Houston’s Black art institutions are not taking the summer off.
From the Museum District to the Third Ward, galleries and museums across the city are hosting exhibitions this summer that put Black history, creativity, and community front and center, and in a year when America is loudly marking its 250th birthday, several of these shows make unmistakably clear whose stories have long been left out of that celebration.
Better still, most of these exhibitions are free or low-cost, and all of them are air-conditioned. Here are five places worth making time for before the season ends.
Bayou City Stewards: America From Our Perspective
Houston Museum of African American Culture (HMAAC) | 4807 Caroline St. | June 19- Aug. 29 | Free
Curated by interdisciplinary artist Robert Hodge and Rachel Simon, the duo behind the beloved “Collect It For The Culture” series, this Juneteenth-timed exhibition fills HMAAC with works and stories from Houston-based artists, collectors, and cultural stewards.
As the nation marks 250 years of American history, Hodge and Simon ask viewers to consider what that story looks like when told by Black Houstonians who have been keeping it alive all along. “No single person holds the entire story; our Bayou City Stewards are living archives,” Hodge said. | hmaac.org
Art, Place, and Power: Project Row Houses in Houston’s Third Ward
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston | 1001 Bissonnet St. | Through Nov. 8 | MFAH admission pricing
Organized by the MFAH itself, this installation tells the origin story of Project Row Houses through works on paper by its seven founding artists: James Bettison, Bert Long Jr., Jesse Lott, Rick Lowe, and Floyd Newsum. These men bought 22 condemned shotgun houses in the Third Ward in 1993 and turned them into one of the most replicated community art models in the country, rooted in the belief that creativity and collective action could reshape a neighborhood. Seeing their drawings and prints at the MFAH is a full-circle moment. Note: Because the works are light-sensitive, the pieces on display rotated in May 2026 — so even those who caught the show earlier this year will find something new. | mfah.org
The Big Show 2026
Lawndale Art Center | 4912 Main St. | Through Aug. 15 | Free
Lawndale’s long-running open-call juried exhibition is always a deep cut into what Houston’s working artists are making right now. This year’s edition carries extra weight: the juror is Valerie Cassel Oliver, Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and a former senior curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, who selected 105 works by 93 artists from more than 1,000 submissions.
Cassel Oliver has spent her career centering Black artists; her exhibition “The Dirty South” toured nationally, which makes her eye worth following in a show this size. Defenders of local artists who want to see the breadth of Houston’s creative scene in one room should not sleep on this one. | lawndaleartcenter.org
Floyd Newsum Summer Studios: Culminating Exhibition
Project Row Houses | 2521 Holman St., Third Ward | Opening August 2026 | Free
Each summer, Project Row Houses selects six undergraduate students to develop their creative practice on Holman Street in the heart of the Third Ward. The program is named for Floyd Newsum, the late PRH co-founder, artist, and educator who poured his life into training the next generation.
The work created during the residency goes on display in a public exhibition that opens in August, and it is consistently one of the more intimate and emotionally direct shows of the summer. The PRH campus itself, seven restored shotgun houses that are free to visit Wednesday through Sunday, is an experience worth making the trip for, regardless. Watch projectrowhouses.org for the exact opening date. | projectrowhouses.org