From a Frans Hals retrospective in Amsterdam to a first-of-its-kind display of Ethiopian art in Baltimore, there are several riveting museum exhibitions opening around the world this winter. Here are 10 worth a look-see:
'Imagined Fronts: The Great War and Global Media' - Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Félix Edouard Vallotton, Verdun, 1917, oil on canvas, 57 1/2 × 44 7/8 in. (146 × 114 cm), Musée de l’Armée, Paris
Through posters, newspapers, photographs and film, "Imagined Fronts: The Great War and Global Media" examines how World War I unfolded in the press and cinema. Visitors will see how the fighting was described to audiences around the world and how the images were used to rally support. The exhibition isn't just showcasing professional art and images by war photographers; there are also objects on display that once belonged to the soldiers who battled in the Great War. Runs Dec. 3, 2023 - July 7, 2024
'Ethiopia at the Crossroads' - The Walters Art Museum
The Virgin and Child with Archangels, Scenes from the Life of Christ and Saints. Ethiopian, early 17th century. Tempera on panel. Museum purchase with funds provided by the W. Alton Jones Foundation Acquisition Fund, 1996
(Image credit: The Walters Art Museum)
Ethiopia has a rich cultural and artistic history, with more than 80 religious groups and ethnicities calling it home. That's reflected in the more than 220 objects, both religious and secular, selected for "Ethiopia at the Crossroads" at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. The exhibition spans 1,750 years, with early Christian icons, paintings, illuminated manuscripts, sculptures and crosses on display alongside contemporary works. This is the first major Ethiopian art exhibition of its kind in the United States. Runs Dec. 3, 2023 - March 3, 2024
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'Women Dressing Women' - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Ensembles on display in the "Women Dressing Women" exhibition
(Image credit: Timothy A. Clary / AFP via Getty Images)
The Costume Institute's newest exhibition, "Women Dressing Women," isn't just about famous fashion luminaries. Womens wear made by new designers, those whose names have been lost to time and anonymous dressmakers whose names were never known at all will be on display, alongside ensembles created by Elsa Schiaparelli, Vivienne Westwood, Ann Lowe and Rei Kawakubo. The exhibition will feature 80 objects, created between 1910 and the present, and its guest co-curator Karen Van Godtsenhoven said the "connective thread between different generations of professional women reveals how subsequent generations have built and expanded upon the legacy of their predecessors." Runs Dec. 7, 2023 - March 3, 2024
'Cecilia Vicuña: Dreaming Water' - MALBA
Cecilia Vicuña attends the 2021 Guggenheim International Gala in New York City
(Image credit: Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images for Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum)
More than 200 works by the Chilean artist, poet and activist Cecilia Vicuña will be on display at MALBA in Buenos Aires, including paintings, drawings, installations, silkscreens, photographs, textiles, collages and video. This is the "most encompassing anthological exhibition ever held" of Vicuña's art, the museum said, and specifically focuses on her work "from a South American perspective." It's a comprehensive look at six decades of art, from 1964 to the present, and visitors will walk away with a sense of Vicuña's deep commitment to fighting for human rights and the empowerment of women and the working class. Runs Dec. 8, 2023 - Feb. 26. 2024
'Tree and Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India' - National Museum of Korea
When Buddhism arrived in southern India, it led to a boon in artwork
(Image credit: The Royal Photographic Society Collection / Victoria and Albert Museum, London / Getty Images)
The arrival of Buddhism in southern India led to a "flourishing array of fresh and intricate artworks" filled with "enigmatic yet mystical narratives," the National Museum of Korea said. Some of those pieces will be presented in the museum's "Tree and Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India" exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Nearly 100 artifacts, some dating as far back as 200 B.C.E. to 400 C.E., will be exhibited, including items more recently found in the Phanigiri ruins in Telangana. Runs Dec. 22, 2023 - April 14, 2024
'The Brilliance of Caravaggio: Four Paintings in Focus' - Toledo Museum of Art
Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi) Italian, 1571-1610, Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy, c. 1595-96, Oil on canvas, 37 x 51 in. (94 x 129.5 cm), Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1943.222
(Image credit: The Toledo Museum of Art)
The Toledo Museum of Art will pair four paintings by Caravaggio — "The Cardsharps," "Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy," "The Musicians" and "Martha and Mary Magdalene" — with works by later Italian, Dutch, French and Spanish artists to "demonstrate the breadth and intensity" of his influence. The Caravaggio paintings were all completed in the 1590s after he moved to Rome, and "Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy" was his first religious painting. Before viewing the exhibition, read up on the artist and his tumultuous life: Caravaggio was arrested for everything from carrying a sword without a permit to throwing a plate of artichokes in a waiter's face and fled Rome in the early 1600s after receiving a death sentence for murder. Runs Jan. 20, 2023 - April 14, 2024
'Legion: Life in the Roman Army' - The British Museum
Being a Roman solider wasn't just about chalking up battlefield wins, as the exhibition "Legion: Life in the Roman Army" will attest. Following a real soldier named Claudius Terentianus from his enlistment to retirement, the exhibition will focus on every day experiences like putting on armor and setting up camp at night. Artifacts on display will include a complete wood, leather and bronze Roman legionary long shield from the early 200s A.D. and an elaborate iron sword from 14-19 A.D.. Runs Feb. 1, 2024 - June 23, 2024
'The Anxious Eye: German Expressionism and Its Legacy' - The National Gallery of Art
Conrad Felixmüller, "Child on the Veranda, Son Titus," (Kind auf die Veranda (Sohn Titus)), 1921, drypoint on wove paper. Plate: 12.8 x 19.5 cm. Sheet: 38 x 32.7 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Jacob Kainen
(Image credit: National Gallery of Art, Washington)
When Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Kathe Kollwitz were working in the 1910s and 1920s, it was a time of upheaval, and this was reflected in the complexity of their art. Visitors to "The Anxious Eye: German Expressionism and Its Legacy" will see parallels between "the intensity of human emotion and experience conveyed" by these expressionists during a transformational period and "current responses to the cultural and political shifts taking place in our world today," National Gallery of Art Director Kaywin Feldman said. The exhibition is split into four sections, with more than 100 prints, portfolios, sculptures, drawings and illustrated books created between 1908 and 2021 on display. Runs Feb. 11, 2024 - May 27, 2024
'Frans Hals' - Rijksmuseum
Marriage portrait of Isaac Massa and Beatrix van der Laen, married in Haarlem, April 25, 1622. Circa 1622. Oil on canvas, 55.12 x 65.55 inches
(Image credit: VCG Wilson / Corbis via Getty Images)
The Dutch painter Frans Hals is described by the Rijksmuseum as "way ahead of his time," and visitors will be able to see for themselves at the biggest retrospective of his work in decades. For "Frans Hals," the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam will display some of the innovator's well-known works from its collection, including "The Merry Drinker" and "Portrait of a Couple," plus loans like "The Laughing Cavalier," which rarely leaves the Wallace Collection in London, and "The Banquet of the Officers of the St. George Civic Guard," which is traveling outside of Haarlem for the first time in history. Runs Feb. 16, 2024 - June 9, 2024
'In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine' - Lower Belvedere
Ukraine's Modernist movement blossomed during the turbulent era from the end of World War I to the foundation of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic in 1922, before Stalin's suppression of the region during the 1930s. The exhibition "In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine" at the Lower Belvedere in Vienna will feature vibrant works completed in the first half of the 20th Century, when futurist Oleksandr Bohomazov developed Spectralism and monumentalist Mykhailo Boychuk co-founded the Ukrainian State Academy of Arts in Kyiv. This is the first comprehensive exhibition of modernist Ukrainian art to be shown outside the country. Runs Feb. 23, 2024 - June 2, 2024
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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