“Ed Ruscha / Now Then” at the Museum of Modern Art
Artists assembled by Art in America describe the influence of Ed Ruscha in our fall issue with tremendous awe, envy, and respect. They describe the Pop art icon’s work as “so straightforward, and so special,” deem him “a cool dad,” and remark, with an air of resignation, “he’s Ed Ruscha, and I’m not.” This monumental retrospective features more than 250 objects, including works engaged with painting, drawing, prints, photography, artist’s books, film, and installation. After MoMA, the show goes to Ruscha’s spiritual homeland when it travels to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Sept. 10–Jan. 13.
Whitney Museum to host Cosmic Scholar:The Life and Times of Harry Smith
Harry Smith was a polymath whose presence remains in the annals of music, painting, experimental film, and all kinds of folklore ranging from Native American dances and string figures to paper airplanes and Ukrainian Easter eggs. He’s best-known for the Anthology of American Folk Music, which he compiled from forgotten records and released in 1952—a year to which many trace back the beginning of the Greenwich Village folk scene that helped seed the countercultural ’60s to come. But he was at least as accomplished in all the other pursuits he engaged.
Bienal de São Paulo
Touted as the second-oldest art biennial in the world (behind the Venice Biennale), this assembly in São Paulo counts as one of the biggest events of its kind every year it happens. This year’s edition—curated by Diane Lima, Grada Kilomba, Hélio Menezes, and Manuel Borja-Villel—will feature 120 participants under the title “choreographies of the impossible.” Artists involved include Igshaan Adams, Julien Creuzet, Torkwase Dyson, Ellen Gallagher, Duane Linklater, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Dayanita Singh, stanley brouw, and Sônia Gomes. Sept. 6-Dec. 10
“Ruth Asawa Through Line” at the Whitney Museum
Intricate looped-wire sculptures based on organic forms are Ruth Asawa’s most well-known works, but this exhibition traces the development of the American modernist sculptor’s distinctive visual vocabulary to her daily drawing practice. A selection of more than 100 works represents the breadth of her career, starting from her education at Black Mountain College in the 1940s through her later years as an educator and community leader in San Francisco.
Open Questions: Thirty Years of Writing About Art by Helen Molesworth
When Helen Molesworth dramatically departed her curatorial post at MoCA Los Angeles, she made a pivot from scholar to content producer of various kinds. She’s since moved on to collaborating with mega-galleries and even started to podcast. All the while, Molesworth remains a rare breed: a curator who can actually write. It’s likely that readers of this new collection of influential essays—whether fervent followers or those who find her problematic after allegations of abusive workplace behavior followed her exit from MOCA—will be fired up with strong opinions.
“María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Behold” at the Brooklyn Museum
With a career spanning nearly four decades, María Magdalena Campos-Pons will see her first museum survey in more than 15 years this fall. In work spanning photography, installation, painting, and performance, Campos-Pons reflects on themes of migration and diaspora, geography and memory, and spirituality and history, often filtered through an autobiographical lens that draws on her experience as an Afro-Cuban woman of mixed ancestry. Narratives of the Middle Passage and slavery as well as the rituals of Santería are frequent themes in her powerful and evocative art. Sept. 15–Jan. 14
Open Questions: Thirty Years of Writing About Art by Helen Molesworth
When Helen Molesworth dramatically departed her curatorial post at MoCA Los Angeles, she made a pivot from scholar to content producer of various kinds. She’s since moved on to collaborating with mega-galleries and even started to podcast. All the while, Molesworth remains a rare breed: a curator who can actually write. It’s likely that readers of this new collection of influential essays—whether fervent followers or those who find her problematic after allegations of abusive workplace behavior followed her exit from MOCA—will be fired up with strong opinions.
Marina Abramović at the Royal Academy of Arts
Wherever Marina Abramović goes, controversy follows—involving everything from salacious talk of Satanism to wild gallery dancing with Jay-Z. This London show for the infamous Serbian performance artist and provocateur surveys 50 years of her bizarre and influential work, and promises that no two visits will be the same. She’s enlisted younger artists trained in the “Marina Abramović method” to reenact some of her classics, while other works, like the iconic The Artist Is Present, will be shown on film. Sept. 23–Jan. 1
“The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans” at the National Gallery
Curated by artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, this survey brings together the work of nearly 50 Native American artists from across the US, with a wide range of forms—weaving, sculpture, beading, painting, performance, drawing, and video—highlighting Indigenous understandings of the North American landscape. The artists in the show include G. Peter Jemison, Cara Romero, Emmi Whitehorse, and Nicholas Galanin. Sept. 24–Jan. 15
