QUEEN ROSE: WORLD BUILDING
October 1 - 4, 2026, Untitled Art, Houston, Booth D2
Tulsa Artist Fellowship and Queen Rose Art House present Queen Rose: World Building, an expansive installation and performance by artist Kalup Linzy, Tulsa Artist Fellowship Alumni-in-Residence, at Untitled Art, Houston 2026.
Developed and curated in partnership by Tulsa Artist Fellowship and Queen Rose Art House, the project brings together painting, sculpture, film, digitally generated collage portraits, performance, music, fashion, and collaborative works rooted in Linzy’s ongoing narrative practice.
Drawing from Queen Rose Art House, the Tulsa-based project Linzy founded in 2021 with support from Tulsa Artist Fellowship, the presentation extends a space that functions simultaneously as a public artwork, community art space, artist residency, and the artist’s home. Together, the works foreground Linzy’s longstanding commitment to narrative storytelling, community-building, artistic mentorship, and the creation of expansive fictional worlds.
Tulsa Artist Fellowship and Queen Rose Art House joined 98 galleries from 20 countries for the second edition of Untitled Art, Houston, held October 2–4, following a VIP and Press Preview on October 1 at the George R. Brown Convention Center.
At the center of the presentation is Little Africa in Ruins (2021), an acrylic and photo collage on canvas created during Linzy’s tenure as a Tulsa Artist Fellow. The work reflects Linzy’s engagement with historical memory and the legacy of Greenwood’s Black Wall Street, incorporating archival imagery within a vivid painterly landscape that merges commemoration with speculative storytelling.
Surrounding the painting, digitally generated collage portraits extend Linzy’s exploration of character, identity, and theatrical personae. The works map the evolving “family tree” of fictional characters Linzy inhabits across his films and performances—a narrative universe encompassing more than forty primary and thirty extended personas. Many are created through Linzy’s alter ego, Katonya, further blurring the boundaries between artist, character, and narrator.
A large-scale monitor presents Conversations Wit De Churen XVII: As da Art World Might Turn 2 (2025), part of Linzy’s long-running video series blending soap opera aesthetics, performance, humor, music, and cultural critique. The narrative centers on Katonya as a mid-career artist navigating digital visibility and professional precarity, using melodrama and musical interludes to examine the psychological dimensions of artistic labor in the contemporary art world.
Three freestanding sculptural figures—Hole in the Wall: Tipsy Cups and Chicken Wings, I Appreciate You, and The Creator (2026)—activate the presentation as a stage-like environment. Rendered as silhouetted figures that recall cut-paper forms and theatrical props, the sculptures extend the stylized characters of Linzy’s films and paintings into physical space, inviting visitors to move through the installation as participants in his narrative world.
A salon-style grouping curated by Linzy, featuring works by Tulsa Artist Fellow Shane Brown (Cherokee) alongside Kieran Crutison, Ebony Iman Dallas, Charisa Jacobs, and Dianne Smith, reflects Queen Rose Art House’s commitment to mentorship and creating space for artists to connect, exchange ideas, and thrive.
Their inclusion underscores Linzy’s practice not only as an artist but as a mentor and cultural facilitator committed to cultivating platforms for other artistic voices. Together, the presentation operates as a condensed translation of Queen Rose Art House—a site of storytelling, artistic production, collaboration, mentorship, and intergenerational exchange.
LIVE PERFORMANCE
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2 | 6 PM
PODCAST LOUNGE | UNTITLED ART, HOUSTON
Untitled Art, Houston hosted Kalup Linzy’s In My Feelings About It All, a performative fashion show presented as part of Queen Rose: World Building.
The performance brought Linzy’s fictional persona Katonya onto the runway through drawings translated into all-over prints and painted garments. Accompanied by local models, Katonya extended Linzy’s interconnected worlds of character, fashion, music, performance, and visual art into a live experience at the fair.
Original music created for the performance was also released as a five-song EP on streaming platforms, with apparel from the presentation made available for purchase.
Read Untitled Art’s 2026 Press Announcement
PUBLIC TALK
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 | 6 PM
GLASSELL SCHOOL OF ART | FAVROT AUDITORIUM
As part of the Glassell Lecture Series, artists Brian Ellison and Kalup Linzy joined Lisa Volpe, Curator of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, for a public conversation exploring their artistic practices and perspectives, followed by an audience Q&A.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Kalup Linzy is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans video, performance, music, painting, collage, and sculpture. Best known for his long-running, soap opera-inspired video works, Linzy uses humor, melodrama, music, and an expansive cast of fictional characters to explore identity, relationships, cultural memory, and the contemporary art world. Linzy’s work has been exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem, MoMA PS1, Prospect.1 New Orleans, and Hessel Museum of Art, and is held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Studio Museum in Harlem, among others. A Tulsa Artist Fellowship alumnus and current Alumni-in-Residence, Linzy founded Queen Rose Art House in Tulsa in 2021, extending his artistic practice into a platform for community, collaboration, mentorship, and artistic production.
