FotoFest Brings the World Of Photography To Houston With an Auction To Swoon Over — An Art Guru’s Infacet Look

The internationally acclaimed FotoFest Biennial is again in Houston with its 2026 version “Global Visions – FotoFest at 40,” marking 4 many years of groundbreaking work in images and lens-based artwork.

The biennial honors cofounders Wendy Watriss and the late Fred Baldwin, whose perception in images’s energy to foster significant dialogue and bridge cultures formed FotoFest into one of many world’s most revered platforms for photographic arts. This milestone celebrates not solely the group’s longevity, but in addition the enduring mission that has guided it for 40 years.

Curated by Watriss and govt director Steven Evans, with co-curators Annick Dekiouk and Madi Murphy, the exhibition revisits defining works and themes from the 20 biennials introduced between 1986 and 2024. More than 450 artists from the United States and 58 international locations are represented, underscoring FotoFest’s extraordinary world attain.

The images and mixed-media works on view span themes of geography, id, conflict, ecology and social change — demonstrating the group’s sustained dedication to inventive dialogue and cultural trade. By reconstituting key exhibitions and citywide shows from throughout its historical past, the 2026 Biennial gives each a retrospective and a renewed name to contemplate images’s function in shaping public discourse.

Among essentially the most anticipated FotoFest packages is the dwell public sale and gala set for this Tuesday, March 17. The fifteenth FotoFest Biennial Fine Print Auction will function greater than 50 fastidiously curated works chosen by Evans, showcasing internationally acclaimed artists who proceed to push the boundaries of images.

Returning to steer the night is charismatic auctioneer Jacqueline Towers-Perkins, previously of Sotheby’s and Bonhams, promising spirited bidding and a celebratory environment. Many collaborating artists have longstanding ties to FotoFest, whereas others are being launched to its viewers for the primary time. Select public sale works may even be included within the “Global Visions” exhibition.

Evans describes the 2026 public sale as an emblem of the relationships cultivated over many years.

“The works reflect (the cofounders’) legacy; generous contributions from artists, collectors and galleries whose practices have converged with FotoFest across time and geography,” Evans says. “Together, they form not only a compelling offering for collectors, but a living tribute to the relationships, trust, and shared belief in the power of photography that Wendy and Fred cultivated from the very beginning.”

As FotoFest’s principal fundraiser, the public sale performs an important function in sustaining the group’s mission. Proceeds immediately assist exhibitions, skilled improvement initiatives, and the Literacy Through Photography studying program, which serves 1000’s of Houston-area college students every faculty yr.

At 40 years previous now, FotoFest stands as each a mirrored image of images’s evolving world language and a testomony to Houston’s place in that dialog — persevering with to foster connection, trade and inventive discovery throughout borders.

As an artwork advisor, I analysis and place art work whereas additionally educating artwork looking for shoppers. Here are my Top Picks from the 2026 FotoFest Auction:

Edward Burtynsky, Coast Mountains #16, British Columbia, Canada, 2023. Pigment inkjet print on Kodak Professional Photo Paper, 30 x 40 inches, version of 15, $12,500

Canadian artist Edward Burtynsky is internationally famend for his large-scale images inspecting humanity’s transformation of the pure panorama. In Coast Mountains #16, he paperwork dramatically receding glaciers in British Columbia, capturing the picture from a helicopter to emphasise each grandeur and vulnerability. Burtynsky was featured within the 2016 Biennial exhibition Changing Circumstances: Looking on the Future of Our Planet, which thought-about humanity’s relationship with the surroundings.

Carrie Mae Weems, All the Boys, 2017. Offset shade lithograph, 16 x 20 inches, $9,500

American artist Carrie Mae Weems is thought for her highly effective conceptual images addressing race, id and social justice. All the Boys responds to the killings of younger African American males and interrogates racial profiling and the criminalization of Black our bodies. The diptych presents blurred, blue-toned portraits of younger Black males sporting hooded sweatshirts, the vague faces evoking each anonymity and universality whereas the hoodie turns into a charged image.

Her work was displayed within the 2020 Biennial, “African Cosmologies: Photography, Time, and the Other.”

Doug and Mike Starn, With god on our facet, 2025. Archival inkjet print mounted on wooden, 22 x 16 inches, $10,000

Conceptual artists and equivalent twins Doug and Mike Starn work in a wide range of media, together with images, sculpture and set up. With god on our facet is an intriguing, curved work that emphasizes bodily type in addition to picture. This piece is from the Under the Sky sequence, which explores the Starns’ ongoing fascination with fixed motion, change and transformation within the pure world. The artists will exhibit work within the 2026 biennial.

Nancy Newberry, Escaramuza 02, 2017. From the sequence Smoke Bombs and Border Crossings, archival pigment print, 40” x 28” $5,500

Texas-based artist Nancy Newberry creates performative portraiture that examines id, reminiscence and cultural mythologies. Staged on the Texas-Mexico border, Escaramuza 02 attracts inspiration from modern Spaghetti Western movies, with an emphasis on theatrical costuming and staged narrative. FotoFest lately opened an set up of labor from this sequence on the George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

Osamu James Nakagawa, Amache 03, Granada, Colorado, 2022-2023. Archival pigment print, 16” x 16”, Edition 2/7 $4,500

Japanese-American photographer Osamu James Nakagawa investigates panorama, household, reminiscence and private id impressed by his personal transnational expertise. This {photograph} depicts a stark, leafless “witness tree” that has stood via occasions of historic significance. In this case, the solitary tree stands on the web site of the Amache incarceration camp, the place Japanese Americans have been forcibly confined throughout World War II. Nakagawa’s poetic work encourages viewers to mirror on how landscapes and the pure surroundings can carry the reminiscence of historic trauma.

A solo present of Nakagawa’s work is at the moment on view at Houston’s Ellio Fine Art gallery.

MANUAL – Ed Hill and Suzanne Bloom, Untitled, 2019. Archival pigment prints, diptych, 7.5” x 9.5” every, $2,500

MANUAL is the collaborative inventive duo of Ed Hill and Suzanne Bloom. Pioneers in digital imaging, their work spans images, movie, video and digital media, in addition to objects and installations. This untitled diptych displays the pair’s longstanding exploration of notion, narrative and the refined interaction between staged and noticed imagery.

Suzanne Bloom handed away in 2025. In her honor, Moody Gallery organized a retrospective of MANUAL’s work, which is at the moment on view.

The FotoFest Fine Print Auction and Gala will happen this Tuesday, March 17 on the Hilton Houston Post Oak by the Galleria. For extra info and to buy tickets and tables, go here.

Author’s be aware: Haley Berkman Karren is an artwork advisor, appraiser, unbiased curator and author who has reviewed at FotoFest’s The International Meeting Place Portfolio Reviews since 2016. She can also be the founder and director of Karren Art Advisory, specializing in trendy and modern artwork, images and digital artwork.