Beverly Buchanan's Archives Meet Dionne Lee's Video Works in Houston Exhibition 'Divination'
A free public opening tonight at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) launches "Divination: Beverly Buchanan & Dionne Lee," an exhibition that pairs archival materials from a late US artist with video works by a contemporary one, exploring mythmaking and the realities of enslavement in the American landscape The Art Newspaper.
The opening runs from 7 to 9 PM on Thursday, September 3, 2026, and is free with an RSVP. The exhibition itself opens the following day, September 4, and runs through February 14, 2027 All About Photo. CAMH members get an earlier look through a private "First Access" preview Eventbrite.
Beverly Buchanan (1940–2015) is best known for her "shack" sculptures — small, rough-hewn structures evoking the dwellings of the rural American South. But "Divination" deliberately sets those aside. Instead, it draws on her archives: photographs, journals, writing, ephemera and self-published works, alongside her practice of placing small cast-concrete pieces directly into the landscape The Art Newspaper. These are paired with a selection of videos by Dionne Lee All About Photo.
Buchanan's "Marsh Ruins" (1981) gives a sense of the terrain the exhibition explores. She made the work from concrete and tabby — a traditional building material of lime, sand, water and crushed oyster shells — set into a tidal salt marsh in Brunswick, Georgia. It sits where land and water meet, and where histories of labour and enslavement are literally embedded in the ground.
Dionne Lee, the other artist in the pair, works across video and photography. The exhibition brings her moving-image work into dialogue with Buchanan's papers and photographs, creating a conversation across generations about how the American landscape holds memory — and who gets to tell that story.
"Divination" is curated by Rebecca Matalon, senior curator at CAMH The Art Newspaper. It is the second exhibition in a CAMH series that pairs two artists from different generations, following "Wild Life: Elizabeth Murray & Jessi Reaves" in 2021 The Art Newspaper.
What makes this stand out is the curatorial choice to exclude Buchanan's most recognisable works — the shack sculptures — and instead open up her archives. Visitors will see photographs, handwritten journals and self-published books that have rarely been shown publicly. The pairing with Lee's videos positions these documents not as historical artefacts behind glass, but as living material in an active conversation about land, memory and myth.
For those in Houston or planning a visit, the exhibition runs for over five months at CAMH, which does not charge general admission. An RSVP is required for tonight's public opening only.
