Arts Update Houston
Houston Theater Week: Buy-One-Get-One Offers
Houston Theater Week is back with the fantastic offer: buy one ticket, get one free! Whether you’re a longtime fan or a newcomer eager to discover the city’s cultural gems, this event promises something for everyone. Keep an eye on our page as we unveil the upcoming performances and details. Join us for Houston Theater Week and double the delight with every ticket!
- Dates: August 18-24
- Offer Code: HTW25
See Participating Organizations
https://www.visithoustontexas.
Fifth Anniversary of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building:
Four Presentations this Fall Showcase the MFAH Collections of Modern and Contemporary Art, Photography and Design
The exhibitions explore themes of energy, car culture and materiality and celebrate the enduring work of a pioneering jewelry artist
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston launches the fifth year of modern and contemporary art installations in the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building with a series of exhibitions showcasing the collections of modern and contemporary art, photography and design, while exploring themes of energy, car culture and materiality and celebrating a promised gift of work by a pioneering jewelry artist.
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, all in a reinterpretation of form and challenge to the meaning of energy and industry. Teresita Fernandez’s Caribbean Cosmos (2022) and Richard Misrach’s Pink Lightning, Salton Sea (1985) illuminate the beauty and majesty of nature’s force, while David Regan’s darkly mottled porcelain sculpture, Hurricane Katrina Carousel (2006), memorializes its destructive power. Peter Shelton’s Black Hole (2002), with its commanding form, invites us to imagine the physicality of space and challenges the viewer to connect aesthetics with ideas about the wonder of energy’s invisible power. Opened August 16, 2025
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. Artists, in turn, have embraced the visual elements of car culture utilizing the form and materials of cars and highwayto represent varying degrees of leisure, belonging, independence and power. From Ishimoto Yasuhiro’s homage to the childhood and the stationwagon, 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, the exhibitio evokes car culture as an American touchstone. Opened August 16, 2025
Material Presence will feature artists from the United States, Latin America, Europe, and Asia who have rejected traditional media and genre boundaries. In their hands, the material support— be it plaster, plastic, canvas, or rice paper—has an active presence, transcending formalism to engage the viewer in the processes of creation and the phenomenology of perception, as well as enlarging the meaning of the work. 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), an early rendering of the artist’s life-long project to expand our understanding of the universe around us. 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. Opening September 6, 2025
The Jewelry of Dorothea Prühl presents 26 necklaces and brooches created since the mid-1970s by the renowned German jewelry artist Dorothea Prühl, who 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 has relied on nature for inspiration – its flora, fauna and animalia. Painstakingly formed or carved, the individual elements in Prühl’s necklaces come alive in expressive compositions. Their seemingly simple gestures – a butterfly’s wings or a bundle of flowers – belie a complexity and craftsmanship that is unmatched in contemporary practice. Comprised of an extraordinary promised gift to the MFAH by the Rotasa Foundation Trust, which has granted the museum the largest single holding of Prühl’s jewelry in the world, this is the first exhibition in the United States dedicated to the artist. Opening September 6, 2025
About the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Spanning 14 acres in the heart of Houston’s Museum District, the main campus comprises the Audrey Jones Beck Building, the Caroline Wiess Law Building, the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden and the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building. Nearby, two house museums—Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, and Rienzi—present collections of American and European decorative arts. The MFAH is also home to the Glassell School of Art, with its Core Residency Program and Junior and Studio schools; and the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), a leading research institute for 20th-century Latin American and Latino art. www.mfah.org
Images:
Pablo Bronstein, Oil Rigs, 2021, ink, watercolor, and pencil on paper, mounted on foam core, artist’s frame, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by the Director’s Accessions Endowment. © Pablo Bronstein
Ishimoto Yasuhiro, Untitled, Chicago, 1950–61, printed 1980, gelatin silver print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of David W. Williams. © Kochi Prefecture, Ishimoto Yasuhiro Photo Center
Sam Gilliam, Double Merge (Carousel I and Carousel II), 1968, acrylic on canvas, purchased jointly by the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, funded by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions Endowment; and by the Dia Art Foundation, 2020.556.A-.B
Dorothea Prühl, Migratory Birds (Zugvögel), 2025, titanium and gold, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, promised gift of the Rotasa Collection Trust. © Dorothea Prühl. Photo: Matthias Ritzmann
Laura Rathe Fine Art Houston presents Forever in Bloom, a solo exhibition featuring Zhuang Hong Yi
Laura Rathe Fine Art (LRFA) presents Forever in Bloom, a solo exhibition featuring iconic artist Zhuang Hong Yi. Following the momentum of his recent major museum exhibition, Zhuang continues to explore his use of the flower motif as a metaphor—preserving moments of beauty that feel both timeless and alive. This exhibition speaks to the legacy he’s built over the years, defined by a distinct visual language that has left a lasting impression on collectors and audiences around the world. The opening reception will take place Thursday, September 11th, from 6–9pm, with the artist attending from China for this special occasion.
As a leading figure in contemporary art, Zhuang continues to evolve, pushing his practice through bolder color transitions, dynamic energy, and a deeper sense of experimentation. This evolution maps a new topography of emotion—Zhuang builds upon the textural composition of his works, formed from hand-painted rice paper—creating moments where the surfaces rise and fall like memory, mood, or breath. Zhuang’s flower fields open as gateways between the world he composes through color and texture, and the personal experience of the viewer. In this space, intensity meets stillness.
Zhuang’s work balances the delicate and the monumental. His use of rice paper, known for its fragility, results in sculptural forms that feel powerful and immersive. The repetitive act of folding not only builds the physical surface of the work, but also becomes a meditative rhythm that reflects Zhuang’s quiet
devotion to process. This contrast between material lightness and visual impact speaks to a central tension in his practice: how beauty can be both ephemeral and enduring. His work invites reflection on intimacy and permanence through the material itself and the lasting joy it brings to those who live with it.
The exhibition will be on display through October 19th.
ABOUT ZHUANG HONG YI
Born in 1962 in Sichuan Province, China, Zhuang Hong Yi lives and works between the Netherlands and Beijing. He is best known for his sculptural “flower bed” works made of hand-dyed, folded rice paper—merging traditional Chinese materials with a contemporary, cross-cultural sensibility. His work has been exhibited internationally and is held in major public and private collections, including multiple museum shows at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands.
ABOUT LAURA RATHE FINE ART
With over 25 years of experience in the industry, gallery owner, Laura Rathe, started her career working as a private art dealer before establishing Laura Rathe Fine Art (LRFA) in 1998 in Houston, Texas. LRFA now operates out of two locations in Houston and a third gallery in Dallas on Dragon Street, the city’s premiere arts district destination. Since the gallery’s inception, LRFA has established itself as a leading contemporary art venue, offering an impressive range of exhibitions and programming to its patrons in both cities.
LRFA represents a dynamic roster of established and mid-career contemporary artists working in a variety of media, many of whom have been acquired into world-renowned private, corporate, and museum collections. Various clientele includes BBVA Compass, HKS Architects, Wells Fargo, W Hotels, UT Southwestern, Halliburton, and ConocoPhillips. LRFA also participates in a number of prominent art fairs including Art Miami, CONTEXT, Palm Beach, Art Southampton, Art Wynwood, and the Dallas Art Fair.
Exhibition Forever in Bloom
Location 4444 Westheimer Rd, Suite D120
Artist Zhuang Hong Yi
Exhibition Opening Thursday, September 11th, 2025, 6-9pm
Dates September 11, 2025 – October 19, 2025
77027 | 713.527.7700 | www.laurarathe.com
