The mission of the MFAH Latin American Art Department and its research institute, the International Center for Arts of the Americas (ICAA), is to collect, exhibit, research, and educate the public about the diverse production of Latin American and Latinx artists. Furthermore, the department and the ICAA endeavor to open new avenues of intercultural dialogue and exchange through an ambitious exhibition schedule and long-standing partnerships. Since 2001, when the department was first established, it has mounted 29 exhibitions, published 19 award-winning catalogues, and acquired over 800 works of art.
Exhibitions
Current Exhibitions
Past Exhibitions
Exhibitions since 2001
Exhibitions since 2001
- Ernesto Neto: SunForceOceanLife (2021)
- Beatriz González: Retrospective (2019–20)
- Between Play and Grief: Selections from the Latino American Collection (2019)
- Contesting Modernity: Venezuelan Informalism
- Home – So Different, So Appealing
- Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910–1950
- Adiós Utopia: Dreams and Deceptions in Cuban Art Since 1950
- Contingent Beauty: Contemporary Art from Latin America (2015)
- Cosmic Dialogues: Selections from the Latin American Art Collection (2015)
- Soto: The Houston Penetrable (2014)
- Antonio Berni: Juanito and Ramona (2013-2014)
- Intersecting Modernities: Latin American Art from the Brillembourg Capriles Collection (2013)
- The Abstract Impulse: Selections from the Modern and Contemporary Collections (2013)
- Modern and Contemporary Masterworks from Malba - Fundacion Costantini (2012)
- Constructed Dialogues: Concrete, Geometric, and Kinetic Art from the Latin American Art Collection (2011–12)
- Carlos Cruz-Diez: Color in Space and Time (2011)
- Cosmopolitan Routes: Houston Collects Latin American Art (2010–11)
- Joaquín Torres-García: Paintings in Houston Collections (2009)
- North Looks South: Building the Latin American Art Collection (2009)
- Tunga: Lezart (2009)
- Dimensions of Constructive Art in Brazil: The Adolpho Leirner Collection (2007)
- Constructing a Poetic Universe: The Diane and Bruce Halle Collection of Latin American Art (2007)
- Past, Present, Future: Documenting Latin American Art at the MFAH (2007)
- Hélio Oiticica: The Body of Color (2006)
- Xul Solar: Visions and Revelations (2006)
- Indelible Images (trafficking between Life and Death) (2005)
- Brought to Light: Recent Acquisitions in Latin American Art (2005)
- Gego, Between Transparency and the Invisible (2005)
- Alfredo Jaar: The Eyes of Gutete Emerita (2005)
- Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America (2004) (Awarded best thematic show nationally in the USA by the International Association of Art Critics) The New York Times selected Inverted Utopias as one of the two best art exhibitions in the United States during the first decade of the 21st Century. Holland Cotter, “Depending On the Culture of Strangers,” NYT, Sunday. January 3, 2010.
- Questioning the Line: Gego, A selection,1955–1990 (2002)