Catch our picks for the latest exhibitions and installations at art galleries and museums throughout Greater Houston in October 2022.
This month, we’ve rounded up seven of the city’s current exhibitions that are worth your time to check out.
In addition to a slate of openings at venues like MFAH and the Menil, Houston also sees signature exhibitions at Project Row Houses, the return of the city-wide FotoFest, and a community-focused installation in Discovery Green.
But this isn’t all you can see at museums and other institutions across the city, so go deeper and get a look at all the ongoing exhibitions when you check out our guide to installations and exhibitions in Greater Houston.
Top Exhibitions in Houston This Month: October 2022
FotoFest 2022 Biennial at Multiple Venues
Emerging from a pandemic hiatus, FotoFest 2022 returns with three exhibitions and a month-long slate of public programming and events that showcase artists and their work in the photographic realm.
This year’s central exhibition, If I Had a Hammer at Silver Street and Winter Street Studios in the Arts District, features the work of multiple artists, activists, photo-documentarians and filmmakers that examine the role of images in the ways that they form historical narratives and ideologies, and how they may be used to construct and repress global social movements.
Returning after being cut short in 2020, African Cosmologies: Redux finds a home in venues across the city, with portions on display at Spring Street Studios, the Alta Arts, Houston Museum of African American Culture and the Menil Collection. Dozens of artists make up the work on display in this large-scale exhibition, which delves into the relationships between contemporary life in Africa, the African diaspora, and global histories of colonialism, photography, and rights and representation.
And in Ten By Ten, the work of 10 artists as chosen by 10 guest reviewers is on display, selected through FotoFest’s International Meeting Place Portfolio Review. The long-running event sees 150 curators, editors and experts sift through 450 photographic portfolios of artists and photographers from around the globe to highlight contemporary photographic practice.
FREE
On display now; closing dates vary but most run through Sunday, November 6, 2022.
Bitter Waters Sweet & Drawn to Communities at Art League Houston
Two exhibitions grace the Montrose gallery this month, honoring the artists in their respective solo exhibitions.
In Bitter Waters Sweet, Art League’s 2022 Texas Artist of the Year Letitia Huckaby presents new work that explores the legacy of Africatown, the historic community near Mobile, Alabama, founded by a group of West African people that were trafficked to the United States as slaves shortly before Emancipation.
And in Drawn to Communities, Houston photographer Earlie Hudnall, Jr., who is receiving the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award in the Visual Arts from Art League, displays many of his compelling images of community life in Houston’s Third, Fourth and Fifth Wards.
FREE
On display through Saturday, December 3, 2022.
In Residence & CraftTexas 2022 at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft
In the month of October, you can catch two exhibitions at the always-free craft center in the Museum District that highlights some of the best work from resident artists, as well as across the Texas region.
The 15th edition of In Residence unveils another selection of works from artists of the annual residency program that utilize clay, metal and fiber. Featured resident artists include Joan Clare Brown, Kelly Dzioba, Priscilla Dobler Dzul, Jihye Han, Chenlu Hou, Carl Johnson, Naomi Peterson, Kerianne Quick, Nash Quinn, and Stephanie J. Woods.
On display through Saturday, October 29, 2022.
And in CraftTexas 2022, this eleventh edition of juried exhibitions showcases some of the best Texas-made contemporary craft consisting of a variety of artworks and installations, with a particularly strong showing of work in fiber, metal and mixed media.
On display through Saturday, January 28, 2023.
FREE
Mi Casa, Your Casa 2.0 at Discovery Green
Take a moment and have a seat in these glowing, house-like play structures that adorn the campus of Discovery Green, offering visitors a chance to sit, swing and relax.
Created by Mexican designers Esrawe + Cadena, this second installation is inspired by the mercados of Latin America, where human connections between members of the community are made daily.
FREE
Opens Saturday, October 8 through Monday, November 14, 2022.
Round 54: Southern Survey Biennial at Project Row Houses
The inaugural round of the Southern Survey Biennial celebrates the work of eight artists from across the Southern region, each of whom convert the Project Row Houses into work that grapples with the enormity of contemporary issues and the residual experiences of the past three years.
Guest curated by Valerie Cassel Oliver, this first exhibition of its kind highlights the work of artists from Texas, Florida and Louisiana through creative expression found in performance, painting, sculpture, photography and the moving image.
FREE
Opens Saturday, October 8 through Sunday, February 12, 2023.
Gordon Parks: Stokely Carmichael & Black Power at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The work of iconic photographer and artist Gordon Parks is displayed in this exhibition which draws from the time the photojournalist spent with Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael (also known as Kwame Ture) in a cross-nation journey for Life magazine in 1967.
In addition to the five photographs from the article, viewers can also take in nearly 50 additional photographs and contact sheets that have never before been published or exhibited, alongside footage of Carmichael’s speeches and interviews.
Included with general admission: $19; $16 for ages 65+; $12 for ages 13 to 18; free for ages 12 and under.
Opens Sunday, October 16 through Monday, January 16, 2023.
Walter De Maria: Boxes for Meaningless Work at Menil Collection
A figure that sat within the avant-garde of New York’s music and art scene of the 1960s, Walter De Maria took influential approaches to sculpture, performance and sound that helped lead to the further development of the Minimalism, Conceptualism, and Earth Art movements of the late ’60s.
The work of the artist (who was also an early member of the Velvet Underground alongside Lou Reed and John Cale) is surveyed in this rare United States exhibition that spans his 50-year career and includes featured sculptural works in plywood, plus drawings, photography, sound and film work.
FREE
Opens Saturday, October 29 through Sunday, April 23, 2023.
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