New Contemporary Public Art Biennial Launches at Dallas’ Katy Trail Next Spring

A new contemporary public art biennial is coming to Dallas’ 3.5-mile Katy Trail in spring 2027. The inaugural presentation of KTX Biennial, founded by Friends of the Katy Trail Executive Director Amy Bean and Katy Trail Art Director Amanda Dillard Shufeldt, will feature almost a dozen existing and newly commissioned pieces by living artists from around the world.

If you’ve been on the Katy Trail (formerly a railroad corridor that ran through Dallas’ Uptown, Knox, and Highland Park neighborhoods) in recent years, you’ve probably seen more and more artwork pop up. This new biennial adds to the trail’s existing public art program, which includes works from Iván Argote, Eddie Martinez, Will Boone, Nic Nocsia, Carolyn Salas, and more.

Beyond the artworks, there will be educational programs, public activities, panel conversations, and partnerships with local institutions and organizations.

“The KTX Biennial brings an extraordinary level of artistic rigor and ambition to the Katy Trail and the wider Dallas metroplex,” says Shufeldt in an opening release. “Under the curatorial vision of Jovanna Venegas for our first edition, we are inviting artists to present bold public artworks that shape contemporary discourse internationally. The KTX Biennial signals Dallas’ strength as a hub for the discovery of meaningful contemporary art and underscores our capacity to commission and present work at the highest global standard.”

A Bit About The KTX Biennial Curator: Jovanna Venegas

Currently Curator at SculptureCenter in New York, Venegas previously concluded her tenure at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art as the Associate Curator of Contemporary Art. Her recent exhibitions include to ignite our skin (2025), featuring new commissions by Patricia Ayres, Elaine Cameron-Weir, and Erik Tlaseca, as well as Luana Vitra: Amulets (2025); ASMA: Ideal Space for Music (2024-2025); and Open Process: Alexa West (2024).

“Having mostly worked within institutional settings, it is invigorating to share the many imaginative worlds that artists open up for us within the existing natural landscape of the Katy Trail,” states Venegas. “I hope this encounter with art invites curiosity toward the unfamiliar and our shared existence.”

The Inspiration Behind the Inaugural KTX Biennial

“The inaugural KTX Biennial is conceived around the imaginative and plural ecologies framework of the forest, examining the visible and invisible dimensions of shared space.” It’s inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s Vaster than Empires and More Slow — a short science fiction story from 1971. “The inaugural installation considers how we might perceive otherworldly ecosystems, transforming the trail into a site of unexpected discovery.”

KTX Biennial is free and open to the public, opening in the spring of 2027.