Must-see Art

Meow Wolf's debut leads 9 can't-miss Houston art openings for October

Many diverse and major art exhibitions debut this month, as the fall art season kicks into gear. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston gets spiritual. The Menil Collection finds folly and chance can lead to extraordinary creations, and the Asia Society launches into space art. We’ll also head to the park for the Bayou City Art Festival and turn our radios on as Meow Wolf hits the art waves with Radio Tave.

“Solid State - A Celebration of the Material World” at Site Gallery Houston at The Silos (now through November 30)
Part of Sculpture Month, this group show’s playful title refers to the classical materials for sculptures such as marble, bronze, and terracotta, while also hinting at the 21st century state of sculpture which is sometime created and built from concrete, steel, iron, plastic, found objects, and even organic material and LED light sources. Featuring Houston and Texas artists, the works will be on view in one of the city’s most unique art spaces, the former rice silos of Sawyer Yards.

“Proposal for a 28th Amendment? Is It Possible To Amend An Unequal System?” at Project Row Houses (now through January 26, 2025)
This interactive art installation by artist collaborators Alex Strada and Tali Keren will invite visitors to engage critically with the U.S. Constitution and pose the two questions of the title. The exhibition features sonic soapbox sculptures that build upon the history of the soapbox as a site of collective struggle, while also emphasizing listening, mutuality, and access. Visitors can enter the soapboxes to listen to archival recordings and then add their responses. Those new voices will be added to the archive and will be heard by new audiences in future installations of the work. With Project Row Houses as a central hub, elements of the project will also be on view at the Houston Museum of African American Culture and Lawndale Art Center, creating space for civic dialogue across the city during this election year.

Bayou City Art Festival at Memorial Park (October 11-13)
Cooler days and nights make for a great art weekend in Memorial Park for one of our favorite art festivals of the year. Bringing more than 250 local and national artists together in one place, the festival also supports local organizations and illustrates the impact that art has on the Houston community. Wander amid the booths featuring one-of-a-kind art, prints, jewelry, sculptures, functional art, and maybe get that holiday shopping done early. Along with all that art, the three-day festival features live entertainment stages, a food truck park, a craft beer and wine garden, an Active Imagination Zone for kids, and a VIP Hospitality Lounge.

“Makeshift Memorials, Small Revolutions” at Blaffer Art Museum (October 11, 2024-March 9, 2025)
Examining the shifts in dilated time, ritual, memory-keeping, and community-building in artistic practices in the years 2020-2024, this exhibition features contemporary artists who sometimes act as activists and chroniclers of the world with their work. According to the Blaffer, the show will highlight artists as prognosticators and trace their evolving practices and approaches, informed by activism and the creation of mutual aid networks spurred from lived experiences

“Tacita Dean: Blind Folly” at the Menil Collection (October 11, 2024–April 19, 2025)
In this first major museum survey of Berlin and Los Angeles-based British artist Tacita Dean, “Blind Folly” will focus on Dean’s approach to creating art though a chance-based drawing process. From film to printmaking, Dean lets the behavior of her mediums dictate the results of her work, letting chance and fate factor into her artistic creations. The exhibition will also feature new works inspired by Dean’s time in Houston, some following her residency at the Menil’s Cy Twombly Gallery.

“Weaving together an array of subjects, from classical mythological narratives to natural phenomena, Tacita Dean’s work presents a poignant and urgent reflection on experience in an increasingly virtual and ecologically volatile world,” describes Menil senior curator Michelle White. “In this moment, she shows us the power of analogue through the act of drawing.”

“Space City: Art in the Age of Artemis” at Asia Society Texas (October 17, 2024-March 16, 2025)
Featuring the work of 31 contemporary artists exploring the wonders and mysteries of outer space, the show will “orbit” around four themes: Origins, Celestial Bodies, Space Technology, and Other Worlds. The exhibition also showcases artists with current or previous ties to Houston and includes nine newly commissioned works from Houston-based artists. Keeping with the space and science themes, “Space City” will include works of more traditional medium, like painting, ceramics, and photography, but also cutting-edge light and sound artworks.

“Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery” at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (October 20, 2024-January 12, 2025)
This first Native-curated exhibition at the MFAH will focus on Pueblo voices and aesthetics while showcasing over 100 historical, modern, and contemporary objects in clay. Along with these striking works of art, the exhibition lays new ground in curating as “Grounded in Clay” gives voice to the Pueblo Pottery Collective, a group of more than 60 individual members of 21 tribal communities. Together, they selected and wrote about artistically and culturally distinctive pots from two significant Pueblo pottery collections — the Indian Arts Research Center of the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the Vilcek Foundation in New York.

“The visual and material languages of Native pottery and intergenerational narratives are highlighted throughout the exhibition,” explains Chelsea Dacus, assistant curator, MFAH, and organizing curator for the Houston presentation. “Choices were elicited from the curators and organized into the themes of Ancestors, Utility, Elements, and Connections, ones which are important to Native knowledge and understanding. Label texts consist of personal reactions, poems, and stories by the curators, which bring the artworks to life and exhibit the intangible force that they have in the lives and cultures of the Pueblo peoples.”

“Living with the Gods: Art, Beliefs, and Peoples” at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (October 27, 2024–January 20, 2025)
For what will likely be one of the largest exhibitions of the fall, the MFAH invited British art historian and longtime museum director Neil MacGregor to revisit his 2017 BBC radio series and book of the same title to organize this exhibition of great objects from the MFAH’s collection and from museums around the world. From ancient statues and masks to contemporary video works, these objects of art and religion all have in common is they were created with some spiritual intent. Displayed across 11 galleries, over 200 masterpieces will be organized around elemental themes: the cosmos, light, water, and fire; the mysteries of life and death; the divine word; and pilgrimage.

“For millennia, people have been making art to communicate with their God or gods and to sustain their communities,” described MFAH director Gary Tinterow. “Neil MacGregor’s acclaimed 2017 BBC radio series and book brilliantly chronicled this enduring form of human expression. We are honored that he brought that perspective to Houston, making it visible through objects chosen from our own collections as well as some truly exceptional loans. This exhibition is a magnificent capstone to our first century as a museum."

Radio Tave at Meow Wolf Houston (opening October 31)
After over a year of waiting, the Santa Fe art collective Meow Wolf opens its latest immersive exhibition in Houston’s historical Fifth Ward. Like previous Meow Wolf immersive experiences in Santa Fe, Vegas and Grapevine, Texas, Radio Tave will have an original, science fiction narrative that connects together other worldly art pieces and installations from international, national and local artists. Visitors will step into a giant, building-sized exhibition and enter a story where a radio station has been transported to another dimension. Traveling within the story and across art dimension, we’ll find a labyrinth of paths, portals, and hidden doors, all filled with interactive mysteries for guests to solve. The space features dozens of rooms, designed by more than 100 artists — over 50 of whom are based in Texas.

Photo © Peter Gabriel Studio

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents "Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery"

meow wolf museum of fine arts openings visual-art

this ballerina knows business

Houston Ballet names new executive director with deep ties to its past

Photo by Bre Johnson

Houston Ballet appoints Sonja Kostich as the organization’s next Executive Director.

Dance lovers who saw Houston Ballet artistic director Stanton Welch’s beautiful and fierce Maninyas back in February probably didn’t realize they were witnessing a dance with significant hidden history. Maninyas was the Australian-born Welch’s first American commissioned work when it had its 1996 world premiere in San Francisco. Seeing that premiere inspired Ben Stevenson, Houston Ballet's artistic director at the time, to invite Welch to create a piece for the company, eventually paving the way for Welch to serve as the company's artistic director.

Photo by Bre Johnson

Houston Ballet appoints Sonja Kostich as the organization’s next Executive Director.

It seems those dance waves from Maninyas continue to reverberate, for on stage for that 1996 world premiere performance was acclaimed ballerina Sonja Kostich. And today Houston Ballet announced Kostich will leap into the role of Houston Ballet executive director beginning in August.

Kostich assumes the directorship after major triumphs in roles onstage, backstage, and behind executive desks across the dance world. As a young dancer, Kostich trained at the prestigious School of Classical Ballet, a program created by Mikhail Baryshnikov. Then at 17 she was chosen by Baryshnikov himself to join the American Ballet Theatre. Such began a impressive career dancing with the San Francisco Ballet, Zurich Ballet, Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, and collaborations with renowned director Peter Sellars. One of Kostich’s big endeavor mixing dance and entrepreneurship came in 2008, when she co-founded the contemporary dance company OtherShore in New York. She also served as co-director for six years.

After hanging up her ballet slippers, at least professionally, Kostich pursued a career in business, earning a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from the Zicklin School of Business at CUNY Baruch College, where she graduated Salutatorian at age 42. She also completed a master's degree in arts administration.

Kostich's professional experience includes roles at Goldman Sachs, Mark Morris Dance Group, and New York City Center. From 2018 to 2022, she was Chief Executive and Artistic Officer of Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, leading a successful rebranding and revitalization of the organization.

Since 2022, Kostich has served as president and executive director of Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City. Her work at the Center likely caught the HB board’s eye, as her tenure helped to achieve financial stability, expand opportunities for artists, and increase both earned and contributed income to record-breaking levels while engaging new, diverse audiences.

“We are thrilled to welcome Sonja Kostich to Houston Ballet,” said Kristy Bradshaw, Houston Ballet board chair, in a statement. “Our board has worked diligently to ensure the continued financial strength and operational excellence of our company, building on the legacy of our retiring executive director, Jim Nelson. It is through this solid foundation — marked by fiscal stewardship, exceptional senior leadership, and a highly capable organizational structure that we have been able to attract such remarkable talent in Kostich. We are confident that her vision, creativity, and leadership will further elevate our company on the global stage. We look forward to this exciting new chapter for Houston Ballet.”

Kostich has as many good things to say about the company as the board does about welcoming her.

“Houston Ballet is an exemplary company with exceptional artists, dedicated employees, and a robust history of supporters and audience goers,” said Kostich. “I am deeply humbled and honored to build upon the company's remarkable legacy and look forward to developing thoughtful and valuable long-term relationships within the community. Ballet as an art form has a phenomenal capacity to generate real inspiration and engagement in all ages."

Along with collaborating with Welch in the past, Kostich also has ties to the company’s co-artistic director, Julie Kent. Kent and Kostich overlapped during their dance careers at the American Ballet Theatre.

Both Welch and Kent also sing Kostich’s praises.

“I am thrilled that Sonja will be joining Houston Ballet as executive director. She will be an excellent partner to bring Houston Ballet into our next chapter,” said Welch. “Along with her exceptional leadership capabilities, Sonja will also bring a level of unique dance expertise that will enhance our Company.”

Julie Kent added, “I very much look forward to what will be a highly collaborative experience that will only elevate what Houston Ballet can achieve, both artistically and as an organization. Sonja’s extraordinary talents and drive are a perfect match for our future goals.”

The feelings are mutuals from Kostich who ended her statement saying, “I am thrilled by this opportunity to work with Stanton and Julie, truly accomplished and respected artistic leaders, as we work together on a firm vision for the limitless potential for the future of Houston Ballet.”

James Nelson, the retiring executive director, will assume the title of executive advisor, supporting Kostich during her transition.

houston ballet sonja kostich