Here is an overview of shows coming to museums and arts organizations in the Austin and San Antonio areas this spring, including the Blanton Museum of Art, the Visual Arts Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the San Antonio Museum of Art, The Contemporary at Blue Star, and others.
Austin
The Georgetown Art Center will present four exhibitions through the spring season.
The invitational exhibition Print Austin will run from January 9 to February 8, 2026. According to the center’s website, like the Salon des Refuseés exhibition of 1863 Paris is, Print Austin celebrates artworks that did not make it into the previous year’s juried print exhibition: “Far from being secondary, these prints demonstrate the diversity, experimentation, and technical skill that define today’s printmaking community.”
The dual exhibition Neo Geo: Geometry and Color by Larry Akers and Janet Brooks will run from February 13 to March 15, 2026, featuring the work of two artists “dynamic color interactions; interactive, geometrically based kinetic sculpture; and visually active, pattern-based design,” as described on the center’s website.
From March 20 to April 19, Fort Worth artist Chris Ireland will present Dead Letter Office: Images of Memories Fading. In a statement, Mr. Ireland describes his photo-based work: “The images I use in my recent work come from databases of images, real estate sites, social media, and my own archives,” combined and shaped “to convey emotional charged moments that are suggested through the staging of scenes inside domestic spaces.”
Seeing Double – Two Views of Texas, running April 24 to May 24, 2026, will bring together work by Debbie Carroll and Denise Elliott Jones. The exhibition will feature works inspired by the diverse regions of Texas, showcasing the two artists’ individual styles by presenting pieces based in the same geographic areas.
The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas (UT) has announced three exhibitions set to open in spring.
Tammy Nguyen, “Madness Helps,” 2025, watercolor, vinyl paint, pastel, silkscreen printing, rubber stamping, hot stamping, glitter and metal leaf on paper stretched over wood and gator board panel, 35 x 30 inches. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London. Photo: Studio Kukla
Contemporary Project 16: Tammy Nguyen, running January 17 to September 20, 2026, will feature paintings, prints, and a handmade artist book by this Connecticut-based multidisciplinary artist. Ms. Nguyen will also select objects from the Blanton collection to resonate with her artwork. According to the Blanton website, Ms. Nguyen’s work draws on “on literary references, Cold War–era science, and intricate ecological imagery, [and] her richly layered compositions interweave figures, flora, fauna, and symbolic forms to explore how ambition, belief, and invention intersect.”
Charles Sheeler, “On a Shaker Theme,” 1956, oil on canvas
First exhibited at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, American Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection: From Edward Hopper to Alma Thomas will be on view at the Blanton from March 8 to August 2, 2026. Eighty artworks from Mr. Butt’s rarely-seen collection will be on display, including works by notable American artists Ellsworth Kelly, Jacob Lawrence, Joan Mitchell, and Georgia O’Keeffe. In a press release, the Blanton notes that Mr. Butt’s collection “reflects his vision of American creativity and his long-standing commitment to civic life and education.”
teamLab, The World of Irreversible Change (detail), 2022, six-channel interactive digital work, endless duration, Collection of the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation © teamLab
Also running March 8 to August 2, 2026 will be Run the Code: Data-Driven Art Decoded by Thoma Foundation X Blanton Museum of Art, highlighting the Thoma Foundation’s Digital and Media Art Collection. Contemporary artists using algorithms and generative AI models included in the show are Jenny Holzer, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, teamLab, Siebren Versteeg, and Leo Villareal, among others.
The Visual Arts Center (VAC) at UT has announced three new exhibitions for the spring season.
Abby Flanagan, “map and key,” 2025, sand, plaster, soil, rhodamine, wool. Courtesy of the artist
The Edwards Aquifer of Central Texas features in Abby Flanagan: To Move Through Stone, both as theme and as a materials source. Ms. Flanagan uses drawings, sculptures, and installations to visualize the natural resource that supplies water to two million people. To Move Through Stone will be on view from January 23 to March 21, 2026.
Francesca Lally, “Formerly War Memorial Stadium,” from the series “Bigger,” 2025, archival inkjet print. Courtesy of the artist
Also running from January 23 to March 21, 2026, Francesca Lally: Half Time is the culmination of the artist’s St. Elmo Arts Residency Fellowship at VAC. In prints, photography, site-specific installation, and performance, the artist examines spectatorship through the ages by juxtaposing Austin’s Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium and ancient Roman coliseums.
John DesSousa, “excel,” 2024, wool, polyester, cotton, and dye. Courtesy of the artist
UT contemporary art club Center Space Project will present Towards Détournement, a group exhibition curated by UT undergraduate students. French author Guy Debord’s influential Society of the Spectacle serves as background for the show, which brings together 15 artists, “whose work encourages critical engagement and skepticism toward mass media, consumerism, hegemonic institutions, and narrow-sighted historical narratives,” according to a press release.
Panel painting (Classmark 2266). Encaustic portrait of a Roman woman painted on a thin wooden panel, originally attached to her mummified body, from Fayyum, Egypt. 425 x 212 millimeters. Manchester Museum, University of Manchester
Also at UT, the Harry Ransom Center will present Lives and Literacy in Ancient Egypt, an immersive exhibition running April 11 to August 3, 2026. According to the center’s website, Lives and Literacy intends to “[bring] to life the voices of a multilingual, multicultural society from Greco-Roman Egypt” featuring rare papyrus manuscripts, “revealing the lives of ordinary people and their vibrant cultures along the Nile.”
An artwork from “Mix ‘n’ Mash – On Repeat: The Musicians Who Shaped Us” at the Mexic-Arte Museum in spring 2026
The Mexic-Arte Museum will present Mix ‘n’ Mash – On Repeat: The Musicians Who Shaped Us, from January 30 to March 8, 2026. As an art sale in support of the museum, more than 200 artists are invited through an open call to explore musicians and performers “whose voices, instruments, styles, & stories have shaped culture, inspired & influenced communities,” according to the Mexic-Arte website.
San Antonio
Elizabeth Catlett, “Mis Hijos,” 1956, linocut. Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Museum purchase, 2000.40. © CatlettMoraFamilyTrust/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Ferias, Parques y Plazas: A Celebration of Public Space, running January 8 to April 12, 2026, at the McNay Art Museum, features paintings and prints by Elizabeth Catlett and Diego Rivera, along with artworks by San Antonio artist Adriana M. Garcia.
Angelica Raquel, “Estúpida’s Wisdom,” 2025, yarn, felt, ribbon, secondhand charms, thread, and buttons on monks cloth, 33 x 24 inches. Photo: Chris Stolze, courtesy of McNay Art Museum
Angelica Raquel: Mystic Threads will run from January 29 to July 5, 2026, at the McNay. The solo exhibition by this San Antonio artist will present fiber-based work focused on the folklore of family and regional history. Animal forms and whimsical landscapes combine in what the museum calls Ms. Raquel’s “spellbinding universe” woven from myth and lore.
Letitia Huckaby, “Koinonia,” 2021, pigment prints on fabric, with wooden embroidery hoops and wallpaper. Museum purchase with funds gifted anonymously in memory of Madeline O’Connor, 2021.4. © Letitia Huckaby
The exhibition untitled: 20 Years of Collecting Contemporary Art plays on the oft-used method of titling artworks without specific titles. Running March 27 to September 6, 2026, the show will survey 20 years of collecting by the museum in more than 100 works of art. According to the McNay, untitled will also honor the tenure of René Paul Barilleaux, retiring Head of Curatorial Affairs, who has “significantly shaped the museum’s collection” over two decades.
Chief Ekpenyong Bassey Nsa, “Afia Awan Masquerade Ensemble,” 2022, polyester fabric, raffia, leather. Collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art, museum purchase, Françoise Billion Richardson Fund, 2022.85.a-.h.
The San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) will present New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations from February 28 to July 5, 2026. According to the museum, the show features 13 masquerade ensembles by four contemporary West African artists: Chief Ekpenyong Bassey Nsa from Nigeria, Sheku “Goldenfinger” Fofanah from Sierra Leone, David Sanou from Burkina Faso, and Hervé Youmbi from Cameroon. To “challenge historical [museum] collecting practices” and to “upend the idea of the ‘anonymous African artist,’” the SAMA exhibition will include “in-depth stories about the lives, motivations, and ideas” of each artist.
The Contemporary at Blue Star will celebrate its 40th anniversary year with three exhibitions opening in spring 2026.
An image from Mark Menjivar’s “The Luck Archive”
Mark Menjívar, running February 6 to May 3, 2026, will present a midcareer survey exhibition by this San Antonio multidisciplinary artist. According to the non-collecting museum space, Mr. Menjívar uses “social practice and participatory education models” to focus on community building, creating “frameworks for students, community groups, and leaders to come together and have critical dialogs about the issues that impact their lives.” The exhibition will present two decades of projects that employ such methods as oral history, archives, publications, and installations.
Mini Art Museum at the Contemporary’s Family Day 2024. Photo: Bria Woods
Mini Art Museum will honor the late Mary Cantú, a San Antonio artist and arts advocate who died in February 2025. Ms. Cantú co-founded Mini Art Museum in 2013 with Gabriela Santiago, a portable art exhibition venue made of standard office binders that presented miniature artworks. According to The Contemporary, the Mini Art Museum collection will be presented “in its entirety, featuring over 100 works, a small reflection of the large impact Cantú has had.” The exhibition will run from March 6 to June 7, 2026.
Roman Franc, “The Stará Dyje River, South Moravia, June 2018.” Courtesy of the artist
Czech artist Roman Franc will travel to San Antonio in spring for a solo exhibition of a new installment in his Group Pictures/Collectives Series. According to The Contemporary, “Franc has photographed groups across different countries and cultures, from natives of the Tanna Island in the South Pacific, to the U.S. Congress” since 2015. The exhibition will run from March 6 to June 7, 2026.