Ernesto Neto’s “SunForceOceanLife” Opens at the MFAH in March 2026
The Brazilian artist’s immersive installation will once again transform the Museum’s Cullinan Hall into a suspended walkway
HOUSTON—January 26, 2026—This spring and summer, Ernesto Neto: SunForceOceanLife, a major 2019 commission from the museum and one of the largest crochet works to date by the renowned Brazilian artist, will return to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Over the course of several weeks, a team of a dozen people will once again construct a labyrinth of interior pathways for visitors to explore, all while suspended 12 feet in the air. Ernesto Neto: SunForceOceanLife will be on view from March 8 to September 7, 2026, in Cullinan Hall of the Caroline Wiess Law Building.
Notes Gary Tinterow, Director, the Margaret Alkek Williams Chair, MFAH, “This singular commission reflects our commitment to Latin American artists and to engaging our visitors in unique art experiences. SunForceOceanLife has joined landmark installations by other Neto predecessors, most notably Gyula Kosice and Jesús Rafael Soto, whose visionary work we are able to present on an ongoing basis.”
SunForceOceanLife is a spiraling, structural marvel that highlights the cyclical relationship between the sun and the sea to produce life on earth. This massive installation will fill Cullinan Hall with yellow, orange, and green materials that are hand-woven into a myriad of patterns and sewn together in a spiral formation. The structure will be suspended from the ceiling and will spiral outward from the center of Cullinan Hall. As visitors enter, they will follow a path through the interior passages to its center. Each crocheted section will be filled with soft, plastic balls underfoot that move with each step, compelling visitors to focus on their inner balance and the stability of their own bodies.
“Ernesto Neto created this site-specific piece as a tribute to the life-giving forces of the sun and the ocean. Inspired by crochet, which he learned from his grandmother, the piece transforms this traditional Brazilian craft into a massive, enveloping structure that engages the body and the mind,” says Mari Carmen Ramírez, Wortham Curator of Latin American Art and Founding Director of the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), MFAH.
About the Artist
Ernesto Neto (born 1964) has produced an influential body of work that explores constructions of social space and the natural world by inviting physical interaction and sensory experience since the mid-1990s. Drawing from Biomorphism, Arte Povera, and Minimalist sculpture, along with Neo-Concretism and other Brazilian vanguard movements of the 1960s and 1970s, the artist both references and incorporates organic shapes and materials—spices, sand, and shells among them—that engage all five senses, producing a new type of sensory perception that renegotiates boundaries between artwork and viewer, the organic and manmade, the natural, spiritual, and social worlds. Born in Rio de Janeiro, the artist continues to live and work in Brazil.
Organization & Funding
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Major support is provided by:
Jerold B. Katz Foundation
Generous support is provided by:
Carla Knobloch
About the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Spanning 14 acres in the heart of Houston’s Museum District, the main campus comprises the Audrey Jones Beck Building, the Caroline Wiess Law Building, the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden, and the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building. Nearby, two house museums—Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, and Rienzi—present collections of American and European decorative arts. The MFAH is also home to the Glassell School of Art, with its Core Residency Program and Junior and Studio schools; and the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), a leading research institute for 20th-century Latin American and Latino art. www.mfah.org
Media Contact
Melanie Fahey, Senior Publicist
[email protected] | 713-398-1136