Museum of Fine Arts Houston Brings New Exhibits for Fall at Nancy and Rich Kinder Building
Presentations Showcase the MFAH Collections of Modern and Contemporary Art, Photography and Design Celebrate Fifth Anniversary
First US Museum Exhibition of Renowned German Jewelry Artist, Dorothea Prühl:
The renowned German jewelry artist Dorothea Prühl is recognized worldwide for her sculptural forms rendered in wood and metal. Trained in the traditions of the Bauhaus, for the past 50 years Prühl’s jewelry has reflected her vision of life. Painstakingly formed or carved, the individual elements in Prühl’s necklaces come alive in expressive compositions.
Comprising 26 necklaces and brooches created since the mid-1970s, The Jewelry of Dorothea Prühl is the first exhibition in the United States dedicated to the artist. Commented Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams chair of the MFAH, “More than two decades ago the museum established the foundation of its contemporary jewelry collection, focusing on influential artists like Dorothea Prühl. We are grateful to the Rotasa Collection Trust for their generosity in creating a permanent presence here for Prühl’s work.”
Behind the Wheel:
Behind the Wheel explores the psychological place of the car in contemporary life. Millions of miles of roads criss-crossing the nation, shopping centers, road-side cafes, motels, drive-in movies and gas stations are all physical manifestations of our car-centered culture.
From Ishimoto Yasuhiro’s homage to the childhood and the station wagon, part of his iconic 1950s series capturing Chicago street life, to Chakaia Booker’s Mutual Concerns (2004), a signature piece by the artist, who tears apart rubber tires to reassemble and renew them as lyrical abstractions.
Energy:
Energy will examine this phenomenon as a natural and metaphysical resource through photography, prints, drawings, paintings, sculptures, rare books, craft and design across three thematic sections. Photographs of oil refineries and electrical sites, and paintings by John Alexander and Rackstraw Downes, document and reinforce the romance of the Texas oil landscape; lighting devices by Ingo Maurer and Rody Graumans honor the lightbulb.
See Teresita Fernandez’s Caribbean Cosmos (2022) and Richard Misrach’s Pink Lightning, Salton Sea (1985) as well as David Regan’s darkly mottled porcelain sculpture, Hurricane Katrina Carousel (2006), and Peter Shelton’s Black Hole (2002).
Material Presence:
Material Presence will feature artists from the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia who have rejected traditional media and genre boundaries.
Anchoring the first installment of this collection rotation are several works on view in Houston for the first time: Ai Weiwei’s Water Lilies #4, which uses LEGO® bricks to reinterpret Claude Monet’s most beloved series; Sam Gilliam’s sweeping Double Merge (Carousel I and Carousel II)(1968), which liberates painting from the wall; and James Turrell’s mural-scaled General Site Plan, Roden Crater (1986).
Also on view will be two of Carlos Cruz-Diez’s signature Physichromies (1974 and 2014), Los Carpinteros’s critical assessment of Cold War memorials made from LEGO® bricks, and Rachel Whiteread’s monumental Untitled (Fire Escape) (2002), among other works.
Prints and Drawings Permanent Collection: Runs Sept. 20, 2025-March 2026
A suite of independent installations highlights strengths of the museum’s collection. Suffused with a dark and mysterious atmosphere, “In the Shadow of the Hermit: Rodolphe Bresdin’s Eerie Influence” shows how Symbolist and Post-Impressionist artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries used works on paper to explore their fascination with the ambiguous, phantasmagoric, and even occult spanning in date from the early 1900s to the present day.
Photos: V. Sweeten