The Untitled Art Fair returns to the George R. Brown Convention Center this weekend (Friday, October 2-Sunday, October 4) following the show’s incredible Houston premier last fall. With an expanded roster of 98 galleries from 20 countries and territories, this year’s edition builds on the momentum of 2025 with an ambitious citywide program of Special Projects, prizes, live podcast panels, and community partnerships that speak to Houston’s increasingly vital role in contemporary art.
While the fair specializes in international contemporary art that draws both casual admirers and major collectors looking for long term investments, Untitled is arguably the only fair of its magnitude that platforms local artists, foundations, charity, and non-profit organizations as well.
That being said, if the highly-anticipated Affordable Art Fair sounds more appealing from a financial perspective, fret not. Untitled has something for everyone, and a plethora of ways to support the local Houston arts community while taking in the more monumental works on display. If nothing else, the fashion and people watching are worth a stroll.
On the show floor, 11 Special Projects offer artists, galleries, and institutional partners the opportunity to realize site-specific work alongside the fair’s booth exhibitors.
Highlights
Dave Muller’s Record Pavilion 2.0 (2026), presented by Meliksetian | Briggs and the Landing. First staged in Los Angeles in 2022, this fully operational, walk-in record store is assembled from Muller’s own collection, complete with sound system, paintings, and ephemera.
Erina Libertad's Duet (2026), with Main sector exhibitor Hannah Sloan, transforms a stretch of the fair into an opportunity for an impromptu dance between strangers.
Josh Callaghan’s Big Rig (2026) exhibited by Main sector exhibitor Night Gallery, a new main sector gallery, recasts wheelchairs as icons of American mobility while a series of densely layered, kaleidoscopic paintings inspired by King Nobuyoshi Godwin’s “synaesthesia” are on display in The Artist Is Having a Good Day (2026) from SAGE Studio & Gallery.
Houston Specific Projects
Houston itself remains the connective tissue of this year’s programming, with an array of presentations foregrounding the artists, local histories, and communities that have shaped the city’s cultural landscape.
The Floyd Newsum Jr. Art Estate expands The Journey Never Ends, a 2005 painting by the late artist, with a living “artchive” tracing his four-decade influence on generations of Houstonians. The installation unfolds over three acts, including a live video feed, Untitled Voyage (2026), connecting a traveling iteration of the project with its presentation at the fair.
Reconstructing historical LGBTQIA+ spaces and sites of the queer community in Houston, Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin's Town Meeting 1978–2028 (2026) is a monumental drawing and performance lecture exhibited by McClain Gallery.
Reynier Leyva Novo's Blue Bones (2026), a public art project presented by PAC Public, unfolds through a community archive in the neighborhood of the Third Ward. For the presentation, Novo covers images and objects in blue paint, shifting their function to a material evidence of the survival, loss, and urban change in the Third Ward.
In The Iconic Portrait Strand (Houston), an on-going series of portraits from 2008-2026, Houston-based artist Nestor Topchy renders egg-tempera and gold-leaf portraits of Houstonians in the tradition of Byzantine icons. Topchy’s presentation, with Josh Pazda Hiram Butler, will grow during the run of the fair through live portrait sittings.
Estefania Puerta's The Crowd (2026) is a reflective figurative sculpture built from cast forms and photographs taken in Rome and Colombia, and presented by the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston as part of the inaugural CAMH Commission Prize awarded to the artist at the inaugural edition of the fair.
Houston-based artist JooYoung Choi’s sculptural installation, WE CAN MAKE IT IF WE TRY, The Journey of Poundcake Man and Emma Poundcake Girl (2024), showcased by Inman Gallery, explores themes of identity, belonging, trauma, and resilience inspired by the artist’s childhood memories.
Houston legend Mark Flood stages Daily Flood (2026), a lived-in artist’s studio/private viewing room, with paintings stacked on the floor, leaned against walls, and set among furniture and found objects.
Houston Artist Market
The Houston Artist Market returns for its second year, expanding its reach beyond the city to showcase artists, publishers, collectives, and cultural organizations from across Texas. Once again curated by Adam Marnie, editor of F Magazine and a Nest exhibitor at the fair, the initiative reflects Untitled Art’s broader commitment to foster regional cultural ecosystems, providing a retail-style platform alongside the fair's international roster. This year's edition brings together 12 presentations, including two collaborative booths.
“I’m really excited to be bringing the Artist Market back to Untitled Art, Houston for its second, expanded edition,” says Marnie. “For me, the real strength of the Artist Market is that it represents a vital collection of the artist-run organizations creating community and connection on the ground in Greater Houston and beyond.”
Houston and Texas Highlights
Basket Books & Art
An independent Montrose bookstore with an upstairs contemporary art gallery that opened in 2022, Basket specializes in contemporary art, literature, poetry, and criticism, while also presenting exhibitions, readings, book launches, conversations, and book clubs.
Bill’s Junk
Houston artist Bill Davenport’s eccentric collision of an art project, thrift shop, and salvage operation. The original Heights storefront operated from 2008 to 2022, but Davenport has continued Bill’s Junk through Instagram, pop-ups, and special events. Less a conventional store than an extension of Davenport’s artistic practice, the collection is built around discarded objects, handmade work, oddities, and Houston cultural ephemera.
CHEERLEADER | Dallas
An artist-run contemporary gallery founded by Dallas-born artist and curator Brent Birnbaum, CHEERLEADER opened in 2025 in the Cedars neighborhood and presents local and national artists in an unconventional, DIY setting.
East Side Pot Shop | Austin
A ceramics studio and community pottery operation offering handmade functional and decorative ceramics, the shop represents the craft and artist-made retail side of the market rather than operating as a traditional commercial gallery.
Friends Gallery
A community-run gallery and cooperative founded in 2024, the gallery centers BIPOC, transgender, queer, local, and emerging artists, approaching art as a means of community building, cultural exchange, organizing, and political education.
Jardín
Isabel Wilson’s Montrose fashion, art, and design shop produces limited-run clothing in Houston using deadstock fabrics and presents contemporary art exhibitions, art advisory and installation services, and vintage and design pop-ups.
MORTADELLA | Fort Worth
A nomadic curatorial and publishing project founded in 2024 by Jesse Morgan Barnett and Evie Marie Bishop. Rather than maintaining a permanent gallery, MORTADELLA organizes exhibitions, publications, and collaborative projects in changing locations.
The Orange Show Center for Visionary Art
The Orange Show preserves and promotes self-taught, folk, and visionary art. Its programs and properties include The Orange Show Monument, the Beer Can House, Smither Park, and the Houston Art Car Parade, with the 40th annual parade coming up in 2027. At the Artist Market, it represents one of Houston’s most distinctive and nationally recognizable alternative-art institutions.
PICNIC Curatorial Projects | Galveston
Founded by Gregory Ruppe and Alden Pinnell, PICNIC began in 2020 as a surf brand, research laboratory, and curatorial platform; the nonprofit followed in 2021. It supports exhibitions, performances, collaborations, research, publications, and other cultural projects.
The Reading Room HTX
Founded in 2023 by Amarie Gipson, this independent reference library is devoted to Black art and culture. Its browse-only collection contains more than 700 books and exhibition catalogues. The Reading Room also organizes talks, screenings, listening sessions, workshops, and teach-ins and has a semi-permanent home inside SANMAN Studios.
SANMAN Studios
A Black-owned Houston creative hub providing studio, exhibition, event, and community space, SANMAN supports artists, designers, musicians, and other creative practitioners and is also home to The Reading Room HTX.
St. Agnes Academy Visual Arts
Houston’s Catholic college-preparatory school for young women will bring student-created work into the fair and give young artists direct exposure to Houston’s contemporary art community.
Stinson House
Founded and run by Nick Stinson, this intimate home gallery in Houston’s Washington Terrace/Third Ward area provides artists at different career stages with a warm, domestic exhibition setting. Stinson curates thoughtful contemporary exhibitions and publishes Daddy Issues, a Houston personal-ads zine.
Zine Fest Houston
A free, all-ages festival and year-round organization supporting zines, mini-comics, self-published books, and alternative and underground DIY media. Beyond its annual festival, Zine Fest Houston offers educational programs, publications, grants, and paid opportunities intended to support emerging artists and amplify marginalized voices.
Photo by Emily Cotton
JooYoung Choi's We Can Make It If We Try: The Journey of Poundcake Man and Emma Poundcake Girl, presented by Inman Gallery.
