In some ways, it was the type of event that happens everywhere in the international art world: a convivial gathering of well-heeled guests, free-flowing drinks, and representatives from major galleries including Lisson, Edel Assanti, and Thaddaeus Ropac. In others, it was unmistakably Texan: hefty picanha steaks sizzled over an open fire, while a honky-tonk band provided the soundtrack.
Such was the opening of Ostillo, a new art foundation in Austin that opened in September, where, the following evening, at a lavish dinner, artist and musician Lonnie Holley performed live. Between the caliber of the attendees, the scale of the hospitality, and the art itself, the occasion marked an ambitious new arrival on the Austin art scene.
It’s a telling moment for a city that has been transforming for years, and for a state entering a new political chapter after November’s midterms delivered Texas Democrats their first statewide victories since 1994.
Austin, long celebrated for its independent music scene and laid-back character, has become a magnet for technology companies, wealth, and new residents. Soho House opened on South Congress Avenue in 2021, while the city’s cultural institutions have grown in size and status. The Blanton Museum of Art unveiled its redesigned grounds in 2023, and the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center reopened following a major expansion this June. Against this backdrop, Ostillo represents another dimension of Austin’s transformation: a foundation dedicated to showing challenging contemporary art, free of charge. It grew out of the collection of local real estate developer René Campos, who, with the help of Paris-based art advisor and founding director Sacha Zerbib, has spent the last decade assembling more than 90 works.
Zerbib and Campos first met in Paris in 2016 through a shared interest in architecture. Although Campos had long been fascinated by history and art, he had yet to begin collecting seriously.
“Every time he steps into a new place, the first thing he goes to is a museum,” Zerbib said. “That is the kind of mindset he has: always ready to learn.”
Their first acquisition together was something of a test of Campos’s appetite for experimentation: a monumental, 2.5-meter-wide stripe painting by German artist Günther Förg. Hardly an obvious starting point, it established a relationship built on trust and a willingness to venture into unfamiliar territory.
“Very early on I understood that he was not going to go for the eye-candy kind of works, the easily accessible, entertaining art,” Zerbib said. “It was more about a certain darkness, a certain seriousness that the art was going to convey.”
That sensibility is evident in Ostillo’s inaugural exhibition, “Masquerade,” on view through spring 2027, which brings together works by artists including Glenn Ligon, Sylvia Snowden, Sanya Kantarovsky, Mohammed Sami, Salman Toor, and Christopher Wool.
The exhibition takes its name from Ligon’s Masquerade (2006), a work incorporating text from James Baldwin’s essay “Stranger in the Village.” Exploring identity, displacement, and the ways people conceal or reveal themselves, the show reflects a collection concerned with confronting uncomfortable questions about the human experience.
For Zerbib, the guiding principle is “radicality,” which he defines as “uncompromising works” that don’t shy away from difficult ideas, many of which are referenced in the foundation’s very location.
Ostillo occupies a transformed industrial building in Rosewood, a historically Black neighborhood of East Austin. The city’s 1928 master plan helped institutionalize racial segregation by concentrating services for Black residents in East Austin. More recently, rapid development and rising property values have reshaped the neighborhood, with modern buildings an increasingly common sight amid the historical surroundings. A brand-new contemporary art foundation here adds another layer to this story of change.
Zerbib himself draws a connection between the exhibition’s themes of migration and displacement and Texas’s own complicated history, including slavery and forced migration. The parallels were not intentional, he says, but have become increasingly apparent as the collection has taken shape.
Ostillo is also seeking to connect with the neighborhood beyond its exhibition walls. Free to visit, it includes a public library and an outdoor performance space that will serve as the permanent home of the East Side Kings Festival, celebrating the area’s musical heritage. Zerbib has been working with other Austin institutions such as the Blanton Museum of Art and The Contemporary Austin to help Ostillo find its place in the city’s cultural landscape. “As soon as they understood the artists that I was intending to show, they immediately took it seriously,” he recalled.
According to Zerbib, Campos decided he wanted to present his collection publicly as early as 2018. “We realized that what we had already acquired was too impactful not to be shared with the public,” he said.
There is something characteristically Texan about the impulse. Zerbib sees the foundation as an extension of Campos’s generosity: the same instinct that sees him welcome guests to his ranch and enthusiastically show them around the property for opening weekend. “Texas has something about generosity, hospitality, community, and they love sharing everything,” Zerbib said. Some things, it seems, don’t change, no matter what the political climate.
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