Blanton Museum of Art - Petals on the Plaza

A stop on UT Austin Campus Walk, a free self-guided tour.

The Blanton began in 1963 as the University Art Museum and has grown into one of the largest university art museums in the country, with about 22,000 objects ranging from European paintings to modern American and Latin American art.

Outside, you are standing in its newest work. In 2023 the museum unveiled a redesigned plaza with twelve tall, three-story petals that shade the Moody Patio, a garden and gathering space open to the public. They give a hot Texas plaza something to stand under and turn the museum grounds into a meeting place.

Inside, look for Cildo Meireles's Missao/Missoes (How to Build Cathedrals), a 1987 installation about the Jesuit missions in South America, built from coins, communion wafers and cattle bones. It is one of the museum's signature works. Check the website for hours, admission and free days. Then sit for a minute under the petals and watch the light filter through.

Getting here: Cross the plaza a few steps south from Austin to the museum buildings and the shade of the petals.

Did you know?: The Blanton's two main buildings opened only in 2006 and 2008, more than forty years after the museum itself was founded.

Photo op: Stand under the petals and shoot straight up for a pattern of curved shapes against the sky.

More on Wikipedia: Blanton Museum of Art · Cildo Meireles

Blanton Museum of Art - Petals on the Plaza

Stops on this tour