Part of the Glassell School of Art’s 2026 Core Exhibition, "Logics of the Decoy" is a free, open-ended, experimental series that takes place from March to May. Designed to accommodate any level of participation, the program consists of an introductory lecture followed by a series of workshops. A rotating selection of supplementary reading material is on view within the exhibition and in the Hirsch Library.

In this workshop, Jana La Brasca, Core critic-in-residence, presents Hidden in Plain Sight: Similarity and Subterfuge, assembling works on paper from the MFAH collection that mobilize camouflaging and appropriation to conceal or reveal hidden meanings. The one-hour session in the Study Center is followed by a thematic walkthrough of Frida: The Making of an Icon with Arden Decker, associate director of ICAA. 

Related Events

• March 7: Lecture | Decoy Studies: An Introduction
• May 7: Workshop | Objects, Desire, and the Market

Plan Your Visit

• Admission is free. Registration is required at janalabrasca.info/decoy 
• This event takes place in the Anne Wilkes Tucker Photography Study Center in the Beck Building. 
• Parking Information | Museum Hours | MFAH Campus Map

About the Presenters
Jana La Brasca, PhD, is an art historian and curator focused on intersections of art, theory, and archives, especially in histories of Minimal, Conceptual, and Land Art. Her research explores how objects, sites, and their documentation shape art historical narratives, particularly in relation to questions of scale, permanence, and ephemerality. She has held curatorial and research fellowships at the Menil Drawing Institute, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Blanton Museum of Art, and Judd Foundation. La Brasca has contributed to exhibitions including Without Limits: Helen Frankenthaler, Abstraction, and the Language of Print at the Blanton Museum of Art; Groundswell: Women of Land Art at the Nasher Sculpture Center; and, with artist Teresa Hubbard, Experiments in Seeing: Russell Lee’s Pedagogical Legacy, opening at the Visual Arts Center in Austin in September 2026.

Arden Decker, PhD, is an art historian and curator specializing in modern and contemporary art of Mexico. She is the associate director of the MFAH International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), where she leads the Documents of Latin American and Latino Art digital archive project and other research-based initiatives. Decker has served as a contributing curator to exhibitions including Gerzso, Gerzso, Gerzso at CCU Tlatelolco and UNAM and Niérika: el archivo Lilly at the Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City. Most recently, she curated the “Fridamania” section of Frida: The Making of an Icon and contributed a related essay to the exhibition catalogue.