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Exhibitions

Where art enthusiasts turn to discover what’s worth seeing, and what might just change the way they view the world. A beacon for art lovers seeking sharp, thoughtful critiques of the contemporary and classic, plus in-depth analyses exploring the themes, techniques and cultural significance of each exhibition. A mix of expert opinions and fresh perspectives, highlighting both blockbuster shows and hidden gems. Expect vivid descriptions, insightful commentary, and a keen eye for what makes each exhibition unique. Read more about Arts.

A cluttered workspace with a table and many shelves crammed with objects of all kinds

Wes Anderson Recreates Joseph Cornell’s Utopia Parkway Studio in Paris

A Gagosian installation translates Cornell’s secluded, obsessive working habits into a street-level experience that echoes the logic and poetry of his shadowboxes.
By Jordan Riefe
A gallery with multiple large-scale projections showing animated scenes from Lawrence Lek’s NOX series. In the center sits a modular concrete-like pavilion of tiled benches and vertical supports, lit from below with warm LEDs that accent the structure.

At the Bass in Miami, Lawrence Lek’s Odyssey for an Era Shaped by A.I.

The artist’s sentient autonomous cars are endowed with intelligence but stripped of agency, drifting through a ruined society in the throes of burnout, anxiety and existential dislocation.
By Elisa Carollo
An indoor gathering in An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump shows a scientist operating a glass air pump containing a bird while adults and children react with curiosity and distress under dramatic, focused light.

Joseph Wright of Derby’s Theater of Enlightenment at London’s National Gallery

The exhibition focuses on the period when the artist used concentrated sources of light to create atmosphere and build anticipation.
By Simon Coates
A gallery installation view shows multiple ceramic works arranged on the walls and two large ceramic sculptures on white pedestals, all illuminated by overhead spotlights on wooden floors. If you'd prefer these written in your Observer alt-text style (more concise, more atmosphe

Samuel Sarmiento’s Ceramics Channel Universal Memory in His U.S. Debut

By Elisa Carollo
An expansive pointillist landscape by Paul Signac shows Mont Saint-Michel rising above a pale pink and blue shoreline under a softly clouded sky.

From Rejection to Revolution: Santa Barbara Museum of Art Charts the Rise of the Impressionists

By Jordan Riefe

“Dirty Looks” at the Barbican Art Gallery Is Intentionally Messy

By Sarah Moroz
Another angle of the exhibition, highlighting the whimsical ceramic sculptures arranged on pedestals and a wooden table. The figures, with oversized heads and soft features, are displayed alongside vibrant paintings on the wall, creating a dialogue between sculpture and painting in a spacious, minimal gallery setting.

Otani Workshop’s Invitation to Revisit the Unfiltered Imagination of Early Life

By Elisa Carollo
Wide gallery view of Jorge Pardo’s show at Petzel Gallery with layered hanging lamps and vibrant abstract canvases creating a luminous environment.

How Jorge Pardo Turns Light, Color and Form into a Phenomenology of Seeing

By Elisa Carollo
A framed painting shows hooded figures gathered around a bed-like structure with animal-human characters and symbolic objects, reflecting Carrington’s surreal staged rituals.

Curtains and Cauldrons: The Delicate Politics of Exhibiting Leonora Carrington

By Guia Cortassa
A gallery view shows several framed abstract drawings on a wall behind an arrangement of oversized brown folding chairs and tables, illustrating Robert Therrien’s use of everyday domestic forms at exaggerated scale.

Robert Therrien’s Ordinary Uncanny at the Broad in L.A.

By Jordan Riefe
A textured abstract painting composed of dense, interlocking blocks and brushstrokes of color, dominated by greens, yellows, and earthy tones, with touches of turquoise, lavender, and red. The thickly applied paint creates a mosaic-like surface with visible ridges and cracks. Vertical and horizontal forms intersect throughout the composition, giving the impression of an abstracted cityscape or layered foliage. The work is displayed in a simple white frame against a light-colored wall.

The Early Experiments of Manoucher Yektai

By Mya Ward
An impressionist painting featuring a tall white stucco house on the right and a dirt lane on the left flanked by short flowering plants and a tall hedge

One Fine Show: “Camille Pissarro’s Impressionism” at the Denver Art Museum

By Dan Duray

“Nigerian Modernism” Reframes the Story of Modern African Art

By Sarah Moroz
A group of Guerrilla Girls members wearing gorilla masks pose playfully together outdoors in front of a chain-link fence.

At the Getty Research Institute, the Guerrilla Girls Mark 40 Years of Calling Out the Art World

By Jordan Riefe
A young woman lies asleep in a high, dark wooden bed with her head turned to the side and wrapped in white linens under a blue patterned blanket, captured in a peaceful domestic interior.

Musée Marmottan Monet’s “The Empire of Sleep” Considers Slumber as an Artistic Trope

By Sarah Moroz
A man wearing a white conical hat stands with his forehead pressed against a blank wall while a video camera on a tripod records him from across an empty room, creating a scene of deliberate absurdity characteristic of Erwin Olaf’s April Fool images.

Hans van Manen Remembers Photographer Erwin Olaf

By Nicolas Vamvouklis

In Ho Chi Minh City, Art Feels Urgent Again

By Xintian Wang
A striking black Calder sculpture stands prominently in front of a sleek, modern building at Calder Gardens, with the Philadelphia skyline in the background. The building's reflective golden exterior contrasts with the organic design of the sculpture, creating a dynamic blend of art, nature, and architecture. The clear sky adds to the dramatic setting.

A Thanksgiving Weekend Art Escape: 3 Must-See Exhibitions in Philadelphia

By Elisa Carollo
An image of Anselm Kiefer’s large mixed-media painting Missouri, Mississippi (2024), showing a map-like upper panel with a reclining female figure embedded in river forms and a lower panel depicting a dark dam structure rising above turbulent green water.

One Fine Show: “Anselm Kiefer, Becoming the Sea” at the Saint Louis Art Museum

By Dan Duray
A painting by Wayne Thiebaud from 1961 titled Pie Rows shows more than twenty slices of pie—some topped with whipped cream, some fruit-filled—arranged in neat rows on individual white plates across a blue and white tabletop.

At the Courtauld, Wayne Thiebaud’s Poignant—if Long-Vanished—America

By Sarah Moroz
A wide view of the gallery reveals an expansive canopy of intertwined branches suspended from the ceiling with several heavy sculptural forms hanging low over the concrete floor.

Adrián Villar Rojas On Time, Decay and the Fragile Afterlife of Art

By Elisa Carollo
Two paintings hang side by side on a white wall—a small grayscale work of a silhouetted figure on the left and a larger painting of two faceless figures embracing in red and gray tones, with geometric framing and bands of color.

Jo Fish Confronts the Tension Between Flesh and Data in a World of Visual Saturation

By Elisa Carollo
ChatGPT said:An artwork shows the silhouette of a woman standing beside a chain railing and looking out over a moonlit lake, with rippling water reflecting bright light and a house with two glowing windows visible across the shore.

One Fine Show: “Strange Realities, The Symbolist Imagination” at the Art Institute of Chicago

By Dan Duray
A wide multi-panel painting is composed of vertical columns of hand-painted horizontal stripes in earthy reds, browns, purples and whites.

Cultural Memory and the Concept of Country in “Emily Kam Kngwarray” at Tate Modern

By Simon Coates
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