Museum of Fine Arts Houston Opens Two New Exhibits AND Extends Louvre Couture for March 2026
Buddha/Nature: Five Dialogues on Our Shared World
The exhibition engages contemporary work and ancient Buddhist art in dialogues on nature, collective responsibility and individual agency
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents Buddha/Nature: Five Dialogues on Our Shared World, an exhibition that explores key teachings of Buddhism that center on inherited patterns, cyclical relationships and how we engage with the natural world.
Pairing five ancient Buddhist sculptures from the Xuzhou Collection, a private collection of Buddhist masterpieces, with a selection of works by six international artists, Buddha/Nature will be on view at the MFAH March 1 – May 10, 2026.
“The Xuzhou Collection has been assembled with extraordinary connoisseurship and deep understanding of Buddhism,” comments Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams chair of the MFAH. “It is a singular collection in that it brings together sculptural
representations of the Buddha from all the Asian cultures that have historically embraced Buddhism, and it is remarkable for the variety and beauty of the individual objects.”
Buddha/Nature has been organized across five galleries, each with a unique focus. Photo courtesy of MFAH
Ernesto Neto’s SunForceOceanLife opens at the MFAH
On Sunday March 8, Ernesto Neto: SunForceOceanLife, a major 2019 commission from the museum and one of the largest crochet works to date by the renowned Brazilian artist, returned to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Over the course of several weeks, a team of more than a dozen people constructed a labyrinth of interior pathways for visitors to explore, all while suspended 12 feet in the air.
Ernesto Neto: SunForceOceanLife will be on view from March 8 to September 7, 2026, in Cullinan Hall of the Caroline Wiess Law Building.
Notes Gary Tinterow, Director, the Margaret Alkek Williams Chair, MFAH, “This singular commission reflects our commitment to Latin American artists and to engaging our visitors in unique art experiences. SunForceOceanLife has joined landmark installations by other
Neto’s predecessors, most notably Gyula Kosice and Jesús Rafael Soto, whose visionary work we are able to present on an ongoing basis.”
SunForceOceanLife is a spiraling, structural marvel that highlights the cyclical relationship between the sun and the sea to produce life on earth. This massive installation will fill Cullinan Hall with yellow, orange and green materials that are hand-woven into a myriad of
patterns and sewn together in a spiral formation. The structure will be suspended from the ceiling and will spiral outward from the center of Cullinan Hall.
“Ernesto Neto created this site-specific piece as a tribute to the life-giving forces of the sun and the ocean. Inspired by crochet, which he learned from his grandmother, the piece transforms this traditional Brazilian craft into a massive, enveloping structure that engages the body and the mind,” says Mari Carmen Ramírez, Wortham Curator of Latin American Art and Founding Director of the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), MFAH.
Now Extended: Louvre Couture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on view through March 29, 2026
The MFAH positions fashion as art with an installation of 36 fashion ensembles in galleries across the Museum. All were selected from the landmark debut of Louvre Couture—Art and Fashion: Statement Pieces, the first-ever fashion exhibition at the Louvre Museum.
The ensembles represent work by contemporary and historic fashion houses and are paired at the MFAH with historic, modern, and contemporary masterworks from the MFAH collections. The Houston presentation also features several rare loans from the Louvre’s holdings of decorative arts.
TICKET INFORMATION:
Please visit https://www.mfah.org/.