FROM THE SUBTERRANEAN TO THE COSMIC: TERESITA FERNÁNDEZ REAWAKENS A DORMANT HOUSTON LANDMARK

The Menil Collection announced the repurposing of a historic structure on its campus, the Fresco Building, as a new space for semi-permanent, site-specific commissions, scheduled to open in late 2027. Internationally renowned, Brooklyn-based artist Teresita Fernández (Miami, United States, 1968), whose practice is characterized by an expansive rethinking of what constitutes landscapes from the subterranean to the cosmic, will create a monumental immersive work to inaugurate the reimagined building. The opening of the space, which will have been closed for nearly a decade, coincides with the Menil’s 40th anniversary celebrations.

Rebecca Rabinow, Director, The Menil Collection, said, “The Menil Collection has programmed its 40th anniversary year with strong exhibitions that explore the museum’s past, present, and future. As one of the highlights, Teresita Fernández’s extraordinary installation at the Fresco Building will join the Menil’s other single-artist buildings, the Cy Twombly Gallery and the Dan Flavin Installation at Richmond Hall. In recognition of the Fresco Building’s origins, her ambitious site-specific artwork will address themes of spirituality and the human condition.”

The commission continues the Menil’s long history of working with living artists who draw inspiration from the museum’s campus, collection, and archives. Fernández's decades-long practice unravels the intimacies between matter, human beings, and locations, poetically questioning ideas about land and landscape. Her large-scale installations and sculptural work are deeply engaged with material resonance and its capacity to evoke emotional and psychological depth. 

In 2025, Fernández participated in What drawing can be: four responses, an exhibition at the Menil Drawing Institute that invited four artists to create site-specific installations. While Fernández was in Houston, Rabinow invited her to visit the Fresco Building as it was undergoing renovations. Fernández had an immediate sense of the possibilities for the refreshed space, connecting with the materiality, the architectural design of the structure, and the history of the building and its neighborhood as sources of inspiration. 

The artist, said, “It is an immense honor to have been chosen to reimagine the Fresco Building within the prestigious context of the Menil’s campus. Creating an immersive, site-specific installation for this building is especially meaningful to me because of the Menil’s deep commitment to artists and the transformational power that contemplative art experiences can offer. For the last thirty years my practice has questioned how we construct notions of landscape and place; this project gives me a unique opportunity, on a monumental scale, to continue to unravel the intimacies between human beings and matter as well as the more numinous landscapes we carry within.”