Museum Exhibits Openings & Closings: February 2020

Check out a fresh slate of new museum exhibits and catch your last chance to see closing exhibitions and art installations at museums, galleries, and more around Houston in February 2020.

Whether exploring the world-class museums and installations that fill the Museum District, or venturing through thought-provoking displays found throughout the Greater Houston area, there is no shortage of exhibits that locals and visitors alike will find fascinating and engaging.

We’ve compiled a list of featured exhibits that are opening and closing at institutions throughout the city of Houston, including free offerings that are always open to the public.

If you want to read more about the following exhibitions, as well as other ongoing museum exhibits and installations, check out our Current Museum Exhibits & Art Installations Guide.

Museum Exhibits Openings & Closings: February 2020

This month, eight new exhibitions are unveiled to the public, while seventeen close to make way for more exciting future museum exhibits and art installations.

Opening Museum Exhibits & Art Installations

Museum exhibits are listed in chronological order by opening date.

• There is Another Garden at Archway Gallery | Saturday, February 1 through Thursday, March 5, 2020 | FREE – Relating how the plant world and human world share balance and harmony, as well as opposition and contradiction, artists Sherry Tseng Hill and Nathan Hill bring their works of mosaic tiles, paint, and other materials to emphasize this duality.
• Houston Metal Arts Guild at Jung Center | From Monday, February 3 through Friday, February 28, 2020 | FREE – Celebrating the diverse field of metalworking and jewelry, the Houston Metal Arts Guild presents a collection of works that range from wearable to sculptural, highlighting the contribution of the long and wide-ranging history of metalworking that enriches the collective experience.
• Photography and the Surreal Imagination at Menil Collection| Wednesday, February 5 through Sunday, June 14, 2020 | FREE – Highlighting artists from Man Ray to Lorna Simpson, this exhibition explores the way photography allows surrealist artists to reshape, question, and disturb the way we see the world.
• Kaisu Koski: Rehearsals for Empathy at Lawndale Art Center | Saturday, February 8 through Sunday, March 29, 2020 | FREE – A series of films portray the ways that medical students practice breaking bad news to standardized patients that react according to three distinct characters with repertoires of responses. The work explores the tension between highly structured simulation governed by clinical protocols and checklists, with the deeply human and authentic responses it seeks to simulate.
• Radical: Italian Design 1965-1985 at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston | Friday, February 14 through Monday, April 26, 2020 – Through furniture, lighting design, architectural models, paintings, and other objects, MFAH presents the first U.S. museum exhibition in nearly 50 years to survey Italy’s pivotal postwar movement in design history.
• Think of Them as Spaces: Brice Marden’s Drawings at Menil Drawing Institute | Friday, February 21 through Sunday, June 14, 2020 | FREE – The New York artist gained distinction in the 1960s, investigating color, abstract and intuitive gestures, and the studied imprecision of calligraphic line. In this exhibition, Marden’s work asks the viewer to explore it in two dimensions, from what’s drawn and the spaces in between.
• Francis Bacon: Late Paintings at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston | Sunday, February 23 through Monday, May 25, 2020 – From the Centre Pompidou in Paris, this exhibition includes an array of the artist’s monumental triptychs–among his most celebrated works–and other paintings from the last two decades of his production, from 1971 to 1991.
• 50 States: Louisiana by Nick Vaughan & Jake Margolin at MATCH | Saturday, February 29 through Saturday, April 18, 2020 | FREE – The sixth part of a long-term project that seeks to illuminate LGBTQ+ histories from each U.S. state, this large-scale installation unearths histories of Queer individuals who worked in the indigo shipping industry along the Gulf Coast and Mississippi River in the 1700s.

Closing Museum Exhibits & Art Installations

Read more about the following exhibits and catch your last chance to see other ongoing exhibitions in our Current Museum Exhibits & Art Installations Guide.

Museum exhibits are listed in chronological order of closing date.

• Mapa Wiya (Your Map’s Not Needed): Australian Aboriginal Art from the Fondation Opale at Menil Collection | Sunday, February 2 | FREE – This exhibition of significant Aboriginal artwork explores the concept of meaningful Aboriginal spaces that include diverse terrains and land—including areas on which cities have been built and painful histories of violent colonialism have taken place.
• My Father’s Daughter: Byzantine Art in the Modern World by Joni Zavitsanos at MATCH | Thursday, February 6 | FREE – Exhibiting the work of Joni Zavitsanos alongside her father’s, My Father’s Daughter utilizes the principles of Byzantine iconography to create both ancient and modern imagery that resonates with audiences in a unique way.
• 2020 Print Auction Exhibition at Houston Center of Photography | Sunday, February 9 | FREE – The annual auction exhibition brings together 68 photographs from emerging photographers to icons of the medium, thanks to contributions from artists and institutions from around the world.
• Jasper Johns: 100 Variations on a Theme at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston | Sunday, February 16 – Centering on a series of 100 unique prints the legendary artist made in 2015, this exhibit provides the suite of prints for viewers to explore the creative process at work behind his trademark mixed media pieces. Included with museum admission.
• Dolores Huerta: Revolution in the Fields/Revolución en los Campos at Holocaust Museum Houston | Sunday, February 16 – Through photographs, interviews, and documentary footage, HMH traces the life of legendary activist Dolores Huerta and her efforts in the farm workers movement of the 1960s and 70s.
• Will Boone: The Highway Hex at Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston | Sunday, February 16 | FREE – The Houston-born and Los Angles-based artist Will Boone explores the distance between these two locations with new works that include a site-specific installation, paintings, and sculptures.
• Vicki Meek: 3 Decades of Social Commentary at Houston Museum of African American Culture | Sunday, February 16 | FREE – This retrospective examines the trajectory of artworks by Professor Vicki Meek, created over the past three decades, that investigate social conditions affecting the African American community. Through a variety of mixed media works, HMAAC explores the artist’s examination and will also present several community conversations that revolve around topics represented in the work.
• Round 50: Race, Health and Motherhood at Project Row Houses | Sunday, February 16 | FREE – Site-specific installations explore the Black maternal mortality rate as it relates to systemic racist structures prevalent in the healthcare industry, and how this national health care issues has local ramifications in Third Ward and other Houston neighborhoods.
• Cause Number: 02-F-00151 at Project Row Houses | Sunday, February 16 | FREE – Houston-based artist Rabea Ballin focuses attention on the number given to Sandra Bland during her arrest in July 2015, how people are dehumanized through this process, and the consequences of social injustice related to Sandra Bland’s death.

• Sonic Playground: Yuri Suzuki at Discovery Green | Sunday, February 23 | FREE – From Japanese artist and designer Yuri Suzuki, this temporary playground offers visitors a chance to twist, modify, and transmit sound in unusual and playful ways.
• Landscape at Art Car Museum | Sunday, February 23 | FREE – The 14th Annual Open Call Exhibition highlights the works of the first 100 artists to submit their interpretation of the “Landscape” theme. The artworks are created by contemporary artists in Houston and from around the nation. 
• Paloma at Discovery Green | Monday, February 24 | FREE – This site-specific installation by French creative studio Pitaya utilizes dynamic LED lights after dusk to illuminate a series of 200 colorful aluminum “origami” birds, creating the illusion of flight.
• Here and Now by Lina Dib at Discovery Green | Monday, February 24 | FREE –Accompanying Paloma, this sound installation from Houston-based artist and anthropologist Lina Dib explores ecological change and global migration with choreographed sounds that complement Pitaya’s scultpures for an immersive installation.
• Houston Metal Arts Guild at Archway Gallery | Friday, February 28, 2020 | FREE – Celebrating the diverse field of metalworking and jewelry, the Houston Metal Arts Guild presents a collection of works that range from wearable to sculptural, highlighting the contribution of the long and wide-ranging history of metalworking that enriches the collective experience.
• Piñatasthetic by Justin Favela, Josué Ramirez and Giovanni Valderas at Art League Houston | Saturday, February 29 | FREE – Employing piñata-making techniques, material and methodology, the three artists, based in cities across the country, provide a counter narrative to the appropriation of the symbol and cultural staple of Latinx identity.
• teenage cream by Alex Guillen and Dana Suleymanova at Art League Houston | Saturday, February 29 | FREE – In this two-person exhibition, the artists present ceramic, sculpture and new media work that explore femininity and the political discourse surrounding women’s bodies as they look for ways to claim agency of their own narratives.
• Gone by Carmen Flores at Art League Houston | Saturday, February 29 | FREE – The Texas-based artist examines the proliferation of violence in our contemporary society with delicate, intimate drawings of flowers with red pencil, graphite and thread on white handkerchiefs, representing the stories of those that are no longer with us.

Read more about these and catch your last chance to see other ongoing exhibitions in our Current Museum Exhibits & Art Installations Guide.