“Mrs. Christopher’s House” by Mark Dion
Where: Troy Hill Art Houses, Pittsburgh
When: Ongoing
What It Is: A three-story home in a nondescript working-class Pittsburgh neighborhood that the American artist Mark Dion spent two years transforming into an otherworldly, minutely detailed series of installations.
Why It's Worth a Look: The fourth house in the area to be handed over to an artist by local resident and art collector Evan Mirapaul, “Mrs. Christopher’s House” (named after its previous inhabitant, who died in 2018) is as transporting as the most engrossing book or film. Downstairs, visitors encounter a flawlessly reimagined living room on Christmas Eve in 1961; outside, they encounter a glass cage filled with tiny frosted desserts covered with dead bugs. You’ll be suitably distracted while exploring the space and, better yet, leave feeling haunted by the specter of climate change and the fragility of our ecosystem. It’s the rare work of art that tastes good and is good for you.
“Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300-1350”
Where: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
When: Through January 26, 2025
What It Is: A landmark exhibition chock full of once-in-a-lifetime loans that makes the argument that Siena was just as important to the development of the Renaissance as Florence.
Why It's Worth a Look: Once every few years, there’s a show that pretty much every critic can’t help but describe as a triumph. This is that show. The New Yorker’s Jackson Arn writes that “even the most familiar parts of these images still land with a slap.” Artnet’s Ben Davis says the work of Duccio and the gang offers “evidence of a time when images were felt as much as seen.” If you need a break from our current moment, go ahead and give yourself a dose of gilded panels and altarpieces that have transfixed generations of art lovers.
“Away With the Tides” by Calida Rawles
Where: Pérez Art Museum, Miami
When: Through February 5, 2025
What It Is: The first solo museum exhibition of the American painter Calida Rawles, who is best known for her poetic, photorealist paintings of Black figures in water.
Why It's Worth a Look: Rawles’s work is seductive—it draws you in with its light-dappled surfaces and diaphanous clothing enveloping her floating subjects. But her work is also imbued with the complex cultural and historical significance of water for the Black community. For this exhibition, the artist painted residents of Overtown, a historically Black Miami neighborhood, swimming at the once racially segregated Virginia Key Beach. Rawles also photographed some of her subjects immersed in the ocean for the first time.
“Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak”
Where: Denver Art Museum
When: Through February 17, 2025
What It Is: A comprehensive retrospective of the oeuvre and influences of the legendary children’s book author Maurice Sendak.
Why It's Worth a Look: I will resist the urge to draw a parallel between the anxious young protagonist of Where the Wild Things Are and the anxious American electorate in the swing state of Colorado. Suffice to say, this show explores Sendak as a creative force, bringing together his oil paintings, improvisational sketches, and set designs. One gallery contains a 14-foot-tall goose.
“Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within”
Where: Cranbrook Art Museum, Detroit
When: Through January 12, 2025
What It Is: The first nationally touring retrospective of the work of Toshiko Takaezu in 20 years. Having originated at New York’s Noguchi Museum, the show takes on a new resonance in Detroit, where the artist studied at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in the early 1950s.
Why It's Worth a Look: One of the most effective treatments for anxiety involves calling oneself back to the present moment by focusing on the five senses. This show pays special attention to the role of sound and touch in Takaezu’s luscious ceramics, including closed vessels she created with hidden rattles inside them that purr when handled.
“Paper and Light”
Where: Getty Center, Los Angeles
When: Through January 19, 2025
What It Is: This show, which is part of the Getty’s contribution to the regional arts extravaganza “PST ART: Art and Science Collide,” explores how artists across centuries have returned to two deceptively simple ingredients—paper and light—to create imagery that transports and transforms.
Why It's Worth a Look: Any art lover is likely to seize on an excuse to see the work of Tiepolo, Manet, and Vija Celmins in one place. But perhaps the biggest draw is a 12-foot-long transparency by the 18th century French painter and set designer Louis Carrogis Carmontelle, which is considered a precursor to motion pictures.
“I did not tell you what I saw, but only what I dreamt” by Shilpa Gupta
Where: Madison Museum of Contemporary Art
When: Through January 12, 2025
What It Is: A survey of recent installations that poetically fuse light, sound, and sculpture by the Mumbai-based artist and biennial favorite Shilpa Gupta. At the show, which debuted at Amant in Greenpoint last year and is now on view in the swing state of Wisconsin, visitors are invited to take a wax star from a pile modeled on those from various national flags and to explore a library of 100 books cast in gunmetal, each dedicated to one poet who is currently incarcerated.
Why It's Worth a Look: At this point in election season, you might be feeling a bit numb. Gupta’s pathos-filled work will gently lead you out of your relentless poll-induced daze to communicate the stakes of the moment.
“Mapping the Infinite: Cosmologies Across Cultures”
Where: Los Angeles County Museum of Art
When: Through March 2, 2025
What It Is: Developed in collaboration with scientists at the Carnegie Observatories and the Griffith Observatory, this exhibition brings together captivating artworks from across space and time—from the Stone Age to the present, from Mesopotamia to the Middle East to the Americas—that explore our shared urge to explain the origins of the universe.
Why It's Worth a Look: You are probably getting a push alert every 20 minutes with an update on a rally in Wisconsin or a new poll in Pennsylvania. Why not take a break from the micro-updates and zoom out—waaaay out—to the Big Bang, and humanity’s endless attempts to visualize and understand the source of life as we know it?
“Where I Learned to Look: Art from the Yard”
Where: Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia
When: Through December 1
What It Is: A lively survey of Yard Art, a genre of contemporary art practiced over five decades by artists including vanessa german, Wendy Red Star, Donald Judd, and Noah Purifoy. The form has taken shape outside the walls of the art institution and thrived in the transitional realm between the private home and public space.
Why It's Worth a Look: As the art critic Mary Thomas notes, this show presents Yard Art through the lens of aesthetic strategies that originated in working-class Mexican American communities. It’s a reminder that artists will create both in spite and because of the chaos that unfolds around them, and regardless of whether there is a system built to support them. Just don’t let that reminder keep you from voting.
