Catch the latest exhibitions and installations at art galleries and museums throughout Greater Houston in February 2022.
This month brings a new slate of opening and closing exhibitions at museums and art spaces across Houston.
February is also Black History Month, and there is no shortage of opportunities to catch exciting new works from Black artists, from the LEGO landscape at Houston Museum of African American Culture to celebrations of Black women at Lawndale Art Center and Art League Houston, just to name a few.
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
- Houston Museum of African American Culture in Museum District | FREE – As part of Black History Month programming, HMAAC unveils two new exhibitions; Mathieu JN Baptiste’s The Secret In the wARTer (opens Friday, February 4) reflects on the interconnectedness of people and our complex mazes of life through paint and metal; and the monumental work titled, Kumbi Saleh 3020 CE by Ekow Nimako (opens Saturday, February 5) 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.
- Archway Gallery in Montrose | FREE – Artist Maryam Lavaf’s abstract paintings and sculptures are unveiled at Nowruz – A New Beginning (opens Saturday, February 5) at the Dunlavy art gallery this month. Her works play on the spirit of Nowruz, the annual spring equinox that is celebrated globally as the beginning of the New Year.
- Blaffer Art Museum at University of Houston | FREE – Performance artist and anthropologist Maya Stovall unveils her latest exhibition, Razón/Reason (opens Saturday, February 5), a community-driven project that relies on a working group of students, faculty and families to explore the histories of Houston and the present state of voting rights in Texas.
- Asia Society Texas Center in Museum District – Four artists are featured in the latest Asia Society exhibition, Making Home: Artists & Immigration (opens Saturday, February 5), exploring the deeply personal, lived experiences of immigration through various media, including painting, drawing, sculptures and installation. Featured artists include Phung Huynh, Beili Liu, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, and Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya.
- Art League Houston in Montrose | FREE – Four new exhibitions open at the Montrose Boulevard non-profit (all four open on Friday, February 18); Brian Ellison’s Backbone presents video interviews, photographs, performances and artifacts that celebrate Black grandmothers; In & Out from Bradley Kerl plays with the idea of his vibrant, stylized paintings as a portal or window; Kathy Drago’s Late offers nearly 100 portraits of women, aged 75 and up, that reflects on aging and the wisdom accumulated across the subjects’ lifetimes; and A Way [A Will] by Ronald Llewellyn Jones takes residence in the sculpture garden, exploring the paths of life we take as members in a global society, along with all the hidden aspects, costs and glass ceilings we encounter along the way.
- Lawndale Art Center in Museum District | FREE – The end of February sees three new exhibitions land at Lawndale (all three open on Saturday, February 26); 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.
Check out more ongoing installations and exhibitions in museums around Greater Houston.
Save on 1-Day & Multi-Day Museum Passes Around Houston
Last Chance: Closing Exhibitions in Houston This Month
- Art League Houston in Montrose | FREE – The site-specific installations on view in Vicki Meek’s The Journey to Me (ends Saturday, February 5), celebrate the work of Art League’s 2021 Texas Artist of the Year, tracking her development as an artist with a focus on cultural memory, identity, and social issues in relation to the African diaspora.
- Lawndale Art Center in Museum District | FREE – Three exhibitions wrap up this month; David McGee’s work for The Sankofa Project (ends Saturday, February 5) in the Main Street–facing windows examines historical events that have led to our current moment of social unrest and racial reckoning; Emily Peacock: Die Laughing (ends Saturday, February 5) utilizes the artist’s brand of humor and levity as a means of coping with tragedy in photography, video, sculpture, performance and installation works; and Bria Lauren: Gold Was Made Fa’ Her (ends Saturday, February 5) is a photography project from the Third Ward–native artist that celebrates the women of South Side Houston, amplifying their voices and the voices of Black women across generations who have been impacted by structural inequity, generational narratives and respectability politics.
- Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston in Museum District | FREE – The critically acclaimed exhibition, The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture and the Sonic Impulse (ends Sunday, February 6), comes to a close, offering one last chance to catch more than 130 works from artists across the region that examines the relationship between hip-hop music and its culture against the troubled histories of the African American South and the nation as a whole.
- The Bryan Museum in Galveston – The retrospective exhibition, José Cisneros: A Colorful World in Black & White (ends Sunday, February 13), explores the personal sketches, illustrations, calligraphy, cartography and glass work of the famed Mexican-born artist, who died in 2009 at the age of 99.
- The Jung Center in Museum District | FREE – In the art gallery, visitors can take one last look at Anna Mayer’s Pale Clay (Influence and Contagion) (ends Tuesday, February 15), a dozen textile works created after the passing of the artist’s mother in 2016 and drawing on fragments of Paul Klee paintings—a favorite of Anna Mayer’s mother.
- Holocaust Museum Houston in Museum District – Two exhibitions close in February at the Holocaust Museum; Blacklist: the Hollywood Red Scare (ends Sunday, February 20) examines the period of the 1940s when writers and directors had to defend themselves from allegations of disseminating Communist propaganda; and Hope: Stories of Houston Survivors (ends Sunday, February 27) brings us the testimonies and stories of surviving the Holocaust from Survivors and their families in Houston and Galveston.
- Discovery Green in Downtown | FREE – The Downtown park says goodbye to the colorful fractals on display in Mosaic of Light by HYBYCOZO (ends Sunday, February 27). Visitors can take in sculptures on the ground and suspended from the trees overhead that illuminate and cast mesmerizing shadows along the Brown Promenade.
Check out more ongoing installation and exhibitions in museums around Greater Houston.
Save on Multi-Day Museum Passes Around Houston
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