Top Exhibitions in Houston This Month: May 2022

Catch the latest exhibitions and installations at art galleries and museums throughout Greater Houston in May 2022.

This month brings a new slate of opening and closing exhibitions at museums and art spaces across Houston.

Plus, you can go deeper and get a look at all the ongoing exhibitions when you check out our guide to installations and exhibitions in Greater Houston.

First Look: Opening Exhibitions in Houston This Month

• Archway Gallery in Montrose – Ranging from abstract expressionist works to depictions of life in the American Southwest, Imperfectly Perfect: New Paintings by Mohammad Ali Bhatti (opens Saturday, May 7) offers a wide array of artwork that is both complex and strongly emotive.
• Blaffer Art Museum at University of Houston – May sees the return of the annual student exhibition from UH School of Art (Saturday, May 7 to Sunday, May 22), which showcases the work of undergrad seniors and first- and second-year grad students in a multidisciplinary show that spans two weeks.
• The Jung Center in Museum District – A wide variety of artwork from students, members, instructors, volunteers and staff of the Jung Center are on display in the return of the annual exhibition, Visions: A Celebration of the Creativity of the Jung Center Community (opens Friday, May 20).
• Station Museum for Contemporary Art in Midtown – In its latest exhibition, Clark V. Fox: Subversion and Spectacle (opens Thursday, May 26), Station looks at the artist’s career and artworks that amount to provocative political statements and examinations of subtle connections found in our society.
• Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston in Museum District – Take a deeper look into Black life and the cultural overlap of existence within the Black diaspora when Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo receives his first solo museum exhibition in Soul of Black Folks (opens Friday, May 27) at CAMH.
• Houston Center for Contemporary Craft in Midtown – Two exhibitions open at HCCC on Saturday, May 28; A Dressing the Future: The EcoFiction of Nicole Dextras takes a behind-the-scenes look at costumes, set design, props and more features of the director’s dystopian film trilogy; and Made to Last: the Legacy of the Jubilee Quilt Circle celebrates the 35th anniversary of Houston’s Community Artists’ Collective with an array of quilts made in the African American quilting traditions by current and founding members of the Collective.

Check out more ongoing installations and exhibitions in museums around Greater Houston.

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Last Chance: Closing Exhibitions in Houston This Month

• Houston Center for Contemporary Craft in Midtown – On Saturday, May 7, HCCC closes two exhibitions; Nothing Goes to Waste utilizes found materials, scraps and discarded remnants to explore how industrial and artistic processes have had impacts on the ecology of the planet; and Sawed, Soldered, Constructed: The Work of the Houston Metal Arts Guild features jewelry and metal work from three dozen artists in a varied, juried exhibition.
• Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University – Moody closes Soundwaves: Experimental Strategies in Art & Music (closes Saturday, May 14), featuring works from Jamal Cyrus, Anri Sala, Christine Sun Kim, Jorinde Voigt and others that span sculpture, audio, video, painting and performance and explores the connections between visual and acoustic art while providing a space for sensory exploration.
• Lawndale Art Center in Midtown – May sees three exhibitions close at Lawndale (all three close on Saturday, May 14); Taking Care highlights the work of Ryan Crowley, Loc Huynh, and Jamire Williams from Lawndale’s Artist Studio Program, who across the fields of sculpture, drawing and painting, and performance; See Me from Ann Johnson recalls the work of artist John Biggers while highlighting women from the ROUX artist collective to examine family, community and Black womanhood; and Spirit Epoch from Laredo-native artist Angelica Raquel plays on the narratives of folklore and familial storytelling in works consisting of needle felt sculptures, textiles and watercolors.
• The Jung Center in Museum District – Inspired by a personal dream, Eating my own Shadow by artist John Faul (closes Saturday, May 14) utilizes mixed media on canvas to create a language of color and form about the content of that dream in this deeply subjective and personal work.
• Houston Museum of African American Culture in Museum District – The monumental work titled, Kumbi Saleh 3020 CE by Ekow Nimako (closes Sunday, May 15) makes its first appearance outside of Canada, inviting visitors to marvel at the artist’s Afrofuturistic LEGO city that bridges the medieval Kingdom of Ghana with a utopian vision of an African metropolis some 1,000 years in the future.

• The Health Museum in Museum District – May sees the close of two exhibitions; Beautiful Minds: Dyslexia and the Creative Advantage (closes Sunday, May 22) explores the different ways that people can read and process information when they have dyslexia, which affects as much as 20% of the world’s population; and Living Icons (closes Memorial Day, Monday, May 30) features work from artist Joni Zavitsanos that memorializes those who have died during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Houston Museum of Natural Science in Museum District – Catch your last chance to explore the life of one of ancient Egypt’s most celebrated builders in Ramses the Great and the Gold of the Pharaohs (closes Monday, May 23), a world premiere exhibition that also includes more than 180 treasures and one-of-a-kind relics that help visitors to explore life some 3,200 years ago.
• The Printing Museum in Montrose – Three exhibitions head out on Saturday, May 28; Keliy Anderson-Staley: Raw Materials in Peace and War sees the Houston-based photographer pairing photos and paper negatives of her grandfather’s book to create new associations; Glow (Redux): Vintage Blacklight Posters from the ’60s and ’70s brings the intense pops of color and countercultural aesthetics of vintage blacklight posters from the psychedelic era; and An American Visual Language: Specimens of Historic Wood Type explores the alphabet of new fonts created out of the westward expansion in the 19th century.
• Menil Collection in Montrose – In late May, the Menil closes Collection Close-Up: Bruce Davidson’s Photographs (closes Sunday, May 29), which explores the work of the photographer who documented life in diverse places and communities caught in the snares of historical transitions, such as the rigid class structures of postwar Britain and the early ’60s era of the American civil rights movement.
• Museum of Fine Arts Houston in Museum District – Memorial Day, Monday, May 30 marks the end of two exhibitions at MFAH; Dawoud Bey: An American Project features work from the American photographer that captures Black subjects and African American history that stretches back to the 1970s; and the iconic portraits of President Barack Obama by Kehinde Wiley, and First Lady Michelle Obama by Amy Sherald finishes its Houston leg as part of the Obama Portraits Tour.

Check out more ongoing installation and exhibitions in museums around Greater Houston.

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