Art in Context: Art, Architecture, and the Middle Landscape, Part II, is the latest in a series of symposia copresented by the Chinati Foundation and the Rice School of Architecture. A follow-up to the weekend-long Part I, held in Marfa in April 2025, Part II will gather more than a dozen artists, architects, and landscape designers in Houston to examine the relationship between the three closely interrelated disciplines. Together, the group will consider Donald Judd’s influence on museum architecture and how the varied contexts of art and architecture are shaped by place, culture, and history.
The symposium is organized jointly by Chinati Foundation director Caitlin Murray; Stephen Martin, Chinati’s director of preservation and planning; and Troy Schaum, associate professor at the Rice School of Architecture and principal of Schaum Architects. This is the seventh symposium Chinati has organized since 1995 on the integration of art, architecture, and land.
Friday, November 14, 2025
4:30 p.m. – Art in Context Exhibition Walkthrough
5:30 p.m. – Welcome - Igor Marjanović
5:40 p.m. – Opening - Troy Schaum
6:00 p.m. – Keynote - Sofia von Ellrichshausen
Saturday, November 15, 2025
9:30 a.m. – Conversation - Piet Oudolf with Caitlin Murray and Stephen Martin
1:30 p.m. – Keynote - Rick Lowe
3:30 p.m. – Panel Discussion - Tei Carpenter, Ludovico Centis, and Kate Newby, moderated by Jesús Vassallo
5:00 p.m. – Keynote - Katharina Grosse
Sunday, November 16, 2025
12:00 p.m. – Conversation - Annabelle Selldorf in conversation with Julian Rose
Participants in Part II
Tei Carpenter is founder and director of Agency—Agency, an award-winning architectural design studio based in New York.
Ludovico Centis is an assistant professor in Urbanism in the Department of Engineering and Architecture at the University of Trieste, Italy. Centis is an architect, founder of the office The Empire and co-founder and editor of the architecture magazine San Rocco.
Sofia von Ellrichshausen is an Argentinian architect, artist, and educator. Together with Mauricio Pezo, she founded the art and architecture studio Pezo von Ellrichshausen which is based in a farm at the foot of the Andes Mountains in southern Chile.
Katharina Grosse is an internationally recognized artist known for her site-specific work sprayed directly onto architecture, interiors, and landscapes. She was an Artist in Residence at the Chinati Foundation in 2005.
Rick Lowe is a Houston-based artist. With formal training in visual arts, he has worked both inside and outside of art world institutions by participating in exhibitions and developing community-based art projects.
Igor Marjanović is William Ward Watkin Dean and Professor at Rice School of Architecture.
Stephen Martin is the Director of Preservation and Planning at the Chinati Foundation.
Caitlin Murray is the Director of the Chinati Foundation.
Kate Newby is an installation artist working with mixed materials born in Auckland, Aotearoa, New Zealand, and living and working in San Antonio, Texas.
Piet Oudolf is a Dutch garden and landscape designer and a leader of the New Perennial movement. Notable projects include Lurie Garden, the High Line in New York City, and temporary installations for the Venice Biennale and the Serpentine Gallery pavilion.
Julian Rose is a historian and critic of art and architecture and a former Senior Editor at Artforum. His latest book, Building Culture, explores the architecture of art museums and was released by Princeton Architectural Press in September 2024.
Troy Schaum is an associate professor at Rice School of Architecture and Principal of Schaum Architects. As an architect, he is engaged in ongoing preservation and restoration work at Chinati, including ongoing studies of the Artillery Sheds and the recently completed restoration of the Judd Foundation Architecture Office.
Annabelle Selldorf is Principal of Selldorf Architects, which she founded in 1988. She is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and serves on the Board of the Chinati Foundation.
Jesús Vassallo is a Spanish architect and writer, and currently Associate Professor at Rice University.
Generous support has been provided by Bob and Nora Ackerley, Lee and Mike Cohn, Lori and Alexandre Chemla, Rice Office of Research—Creative Ventures, and the city of Marfa, Texas.
The symposium coincides with a related exhibition, Art in Context, presented as part of Exhibitions at Rice and on view in the Hines Family Gallery and the Casbarian-Appel Gallery within William T. Cannady Hall at the Rice School of Architecture from November 7, 2025, through February 7, 2026.