Now’s the time to finally see the exhibitions you’ve been hoping to catch all summer, and ones like Lauren Halsey’s takeover of the Met’s rooftop are worth braving the still-blazing sun. Here, we present a list of the gallery and museum highlights you should fit in before mid-September’s packed opening season kicks off.
The Roof Garden Commission: Lauren Halsey at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
When I made the trek uptown to visit the Met’s Karl Lagerfeld and Van Gogh cypress shows, I was disappointed to find both were at capacity through the rest of the day. Finally heading up to Lauren Halsey’s long-awaited rooftop takeover—delayed for more than a year due to logistical issues—made it all worth it. “I’m a maximalist,” Halsey told the New York Times of the postponement of the “large and ambitious project” in the spring of 2022. She wasn’t kidding: The Los Angeles-based artist managed to construct something of a monument. The installation is equal parts Halsey’s South Central L.A. hometown and ancient Egypt, featuring a four-columned structure decorated with modern-day hieroglyphics and sphinx sculptures of her family members.
Isa Genzken: 75/75 at the Neue Nationalgalerie
Celebrate Isa Genzken’s 75th birthday with a survey of 75 of her career-defining works at Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. Its director, Klaus Biesenbach, encountered artist after artist who took the German sculptor as inspiration in his noted capacity as director of MoMA PS1, making him well-equipped to both encapsulate and contextualize Genzken’s work—with an assist from the institution’s Lisa Botti, who co-curated the showing. Marvel at one of the artist’s signature monumental roses outdoors, then head inside for a survey of sculptures to be taken in at every angle. In fact, per Genzken’s intention, consider them instead as moving images.
Rachel Feinstein in Florence
Renaissance-era art can be found all across Florence—and this summer, the hordes of tourists who flock there to see it can do so in a new light. Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Museo Marino Marini and Museo Stefano Bardini have welcomed Rachel Feinstein into their permanent collections, and what makes for the American artist’s second career survey illustrates how she’s long drawn on centuries past. The chance to encounter a Donatello (Feinstein’s “absolute king”) in the same exhibition as a twisted, larger-than-life sculpture of a Victoria’s Secret Angel lasts through September 18.
Africa Fashion at the Brooklyn Museum
Between its blockbuster appreciations of the late Virgil Abloh and Thierry Mugler, the Brooklyn Museum has been on a roll with its fashion-themed exhibitions. That’s in part because the institution took care to contextualize textiles outside of the insular industry. It’s done so to even greater effect with Africa Fashion, which incorporates politics, art and culture into its display of 40 designers and artists across 20 African countries. On view through October 22, the end result has impressed critics and then some; Hilton Als described it as a “vital and necessary” exhibition in the New Yorker.
Closing soon: Simone Leigh at ICA Boston
Contemporary Art/Boston, 2023. Courtesy the artist and Matthew Marks Gallery. Photo by Timothy Schenck. © Simone Leigh.
Simone Leigh made history when she became the first Black woman to represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale. The display of bronze sculptures she exhibited was a triumph—and there are a few days left to see it for yourself at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, which has taken care to evoke the layout of the U.S. Pavilion through September 4. But that’s only about a third of the show. Those only familiar with her bronze, ceramic and raffia sculptures would do well to take in lesser-known works such as those in video format, demonstrating Leigh’s adeptness at examining Black female subjectivity across mediums.
