A new art foundation has opened its doors in Austin, Texas, turning a private collection into a free public resource. Ostillo, which opened in September, occupies a converted industrial building in Rosewood, a historically Black neighbourhood in East Austin. Its inaugural exhibition, titled Masquerade, runs through spring 2027 and draws on a collection of more than 90 works assembled over the past decade.

The foundation grew out of the collection of René Campos, a local real estate developer, who built it with Paris-based art adviser Sacha Zerbib, now Ostillo's founding director. The opening was marked by a lavish dinner at which artist and musician Lonnie Holley performed live. The exhibition takes its name from Glenn Ligon's Masquerade, a 2006 work incorporating text from James Baldwin's essay Stranger in the Village, and brings together artists including Ligon, Sylvia Snowden, Sanya Kantarovsky, Mohammed Sami, Salman Toor and Christopher Wool.

Ostillo arrives at a moment of change for both the city and the state. Austin has been transforming for years, and Texas politics shifted after November's midterm elections delivered the state's Democrats their first statewide victories since 1994. The foundation presents itself as another dimension of that reinvention: a space dedicated to showing challenging contemporary art, free of charge, in one of the city's most historically significant neighbourhoods.

Admission is free, and the foundation is positioning itself as a permanent addition to Austin's cultural landscape rather than a private showcase. Its programme will continue to draw on the Campos collection while commissioning and presenting new work in the converted Rosewood building.