With threats of global instability, ongoing economic uncertainty, and looming battles for America’s political heart and soul, you’ll probably need a good art exhibition more than ever in 2025. Here are a number that can offer space for rest, respite and the return of some amount of optimism in spite of what may come this year.
Erwin Pfrang: The Ghosts Ask
Strange and grotesque, and inspired by the mind of James Joyce among others, Erwin Pfrang’s work demands to be seen. Bringing to mind Francis Bacon, Pfrang’s work is grotesque, while also being undeniably psychological and compositionally complex. As the gallery puts it: “There is a sense of fragility, suffering and existential unease in his imagery which evokes feelings of disorientation and alienation.” Pfrang has been affiliated with David Nolan Gallery since 1988 – almost as long as the gallery itself has existed – and this promises to be an important show of one of the venue’s most beloved artists. 10 January-22 February, David Nolan Gallery
Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night
American-born, Berlin-based sound artist Christine Sun Kim blends elements of musical notation, infographics, written language and her native American Sign Language into her works, which span paintings, murals, performance and video. The Whitney’s first major survey of her work, exhibiting pieces dating back to 2011, looks to be energetic, irreverent, immersive, poetic and humorous. 8 February-July, Whitney Museum of American Art
María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Behold
The Cuban-born María Magdalena Campos-Pons explores issues of gender, identity and sexuality, and is considered a major figure in the island nation’s post-revolutionary art scene. The Getty’s upcoming show covers 35 years of her creative output, exploring, as the museum puts it, “global histories of labor as they affected her family through enslavement, indenture, and motherhood, emphasizing resilience and respect for her Nigerian and Chinese ancestors”. It looks to be an outstanding survey of one of the defining artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. 11 February-4 May, Getty Center
Hawai‘i Triennial 2025: Aloha Nō
With the work of nearly 50 artists and collectives, the latest installment of Hawaii’s triennial art exhibition promises to be a deep look at Hawaiian identity – in the words of the museum, “a call to know Hawai‘i as a place of rebirth, resistance and resilience”. The Honolulu Museum of Art will host work by eight of the artists, as part of a collaborative effort to showcase work all across the state in traditional and innovative venues. Ongoing for nearly three months this year, it’s a great reason to make travel plans to the Pacific islands. 15 February-4 May, Honolulu Museum of Art, plus other venues
Words and Wonder: Rediscovering Children’s Literature
Renowned as an unparalleled archive of writers’ papers, the Harry Ransom Center in Austin presents this one-of-a-kind show that “reexamines the experiences of children as writers and readers and presents the innovative works of early twentieth-century authors and illustrators who imagined fantasy worlds for young readers”. The exhibition will include a rare look at juvenilia from the likes of Jayne Anne Phillips, Gabriel García Márquez and Kazuo Ishiguro while also offering delightful pieces such as magic lantern slides from Aesop’s Fables, plus celluloid paintings from Walt Disney’s 1951 animated adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. 25 February–17 August, Harry Ransom Center
Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes from Art
This spring the Legion of Honor aims to put a new spin on major mid-century artist Wayne Thiebaud by exhibiting 60 of his “inventive reinterpretations and direct copies of famous artworks”. Straddling worlds of realism, pop art and hyperrealism, Thiebaud is iconic for works such as his series of cakes, pies and other such treats, as well as for his vertiginous paintings of San Francisco streets. The show hopes to be an engagement with an overlooked aspect of a very thoroughly explored oeuvre. 22 March-17 August, Legion of Honor
Ruth Asawa: Retrospective
Known for her labyrinthine looped-wire structures, Ruth Asawa was a singular creative force who has only recently begun to get the attention her work merits. Following up the Whitney’s recent major Asawa show, the SFMOMA is arranging what it bills as the “first major international museum retrospective” of the artist’s work. The show will be all-inclusive, showcasing sculpture, drawings, prints, paintings, design objects and archival material, and altogether exhibiting more than 300 pieces from six decades of her creative output. This major tour will travel around the world, making stops at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain, among others. 5 April-2 September, SFMOMA
Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers
Engaging with themes such as Black identity, history and mysticism from a conceptual standpoint, artist Rashid Johnson has built a substantial name for himself. The Guggenheim will be giving him a major solo exhibition, with nearly 90 works spread out across the museum’s impressive rotunda. This will include the artist’s major work Sanguine, which the Guggenheim calls “a monumental site-specific work on the building’s top ramp with an embedded piano for musical performances”. 18 April-18 January 2026, Guggenheim Museum
Liz Collins: Motherlode
Queer feminist artist and fashion designer Liz Collins uses her deep knowledge of textiles to create bright, exuberant and extremely complex abstract works. This survey will showcase her dazzling creations, including her self-coined process of “knit-grafting”, in which the artist incorporates multiple fabrics into a single composite design. Looking to be colorful, fun and out of the ordinary, the show is described by the Rhode Island School of Design as bringing “together an unprecedented range of material, including large-scale sculptural work, fashion, needlework, drawings, performance documentation, and ephemera produced from the late 1980s until now”. 19 July-11 January 2026, Rhode Island School of Design Art Museum
Dyani White Hawk: Love Language
A recent Guggenheim honoree, Sicangu Lakota artist Dyani White Hawk is known for her enormous abstract canvases with geometric arrangements of vivid colors that explore her heritage as a Native American. The Walker Center for the Arts gathers 15 years of the artist’s work into four sections chosen by the artist to highlight Indigenous values: See, Honor, Nurture and Celebrate. The show includes the artist’s monumental 12-channel video installation LISTEN, as well as her lifesize portraits of Native Americans, and will offer communal space for lingering and interpreting. In the words of the Walker, White Hawk’s work “centers on connection – between one another, past and present, earth and sky” while also challenging “prevailing histories and practices surrounding abstract art”. 18 October-15 February 2026, Walker Center for the Arts
