Museums and art spaces in Houston and Galveston have announced summer exhibitions, including immersive installations, a figurative group show, and presentations addressing environmental issues. Read on to learn about shows coming to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Moody Center for the Arts, the Galveston Arts Center, and other venues.
A.A.Murakami, “Beyond the Horizon,” commissioned by and exhibited at M+, Hong Kong, 2024, interactive installation. © A.A.Murakami / Film and photography by Adam Kovář and PETR&Co., model by Ashley Lin / Image courtesy of the artist
Earlier this month the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) debuted Floating World, the first solo U.S. museum presentation of work by Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves, who work under the name A.A.Murakami. The exhibition features immersive environments that combine science, art, and nature.
In a press release, Bradley Bailey, the Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Curator of Asian Art at the MFAH, said, “These ethereal installations of light and vapor not only push the boundaries of art and technology; they brilliantly evoke a touchstone of Japanese cultural history. With these four environments A.A.Murakami transport us to the iconic, Edo-era Floating World, or ukiyo, which allowed people to abandon the concerns and troubles of everyday life and enter a realm of rich sensory experience.”
Floating Worlds is on view at the MFAH through September 21, 2025.
Francesca Fuchs, “Male Torso (Front) Sketch,” 2022, acrylic on cotton rag, 8 x 5 inches. Courtesy of the artist. © Francesca Fuchs. Photo by Thomas R. DuBrock
Next week, the Menil Collection opens The Space Between Looking and Loving: Francesca Fuchs and the de Menil House. Curated by Paul R. Davis, the museum’s Curator of Collections, the show is the artist’s response to discovering a personal connection between her father, who was an archaeologist, and John de Menil.
The exhibition features new works by Ms. Fuchs alongside ephemera from the de Menil house and artworks and archival materials from the museum. In a press release, Ms. Fuchs explained, “I make my work thinking about the significance of objects, making paintings of paintings, and paintings of objects I live with and love, trying to up-end hierarchies from within the intimacies of domestic space.”
She continued, “The Space Between Looking and Loving is consistent with my years-long engagement with the deeply personal and my profound belief in the power of the intimate and every day. With this exhibition, I’ve shifted this wonder to the things that John and Dominique de Menil lived with, and to the existence of the letter John de Menil wrote to my father more than five decades ago.”
The Space Between Looking and Loving will be on view at the Menil Collection from May 23 through November 2, 2025.
David McGee, “Weights and Balance.” Image courtesy of the artist and Inman Gallery. Photo by Allyson Huntsman
At the end of May, the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University debuts Figurative Histories, Clément Cogitore: Collective Memories, and The Reading Room. Figurative Histories features works by Letitia Huckaby, Earlie Hudnall, Jr., David McGee, and Delita Martin — artists whose works focus on the human figure, specifically Black people, and also explore sociopolitical histories to better understand current issues and experiences. The exhibition is curated by Alison Weaver, the Center’s Suzanne Deal Booth Executive Director, and Frauke V. Josenhans, Curator at the Moody Center.
In a press release, Ms. Weaver commented, “We’re honored to present four outstanding Texas artists whose works contribute to the national discourse about our country’s past and our collective future. We hope Figurative Histories will inspire a sense of belonging and empathy, as visitors explore the intangible aspects of the human condition featured throughout this exhibition of extraordinary works.”
The solo exhibition Collective Memories, featuring works by French artist, director, and photographer Clément Cogitore, will be presented at the Center’s Media Arts Galleries. The show includes two video installations in adjacent galleries: Les Indes galantes (2017), a contemporary staging of the Baroque opera ballet by the French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau from 1735, and Morgestraich (2022), a tribute to the Carnival of Basel, an event held in the eponymous town in Switzerland since the Middle Ages.
Additionally, the Center will host The Reading Room, a pop-up library curated by Amarie Gipson, featuring Black art and culture.
Figurative Histories, Clément Cogitore: Collective Memories, and The Reading Room will be on view at the Moody Center from May 30 through August 16, 2025.
Tomashi Jackson, “Guns and Butter (Nia in the Morehouse Creed),” 2022, C-print mounted on Sintra. Image and work courtesy the artist and Tilton Gallery
Also in May, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston presents Tomashi Jackson: Across the Universe, a traveling exhibition organized by Miranda Lash, the Ellen Bruss Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. CAMH’s presentation of the show is curated by Ryan N. Dennis, the museum’s Co-Director and Chief Curator. The mid-career survey features nearly a decade of work by Tomashi Jackson, including paintings, prints, videos, photography, fiber works, and sculpture.
In a press release, Ms. Dennis, noted, “I was able to get to know Tomashi through our work together in 2015 at Project Row Houses. It’s a privilege to be able to bring her major survey show to Houston in a moment when her work connecting social movements and legislation is more timely than ever.”
Across the Universe will be on view at CAMH from May 30, 2025, through March 29, 2026.
Emily Peacock, “Flower Field,” 2022, archival inkjet print
In June, the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston presents a way to mend, an exhibition curated by artist and writer Doug Welsh and featuring 19 Gulf Coast artists. The show explores abstraction, landscape, and healing.
Featured artists include Isela Aguirre, Forrest Bess, Sebastien Boncy, Crasis (Andy P. Davis and Anne Lukins), Julie DeVries, Garrett Griffin, Stephanie Gonzalez, Shangyi Hua, Jonathan Paul Jackson, Terrell James, Emily Peacock, Mitch Pengra, Alexis Pye, Gerardo Rosales, JR Roykovich, Eric Schnell, Adrienne Simmons, and Benji Stiles. Additionally, writers Clare Elliott, Sarah Fisher, Liz Gates, Adam Marnie, and Emma Timbers have been commissioned to contribute analytic and poetic texts.
Concurrently, the museum will open Saif Azzuz: Keet Hegehlpa’ (the water is rising), curated by Erika Mei Chua Holum, the Blaffer’s Cynthia Woods Mitchell Associate Curator. The exhibition will include site-specific and newly commissioned installations, paintings, and assemblage works by the artist that consider the privatization of natural resources in relation to settler-colonial systems.
a way to mend will be on view from June 7 through September 6, 2025, and Keet Hegehlpa’ will be on view from June 7 through December 20, 2025.
Kingsley Onyeiwu, “Heir to Fire,” 2025, pastel on paper, 30 x 44 inches
Later in June, the Galveston Arts Center (GAC) opens Crowned in Contradictions, a solo exhibition featuring work by Houston-based artist Kingsley Onyeiwu. The show explores identity, specifically the complexities around Afropolitanism, a term coined in 2005 by writer and photographer Taiye Selasi. According to the GAC website, Mr. Onyeiwu’s work depicts crowns, jewelry, and fabric, “with symbols that challenge singular narrative about Africa and its diaspora.”
Crowned in Contradictions will be on view at the Galveston Arts Center from June 14 through August 3, 2025.
