seen My Sister?” and “Bergen-Belsen,”on loan from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Her paintings and sculptures illustrates her experience during the Holocaust and memorializes the lives lost.

    “Our first exhibition when the Museum opened in 1996 was a retrospective of Alice Lok Cahana’s works,” said Dr. Kelly J. Zuniga, CEO of Holocaust Museum Houston. “The 2023 show brings us full circle to honor her memory while introducing her prolific work to a whole new generation of art lovers.”

    "Summoning Memories: Art Beyond Chinese Traditions” at Asia Society (February 10-July 2)

    Featuring the work of 32 artists of Chinese descent, the exhibition definitely goes above and beyond to bring us a mix of well-known and emerging artists. Viewed together they create an intergenerational dialogue with diverse perspectives on the future and past.

    Working in traditional materials and medium–painting, sculpture, and photography–in new ways the artists use experimentation to draw on both Eastern and Western art-making practices. Look also for new works created specifically for this exhibition by Zhang Jian-Jun and Yang Yongliang.

    “Artists move ‘beyond the brush’ to create a dialogue — not only with different artistic, social, historical, and literary traditions, but also between some of the most important living artists of Chinese descent and the next generation of emerging talent,” describes the exhibition’s curator Dr. Susan L. Beningson.

    “ReelArt” Exhibit and Art Crawl, part of the ReelAbilities Festival (February 17)

    This exhibition of artworks by artists from Celebration Company, an entrepreneurial employment program for adults with disabilities at JFS Houston, will feature work from a variety of mediums, such as painting, photography, and glass fusion. During the art crawl, painter John Bramblitt will be working on a piece.

    Bramblitt first picked up a paintbrush in 2001 after losing his sight. Now as a nationally renowned artist and the only blind muralist having completed projects in New York, Dallas, and Fort Worth, Bramblitt has received three presidential service awards for his innovative multi-sensory art workshops and has been named a Cultural Ambassador to the US.

    “Where Do We Go From Here?” at Contemporary Art Museum Houston (February 17-July 2)

    This 13th biannual exhibition of teen artists presented by the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston’s (CAMH) Teen Council features a multitude of artworks from painted collage to abstract sculpture, but all from 25 Houston teens who created art in answer to the exhibition’s title question.

    The CAMH asserts that those individual art answers to “where” disrupt societal norms and boldly confront challenging topics through the lens of change. From recent socio-political upheaval to personal rebirth, the teen artists have a great deal to express about the contemporary world. Throughout the show, viewers will likely see momentum and change as a communality among these artistic reflections on the journey from here.

    “Art of the Cameroon Grassfields, A Living Heritage in Houston” at Menil Collection (February 17-July 19)

    Celebrating the enduring artistic traditions from Cameroon and its diaspora, the exhibition will present more than twenty historical works, including headdresses, masks, prestige hats, royal stools and figural sculptures, and palace architectural elements from several of the Grassfields kingdoms. The artwork comes from Houston-based collections, including the Menil, MFAH and local private collections.

    Major highlights of the show will be two tsesah—rare examples of a type of headdress historically associated with Bandjoun, Batcham, and other kingdoms in the central Grassfield and two installations by Douala-based artist Hervé Youmbi, who created and exhibited as contemporary art. Then the pieces were later, activated through ritual ceremonies or integrated into the royal courts of the Grassfields.

    “Philippine-Made: The Work of Matt Manalo” at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (February 18-May 13)

    This exhibition of work by the Houston-based multidisciplinary artist, showcases self-reflective sculptures made from air-dry clay, bamboo, and plant materials with cultural ties to Manalo’s home country of the Philippines, yet also encapsulates his time living in the United States after immigrating with his family to Houston.

    As a part of his artistic practice, Manalo asks friends and family to donate materials and handmade souvenirs from the Philippines and then incorporates these pieces into the artwork. Taking inspiration from Filipinx craft traditions like weaving, embroidery, and woodcarving, Manalo demonstrates how the knowledge of one’s own history can serve as a path to liberation.

    “Tg: Transitions in Kiln-Glass” at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (February 18-May 13)

    The second of HCCC’s spring shows opening this month, this biennial exhibition features the best of contemporary kiln-glass design, architecture, and art. The juried competition and resulting exhibition reflects the expansion and evolution of the kiln-glass medium and its community.

    In contrast to glassblowing, which uses a pipe, kilnforming uses a kiln to bind and shape layers or particles of glass, known as frit. Tg refers to the temperature at which glass transitions from behaving like a solid to behaving like a liquid. Including contemporary national and international artists, the show surveys the aesthetic, conceptual frameworks, and latest technical innovation possibilities of the art form.

    “None Whatsoever: Zen Paintings from the Gitter-Yelen Collection” at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (February 19-May 14)

    This exhibition from New Orleans- based collectors Kurt Gitter and Alice Yelen, gives us a chance to contemplate the history of Zen Buddhism and its inspiration for artists. The show focuses on the origins of Zen Buddhism in Japanese painting through ink paintings and calligraphies by 18th-century Buddhist master Hakuin Ekaku, and other painter-monks who expressed Zen Buddhism through their art.

    Focusing on Hakuin’s experiments in calligraphy and abstracted iconography, the exhibition proves his place in art history as a revolutionary artist. “None Whatsoever” then moves into the 20th and 21st centuries with a selection of modern contemporary art, including work by Robert Motherwell, John Cage, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Ad Reinhardt, Takahiro Kondo, and Franz Kline, among others.

    These works from the MFAH’s permanent collection, the Menil Collection, and private Houston collections, highlight the ritual and spiritual components of Zen in relation to philosophy and thought of the 20th century.

    'Summoning Memories: Art Beyond Chinese Traditions'
      
    Photo courtesy the artist and James Cohan Gallery
    Yun-Fei Ji, ‘The Three Gorges Dam Migration’ (detail), 2008, Ink and watercolor on xuan paper mounted on silk, Courtesy the artist and James Cohan Gallery
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    Best June Art

    Where to see art in Houston now: 9 intriguing new exhibits opening in June

    Tarra Gaines
    Jun 9, 2025 | 5:00 pm
    ​The Museum of Fine Arts Houston presents “Anicka Yi: Karmic Debt”
    Photographyby Sun Shi
    The Museum of Fine Arts Houston presents “Anicka Yi: Karmic Debt” (Anicka Yi / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy of theartist and Gladstone Gallery)

    Houston welcomes lots of fun new art shows this month, including Lawndale’s annual “Big Show.” The Asia Society invites people on a scavenger hunt, and Sawyer Yards welcomes art selfies. After a lull during campus renovations, the place for innovative and provocative art at the University of Houston, the Blaffer Art Museum, opens three new exhibitions. Meanwhile, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston travels into a beautiful, luxurious past and into a mind-bending AI future as it celebrates some new acquisitions.

    “The Big Show” at Lawndale Art Center (now through August 2)
    One of Houston's favorite annual shows opens this month, as Lawndale once more puts local artists in the spotlight. As is tradition, this group exhibition features new work by artists practicing within a 100-mile radius of Lawndale. This year’s expert juror is Dr. Phillip A. Townsend, curator of art at the University of Texas’ Art Galleries at Black Studies (AGBS). Townsend has selected 88 works by 77 artists from nearly a thousand entries.

    Naming this 2025 Big Show “Between Lines and Faces,” Townsend chose art that "explores the intersection of three seemingly disparate elements: text, portraiture, and the mundane. When woven together, these themes reveal profound insights into the human condition and the society we inhabit.

    “Be the Art: The Silos Selfie Experience” at Sawyer Yards (now through August 9)
    Here’s one with art created for all the Instagram/TikTok influencers out there. The artists at the Silos have been prompted to display large-scale, nearly immersive works, as an invitation for people to photograph them alone or to take selfies with them. Whether created as a painting, drawing, print, sculpture, or mixed media, these works are camera ready and willing to share screen time with a visitor's face. Each artwork also features a statement from the artist, providing some insights into the inspirations behind their choices in media, color, composition, and narrative.

    “a way to mend” at Blaffer Art Museum (now through September 27)
    Art heals at this new group exhibition showcasing 19 Gulf Coast artists whose work explores recovery, health, and restoration in mental, physical, or spiritual forms. These pieces also find a balance between landscapes and abstraction images. Our region is also a commonality in the work, as the Blaffer preview description of the exhibition notes that these artists find the Gulf Coast as a place of “resilience, transformation, and repair.” Along with visual artworks, the exhibition also features companion essays and poems by five authors who composed written work especially for the exhibition.

    “¡Cuidado!” at Blaffer Art Museum (now through September 27)
    This video installation and sculpture exhibition from multidisciplinary artists X Arriaga Cuellar and Adán Vallecillo also contemplate life and death but with a sharp focus on healthcare workers, especially those from Latin America who came to the U.S. to act as caregivers for the elderly. “¡Cuidado!” combines a video installation of performance work, centering on migrant caregivers from Honduras, with audio and sculptural pieces that represent different modalities of care. Scheduled live performances will also engage with these sculptures. According to the artists, the exhibition serves as a tribute to the Honduran immigrants, including Vallecillo’s sister, Mabel, who have dedicated their lives to this dignified and essential caregiving.

    “Saif Azzuz: Keet Hegehlpa’ (the water is rising)” at Blaffer Art Museum (now through December 20)
    In his first museum exhibition, award-winning California artist Saif Azzuz brings together installations, paintings, and assemblage pieces that examine themes of privatization of land, water, and natural resources. Some of these works will juxtapose 19th century artifacts – like old Allen Brothers advertisements to sell land around Buffalo Bayou — with historical references to indigenous western Gulf Coast cultures such as the Karankawa and Akokisa peoples. The show will include additional artwork from Azzuz’s family members, including Lulu Thrower, Elizabeth Azzuz, Viola Azzuz, Moya Azzuz, and Colleen Colegrove, all embracing ecological messages.

    “Diamonds That Fall from the Treetop” at SANMAN Studios (June 14-July 26)
    Houston-born multidisciplinary artist and curator Robert Leroy Hodge is most known for his award-winning, layered collage work. But with this mini-retrospective of selected works straight from his studio, art lovers will get to experience never-before-seen paintings, sculptures, and even musical compositions by Hodge.

    “Diamonds” marks the first collaboration between the artist and SANMAN and High Hope Studios, and it's intended to demonstrate a shared commitment to creative excellence, cultural memory, and community-building. With this significant collaboration in mind, SANMAN will also offer free programing around the exhibition rooted in Black joy, sound culture, and community connection.

    “From India to the World: Textiles from the Parpia Collections" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (June 22–September 14)
    The exhibition will give visitors their first look at 67 of the 187 pieces the MFAH acquired from the Banoo and Jeevak Parpia Collection, considered one of the most significant holdings of Indian textiles in private hands outside of India. “From India to the World” will give museum visitors insight into the rich history of these silk, muslin, embroideries and vivid tie-dyes created and woven in India. The exhibition also explores the distinctions between textiles made for the Indian market and fabric exported all over the world.

    “The Parpia textile collection is a pivotal addition to our collections,” said MFAH director Gary Tinterow. “Showcasing both trade and domestic textiles from India, it represents over 40 years of dedicated collecting by Banoo and Jeevak Parpia, who have assembled one of the foremost private collections of this material globally. The Parpias’ focus on singular works exemplifying traditional forms and techniques offers a comprehensive view of Indian textile history. With this acquisition, the MFAH collection now ranks among the top public Indian textile collections outside of India.”

    “Memory Palace” at Asia Society (June 25-October 12)
    Find the joy in discovery with this new exhibition of contemporary sculpture from Japanese artist Umico Niwa, whose work has been presented and celebrated in museums and galleries around the world. Resembling flower creatures or nymphs, the delicate Daphnes figures seem to be at play and invite visitors to imagine their own stories for the creations.

    The Asia Society notes that “Memory Palace” draws on Japanese traditions of animism and ancestral reverence but resists easy categorization. Spread across the Asia Society space, the Daphnes call us to an art adventure, as we wander into this “Memory Palace” game of hide and seek.

    “Anicka Yi: Karmic Debt” at Museum of Fine Arts (June 29–September 7)
    Science, technology, and creativity meet in this exhibition at the MFAH. For the latest in the museum's series of immersive summer shows, Anicka Yi, a Seoul-born, New York-based art innovator, stretches the boundaries of art, science, and maybe even mortality in her work, taking visitors beyond time and space with two mind-expanding installations.

    The first section will consist of five of Yi’s large scale, animatronic “Radiolaria” sculptures that resemble giant living cells. The sculptures will be installed so they seem to float within the gallery, as if it were inside a liquid environment. The second installation, the 16-minute video “Each Branch Of Coral Holds Up the Light Of the Moon” is the first work created by Yi using Emptiness, a software system/project created in collaboration with her studio and a team of engineers. Essentially, Emptiness is an AI algorithm trained on Yi’s work that might be capable of producing new Yi-style visionary video pieces even beyond her lifespan.

    “Anicka Yi shows us that it is possible to use AI systems to express our most human concerns, as she invites viewers to consider our place in ever-evolving cycles of creation and change,” said MFAH director Gary Tinterow.

    \u200bThe Museum of Fine Arts Houston presents \u201cAnicka Yi: Karmic Debt\u201d
      

    Photo by Sun Shi

    The Museum of Fine Arts Houston presents “Anicka Yi: Karmic Debt” (Anicka Yi / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy of theartist and Gladstone Gallery).

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