Living with the Gods: Art, Beliefs, and Peoples Through January 20, 2025


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Member and ALL ACCESS tickets include same-day admission to this Special Exhibition, all other Special Exhibitions, and the MFAH Permanent Collections.

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How has humanity given form to spiritual beliefs across time and cultures? Living with the Gods: Art, Beliefs, and Peoples explores that quest in an expansive exhibition featuring more than 200 objects from the past 4,000 years.

As a capstone for the Museum’s centennial year, British art historian and former museum director Neil MacGregor was invited to revisit his 2017 BBC radio series and book of the same title, bringing that vision to the MFAH collections, along with many exceptional loans from museums and private collections.

Displayed in dialogue across a suite of 11 galleries, masterpieces in the installation explore elemental themes: the cosmos, light, water, and fire; the mysteries of life and death; the divine word; and pilgrimage. Living with the Gods includes ancient, historic, and contemporary works drawn from regions across Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, and the Americas. 

For millennia, people have been making objects to communicate with their God or gods and to sustain their communities. MacGregor’s acclaimed radio series and book chronicled this essential, enduring form of human expression. The MFAH is honored to partner with him in bringing that vision to Houston.

“This exhibition is about how people everywhere have made beautiful things to negotiate their place in time and in the world; and how we use works of art to think about how we relate to each other. Putting art into that context allows for a different conversation. In museums, many great objects can lose their original purpose, which was spiritual. An exhibition of this kind can give that purpose back to them, allowing a new and deeper approach to great and familiar works.” —Neil MacGregor

► Members Preview Lecture with Guest Curator Neil MacGregor

 

Living with the Gods: Art, Beliefs, and Peoples / October 27, 2024–January 20, 2025


“Living with the Gods: Art, Beliefs, and Peoples” is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and supported by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.

Lead foundation underwriting is provided by: 
Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Foundation

Additional generous support is provided by:
Franci Neely
The Sushila and Dr. Durga D. Agrawal Family
Jerold B. Katz Foundation
Joan and Stanford Alexander Family
Nancy Pollok Guinee
Joy and Benjamin Warren
Levant Foundation
Bettie Cartwright
Anne Lamkin Kinder
Mr. and Mrs. Rodney H. Margolis
Milton D. Rosenau, Jr. and Dr. Ellen R. Gritz

Ready to Visit?

Member and ALL ACCESS tickets include same-day admission to this Special Exhibition, all other Special Exhibitions, and the MFAH Permanent Collections.

Get Your Ticket

Location

Caroline Wiess Law Building
1001 Bissonnet Street
Houston, TX 77005
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