Untitled Art brings a walk-in record store, live fashion shows, and 98 galleries to Houston this weekend

Houston’s art calendar is filling up this weekend. Untitled Art, Houston returns to the George R. Brown Convention Center this weekend from October 2 to 4. This year’s fair has 98 galleries from 20 countries and territories, and a program that pulls in artists, museums, universities, and neighborhoods across the city.

Eleven Special Projects share the show floor with the booth exhibitors. Dave Muller’s Record Pavilion 2.0, presented by Meliksetian | Briggs and the Landing, is a working, walk-in record store built from Muller’s own collection, with a sound system, paintings, and ephemera. It first appeared in Los Angeles in 2022.

Erina Libertad’s Duet, with Hannah Sloan, turns a stretch of the fair into a place for impromptu dances between strangers. Night Gallery presents Josh Callaghan’s Big Rig, which recasts wheelchairs as icons of American mobility. SAGE Studio & Gallery shows The Artist Is Having a Good Day, a series of layered, kaleidoscopic paintings inspired by King Nobuyoshi Godwin’s synaesthesia.

Many of the projects look at Houston itself:

• The Floyd Newsum Jr. Art Estate expands the late artist’s 2005 painting The Journey Never Ends into a living “artchive” over three acts. It includes a live video feed, Untitled Voyage, linking a traveling version of the project with the fair.
• Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin’s Town Meeting 1978–2028, shown by McClain Gallery, is a monumental drawing and performance lecture that reconstructs historical LGBTQIA+ spaces in Houston.
• Reynier Leyva Novo’s Blue Bones, a public art project from PAC PUBLIC, unfolds through a community archive in the Third Ward. Novo covers images and objects in blue paint.
• Nestor Topchy paints egg-tempera and gold-leaf portraits of Houstonians in the Byzantine icon tradition. With Josh Pazda Hiram Butler, he will add portraits through live sittings during the fair.
• Estefania Puerta’s The Crowd is the work behind the inaugural CAMH Commission Prize, presented by the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.
• JooYoung Choi shows a sculptural installation with Inman Gallery, and Mark Flood stages Daily Flood, a lived-in studio and private viewing room.

The Houston Artist Market returns for a second year with 12 presentations, including two shared booths. It now reaches beyond Houston to include participants from Galveston, Austin, Fort Worth, and Dallas. Adam Marnie, editor of F Magazine, curates it again.

“The real strength of the Artist Market is that it represents a vital collection of the artist-run organizations creating community and connection on the ground in Greater Houston and beyond,” he says. Newcomers include Friends Gallery, Stinson House, Bill’s Junk, East Side Pot Shop, MORTADELLA, CHEERLEADER, and a shared booth for Zine Fest Houston and The Orange Show.

The Untitled Podcast returns with live discussions on art and civic action in Houston, art and wellness, the future of art writing in the South, and generative art. Confirmed panelists include Rachel Mohl of University of Houston Public Art, Danielle Burns-Wilson of Project Row Houses, writer Roberto Tejada, and Claudia Mattos of the Moody Center for the Arts.

Artist Kalup Linzy will also stage In My Feelings About It All, a live fashion show with local models on the runway. His persona Katonya wears painted garments and all-over prints. A five-song EP from the performance will be released on streaming platforms, and apparel from the show will be on sale.

The fair’s Prizes and Partnerships network grows this year. UT MD Anderson, Public Art University of Houston System, Hotel Daphne, and Houston Grand Opera join returning partners Casa Santa Ana and PAC Art. Park House Houston arrives as a new Prize Partner, and its 2026 Acquisition Prize commits at least $10,000 to one or more works from the fair.

The six-day VIP program takes collectors and curators into the city’s cultural spaces. It includes studio visits with Trenton Doyle Hancock, JooYoung Choi, and Nestor Topchy, a meditation at the Rothko Chapel, open studios at the MFAH Core Residency Program and Rice University, and an evening at the James Turrell Skyspace.

A Rice University screening with the Houston Cinema Arts Festival and artist Lita Albuquerque will revisit her performance at the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern from the fair’s first edition.

Founder Jeffrey Lawson, Houston Director Michael Slenske, and Executive Director Clara Andrade lead the fair.