Theaster Gates: The Gift and The Renege presents work by the acclaimed Chicago-based artist, featuring large-scale paintings, sculptures, and installations that highlight the seen and unseen dynamics of Freedmen’s Town in Houston’s Fourth Ward. Throughout his career, Theaster Gates has elevated understanding of Black labor, materials, place, and community to revitalize underrecognized neighborhoods by combining urban planning and a multifaceted art practice. His work highlights the true value Black spaces hold—although often devalued—as sites of American resilience, liberation, and redemption. Gates is an artist who singularly connects the dots in both poetic and pragmatic ways. For over 20 years he has worked to transform the Southside of Chicago through various initiatives aimed at preserving and continuing the neighborhood’s vital role as a site for Black creativity. His multifaceted practice demonstrates the dual importance of building community and exposing power structures.

Olivia Erlanger: If Today Were Tomorrow is the artist’s first solo museum presentation in the United States. Across an installation, a video, and a series of commissioned sculptures, Erlanger continues her decade-long investigation into what it means to call a planet home. The artist produced all new work for this exhibition, informed by her interest in “closed worlds”—human-made, climate-controlled environments. Erlanger converts the gallery into a sculptural landscape comprising distinct yet interrelated zones: a set showcasing her short film Appliance (2024); dioramas of off-world landscapes and impossible architectures; illuminated planet sculptures; and a constellation of arrows piercing the Museum’s brutalist staircase.