Known for its connection to the space industry, its rich food scene, and its cultural offerings, Houston now has its own major art fair. On September 18th, Untitled Art, Houston opened its inaugural edition, hosting some 88 galleries at the downtown George R. Brown Convention Center.
For its director, Michael Slenske, the decision to launch the fair was a long time coming for those aware of the city’s underrated cultural clout.
“I get asked this question a lot: ‘Why Houston?’” Slenske told Artsy. “I’m asked, ‘Why not an art capital?’ You don’t know what you’re talking about if you don’t think this is an art capital.” He pointed to the city’s dense network of institutions, from the Menil Collection to the University of Houston’s School of Art and Public Art MFA program, as evidence of its cultural strength. The program, which is featured at Booth A53, is displaying student work throughout the fair.
This is Untitled Art’s first new venture since the firm was acquired last year by the luxury lifestyle portfolio South Florida Ventures. Founded in 2012 by Jeff Lawson, Untitled Art has staged an annual fair directly on the sands of Miami Beach during the city’s December art week. From the start, it sought to distinguish itself from the megafair model by presenting a more focused, curatorial approach.
Untitled Art, Houston aims to replicate that point of view. Framed as a “boutique invitational fair,” it is intended to test the waters of Texas’s art market, and its organizers are taking an intentional approach in line with its local market.
For instance, Slenske emphasized that the pace in the city is intentionally different. “We want to slow people down,” he explained, noting how the labyrinthine booth layout by Michael Hsu Office of Architecture encourages lingering. “People aren’t sick of going to art fairs—what they’re sick of is going to the same art fair in the same art town, done the same way.” Unlike Miami, with its “tidal wave” of visitors and hype, as Slenske puts it, Houston requires building momentum more deliberately. “Here,” Slenske added, “you have to make that tidal wave happen.”
Indeed, the fair’s VIP day got to a steady start at 1 p.m., as modest crowds trickled in during the opening hours. Galleries and advisors observed a common trend: Much like in Dallas, the majority of its VIP Day crowd arrived in the latter half of the afternoon. While some dealmaking occurred with focused collectors during the early hours, the majority of VIP guests descended on the fair in the evening.
Many noted that most dealmaking will carry through over the weekend, true to the Texan pace noted by Slenske. “Galleries are waiting to see how the week unfolds and to what extent collectors come—after work or over the weekend—and are anticipating more of a slow burn of the week rather than just a mad rush when the fair opens,” art advisor Adam Green told Artsy just before 5 p.m. during VIP day.
The fair is also notable for its bold curatorial orientation. Rather than prioritizing scale, it emphasizes focused presentations, often spotlighting solo booths or thematic groupings that reflect contemporary concerns. Also central is its Nest sector—a program dedicated to supporting emerging artists, young galleries, and nonprofit organizations through “progressive” booth costs. Conceived at the Miami fair in 2021 to assist with the financial hurdles associated with art fairs, Nest has become one of Untitled’s defining features and is replicated here.
Untitled’s curatorial mission is buoyed by its Special Projects section. As guests walk in, they will find the first installation, Houston-born Mel Chin’s Pool of Light (2024–25), which was recently featured at the 2024 Prospect triennial in New Orleans. Near the center of the fair, Cuban artist Reynier Leyva Novo presents 500 white cement vessels in Solid Void #1 (2022). Outside of the city, the fair helped organize a major performance by Lita Albuquerque and her daughter Jasmine at the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern, a show it seems everyone in Houston is talking about.
Untitled Art wagered that the art community in Houston is primed for an art fair. By the evening of VIP day, that thesis was already beginning to bear fruit, with buzz generated among participating galleries and artists. There was much chatter across the fair’s vast aisles, and, indeed, there were plenty of standout presentations to talk about.
Here, Artsy picks five of the most talked-about artists from the fair’s VIP day that had tongues wagging and phones photographing across the concourses.
Mason Owens
Megan Mulrooney
Booth B10
A spider web on a rain-trodden porch, figures skipping rocks on a dreary day, and a moody, empty bedroom: Mason Owens’s miniature paintings recall the intimacy of Vincent van Gogh’s famed Arles interiors.
The response has been immediate, and the gallery sold out its presentation—which also features works by TJ Rinoski—in the first few hours of the fair. “Megan Mulrooney once again brings her A game,” said art advisor Nicholas Campbell. “No surprise that most of the booth has already sold. [She’s] leading the charge as one of the most exciting galleries out there.”
Owens’s book-sized paintings were meticulously painted with egg tempera, resulting in a matted glow. Owens cultivates what Los Angeles gallerist Megan Mulrooney calls “Anemoia,” a dreamlike nostalgia for memories one never actually lived. “They give you nostalgia for a memory that isn’t yours,” she noted.
Owens’s panels, priced from $2,000 to $8,500, unfold with devotional slowness and a grounded attentiveness to the natural world. In paul’s little blue room (2024), a blue bedroom hums with stillness; in lets just cleanup tomorrow (2025), a night garden suggests spectral presences beneath its shadows. Meanwhile, the skipper and his first mate (2025) depicts two figures skipping rocks on a hazy body of water that bleeds into the horizon, giving the essence of a fleeting memory. Each work balances precision and fluidity, conveying the subtle passage of time—a breeze through a window, the faint silvering of dusk, the hush of evening descending.
This two-person presentation precedes Owens’s first-ever solo show, which will be held by the gallery in Los Angeles. Owens currently works as a landscaper and farmer in Baltimore and is certainly a name many will be watching following this appearance.
“My clients have really gravitated towards Mason Owens,” said Lea Weingarten, Houston-based art advisor. “It’s a meditative thing when you’re tending a garden, and he took that into painting, and you really feel it in the paintings; they feel intimate.”
