RedDot Picks: 5 Exhibitions to See This Week (July 24)

Every Thursday, RedDot Picks highlights five exhibitions across Texas that deserve your attention this week. Some are opening, some are closing, and some are simply too good to let slip by without a reminder. This is the first installment — our weekly guide to what matters right now in Texas art.

## 1. Olga de Amaral: To Weave a Rock at MFAH, Houston (opens Jul 25)

Olga de Amaral is the most important living fiber artist in the world, and this is the biggest opening of the summer in Texas. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston brings approximately 50 works spanning six decades of the Colombian artist’s career to the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building. De Amaral’s work transforms woven fiber into something monumental — gold and silver leaf applied to intricately woven surfaces that shimmer between textile and sculpture, between ancient craft and contemporary abstraction. The retrospective is organized into four thematic sections tracing her evolution from early geometric weavings to the towering, luminous compositions she is known for today.

The Kinder Building is the perfect setting for this show. Steven Holl’s translucent glass panels flood the galleries with natural light, and de Amaral’s gold-leafed surfaces will catch and reflect that light in ways that no catalog reproduction can capture. This is a show you have to see in person. The exhibition runs through September 19, but opening weekend is always the most electric time to experience a major show — the energy in the galleries, the conversations, the sense of collective discovery. See the event page for details. Read our review for the full argument.

## 2. Henrique Oliveira: London Works at McClain Gallery, Houston (closes Jul 25)

Henrique Oliveira is one of the most compelling sculptors working today, and his second solo exhibition at McClain Gallery closes this Friday. The Brazilian artist’s Xilempasto series takes sheets of delaminated plywood — salvaged from construction barriers on the streets of São Paulo — and bends them into sinuous, wall-mounted forms that feel simultaneously organic and industrial. The wood curls and buckles like skin or bark, its layers of weathered paint creating a surface that records the life of the material before Oliveira ever touched it.

McClain Gallery has been one of Houston’s most important champions of Brazilian contemporary art for decades, and the pairing of Oliveira with the gallery feels natural. These London-studio works are quieter and more contained than his massive architectural installations, but the tension between control and chaos is just as present. This is one of those shows that rewards close looking — the surfaces are endlessly complex. Last chance is Friday, July 25. See the event page for gallery hours.

## 3. Robert Pruitt: Infinite at CAMH, Houston (ongoing)

Robert Pruitt is a Houston native, and his homecoming exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is one of the most important shows in the city right now. Spanning twenty-five years of work, \"Infinite\" brings together large-scale charcoal drawings, mixed-media portraits, and sculptural works that weave together Black identity, science fiction, mythology, and the textures of everyday life in Third Ward and beyond. Pruitt’s figures are monumental — rendered with technical precision and layered with cultural references that reward repeated viewing.

CAMH is always free, and this show is a reminder of why that matters. Pruitt’s work speaks to Houston in a way that only a hometown artist can — the references to specific neighborhoods, the portraits of real people, the blending of the cosmic and the quotidian. If you have not seen it yet, go. If you have seen it, go again. The show deepens with every visit. See the event page for hours. Read our review for a deeper look at why this exhibition matters.

## 4. Nic Nicosia: Everyday Surreal at the Nasher, Dallas (through Aug 16)

Nic Nicosia is a pioneer of staged photography who helped define the medium in the 1980s alongside Cindy Sherman and Laurie Simmons. The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas is showing seventy works spanning five decades of his career — from the early staged domestic scenes that made his name to the more recent solitary studio experiments that feel like private meditations on time and memory. Nicosia’s shift from elaborate productions with actors and sets to quiet, almost hermetic studio work tells a story about what happens when an artist strips away everything except the essential act of making.

The Nasher is one of the great small museums in the country, and Renzo Piano’s building gives the photographs room to breathe. The show closes August 16 — three weeks from now — which means this is the time to make the trip to Dallas if you have been putting it off. The Arts District is walkable and beautiful in the early morning or late afternoon, and the Nasher’s garden is one of the most peaceful places in the city. See the event page for visiting details. Read our review for the full story.

## 5. Tracey Rose at Ruby City, San Antonio (through May 2027)

Tracey Rose is a South African artist whose multidisciplinary practice spans video, performance, photography, and installation. Her connection to San Antonio runs deep — a formative 1999 residency at Artpace shaped her early career, and she returns now with a major exhibition at Ruby City, the David Adjaye-designed contemporary art center founded by the late Linda Pace. The show includes TKO, a powerful performance-based video work, alongside 62 never-before-seen drawings that reveal the intimate, process-driven side of an artist known for bold, confrontational public gestures.

Ruby City is one of the most architecturally stunning art spaces in Texas — Adjaye’s faceted red concrete building is a work of art in itself. The museum is always free, and the combination of Rose’s intense, politically charged work with the building’s warm, contemplative spaces creates an experience that is hard to find anywhere else. The show runs through May 2027, so there is no rush, but if you are planning a San Antonio trip this summer, Ruby City should be your first stop. See the event page for hours. Read our review for a deeper exploration of Rose’s Texas connection.

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