10 art exhibitions to see in the USA during summer 2023

A look at ten of the most interesting art exhibitions that will be on view in the USA during summer of 2023.

Image: Maharana Swarup Singh and Courtiers Play Holi at the City Palace, c. 1851. The City Palace Museum, Udaipur. Exhibited at “A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur” at the Cleveland Museum of Art // Source: Art Institute, Chicago / Cleveland Museum of Art / Detroit Art Institute / Museum of Fine Arts, Houston / Getty Museum / Metropolitan Museum of Art / The Museum of Modern Art / SFMOMA / Seattle Art Museum / National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Chicago

Van Gogh and the Avant-Garde: The Modern Landscape

Art Institute, Chicago (until September 4, 2023)

The Art Institute of Chicago presents the exhibition “Van Gogh and the Avant-Garde: The Modern Landscape” explaining that “between the years 1882 and 1890, Post-Impressionist artists—such as Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Emile Bernard, and Charles Angrand—flocked to villages on the fringes of Paris. There, they experimented with broken brushstrokes and contrasting colors to create an innovative style of painting, one that could have been established only through their collaborative efforts.”

Cleveland

A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur

Cleveland Museum of Art (until September 10, 2023)

With dazzling paintings on paper and cloth—many on public view for the first time—”A Splendid Land” reveals how artists visualized emotions, depicted places, celebrated water resources, and fostered personal bonds over 200 years in the rapidly changing political and cultural landscapes of early modern South Asia. 

Detroit

James Barnor: Accra/London

Detroit Art Institute (until October 1, 2023)

“James Barnor: Accra/London—A Retrospective” is a comprehensive survey of the work of British-Ghanaian photographer James Barnor whose career spans more than six decades.

Houston

Pipilotti Rist: Pixel Forest and Worry Will Vanish

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (until September 4, 2023)

“Pipilotti Rist: Pixel Forest and Worry Will Vanish” brings together two works from the MFAH collections: Pixel Forest, an installation of thousands of hanging LED lights; and Worry Will Vanish, a video projection that takes viewers on a dreamlike journey through the natural landscape, the human body, and the heavens.

Los Angeles

Beyond the Light: Identity and Place in 19th-Century Danish Art

Getty Museum (until August 20, 2023)

During an era marked by military defeat, financial collapse, and national disintegration, 19th-century artists in Denmark intensely studied themselves and their culture to portray a sense of belonging and displacement. Featuring drawings, oil sketches, and paintings from public and private collections in Copenhagen, New York, and Los Angeles, this exhibition is the first to elucidate how Danish artists depicted the extent and limits of their nation.

New York

Vincent van Gogh’s Cypresses

Metropolitan Museum of Art (until August 27, 2023)

The exhibition reunites iconic paintings—including “Wheat Field with Cypresses” and “The Starry Night”—and other rarely, if ever, lent works to offer an unprecedented perspective on Van Gogh’s fascination with the flamelike trees.

New York

Chosen Memories: Contemporary Latin American Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Gift and Beyond

The Museum of Modern Art (until September 9, 2023)

“Chosen Memories” features works by approximately 40 artists from different generations working across Latin America over the last four decades, including Alejandro Cesarco (Uruguay), Regina José Galindo (Guatemala), Mario García Torres (Mexico), Leanrdo Katz (Argentina), Suwon Lee (Venezuela), Gilda Mantilla (Peru) and Raimond Chaves (Colombia), Cildo Meireles (Brazil), Rosângela Rennó (Brazil), Mauro Restiffe (Brazil), and José Alejandro Restrepo (Colombia), among others.

San Francisco

Frank Bowling

SFMOMA (until September 10, 2023)

Featuring over 40 color-soaked paintings, this exhibition uncovers the explosive development of his vision and practice during a period that continues to inflect his deeply experimental works today.

Seattle

Amoako Boafo: Soul of Black Folks

Seattle Art Museum (until September 10, 2023)

The exhibition presents over 30 works created by the artist between 2016 and 2022, and is presented in partnership between Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), San Francisco.

Washington

Canova: Sketching in Clay

National Gallery of Art, Washington (until October 9, 2023)

Through a careful analysis of approximately 40 of the some 60 terracotta models that survive, the exhibition seeks a deeper understanding of the art and career of Antonio Canova, from his beginnings in Venice during the late 1770s to his death in 1822.