Gabriel Martinez and Brandon Zech discuss their anticipated exhibitions in Texas, including solo shows of works by Marisol at the Dallas Museum of Art, Joe Overstreet at the Menil Collection in Houston, and Adrian Esparza at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont.
Marisol, “The Party,” 1965-66, assemblage of 15 freestanding, life-size figures and 3 wall panels, with painted wood and carved wood, mirrors, plastic, television set, clothes, shoes, glasses, and other accessories. Toledo Museum of Art, Museum Purchase Fund, by exchange, 2005.42A-P. © Estate of Marisol / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Marisol: A Retrospective
Dallas Museum of Art
February 23 – July 6, 2025
From the Dallas Museum of Art:
“Of all the Pop artists of the 1960s, Marisol remains the most enigmatic. By examining and contextualizing her work over its long arc from the 1950s to the early 2000s, this internationally touring retrospective, the most comprehensive survey of Marisol Escobar’s work ever assembled, demonstrates the extraordinary relevance of the legendary artist’s unique vision of culture and society.”
Joe Overstreet, “HooDoo Mandala,” 1970, acrylic on canvas with metal grommets and cotton rope, 90 × 89 1/2 inches. Neil Lane Collection.
Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight
The Menil Collection (Houston)
January 24 – July 13, 2025
From the Menil Collection:
“The Menil Collection opens Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight on January 24, 2025, an exhibition focused on the vibrant, politically charged abstract paintings created by pioneering artist Joe Overstreet (1933–2019). This presentation is organized chronologically and features Overstreet’s landmark Flight Pattern series of radially suspended paintings from the early 1970s, alongside crucial bodies of work that preceded and followed them. Taking Flight is the first major museum exhibition in nearly thirty years devoted to the work of this avant-garde artist.
Renowned for his innovative approach to nonrepresentational painting, Overstreet stood at the forefront of artists who sought to intertwine abstraction and social politics. He made a significant contribution to postwar art, positioning abstraction as an expansive tool for exploring the idea of freedom and the Black experience in the United States.”
Adrian Esparza: Remnants of Distance
Adrian Esparza: Remnants of Distance
Art Museum of Southeast Texas (Beaumont)
December 21, 2024 – March 16, 2025
From the Art Museum of Southeast Texas:
“The exhibit, entitled Remnants of Distance, will include large scale ‘constructions,’ made from serape thread wound on wooden supports and mixed media paintings. Esparza explores material culture by ‘re-instilling lost value in found objects.’
Esparza first drew international appreciation through his deconstruction of the Mexican serape. Drawing inspiration from modern architecture, physical landscapes, and mid-century minimalist artists, Esparza depicts dramatic one and two-point perspectives to form striking dimensionality and volume. The artist diffuses color and expands space by weaving serape thread around nails to form a grid. Geometric structures present in his drawings and sculptures re-imagine his own Mexican-American cultural heritage.”
Mabel Poble, “Marine Landscape (Oceanscape),” 2015, collage/digital print, acetate, nails, 100 cm diameter.
Amarillo Museum of Art
January 18 – March 23, 2025
From the Amarillo Museum of Art:
“There have been surprisingly few surveys of contemporary Cuban women artists. This exhibition aims to shed light on women’s significant contributions to the cultural fabric of their country and beyond. The works showcased span the last 30 years and feature a selection of nine contemporary artists: Ariamna Contino, Aimée García Marrero, Rocío García de la Nuez, Alejandra Glez, Elsa Mora, Mabel Poblet Pujol, Sandra Ramos, Adislen Reyes, and Linet Sánchez Gutiérrez. While half of the artists continue to reside permanently in Cuba, others, such as Ramos, Mora, and García Marrero, have emigrated to the United States. Some, like Contino and Poblet, have residences in both Cuba and Spain. Despite geographical distances, they remain deeply connected to their heritage and share common values, as reflected in their works, which bear witness to the enduring impact Cuba has had on their multilayered lives.”
George Grosz, ”Pillars of Society,” 1926, oil on canvas. Neue Nationalgalerie, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin. © 2024 Estate of George Grosz / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910–1945 Masterworks from the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth)
March 30 – June 22, 2025
From the Kimbell Art Museum:
“In the first half of the twentieth century, Germany experienced the last years of the German Empire, World War I and the revolution that followed, the liberal Weimar Republic, the rise of National Socialism and Adolf Hitler, the Holocaust, and World War II. Modern art played an important role in the discourse of the period, while politics influenced the arts.
This exhibition brings together more than seventy paintings and sculptures from the collections of the Neue Nationalgalerie, the distinguished modern art museum of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. It traces the German experience in the visual arts over four decades.”
Tamara de Lempicka, “Young Girl in Green (Young Girl with Gloves),” c. 1931, oil on board, Centre Pompidou, purchase, 1932, inv. JP557P. © 2024 Tamara de Lempicka Estate, LLC / ADAGP, Paris / ARS, NY. Digital image © CNAC/MNAM, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.
Tamara De Lempicka
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
March 9 – May 26, 2025
From the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston:
“With works that exuded cool elegance and sensuality, Tamara de Lempicka helped to define Art Deco. Capturing the glamour and vitality of 1920s postwar Paris and the cosmopolitan sheen of Hollywood celebrity, Tamara de Lempicka (1894-1980) infused her paintings with a brilliant sense of fashion, design, and the theatrical. The first American museum retrospective of her work, Tamara de Lempicka explores the artist’s distinctive style and unconventional life as she rose to the pinnacle of café society.
The exhibition charts Lempicka’s complicated trajectory against the backdrop of the era. While she reveled in her avant-garde sensibilities and openly conducted affairs with both men and women, she simultaneously concealed her Jewish ancestry as she evaded persecution in her native Poland, escaped Russia following the Soviet revolution, and ultimately fled Europe in 1939.”
