It’s a season of debuts for artists — from Renaissance masters never before seen in New York to jazz pianists with breakout museum shows — and also for real estate. In addition to the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s 40,000-square-foot arts center at Governors Island and Pace Gallery’s new flagship tower in Chelsea, both slated to open in September, the Museum of Modern Art reopens after an extensive renovation and expansion on Oct. 21. You’ll find these highlights, and more than 100 others, below, including watercolors, pastels, immigrant stories, fairs and a full year of women-centered art shows in Baltimore.
Dates are subject to change.
Read more listings for classical music, dance, film, pop music, television and theater.
September
FRENCH FASHION, WOMEN, AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR An examination of the war-era expansion of women’s freedoms as reflected in clothing, both mass-market and haute couture garments by Chanel and Lanvin. Sept. 5-Jan. 5; Bard Graduate Center, bgc.bard.edu.
THEASTER GATES: ASSEMBLY HALL The multimedia Chicago fixture and activist Theaster Gates will be moving 15,000 books, 60,000 slides and more to transform four of the Walker Art Center’s galleries into an immersive total environment. Sept. 7-Jan. 12; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, walkerart.org.
UNTO THIS LAST: TWO HUNDRED YEARS OF JOHN RUSKIN The bicentenary of the social reformer, ecologist, and art critic John Ruskin, in paintings, drawings, manuscripts, and memorabilia. Sept. 5-Dec. 8; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Conn., britishart.yale.edu.
IN A CLOUD, IN A WALL, IN A CHAIR: SIX MODERNISTS IN MEXICO AT MIDCENTURY Entrancing work by six vital female artists, from Anni Albers to Sheila Hicks, who were influenced by a Mexican sensibility. Sept. 6-Jan. 12; Art Institute of Chicago, artic.edu.
GOLDEN PROSPECTS: CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH DAGUERREOTYPES A look back at the 1848 gold rush, the first mass phenomenon captured by photography. Sept. 6-Jan. 26; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo., nelson-atkins.org.
MUST’VE BEEN A WAKE-DREAM: GUADALUPE ROSALES An expansive archive of photographic imagery documenting Latinx youth culture in Southern California. Sept. 6-Oct. 18; Gordon Parks Foundation, Pleasantville, N.Y., gordonparksfoundation.org.
PORTRAIT OF MILWAUKEE Eight decades of the city in photographs. Sept. 6-March 1; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, mam.org.
ELIAS SIME: TIGHTROPE The Ethiopian artist Elias Sime builds intricate abstract tableaux with electrical wires, motherboards, and other reclaimed e-waste. Sept. 7-Dec. 8; Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College, Clinton, N.Y., hamilton.edu/wellin.
THE FACADE COMMISSION: WANGECHI MUTU, THE NEWONES, WILL FREE US The Kenyan-American artist Wangechi Mutu installs the first-ever commissioned sculptures in the museum’s facade. Sept. 9-Jan. 12; Metropolitan Museum of Art, metmuseum.org.
MODERNISMS: IRANIAN, TURKISH, AND INDIAN HIGHLIGHTS FROM NYU’S ABBY WEED GREY COLLECTION Paintings from the 1960s and ’70s sound the encounter of Western modernism with ancient cultures. Sept. 10-Dec. 7; Grey Art Gallery, New York University, greyartgallery.nyu.edu.
BRENDAN FERNANDES: CONTRACT AND RELEASE The choreographer and sculptor, who recently appeared in the Whitney Biennial, activates Isamu Noguchi’s sculpture with a special installation of scaffolding and dancers. Sept. 11-May 3; Noguchi Museum, noguchi.org.
THE HILTON ALS SERIES: LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE Sensitive portraits of imaginary people by the London-based painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, selected by The New Yorker critic and curator Hilton Als. Sept. 12-Dec. 15; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Conn., britishart.yale.edu.
LIU WEI A Beijing-based artist specializing in architectural geometries. Sept. 13-Jan. 5; Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, mocacleveland.org and Oct. 13-Feb. 16; Cleveland Museum of Art, clevelandart.org.
MAPA WIYA (YOUR MAP’S NOT NEEDED): AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL ART FROM THE FONDATION OPALE An unmissable show of paintings, shields and hollow log coffins from one of the world’s premier collections. Sept. 13-Feb. 2; The Menil Collection, Houston, menil.org.
WOMEN TAKE THE FLOOR An ambitious reinstallation of the collection centered on women artists and the female experience, from underrecognized names to Alice Neel’s famous portrait of the art historian Linda Nochlin. Sept. 13-May 3; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, mfa.org.
COLOR WOODCUTS IN THE ARTS AND CRAFTS ERA Hand-colored woodcuts were the gorgeous hipster throwback of a century ago, combining new Western interest in Japanese design with fears about mechanical reproduction. Sept. 14-March 22; Minneapolis Institute of Art, artsmia.org.
“SOMETHING OVER SOMETHING ELSE”: ROMARE BEARDEN’S PROFILE SERIES More than 30 ecstatic, musical collages by an American master of the form. Sept. 14-Feb. 2; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, high.org.
VIRGIL ORTIZ: ODYSSEY OF THE VENUTIAN SOLDIERS EXHIBITION Virgil Ortiz, the innovative Pueblo potter, uses a unique blend of science fiction and folk art to educate visitors about the so-called Pueblo Revolt of 1680, in which Spanish colonizers were driven out of what is now New Mexico by the area’s indigenous people. Sept. 13-June 14; Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, N.J., montclairartmuseum.org.
VERROCCHIO: SCULPTOR AND PAINTER OF RENAISSANCE FLORENCE Look for the painted terra-cotta bust of a gloomy Lorenzo de’ Medici in this encyclopedic exhibit of works by Andrea del Verrocchio, the mysterious goldsmith-turned-painter who taught Perugino and Leonardo da Vinci. Sept. 15-Jan. 12; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., nga.gov.
SEARCHING THE SKY FOR RAIN SculptureCenter in Long Island City pushes back against the easy ways that identity-based art can be pigeonholed with a 16-artist show that asks, “Who has the right to abstraction?” Sept. 16-Dec. 16; SculptureCenter, sculpture-center.org.
MEMORY PALACES: INSIDE THE COLLECTION OF AUDREY B. HECKLER A comprehensive whirlwind of self-taught art and art brut, with works by more than 70 artists. Sept. 17-Jan. 26; American Folk Art Museum, folkartmuseum.org.
BERTOLDO DI GIOVANNI: THE RENAISSANCE OF SCULPTURE IN MEDICI FLORENCE Nearly every surviving piece by a Florentine sculptor who studied with Donatello and taught Michelangelo — in what is somehow his very first monographic show. Sept. 18-Jan. 12; Frick Collection, frick.org.
CHICAGO INVITATIONAL The protean New Art Dealers Alliance takes its youth-oriented art fair to Chicago. Sept. 18-21; Chicago Athletic Association Hotel, newartdealers.org.
IN THE COMPANY OF HAROLD PRINCE: BROADWAY PRODUCER, DIRECTOR, COLLABORATOR A major career overview for the “giant of Broadway and reaper of Tonys,” who died earlier this year. Sept. 18-March 31; The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, nypl.org.
EXPO CHICAGO The grand old fair by the lake. Sep. 19-22; Navy Pier, Chicago, expochicago.com.
LMCC’S ARTS CENTER AT GOVERNORS ISLAND The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council begins its season with site-specific installations by the artists Yto Barrada and Michael Wang in its expanded, renovated and newly permanent home in an 1870s-era space on Governors Island. Sept. 19; lmcc.net.
N.Y. ART BOOK FAIR One of the largest fairs for artist books, monographs and zines. Sept. 20-22 (opening night is Sept. 19); MoMA PS1, printedmatterartbookfairs.org.
ROBERT COLESCOTT: ART AND RACE MATTERS A full-tilt, overdue retrospective for an artist who combined provocative racial imagery with effervescent paint handling and color. Sept. 20-Jan. 12; Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, contemporaryartscenter.org.
JASON MORAN The jazz pianist’s traveling museum debut, organized by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, arrives in New York for a star-studded finale. Sept. 20-Jan. 5; Whitney Museum, whitney.org.
TORONTO BIENNIAL OF ART This brand-new biennial is a 72-day art exhibition that will include free admission to venues throughout this vibrant Canadian city. Sept. 21-Dec. 1; torontobiennial.org.
WITH CHILD: OTTO DIX / CARMEN WINANT A pregnant nude by Otto Dix, on its first visit to the United States, pairs with a multimedia piece by the contemporary artist Carmen Winant for an unusually frank look at pregnancy. Sept. 21-Dec. 15; Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Mass., worcesterart.org.
SACRED DEDICATION: A KOREAN BUDDHIST MASTERPIECE A thousand-year-old gilded wood statue of the Korean bodhisattva of compassion makes a timely visit to our nation’s capital. Sept. 21-March 22; Freer Sackler Smithsonian, Washington, D.C., freersackler.si.edu.
PHOTOGRAPHY + FOLK ART: LOOKING FOR AMERICA IN THE 1930s Photographs and watercolors from the New Deal’s enormous documentary projects, along with vernacular art and design collected in the same period. Sept. 21-Jan. 19; Art Institute of Chicago, artic.edu.
HANS HOFMANN: THE NATURE OF ABSTRACTION The broadest career survey yet for the German-American painter, educator and pillar of abstraction (1880-1966). Sept. 21-Jan. 5; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., pem.org.
POPE.L: INSTIGATION, ASPIRATION, PERSPIRATION A major trio of exhibits for the fearless Newark-born artist Pope.L will include a reprise of 13 performances at the Museum of Modern Art; a new installation at the Whitney; and a hundred-person “crawl” from the West Village to Union Square, organized by the Public Art Fund. Sept. 21, downtown; Oct. 10-winter 2020, Whitney Museum; Oct. 21-January 2020, Museum of Modern Art, publicartfund.org, whitney.org, moma.org.
BETYE SAAR: CALL AND RESPONSE A hometown retrospective for the master of politically incandescent bricolage, with a focus on the pocket-size sketchbooks in which she develops her ideas. Sept. 22-Apr. 5; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, lacma.org.
VIJA CELMINS: TO FIX THE IMAGE IN MEMORY A career survey for the Latvian-born artist best known for capturing the monumentality of ocean waves in meditative monochromes; organized with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Sept. 24-Jan. 12; Metropolitan Museum of Art, metmuseum.org.
HENRY CHALFANT: ART VS. TRANSIT, 1977-1987 Photographs that capture the explosive birth of subway-car graffiti art — and, not incidentally, hip-hop — in 1970s and ’80s New York City. Sept. 25-March 8; Bronx Museum of Art, bronxmuseum.org.
TIMOTHY WASHINGTON: CITIZEN/SHIP A Los Angeles artist and fixture of the 1960s and ’70s Black Arts Movement presents his first installation project, an Afrofuturist take on the present moment. Sept. 25-March 1; California African-American Museum, Los Angeles, caamuseum.org.
ORDER AND ORNAMENT: ROY LICHTENSTEIN’S ENTABLATURES Patterns lifted from downtown office buildings become alluring abstractions in these works on paper by the Manhattanite master of Pop Art. Sept. 27-2020; Whitney Museum, whitney.org.
URBAN INDIAN: NATIVE NEW YORK NOW A mix of artworks and community programs examine what it means, and what it’s like, to be Native American in New York City. Sept. 27-Feb. 15; Museum of the City of New York, mcny.org.
RUBENS, REMBRANDT, AND DRAWING IN THE GOLDEN AGE Precise, pragmatic and bawdy sketches by the 17th-century Dutch masters. Sept. 28-Jan. 5, Art Institute of Chicago, artic.edu.
GENERATIONS: A HISTORY OF BLACK ABSTRACT ART This broad survey of “the power of abstract art as a political choice” for postwar black artists was originally organized with the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans under the Camus-inflected title “Solidary & Solitary.” Sept. 29-Jan. 19; Baltimore Museum of Art, artbma.org.
LARI PITTMAN: DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE A thorough painting and drawing retrospective for an uncompromising pillar of the Angeleno art scene. Sept. 29-Jan. 5; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, hammer.ucla.edu.
THE TOUCH OF COLOR: PASTELS AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART A historical tour of the versatile medium from the Renaissance to the present, including many objects that have never before been shown. Sept. 29-Jan. 26; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., nga.gov.
October
ASSYRIA: PALACE ART OF ANCIENT IRAQ Three-thousand-year-old relief sculptures, a high point of Mesopotamian art, are on loan from the British Museum. Oct. 2-Sept. 5, 2022; Getty Museum at Getty Villa, Pacific Palisades, Calif., getty.edu.
ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER The Neue Galerie’s major fall show considers the role of color in the German artist’s expressive oeuvre, from 1907 to 1937. Oct. 3-Jan. 13; Neue Galerie, neuegalerie.org.
TETSUYA ISHIDA: SELF-PORTRAIT OF OTHER Before his untimely death in 2005, Ishida used surreal imagery to plumb a very Japanese sort of taciturn dismay. This exhibit travels to one of Chicago’s newest exhibition spaces from Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofía. Oct. 3-Dec. 14; Wrightwood 659, Chicago, wrightwood659.org.
JEAN-JACQUES LEQUEU: VISIONARY ARCHITECT, DRAWINGS FROM THE BIBLIOTHÉQUE NATIONALE DE FRANCE Bizarre and fascinating fantasias in ink, made during France’s tumultuous transition from monarchy to republic to empire. Oct. 4-Jan. 5; The Menil Collection, Houston, menil.org.
JOHN SINGER SARGENT: PORTRAITS IN CHARCOAL No one could bring out charcoal’s sooty shine like Sargent, who focused on the medium for almost two decades at the end of his life; organized with the National Portrait Gallery. Oct. 4-Jan. 12; Morgan Library & Museum, themorgan.org.
MARIAN ZAZEELA An introduction to handsome, low-key works on paper by an artist best known for sound and light installations made with her collaborator (and husband), La Monte Young. Oct. 5-summer 2020; Dia:Beacon, Beacon, N.Y, diaart.org.
J. M. W. TURNER: WATERCOLORS FROM TATE Nearly a hundred watercolors by the celebrated 19th-century British painter, on loan from the Tate in London, make their only stateside landfall in Connecticut. Oct. 5-Feb. 23; Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Conn., mysticseaport.org.
GREAT FORCE Commissions and recent work by 21 artists, including Tomashi Jackson and Sable Elyse Smith, confront race in America across a variety of media. Oct. 5-Jan. 5; Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Va., icavcu.org.
BY THEIR CREATIVE FORCE: AMERICAN WOMEN MODERNISTS The Baltimore Museum of Art kicks off a year of women-focused exhibitions with Georgia O’Keeffe and Grace Hartigan, among others, to mark the centennial of women’s suffrage. Oct. 6-July 5; Baltimore Museum of Art, artbma.org.
EVA LEWITT Elegant architectural whimsies in a young artist’s solo museum debut. Oct. 6-Apr. 5; Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Conn., aldrichart.org.
NICOLAS MOUFARREGE: RECOGNIZE MY SIGN Unique embroidered paintings by a Lebanese artist who spent his last years, before an untimely death, in the East Village; organized by the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Oct. 6-Feb. 16; Queens Museum, queensmuseum.org.
THE LAST KNIGHT: THE ART, ARMOR, AND AMBITION OF MAXIMILIAN I A huge examination of the cultural impact of European armor on the quincentennial of an influential Hapsburg emperor’s death. Oct. 7-Jan. 5; Metropolitan Museum of Art, metmuseum.org.
AGNES DENES: ABSOLUTES AND INTERMEDIATES A major retrospective for the Hungarian-American conceptualist at New York’s imposing new exhibition space. Oct. 9-Jan. 19; The Shed, theshed.org.
THE PENCIL IS A KEY: DRAWINGS BY INCARCERATED ARTISTS The self-contained freedom of drawing has been a psychic escape for prisoners from the Parisian Communard Gustave Courbet to contemporary American inmates. Oct. 11-Jan. 5; Drawing Center, drawingcenter.org.
MADE IN TOKYO: ARCHITECTURE AND LIVING, 1964/2020 The Tokyo architecture firm Atelier Bow-Wow designed and curated this exhibition, which tracks the stunning transformations of the Japanese megalopolis between two Olympic Games. Oct. 11-Jan. 26; Japan Society, japansociety.org.
JAMES TISSOT: FASHION & FAITH Tissot’s lush views of 19th-century Paris and London society alight on the West Coast. Oct. 12-Feb. 9; Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco, legionofhonor.famsf.org.
AN ART OF CHANGES: JASPER JOHNS PRINTS, 1960-2018 This six-decade survey is organized by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis — but it’s coming to Pittsburgh first. Oct. 12-Jan. 19; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, cmoa.org.
WAKING DREAM Major works by Do Ho Suh and Christian Marclay, as well as San Antonio artists, inaugurate an elegant new private museum. Oct. 13-2022; Ruby City, San Antonio, rubycity.org.
ANCIENT NUBIA NOW A once-in-a-lifetime show of sculpture and jewelry from the ancient Sudanese kingdoms that rivaled Egypt — at the museum with the largest Nubian collection outside Khartoum. Oct. 13-Jan. 20; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, mfa.org.
ALONSO BERRUGUETE: FIRST SCULPTOR OF RENAISSANCE SPAIN More than 40 works from the 16th-century sculptor whose painted wooden “Sacrifice of Isaac” has the gory expressionism of a 1920s comic book. Oct. 13-Feb. 17; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., nga.gov.
BAPTIZED BY BEEFCAKE: THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAND-PAINTED MOVIE POSTERS FROM GHANA Over-the-top posters were a key part of Ghana’s vigorous black market in American VHS tapes in the 1980s and ’90s. Oct. 17-Jan. 5; Poster House, posterhouse.org.
FLESH AND BLOOD: ITALIAN MASTERPIECES FROM THE CAPODIMONTE MUSEUM Titian, Raphael and Gentileschi travel from Naples to the Pacific Northwest. Oct. 17-Jan. 26; Seattle Art Museum, seattleartmuseum.org.
EDITH HALPERT AND THE RISE OF AMERICAN ART Reconsidering the wide-ranging influence of the woman who opened Greenwich Village’s first commercial art gallery in 1926. Oct. 18-Feb. 9; Jewish Museum, thejewishmuseum.org.
MARINO MARINI: ARCADIAN NUDES An Italian sculptor wrestles with the classical tradition in this tightly-focused show of World War II-era female nudes. Oct. 17-June 13; Center for Italian Modern Art, italianmodernart.org.
SHIRIN NESHAT: I WILL GREET THE SUN AGAIN A career retrospective for the Iranian filmmaker and video artist, who lives and works in New York. Oct. 19-Feb. 16; The Broad, Los Angeles, thebroad.org.
ANILA QUAYYUM AGHA: BETWEEN LIGHT AND SHADOW This Pakistani-American artist fills three galleries with gorgeous shadows that mimic the intricately pierced screens of Islamic and Middle Eastern architecture. Oct. 19-Feb. 9; Toledo Museum of Art, toledomuseum.org.
SALLY MANN: A THOUSAND CROSSINGS This broad overview of the photographer’s career, which includes work being shown for the first time, is centered on her experience in the enduringly unique American South. Oct. 19-Feb. 2; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, high.org.
CLAUDE MONET: THE TRUTH OF NATURE The Denver Art Museum is the only American venue for this enormous show of the quintessential French Impressionist, organized with the Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Germany. Oct. 21-Feb. 2; Denver Art Museum, denverartmuseum.org.
MoMA REOPENING The major event of the season will be the reopening of the Museum of Modern Art after a comprehensive renovation, with a host of exciting exhibits: An installation by David Tudor and Composers Inside Electronics will inaugurate a new dedicated performance space; Haegue Yang will fill the atrium with kinesthetic sculptures; the narrative painter Michael Armitage will open the Studio Museum at MoMA institutional collaboration series; Betye Saar’s dreamy and profound 1969 assemblage Black Girl’s Window will serve as the anchor for a show of her early prints; and more. Oct. 21; moma.org.
WHEN HOME WON’T LET YOU STAY: MIGRATION THROUGH CONTEMPORARY ART Twenty artists respond to the global refugee crisis in a show named for a line by the British-Somali poet Warsan Shire. Oct. 23-Jan. 26; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, icaboston.org.
THE RENAISSANCE OF ETCHING The birth of a beautiful new artistic medium, with illustrations by Albrecht Dürer, Pieter Bruegel the Elder and others. Oct. 23-Jan. 20; Metropolitan Museum of Art, metmuseum.org.
HANS HAACKE: ALL CONNECTED This retrospective of the German-born, New York-based artist will include several rarely seen kinetic sculptures. Oct. 24-Jan. 26; New Museum, newmuseum.org.
RACHEL HARRISON LIFE HACK The first major career survey for the incomparably heady sculptor. Oct. 25-Jan. 12; Whitney Museum, whitney.org.
ILLUSIONS OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER: DUANE MICHALS AT THE MORGAN The octogenarian photographer takes the opportunity of his first full New York retrospective to raid the Morgan’s vaults, bringing out work by Saul Steinberg, William Blake and Edward Lear. Oct. 25-Feb. 2; Morgan Library & Museum, themorgan.org.
SARAH OPPENHEIMER: S-337473 The two enormous beams of this sculptor’s installation can pivot with a visitor’s touch. Opens Oct. 26; Mass MoCA, North Adams, Mass., massmoca.org.
WAITING FOR OMAR GATLATO: CONTEMPORARY ART FROM ALGERIA AND ITS DIASPORA An eye-opening group show named for the critic Wassyla Tamzali’s 1979 book about the 1977 film “Omar Gatlato,” which examined contradictions in Algerian society. Oct. 26-March 15; Wallach Art Gallery, wallach.columbia.edu.
DIRECT MESSAGE: ART, LANGUAGE, AND POWER Text and video art as linguistic analysis. Oct. 26-Jan. 26; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, mcachicago.org.
RICHARD MOSSE: INCOMING A monumental three-channel video, shot with military heat vision, documenting mass migrations in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Oct. 26-Feb. 17; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, sfmoma.org.
BEATRIZ GONZÁLEZ: A RETROSPECTIVE The Bogotá-born artist Beatriz González gets her first large-scale museum show in the United States, with over five decades of paintings, drawings and recycled furniture. Oct. 27-Jan. 20; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, mfah.org.
30 AMERICANS A romp through the Rubell Family Collection’s unparalleled trove of works by the most prominent names in recent and contemporary African-American art, from Jean-Michel Basquiat to Kerry James Marshall. Oct. 27-Jan. 12; Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, barnesfoundation.org.
DAVID HOCKNEY’S YOSEMITE AND MASTERS OF CALIFORNIA BASKETRY 20th-century Paiute and Miwok basketry can be tied to the iPad drawings by David Hockney, this refreshing exhibit argues, by the influence of California’s geography. Oct. 28-April 5; Heard Museum, Phoenix, heard.org.
PEASANTS IN PASTEL: JEAN-FRANÇOIS MILLET AND THE PASTEL REVIVAL In the mid-19th century, the French painter Jean-François Millet revived an out-of-fashion medium for a novel purpose: documenting the daily lives of the peasantry. Oct. 29-May 10; Getty Center, Los Angeles, getty.edu.
ALINA SZAPOCZNIKOW The Polish-born Szapocznikow, who trained as an artist in Paris and Prague, made body-part assemblages that were distinctly informed by her experience as a concentration camp survivor as well as by a radically honest feminism. They’re also magically funny. Oct. 29-Dec. 21; Hauser & Wirth New York, hauserwirth.com.
FÉLIX VALLOTTON: PAINTER OF DISQUIET The centerpiece of a compact show of work by the witty Swiss painter will be two portraits of Gertrude Stein — one Vallotton’s, the other Picasso’s. Oct. 29-Jan. 26; Metropolitan Museum of Art, metmuseum.org.
November
ARTIST IN EXILE: THE VISUAL DIARY OF BARONESS HYDE DE NEUVILLE A self-taught artist banished by Napoleon, the baroness left behind a cache of delightful ethnographic drawings of early Americans. Nov. 1-Jan. 26; New-York Historical Society, nyhistory.org.
TEFAF NEW YORK FALL The first of the season’s big art fairs, with a focus on fine and decorative arts from antiquity to 1920. Nov. 1-5; Park Avenue Armory, tefaf.com.
A WONDER TO BEHOLD: CRAFTSMANSHIP AND THE CREATION OF BABYLON’S ISHTAR GATE See the surviving fragments of the multicolored, beast-adorned, glazed-brick entrance gate to the imperial city of Babylon. Nov. 2-May 24; Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, isaw.nyu.edu.
THEATER OF OPERATIONS: THE GULF WARS 1991-2011 Western and Middle Eastern artists reflect on the Persian Gulf war of 1991, the Iraq War and the subsequent catastrophes. Nov. 3-March 1; Museum of Modern Art, moma.org.
JULIE MEHRETU Three dozen paintings and as many works on paper add up to an explosive midcareer survey for the Ethiopian artist Julie Mehretu: The show, organized with the Whitney, covers more than two decades of deep engagement with displacement, diaspora, abstraction and the figure. Nov. 3-May 17; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, lacma.org.
SHAHIDUL ALAM: TRUTH TO POWER The Bangladeshi photographer Shahidul Alam reframes what we often call the global south as the “majority world.” Nov. 8-May 4; Rubin Museum, rubinmuseum.org.
FINDING HOME: FOUR ARTISTS’ JOURNEYS Narrative work by illustrators Frances Jetter, James McMullan, Yuyi Morales and David Macaulay. Nov. 10-May 25, Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Mass., nrm.org.
MEL BOCHNER and BARRY LE VA New and newly reprised installations by two major conceptualists, opening concurrently. Beginning Nov. 9; Dia:Beacon, Beacon, N.Y., diaart.org.
MARCEL DUCHAMP: THE BARBARA AND AARON LEVINE COLLECTION First of a two-part exhibition celebrating a large recent gift of major works by the primal progenitor of the ready-made. Nov. 9-Oct. 12; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, si.edu.
DO HO SUH: 348 WEST 22ND STREET The artist’s first New York apartment, transfigured into translucent polyester, reappears in California. Nov. 10-Oct. 25; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, lacma.org.
INVENTING ACADIA: PAINTING AND PLACE IN LOUISIANA The distinctive romance of untamed forest and swampland. Nov. 15-Jan. 26; New Orleans Museum of Art, noma.org.
STRETCHING THE CANVAS: EIGHT DECADES OF NATIVE PAINTING More than three dozen postwar paintings by Native American artists. Nov. 16-fall 2021; National Museum of the American Indian in New York, americanindian.si.edu.
TRAVELS ON PAPER Prints, drawings, and early photographs of exotic vacations — the Instagram of the 19th century. Nov. 16-Feb. 9; The Clark, Williamstown, Mass., clarkart.edu.
THE EXPRESSIONIST FIGURE: 100 YEARS OF MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY DRAWING A simple premise with an almost infinite unfolding: works on paper that treat the human body, from Beckmann to Warhol. Nov. 17-Apr. 19; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, walkerart.org.
BALTHAZAR: A BLACK AFRICAN KING IN MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE ART Considering the history of race in European depictions of the Three Magi. Nov. 19-Feb. 16; Getty Center, Los Angeles, getty.edu.
GEORGE SEGAL Life-size realistic sculptures make a biblical story surprisingly immediate in Segal’s “Abraham’s Farewell to Ishmael,” his 1987 work on view for the first time since its restoration. Nov. 22-July 6; Pérez Art Museum Miami, pamm.org.
NOT VISIBLE TO THE NAKED EYE: INSIDE A SENUFO HELMET MASK CT scans reveal unexpected materials inside the horns of a ceremonial West African mask. Nov. 23-Jan. 3, 2021; Dallas Museum of Art, dma.org.
BAUHAUS CHICAGO: DESIGN IN THE CITY On the centenary of the innovative German design school, an exhibition focused on the moment when many of its leading lights, fleeing Nazism, landed in Chicago. Nov. 23-Apr. 26; Art Institute of Chicago, artic.edu
MAKING MARVELS: SCIENCE AND SPLENDOR AT THE COURTS OF EUROPE Luxury technology, from the 16th through 18th centuries. Nov. 25-March 1; Metropolitan Museum, metmuseum.org.
December
MICKALENE THOMAS: BETTER NIGHTS The New York-based collagist and painter Mickalene Thomas transforms galleries into an apartment, furnished with her own work and that of others, that evokes her artist mother’s place in New Jersey. Dec. 1-Sept. 27; The Bass, Miami, thebass.org.
KÄTHE KOLLWITZ: PRINTS, PROCESS, POLITICS An undersung heroine of politically charged art. Dec. 3-March 29; Getty Center, Los Angeles, getty.edu.
UNTITLED, MIAMI BEACH Omar López-Chahoud leads the team that curates this singular art fair. Dec. 4-8; Ocean Drive and 12th Street, Miami Beach, untitledartfairs.com.
ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH The art party of the year — with more than 200 exhibitors showing work by 4,000 artists. Dec. 5-8; Miami Beach Convention Center, Miami Beach, artbasel.com.
ARABESQUE Tracing the history of a whimsical decorative motif, from the German Romantics to Art Nouveau. Dec. 14-March 22; The Clark, Williamstown, Mass., clarkart.edu.
LEDELLE MOE: WHEN Monumental concrete heads and an 18-foot kneeling female figure from the South African-born artist. Beginning Dec. 14; Mass MoCA, North Adams, Mass., massmoca.org.
FIJI: ART AND LIFE IN THE PACIFIC More than 200 Fijian sculptures, kava bowls and portable temples, along with a newly commissioned 26-foot canoe. Dec. 15-July 19; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, lacma.org.
NADA MIAMI In its 17th year in Miami, the New Art Dealers Alliance’s annual fair continues to showcase young artists from around the world. Dec. 5-8; Ice Palace Studios, Miami, newartdealers.org.
THE GREAT HALL COMMISSION: KENT MONKMAN, MISTIKOSIWAK (WOODEN BOAT PEOPLE) Two monumental paintings from a Cree artist known for his gender-fluid alter ego Miss Chief Eagle Testickle. Dec. 19-April 12; metmuseum.org.
