Going Beyond the Untitled Fair in Houston — 17 Fall Art Shows That Need To Be On Your Radar
The Bayou City Is Flexing Its Wide Art Power
By Catherine D. Anspon //
Channel 4,” 2024, at Japhet Bates Collective.
The second edition of the global fair Untitled Art, Houston (October 1 through October 4 at George R. Brown Convention Center) is adding energy and collecting sizzle to the Bayou City’s fall arts scene. But there is much more to take in too. These 17 shows that go beyond the fair should be on your radar.
Menil’s Meditation on Civil Rights
With its 40th anniversary approaching, come 2027, the Menil Collection continues to be the gold standard for Houston. Case in point: British filmmaker Sir John Akomfrah’s immersive six-channel, 50-minute cinematic tour de force on the American Civil Rights movement.
The Hour Of The Dog, is both poetic and historic, a unique paean to justice and human rights that weaves a heartbreaking spell. Faulkner’s words come to mind: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
Through October 11
A Doubleheader at Art League
Art League Houston’s Texas Artist of the Year exhibition for the Houston-based Jamal Cyrus coincides with Art League’s Lifetime Achievement show for César Martínez of San Antonio. The chance to see Cyrus’ layered and lyrical practice addressing the African American experience in the same building as Martínez’s classic Chicano Bato portraits promises to be both powerful and moving.
September 18 through December 20
Visceral History at MFAH
At the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the courses of empire and colonialism are probed in the historically shaped work of Guyanese British artist Hew Locke, organized in Houston by MFAH modern and contemporary curator Dr. Brittany Webb. Locke’s suspended sailing vessels are joined by lavishly ornamented equestrian monuments, asking the viewer to confront the past and its legacy today.
Locke will be among 30 international talents in the once-every-decade Skulptur ProjekteMünster exhibition next year in Münster, Germany too.
Through September 13
Ode to AstroWorld
DiverseWorks organizes a fresh take on the beloved late Houston amusement park in “NuestroWorld” by Texas-reared, Brooklyn-based Jesus Benavente. The installation, complete with collectible merch, is presented in a historic warehouse on the East Side at 5601 B Navigation Boulevard.
“NuestroWorld” is both art-smart and deeply nostalgic. We love the free-roaming 13-foot blimp.
Through September 13
Surveying the South
One of America’s most community-focused biennials happens here in Houston: Project Row House’s “Southern Survey,” created by executive director Danielle Burns Wilson in 2022. For its third edition/Round 61 for Row Houses, national guest juror Jessica Hong culled through more than 200 submissions to select seven talents, whose art will be installed in Project Row Houses’ historic shotgun houses in the heart of Third Ward
Investigate works by artists hailing from Texas and across the South including Beatriz Bellorin, Jhanielle Brown, Kennedi Carter, Carrie Iverson, Emmanuel Massillon, Billion Tekleab and CAO Collective (Huiyin Zhou & Laura Dudu).
October 3 through February 14
Supreme Suprean at Foltz
We’ve tracked Terry Suprean’s lapidary paintings for the past decade. What’s new for this Houston artist whose earth-centered practice involves making pigments from crystal and mineral dust? After a 2025 residency near Big Bend, Suprean returned this past year to forge paintings that are “birthed and tied intimately to the Chihuahuan Desert landscape … my holy place, a landscape of deep spiritual resonance and vitality.”
September 26 through October 31
Oaxacan Creatures on the Green
A love letter to Mexican folk-art traditions will rise amidst the verdant lawns of Discovery Green when “Fantastic Animals from Mexico: Nahuales and Alebrijes” unfurls. Perfectly sited for Untitled fair goers across from the George R. Brown Convention Center, “Fantastic Animals” will be hard to miss, with eight 20-foot-tall sculptures holding court throughout downtown Houston’s seminal park.
The project by Mexico City-based artist Pedro Linares pays homage to his country’s rich artisan traditions, specifically Oaxaca’s carved and painted wooden animals, which Linares supersizes for this al fresco installation.
September 15 through October 18
A Perfect Pairing at PAC
One of the most exciting additions to Houston’s global art scene, PAC Art continues its important dialogues, fresh from a rare five-decade survey of Mel Chin’s archival project drawings. This fall, PAC pairs Mexico City-based Teresa Serrano with Texas’ Adriana Corral.
Although they are from different generations, these artists-in-residence share a commitment to human rights. With works informed by, respectively, Surrealism melded with an investigation into the body, and the poetic, visceral, and conceptual, the dual exhibitions edge into the profound. Public Art UH System’s Dr. Rachel Mohl curates both residencies.
Serrano, September 14 through November 20; Corral, November 5 through November 30
Dual Dynamos at Blaffer
Blaffer Art Museum serves up a deeply layered pair of exhibitions this fall by artists whose work addresses complex themes. Adriana Corral (simultaneously featured at PAC) unravels history, delving into issues of redemption, systems and faiths and their failures, ecological collapse and human rights. In a nuanced dialogue with Corral, Chicago artist Maria Gaspar showcases the object of two decades of her life’s work: prison systems.
Focused upon her own city’s Cook County Correctional Facility, the largest in America, Gaspar’s artwork embraces research and activism for change.
Corral through December 5, Gaspar through November 21
“Divination” at CAMH
Blackness and the land form the complex, layered topic that Contemporary Arts Museum Houston curator Rebecca Matalon addresses in “Divination: Beverly Buchanan & Dionne Lee.” Cross-generational exhibitions are intensely relevant today, and Matalon’s two-person exhibition pairs the late underknown land artist Buchanan with Ohio State University professor Lee, a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow known for her photographic and filmic exploration on the ambiguous associations conveyed through American landscape, especially hidden and darker histories.
September 4 through February 14
Berlin Calling
Moody Center and Menil Drawing Institute-exhibited Jorinde Voigt opens the season at Houston’s Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino gallery with her alchemical practice that interweaves painting, sculpture, collage and drawing infused with nods to music, philosophy and phenomenology. Berlin-based Voigt is one of Germany’s most renowned conceptual artists, as well as a professor at University of Fine Arts Hamburg, with a practice that defies concise description but demands close examination.
September 19 through November 14
Fresh Paint at David Shelton Gallery
University of Houston BFA and MFA grad Jeremy DePrez returns home after a successful seven-year sojourn living and working in New York City. His solo show at David Shelton Gallery, “Earth Memories,” promises to be the painting show of the fall for the well-connected, respected artist.
DePrez’s highly original work goes beyond the label abstraction to forge a new reading about the relationship to paint upon canvas with iterations that are positively sculptural and laced with uncanny meaning.
September 10 through October 17
A Great Eight at Opera Gallery
The land of Picasso, Matisse and Saint Phalle toasts the reign of Texas contemporary art in a solid-gold group show at Opera Gallery led by the works of MacArthur Fellow/Project Row Houses co-founder Rick Lowe (in the mighty stable of Gagosian) and bad-boy/Houston hero Mark Flood.
This internationally noted duo is joined by other buzzy talents. Think Preston Douglas Boyer, Bradley Kerl, Lovie Olivia, Reynier Leyva Novo, Eric DePan and Virginia L. Montgomery. We await this mashup of the blue chip venue highlighting Texas mavericks.
September 17 through October 8
A Hot Group Show at Japhet Bates
The recently minted Japhet Bates Collective ramps up the fall with a bold show curated by Houston-raised Preston Douglas Boyer, who will be traveling in from L.os Angeles for the occasion. Boyer has his pulse on the now and pulls in 12 important generation-spanning Texans, including McKay Otto, Tierney Malone, Susie Rosmarin, El Franco Lee II, Brandon Araujo, and Robert Hodge.
Opening night promises to be the scene the evening before Untitled VIP Preview unveils.
September 30 through October 23,
Art Club, Edition Two
After snapping up your Mary McCleary collage (Moody Gallery) or Dorothy Hood drawing (McClain Gallery) at Untitled, beeline after fair hours to Post Houston for the avant-garde, immersive high-tech environments of Art Club, Season 2. The Post’s Kirby Liu curates, culling a dozen internationals who are at the forefront of time-based and new media art.
The experiential artworks are set in the dramatic space of Post’s X Atrium. These activations, which also include DJ sets, range from allusions to Houston waterways (Aussie digital artist transplant to Texas, Joel Zika) to Islamic carpet design in a sensory-overlaid piece by Orkhan Mammadov, who hails from Azerbaijan and crafts work informed by AI and machine learning.
Through December 31
The Art of Cinema
The CAMH’s Michael Robinson takes the helm as new director of Houston Cinema Arts Festival, arriving with great plans for year 18 — beginning with a date change to align with Untitled Art, Houston. While the final schedule for the 80-plus local, national and international movies screening at venues across Houston is yet to be revealed.
“This year’s lineup offers diverse stories from across the globe and around the corner,” Robinson says.
Confirmed at press time is Give Me the Ball!, a cinematic bio of trailblazing tennis ace Billie Jean King that includes her legendary Astrodome match and — perfect for fair time — Nina Roza, with a narrative involving an art dealer and artistic savant.
October 1 through October 11
The City as Canvas
Those heading downtown for Untitled Art, Houston, will be rewarded with 13 artworks installed at street level in the windows of office buildings to form a pedestrian-friendly visual encounter, a bookend to Downtown Houston’s mammoth mural program “Big Art. Bigger Change.” The inaugural installation of Houston Reframed is more cerebral and white-cube worthy.
Reframed features Houston-connected talents, many of whom are represented by power galleries like Inman and Seven Sisters. Names that caught our eye in this avant-garde project managed by public art guru Piper Faust include Kaima Marie Akarue, Charis Ammon, Emily Peacock, Alexis Pye, Preetika Rajgariah, Colby Deal and Loc Huynh.
Through December 31
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