Construction of Six Multidisciplinary Galleries in a New Modern and Contemporary Exhibition Building

FAIN: CHA-261808-19

Glassell School of Art (Houston, TX 77005-1803)
Gary Tinterow (Project Director: March 2018 to October 2025)

The construction of six galleries within a new exhibition building for modern and contemporary art that would display works from the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Asia in all media and allow for flexible, interdisciplinary humanities presentations.  

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) requests a NEH Challenge Grant to help support the construction of multidisciplinary galleries within a new exhibition building for modern and contemporary art on the MFAH campus. Six galleries, ranging from 2,600 to 6,400 square feet, will provide generous space to display artwork in all media and allow for highly flexible, interdisciplinary presentations. The MFAH will be able to display modern and contemporary works from Europe, the United States, Latin America, and Asia in a depth not found in any cultural institution within the region. Visitors will discover installations that dissolve the boundaries of media, geography, and time, finding displays that are innovative and intellectually challenging. These galleries will bring the Museum’s educational impact to a new level by significantly increasing multidisciplinary display space, ultimately expanding the type and range of humanities-based programming the MFAH can offer.

Associated Products

Connecting Currents: Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Exhibition)
Title: Connecting Currents: Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Curator: Dena Woodall
Curator: Mari Carmen Ramirez
Curator: Alison de Lima Greene
Curator: Cindi Strauss
Curator: Malcolm Daniel
Abstract: Connecting Currents: Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, focused on the following five themes of art from the 1960s onward: 1) Color into Light showcases work by artists celebrated for their study of color dynamics, including Josef Albers, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Sam Gilliam, Hans Hofmann, Hélio Oiticica, Abraham Palatnik, Fanny Sanín, and Ettore Sottsass. 2) Border, Mapping, Witness considers maps and borders in geographic, social, and political terms. Among the ideas presented are works that survey and rationalize a terrain (Carlos Garaicoa, Zarina, Guillermo Kuitca, Julie Mehretu, Fazal Sheikh, Rosemarie Trockel); that bear witness to social injustices (Richard Avedon, Christian Boltanski, Glenn Ligon, Oscar Muñoz, Betye Saar, Doris Salcedo, Kara Walker); and that engage the notion of border as fraught with violence (Ramiro Gomez, Luis Jiménez, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Camilo Ontiveros). 3) Collectivity explores artists’ use of diverse materials and techniques to activate a sense of community. Highlights include vibrant lithographs by Wendy Red Star; Carrie Mae Weems’s Kitchen Table Series; Beatriz Gonzalez’s Mutis por el foro, a metal bedframe depicting the death of Simón Bolivar; and Teresa Margolles’s Lote Bravo, an installation of 400 bricks made by hand out of the soil where murdered women had been buried in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. 4) Line into Space examines how artists explore line in multiple dimensions and media, from works on paper to jewelry, three-dimensional constructions, and furniture. This installation features more than two dozen works by Gego, including drawings, sculptures, and a watercolor, presented with selections such as Brice Marden’s drawing Hydra, Summer 1990; Joris Laarman’s stainless steel Dragon Bench; and Jean Tinguely’s kinetic sculpture Méta-Malevich. 5) LOL! features art that uses humor as a strategy. Now-classic sculptures, photographs, and videos by Claes Oldenburg, Tony Oursler, Sandy Skoglund, and William Wegman.
Year: 2020

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