New public art biennial to unfold along Dallas’ Katy Trail

The Katy Trail, a 3.5-mile urban greenway in Dallas, will host a new public art biennial in spring 2027.

The KTX Biennial will take place on the Katy Trail, with works on display for up to 18 months, the authorized length for temporary public works in Dallas. New York curator Jovanna Venegas will organize the first KTX Biennale.

The Katy Trail runs through three Dallas neighborhoods: Uptown, Knox and Highland Park and is free and open to the public from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. The Katy Trail was conceived as a public-private partnership in 1997 and was an early example of converting a former railroad line into green space. There are now about 2 million visitors.

“We thought Katy Trail, the city’s most popular trail, would be a significant location for a public art project,” Amanda Dillard Shufeldt, artistic director of Katy Trail, told us art news in an interview.

The upcoming biennial builds on existing public art projects launched by Friends of Katy Trails in 2021, in part as a pilot project for the biennial. Because the trail was launched nearly three decades ago, “adding a new concept like Katy Trail Art needs to be vetted — we need to show there will be financial support and widespread enthusiasm for the project,” said Amy Bean, executive director of Friends of Katy Trails, which manages the park.

She continued, “People wanted to make sure they felt like the pieces were integrated into the natural experience, and we noticed that people started to enjoy the surprise of the sculptures” as they walked along the trails.

This success got Bean and Dillard Shufeldt thinking about how to take public art projects to the next level. “The city’s temporary arts policy allows works to be displayed for 18 months, which naturally fits into a biennial cycle, which led to the decision to host the Biennale,” said Dillard Shufeldt. “We realized that to have a truly significant impact, we needed to formalize the program and hire a curator. We thought the unique voice of an experienced curator would provide a more cohesive and enhanced experience for trail users.”

This led to the formation of a committee to nominate and select curators, who ultimately selected Venegas. “There was a very clear consensus among the team that Giovanna demonstrated a fresh and clear vision that, combined with her background, network and experience, led us to believe she was the right choice,” said Dillard Shufeldt.

Venegas, now a curator at the New York Sculpture Center, tells us art news She is interested in participating in the KTX Biennial because her career has focused on working in walled institutions such as the Sculpture Center and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where she worked from 2017 to 2023. At both locations, however, she focused on commissioning new works from artists including Patricia Ayers and Elaine Cameron-Weir (Sculpture Center) and Fernando Palma Rodriguez and Liz Hernandez (SFMOMA).

Dillard Shufeldt added, “Her passion for this project was very evident in her proposal. We could tell that she was excited and energized by the opportunity to work in a non-traditional environment, and that she would approach the project in the thoughtful and innovative way we were looking for.”

Venegas is currently developing the artist roster and scope of commissions for the first KTX Biennale. She said that in addition to working with sculptors and artists who have done outdoor public art before, she is also considering including artists who work in painting who could display murals or performance art to activate different parts of the trail.

Although not yet officially named, the first edition will focus on “the imaginative and diverse ecological framework of the forest, examining the visible and invisible dimensions of shared space,” according to a press release. At the center of it is science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1971 short story “Wider and Slower than an Empire,” which tells the story of a crew member who sets out to observe a planet entirely covered in forest.

Venegas said she’s especially looking forward to how the public will interact with it at different times of the day, since the trail’s official opening hours are 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. She also said she was considering how to activate some boards specifically during the period between dusk and dawn.

Venegas added: “I am interested in the possibility of encounter between different worlds on Katy Trail: the world of tourists and the world created by artists.”