Houston – December 17, 2025 – In March, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will present Buddha / Nature, an exhibition that explores key teachings of Buddhism within a dialogue about nature, collective responsibility and individual agency. Pairing five sculptures from the Xuzhou Collection, a private collection of Buddhist masterpieces, with a selection of works by six international artists, Buddha / Nature will be on view at the MFAH March 1 – May 10, 2026.
“The Xuzhou Collection has been assembled with extraordinary connoisseurship and deep understanding of Buddhism,” comments Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams chair of the MFAH. “It is a singular collection in that it brings together sculptural representations of the Buddha from all the Asian cultures that have historically embraced Buddhism, and it is remarkable for the variety and beauty of the individual objects. We are deeply grateful to the creator of the Xuzhou Collection, who wishes to remain anonymous, for placing these works of art on long-term loan with us in Houston. For five years they have graced our galleries of Asian art, while some were featured in the exhibition Living with the Gods last fall. Buddha | Nature will for the first time provide a contemporary context for a selection of images of the Buddha drawn from the Xuzhou Collection.”
Hao Sheng, consulting curator to the MFAH and organizing curator of this exhibition, explains, “Buddha/Nature sets the stage for a dynamic encounter: channeling ancient wisdom to address the momentous shift of climate change. The museum is fundamentally a space of deep contemplation. We invite our visitors to exit the daily current, find clarity and feel the powerful, active echo of these teachings resonating with the demands of our modern world.”
Buddha / Nature has been organized across five galleries, each with a unique focus.
Gallery 1: Samsara
This first gallery introduces the connection between nature and Buddha’s teachings. American artist Beverly Penn casts bronze from weeds that she collects from the roadsides and fields of Texas Hill Country. For this exhibition, she is creating Samsara (2025), a commission from the MFAH of a circular wall piece created from invasive plants. The piece hints at the Buddhist idea of Samsara, the endless cycle of life and death and rebirth, and its driving forces of greed, ignorance and fear. Paired with a 12th-century Tibetan gilt-copper Wisdom Buddha, Samsara represents the web of life in both Buddhist cosmology and ecological systems, announcing the exhibition’s core premise: that ancient Buddhist wisdom offers frameworks for understanding and addressing contemporary environmental challenges.
Gallery 2: Impermanence
Here, Hiroshi Sugimoto’s panoramic view of Japan’s iconic, sacred Mount Fuji unfolds across a 25-foot expanse of traditional folding screens. The artist has captured the moment at dawn as the sun’s first rays cast warm red and orange hues behind the mountain’s looming silhouette. Yet the volcano could explode at any time, turning a symbol of permanence into a reminder of inevitable change. The monumental work is presented along with a 5th-century, stucco meditating Buddha from ancient Gandara, the region of today’s Afghanistan, to allow for a consideration of impermanence, another teaching from the Buddha.
Gallery 3: Karma
This gallery invites a meditation on historical reckoning, invoking Karma: how past actions have consequences in the present, and how we may still shape our future. A large terracotta plaque of Buddha from 6th-century India depicts an iconic moment in the life of the Buddha: Buddha reaches his right hand to the earth, asking the earth goddess to bear witness to his rightful claim of enlightenment, for he had lived countless lives with kindness, compassion and generosity. On either side of the Buddhist image are two contemporary artworks. Erick Swenson’s Ne Plus Ultra (2010) depicts a decomposing stag, its exposed bones etched with scrimshaw-style maritime map from the time of exploration. Cannupa Hanska Luger’s (NO) stalgia (2020) is another deer, this one composed of crochet pieces sourced from Goodwill stores; someone’s treasure, eventually abandoned. The pairing presents two contrasting visions of humanity's relationship with nature. Swenson's stag, etched with colonial-era maps of exploration, embodies attitudes that saw the earth as infinite resource to be dominated and exploited. Luger's work honors Indigenous principles of coexistence and renewal—using what exists, wasting nothing. One path led to extraction and crisis; another has always offered relationship and sustainability. This gallery asks us to acknowledge how our historical choices have shaped our present, recognizing that we still have agency in what comes next.
Gallery 4: Expanding Compassion
This gallery explores the Buddhist concept of an everexpanding circle of compassion. A 6th-century Chinese stone carving depicting a triad of Buddha with two Bodhisattvas will be flanked by two paintings by the Chinese artist Liu Xiaodong, whose practice centers on portraying the people he encounters in the turmoil of conflict zones. The triad bears a lengthy inscription from the monk who commissioned it, He dedicates merits from creating this sacred image for the awakening of his parents, his relations of seven generation and finally to all sentient beings. Liu’s paintings render ordinary people on the scale of history paintings traditionally reserved for the wealthy and powerful. A Mexican Family, the Martinez (2019) depicts a migrant family he met in Mexico at the American border. Newcomers in the Village – Response to Manet (2021)—adapts the Impressionist’s famous Déjeuner sur l’herbe to assemble figures of friends and strangers – locals and outsiders alike that he has sketched in the familiar setting of his home province. All of those, both near and far, are worthy of his attention; painting becomes an act of bearing witness across cultural and social boundaries. This pairing invites visitors to extend their compassion beyond immediate circles—to diverse communities, all living beings and entire ecological systems. Just as Liu has done through his art and the monk through his gift, this expansion of compassion is needed for the care of interconnected lives and ecosystems throughout the globe.
Gallery 5: Mending
The exhibition culminates in a consideration of the power inherent toindividual action. Chinese-born, Austin-based artist Liu Beili created her video installation Arctic Circle Mending / Snow Mandala (2020) in the Arctic Circle over the course of five years. On a wall-size screen, the artist is a solitary figure in her dark parka, with snow falling and against the retreating glacier while she sits and concentrates on sewing stitches of red thread, finding peace and contentment, as she has said, in a cold and unfamiliar territory. Her video installation, together with the sewn Snow Mandala, are paired with an 8th-century Chinese lacquer Buddha head, once carried through medieval streets where crowds gathered to behold its divine gaze. While impermanence teaches us to accept loss and change, Buddhism ultimately calls us to act—on a personal, daily level.
Liu’s patient stitching in the face of melting Arctic ice embodies this principle: small, consistent actions accumulate into transformation. The Buddha head, once whole and now a fragment, reminds us that even what is broken retains power.
For further information, please wait for more news on the MFA Houston website.
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