This season, museums and galleries across the United States are presenting a variety of exhibitions that emphasize themes of interconnectedness, collaboration, and collective experience in the arts.
In New York City, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is hosting “Designing the Gilded Age: Drawings from the Studios of Louis C. Tiffany” through February 7. The exhibition offers an in-depth look at Tiffany’s creative process, featuring lamps, stained-glass windows, and their conceptual drawings, while shedding light on contributors who have traditionally gone unrecognized. Meanwhile, the Museum of Modern Art is presenting “Na Mira: No Smoking,” a newly commissioned installation blending Korean shamanism and structural filmmaking to explore the interaction of language, memory, and visual representation. This show runs through February 15 and marks the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in New York. Poster House is showcasing “Sculpting Sound: Günther Kieser’s Music Posters” from November 12 through April 11, highlighting Kieser’s transition from sculptor’s apprentice to iconic poster designer for musical acts such as the Grateful Dead and Fleetwood Mac.
Elsewhere in New York state, the David Zwirner Gallery features a solo presentation by Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara, known for his childlike figures expressing innocence and rebellion, running through December 12. In Beacon, Dia Beacon opened “Walter De Maria: 360˚ I Ching” on November 14, an installation engaging meditation on chance and predetermination inspired by the ancient Chinese divination text.
On the West Coast, the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles is displaying over 120 photographs by Richard Avedon through December 19, highlighting his influential on-location fashion photography of Hollywood figures such as Marilyn Monroe and Steven Spielberg. In Palo Alto, Hauser & Wirth’s “Calder/O’Keeffe” exhibit traces the artistic dialogue and long-standing friendship between Alexander Calder and Georgia O’Keeffe, featuring their works and archival materials, open until January 24. The Seattle Art Museum is showcasing “Karon Davis: Not My Circus” through July 3, an exhibition exploring themes of public performance and personal identity via sculptural tableaux representing real individuals.
Mid-Atlantic and Midwest institutions also contribute notable exhibitions. The Penn Museum in Philadelphia prepares to reopen the first phase of its Ancient Egypt and Nubia Galleries with “Life and Afterlife” on December 12, which will include a conserved tomb chapel of the Old Kingdom official Kaipure. In Washington, the National Museum of Asian Art displays “Woven and Cast: Chinese Textiles and Japanese Metalwork from the Shirley Z. Johnson Collection” through November 28, juxtaposing textiles from the Ming and Qing dynasties with contemporary Japanese metalwork to explore cross-cultural and temporal connections.
In Chicago, the Art Institute holds the first retrospective focused on Beatriz González’s prints and drawings from November 15 through March 1, honoring the artist’s engagement with politics, violence, and grief through iteration and appropriation. The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City is presenting “Barbara Takenaga: Awestruck,” a retrospective of abstraction running through April 10 that traces the evolution of Takenaga’s cosmic and fractal paintings. The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis offers “Abbas Akhavan: Variations on a Garden” through April 18, a midcareer survey examining the interplay between nature and culture via site-specific installations.
In the Mountain West region, the Art Museum of Eastern Idaho features “Shared Ground: Art and Animals,” an exhibition exploring human-animal connections anchored by the printmaker Jessie Wilber’s historical and contemporary works, on view through January 2. The National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming, presents “Cristina Mittermeier: A Greater Wisdom” through May 9, highlighting environmental awareness through evocative images of wildlife and nature.
In New England, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston celebrates its 90th anniversary with “90 Years” through March 7, revisiting seminal moments such as a 1941 Mexican painting exhibition and a 1966 multimedia collaboration involving Andy Warhol. The Portland Museum of Art in Maine is hosting Sascha Braunig’s midcareer retrospective “Wrist Painter” from November 13 to March 14, focusing on representations of the female body and gender.
Several events are underway across the South and Southwest as well. The High Museum of Art in Atlanta presents “Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan” through February 7, highlighting the influential mid-20th-century photographers and their legacy. In Louisville, Kentucky, the Speed Art Museum features Brandon Ndife’s “Drop Pin” through February 21, examining the intersection of mass-produced and organic forms. The Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, is hosting “Dalí: Disruption + Devotion” through April 18, an exhibition that traces the artist’s sources from historical painters to Surrealism.
In the Southwest, Oklahoma Contemporary opened “Raven Halfmoon: Flags of Our Mothers” on November 18, showcasing large-scale ceramic sculptures reflecting the artist’s Caddo heritage and feminist themes, on view until May 24. The McNay Art Museum in San Antonio presents “Suki Seokyeong Kang: Mountain—Hour—Face” through January 24, featuring nearly 40 works by the late South Korean artist that engage viewers with interactive, plant-based materials. Site Santa Fe in New Mexico exhibits Sara Genn’s “How to Build a Sky” through February 14, highlighting her minimalist, handmade paintings and a site-specific mural that interacts with the surrounding desert landscape.
These exhibitions collectively underscore a season rich with artistic dialogues that cross disciplines, histories, and geographies, encouraging audiences nationwide to reflect on shared human experiences through art.