Gerardo Rosales Presents “Looking for a Hero”
Inspired by the documentary El Cerrito about Gio Ponti’s iconic 1950s Villa Planchart in Caracas, Gerardo Rosales imagined the prosperous Planchart family commissioning him for the design of the uniforms worn by the domestic workers to align with the Italian architect’s geometric abstract style. Using the uniforms as canvases, Rosales examines modernism’s legacy in Venezuela, revealing issues of class, race, and power dynamics rooted in colonial traditions yet still present today. Once designed to camouflage workers through muted colors, rigid geometry, and minimal ornamentation, the uniforms are reimagined as vivid, painted surfaces that assert presence and visibility, inviting the viewer to reconsider what is often overlooked.
Rosales debuted the hand-painted uniforms as part of his 2019 exhibition Looking for a Hero: Whips, Whims and Wigs, or Gio Ponti is Just an Excuse at Transart. For Untitled Art Houston 2025, he presents them as a live intervention in which participants wearing the uniforms circulate through the art fair, prompting a reflection on the social and cultural hierarchies embedded in such events, but also on the devastating human impact of migration policy changes in the United States, considerations that can’t be overlooked in Houston, where immigrants drive the city’s growth and make the region a dynamic cultural hub and energize the local art scene.
Untitled Art Houston 2025
Untitled Art Houston 2025 is a boutique invitational fair that will debut from September 19 to 21, 2025, at the George R. Brown Convention Center. A VIP and Press Preview will be held on September 18. The fair’s expansion into Texas aims to engage new audiences across the city, state, and region, adding another cultural touchstone to one of the country’s largest, most diverse, and fastest-growing cities.
Rosales’s performance will take place from 6–7 p.m. on Friday, September 19, and from 1–2 p.m. on Saturday, September 20.
Admission starts at $35 for single-day passes and $68 for multi-day passes. Check the links below for more information, including the full program of events, discounted tickets, VIP passes, and more.
About the Artist
Gerardo Rosales (b. 1967) is a Venezuelan-born American artist who lives and works in Houston. Initially a self-taught artist, he later graduated from the Armando Reverón University of the Arts in Caracas and the Chelsea School of Art in London. His practice is rooted in a critical assessment of the legacies of modernism and geometric abstraction through a figurative approach to painting. In his works, desire, imagination, nature, and the ornamental coalesce to give rise to fantastical worlds populated by human and non-human life forms. Rosales has participated in solo and group exhibitions such as Fable Chaser at Nara Roesler’s Rio de Janeiro gallery (2025), curated by Luis Pérez-Oramas; Rio Chiquito at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (2024); Ornamento y Delito at Carmen Araujo Arte Gallery (2022) in Caracas; Undercover at the Galveston Art Center (2019); and Carriers: The Body as a Site of Danger and Desire at the Blaffer Art Museum, Houston (2021). His work is included in public and private collections such as the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection in New York, the Bank of Venezuela in Caracas, and the Ateneo de Valência in Venezuela.
About Untitled Art
Founded in 2012, Untitled Art is a leading contemporary-art fair taking place annually on the sands of Miami Beach, and in 2025, has expanded to Houston. Guided by a mission to support the wider art ecosystem, Untitled Art offers an inclusive platform for discovering contemporary art that prioritizes collaboration within each aspect of the fair.
