Current
Sable Elyse Smith: Clockwork
Exhibition
Sable Elyse Smith: Clockwork
March 6 – August 2, 2026
Sable Elyse Smith (b. 1986, Los Angeles; lives and works in New York) is the 2026 recipient of the Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize. Featuring works spanning the past five years, Clockwork marks the artist’s most robust institutional exhibition to date and her first solo exhibition in Texas.
Left to right: Laura Lit, Blip, 2020. Wood, resin, acrylic, and oil. 43 x 24 x 1 ½ inches; Laura Lit, Lichen, 2021. Wood, resin, acrylic, and oil. 28 x 50 x 2 ½ inches; Laura Lit, Aspic, 2021. Wood foam, Paperclay, acrylic, and oil. 31 x 48 x 2 inches. Images courtesy the artist. Artwork © Laura Lit. Photographs by Laura Lit.
Exhibition
Mural by Manik Raj Nakra: Man Who Fell to Earth
December 8, 2023 – Present
The Contemporary Austin will showcase a mural by artist Manik Raj Nakra on the Jones Center’s downtown building on 7th and Congress.
Jim Hodges, With Liberty and Justice for All (A Work in Progress), 2014–2016. Stainless steel, Dichrolam, acrylic, enamel paint, and LED lights. Installed, 84 x 1,737 x 10 inches. Installation view, The Contemporary Austin – The Moody Rooftop at the Jones Center, Austin, Texas, 2017. Artwork © Jim Hodges. Courtesy the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels. Image © The Contemporary Austin. Photograph by Brian Fitzsimmons.
Exhibition
Jim Hodges: With Liberty and Justice for All (A Work in Progress)
December 17, 2016 – Ongoing
The Contemporary Austin unveils a new outdoor installation by artist Jim Hodges for The Moody Rooftop at the Jones Center.
Installation view, Perry Art Park, Austin, Texas, 2017, with (from left) Peter Reginato, Blue Float, 1978; Jim Huntington, Dayton, 1977; and Betty Gold, Alas #IV, 1994. Artwork and image courtesy The Contemporary Austin – Museum Without Walls Program. Photograph by Brian Fitzsimmons.
Museum Without Walls
Museum Without Walls at Perry Park
May 6, 2017 – Ongoing
The Contemporary Austin’s Museum Without Walls program brings art beyond the walls of the museum and out into the community in new ways and in diverse venues.
David Deming, Mystic Raven, 1983. Painted steel. 264 x 192 x 72 inches. Collection of The Contemporary Austin. Gift of TRST Congress, Inc., 1992.10. Installation view, Pease Park at Shoal Creek Greenbelt, Austin, Texas, 2017. Artwork and image courtesy The Contemporary Austin – Museum Without Walls Program. Photograph by Brian Fitzsimmons.
Upcoming
Moki Cherry, Title Unknown (Dragon), 1975. Textile appliqué tapestry (silk, cotton, mixed fabrics), 78 3/4 x 137 13/16 inches. Photograph by Anders Sune Berg, Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen.
Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park at Laguna Gloria
Wangechi Mutu, Water Woman, 2017. Bronze. 36 x 65 x 70 inches. Edition 2 of 3, with 2 AP. Collection of The Contemporary Austin. Purchased with funds provided by the Edward and Betty Marcus Foundation, 2017.5. Installation view, The Contemporary Austin – Laguna Gloria, Austin, Texas, 2017. Artwork © Wangechi Mutu. Image courtesy The Contemporary Austin. Photograph by Brian Fitzsimmons.
Exhibition
Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park at Laguna Gloria
The Contemporary Austin’s Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park at Laguna Gloria is named in honor of a founding grant by the Edward and Betty Marcus Foundation. This contemporary art destination presents exhibitions and permanent outdoor art installations on a site of great natural beauty on Lake Austin.
Past
Installation view, The Canvas Can Do Miracles, The Contemporary Austin – Jones Center on Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas, 2025. Image courtesy The Contemporary Austin. Photograph by Alex Boeschenstein.
Exhibition
The Canvas Can Do Miracles
September 12, 2025 – January 11, 2026
The Canvas Can Do Miracles brings together an intergenerational group of artists who complicate legacies of painterly abstraction. These artists engage their canvases as coded, networked spaces for communication, transformation, and metaphysical inquiry, thus offering a counter-narrative to the language of formal abstraction.
Installation view, Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art, The Contemporary Austin – Jones Center on Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas, 2025. Artwork © Teddy Sandoval. Image courtesy The Contemporary Austin. Photograph by Alex Boeschenstein. Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art is a traveling exhibition curated by C. Ondine Chavoya and David Evans Frantz and produced by Independent Curators International (ICI). Learn more @curatorsintl @ondinechavoya @davidevansfrantz
Exhibition
Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art
September 12, 2025 – January 11, 2026
Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art is the first museum retrospective dedicated to the inventive though overlooked artist Teddy Sandoval (1949–1995). A central figure in Los Angeles’s queer and Chicanx artistic circles, Sandoval was an active participant in both U.S. and international avant-garde movements.
Installation view, HOST: Raul De Lara, The Contemporary Austin – Jones Center on Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas, 2025. Commissioned by The Contemporary Austin. Artwork © Raul De Lara. Image courtesy The Contemporary Austin. Photograph by Alex Boeschenstein.
Exhibition
HOST: Raul De Lara
September 12, 2025 – January 11, 2026
Merging woodworking, craft, and design, Raul De Lara reimagines everyday objects—chairs, ladders, plants, and tools—as surreal anthropomorphic forms that reflect his experience as a Mexican-born artist living in the United States. Blending technical fluency with material play, humor, and poetic sensibility, De Lara’s sculptures challenge fixed notions of form and identity.