- Houston
Fragments of Memory, a selection of works from the Menil’s permanent collection, explores the ways in which the past imbues present experiences.
In their drawings, the featured artists take up commonplace embodiments of personal and collective memory, such as scrapbooks, snapshots, notes, relics, and odes, to reimagine how we might access fraught memories and contested...
Fragments of Memory, a selection of works from the Menil’s permanent collection, explores the ways in which the past imbues present experiences.
In their drawings, the featured artists take up commonplace embodiments of personal and collective memory, such as scrapbooks, snapshots, notes, relics, and odes, to reimagine how we might access fraught memories and contested histories.
Memories are incomplete renditions of the past—composites built from slivers of recollections that reveal the emotions behind moments. The drawings presented in this exhibition were created from the mid-20th century to the recent years and represent different ways that artists reanimate the past and propose new understandings of our present.
Works on display from Luc Tuymans (b. 1958) and Jasper Johns (b. 1930) explore how memory fragments as time passes, while pieces by artists like Sari Dienes and Gael Stack layer objects and imagery from their family and friends, presenting a picture of consciousness.
Other artists featured in this exhibition include Wardell Milan, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Danh Vo, and more.
Fragments of Memory is curated by Kelly Montana, Assistant Curator, Menil Drawing Institute.
This exhibition is generously supported by Diane and Michael Cannon; Caroline Huber; Susan and Francois de Menil; Sheila Noeth and Ted Dohmen; and by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.
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Menil Collection Visit
- The Menil Collection houses approximately 17,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs, and rare books
- Among the highlights of the museum are its Surrealist holdings, widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost collections of its kind
- Masterpieces from antiquity, the Byzantine and medieval worlds, the tribal cultures of Africa, Oceania, the American Pacific Northwest, and the twentieth century are particularly well represented
What's on
Portraits of Women from the Collection (Until 9 November 2024)
Tacita Dean: Blind Folly (Starts on 11 October 2024)
Fragments of Memory (Until 26 January 2025)
Out of Thin Air: Emerging Forms (Until 26 January 2025)
Other exhibitions at The Menil Collection
The Menil Collection
The Menil Collection in Neartown Houston, Texas is a museum showcasing the private collection of John and Dominique de Menil. Inside you'll find some 17,000 paintings, prints, photographs, sculptures, rare books, and drawings.
The collection features an impressive list of surrealist and contemporary masterpieces with works by some of the 20th century's biggest names like Picasso, René Magritte, Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol. There's also pieces from antiquity and the medieval era, the tribal cultures of Africa, Oceania, and the American Pacific Northwest.