Museum Exhibitions | bostondesignweek

Our choice of dress can make a political statement, express a mood, or communicate personal identities. Through more than 100 works from the MFA’s collection including 20th- and 21st-century clothing, jewelry, accessories, illustrations, and photographs, this exhibition explores adornment and its role in the creation of a look.

Jewelry and fashion are given equal attention here; there is no delineation between the two to encourage thinking of jewelry as fashion and fashion as jewelry. Objects with beads, sequins, and sparkle blur the lines between each genre and help visitors consider how and where the two can, and do, intersect.

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Tender Loving Care

Museum of Fine Arts

465 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115

Dates: July 22, 2023 – July 28, 2025

https://www.mfa.org/exhibition/tender-loving-care

More than 100 works from the MFA’s collection—including recent acquisitions and objects that have never been on view before—define, depict, and demonstrate many forms of care through five thematic groupings: threads, thresholds, rest, vibrant matter, and adoration. Gisela Charfauros McDaniel’s portrait of her mother, Tiningo’ si Sirena (2021), moves between intimacy and attentiveness to larger concepts that are meaningful to the artist, like cultural inheritances and ecological interconnectivity. For his Sound Suit (2008), Nick Cave extended the lifespan of discarded objects by transforming them into a surreal, otherworldly costume that asserts the value of Black life. The intensive time and labor that goes into creating textiles and fiber art is evident in examples by Sheila Hicks, Howardena Pindell, and Jane Sauer. Through these works and many others visitors can consider how different forms of care may inspire new models for living and feeling—now and in the future.

Our Time on Earth

Peabody Essex Museum

161 Essex St, Salem, MA 01970

Dates: February 17 – June 9, 2024

https://www.pem.org/exhibitions/our-time-on-earth

A transformative journey to reimagine your connection with the living planet. Our Time on Earth, a large-scale exhibition organized by the Barbican Centre in London, with Guest Curators FranklinTill and presented as part of PEM’s Climate + Environment Initiative, illuminates a path towards a more sustainable future through innovative artworks and immersive experiences. Our Time on Earth celebrates the power of global creativity to transform the conversation around the climate emergency.

Visitors will be captivated by collaborative installations crafted by visionary artists, designers, scientists, technologists and changemakers hailing from 12 countries. Approach a dinner table set for a fox, a wasp and other unconventional guests; envision the microscopic foundations of life by diving into a virtual ocean surrounded by magnified plankton; and peer through the layers of a giant Kapok tree to visualize how trees act as a living bridge between soil and sky.

Historic New England: Tours at Gropius House

Gropius House

68 Baker Bridge Rd #3105, Lincoln, MA 01773

https://www.historicnewengland.org/property/gropius-house/

Hours of Operation:

May – October, Thursday through Sunday, 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

November – April, Saturday and Sunday, 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Walter Gropius, founder of the German design school known as the Bauhaus, came to teach at Harvard in 1937 and designed this house as his family home. Modest in scale, Gropius House was revolutionary in its influence. It combined familiar elements of New England houses—wood siding, stone foundation, and brick chimney—with industrial materials like glass block, acoustical plaster, and chrome banisters, and the latest technology in fixtures. Every aspect of the house and its surrounding landscape was planned for maximum efficiency and simplicity of design. The house contains family possessions and an important collection of Bauhaus furniture designed by Marcel Breuer.

Bosco Sodi: Origen

Harvard Art Museum

32 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138

Dates: March 18, 2023 – June 9, 2024

https://harvardartmuseums.org/exhibitions/6298/bosco-sodi-origen

A new installation of sculptures by Mexican-born artist Bosco Sodi (b. 1970) places the artist’s handmade clay spheres at the Harvard Art Museums and marks the first-ever presentation of art on the museums’ outdoor Broadway terrace. Sodi’s practice explores the earth’s elements, marrying age-old traditions of sculpting clay with a contemporary vision of creating simple universal forms that prompt reflection. Drawing on centuries-old techniques passed through the Zapotec culture, Sodi works with Oaxacan artisans, using local clay to sculpt each sphere, drying it outside for up to eight months, and then firing it in a kiln built upon a beach. The resulting terracotta forms reveal the effects of nature’s forces—the sun, sea, air, and fire—as demonstrated by the cracks, chips, and blackened and crusty patches that distinguish each sphere. Sodi will also unveil three gold-glazed spheres as part of his site-specific arrangement.

List Projects 29:

Brittni Ann Harvey and Harry Gould Harvey IV

MIT List Visual Arts Center

20 Ames Street, Bldg. E15, Atrium level, Cambridge, MA 02139

Dates: March 7 – June 23, 2024

https://listart.mit.edu/exhibitions/list-projects-29-brittni-ann-harvey-harry-gould-harvey-iv

A two-person exhibition featuring works by Fall River, Massachusetts-based artists Brittni Ann Harvey and Harry Gould Harvey IV will be the finale in a special season of experimental List Projects exhibitions that foregrounds artistic collaborations. Each show pairs artists who share a history of collaboration and fosters their continued dialogue through a joint commission.

This special series of experimental List Projects programming commemorates the tenth anniversary of the series and is comprised of three exhibitions in the Bakalar Gallery. Each presentation will pair two artists who share a history of conversation and foster their continued collaboration through a joint commission. A closing workshop featuring all six artists will round out the series, offering an opportunity for the artists to reflect on what it means for institutions to prioritize conversation and collaboration in their exhibition spaces.

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Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

25 Evans Way, Boston, MA 02115

Dates: February 15 – May 12, 2024

https://www.gardnermuseum.org/calendar/raqib-shaw-ballads-east-and-west

Co-curated with Zehra Jumabhoy, this exhibition is an invitation to see the world as Raqib Shaw sees it: “An amalgamation, a hybrid, a cocktail.”

Shaw’s paintings are flamboyant, fantastical, and extremely labor-intensive. They are puzzles that always include certain key ingredients: self-portraiture, landscapes in peril, references to historic painting, or moments from his own life. Shaw frequently depicts himself as satyr, a joker, a saint, a philosopher, or a blue-skinned divinity clad in sumptuous robes. The senuous, glossy intensity of the jewel-like painting surface is rendered in infinite colors and shades with a painstaking technique-enamel paint, applied with porcupine quills to birch wood panels.

The Lost Generation:

Women Ceramicists and the Cuban Avant-Garde

McMullen Museum of Art

2101 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02135

Dates: January 29 – June 2, 2024

https://mcmullenmuseum.bc.edu/exhibitions/lost-generation/

The Lost Generation: Women Ceramicists and the Cuban Avant-Garde examines the participants and artistic output from 1949 to 1959 of the Taller de Santiago de las Vegas, a ceramic workshop on the outskirts of Havana. A decade of artistic experimentation primarily by little-known women ceramicists had deep reverberations both for the acceptance of ceramics as a fine art form in Cuba and for the symbiotic relationship that flourished between the ceramicists and the painters, largely men, who visited the Taller to learn the craft. The painters in turn applied new techniques and methodologies to their two-dimensional production, which is now regarded as synonymous with the Cuban avant-garde (vanguardia).

The Myth of Normal

MassArt Art Museum

621 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115

Dates: October 5, 2023 – May 19, 2024

https://maam.massart.edu/exhibition/myth-normal

The Myth of Normal: A Celebration of Authentic Expression looks at societal norms that have been codified over our collective past. Focusing on the achievements of MassArt’s alumni, this exhibition is guest-curated by Mari Spirito ’92, Executive Director of Protocinema, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Three thematic, interrelated groupings guide the visitor. The first zone holds artworks that address architecture as an extension of the body; the continuum of consciousness; breaking containment; and violence and violation. Deeper into the Bakalar Gallery untold and unheard histories, due to systemic and structural racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism, are revealed and personal stories interwoven. Ascending to the Paine Gallery, we see a full expression, the museum roof has been digitally blown off.

Maria Molteni: Soft Score

Fuller Craft Museum

455 Oak St, Brockton, MA 02301

Dates: January 13, 2014 – January 5, 2025

https://fullercraft.org/exhibitions/maria-molteni-soft-score/

Maria Molteni: Soft Score is a site-specific exhibition that explores dynamic intersections of art and athletics. Created specifically for Fuller Craft Museum by queer Boston artist Maria Molteni (they/them), Soft Score employs “crafletic” expression for personal reflection and communal magic. Built upon 15+ years of socially engaged public artwork, it also emphasizes the importance of intersectionality and equity, within sports industry and community spaces alike.

Resourceful craft techniques and conceptual rigor point out the malleability of language and fluid relationships of spectator to participant. Molteni deftly creates their own hybrid systems to integrate abstraction, intuition, and embodiment. They aim to cultivate a sense of belonging in sports and art worlds so that all feel welcome, with or without a brush or ball.

Face Value: Portraits from the Arthur S. Goldberg Collection

Fuller Craft Museum

455 Oak St, Brockton, MA 02301

Dates: September 23, 2023 – July 28, 2024

https://fullercraft.org/exhibitions/face-value-portraits-from-the-arthur-s-goldberg-collection/

Fuller Craft Museum is pleased to present Face Value: Portraits from the Arthur S. Goldberg Collection. This multimedia exhibition celebrates one of the most important genres in art history with an array of portraiture from the collection of Arthur S. Goldberg. Goldberg, based in Chestnut Hill, is known for his figurative artwork collection, and this collaborative endeavor draws from these works with a specific compositional focus on the head and shoulders. Featuring a range of materials—from ceramic and resin to painting and drawing—Face Value celebrates the powerful magic of portraiture, the creative achievements of contemporary artists working in the genre, and a collector’s impact on the arts community.

New Terrain: 21st Century Landscape Photography

Worcester Art Museum

55 Salisbury Street, Worcester, MA 01609

Dates: April 6 – July 7, 2024

https://www.worcesterart.org/exhibitions/new-terrain/

A new exhibition focused on how 21st-century artists use different photographic processes to explore the idea of landscape. Comprising approximately 30 artworks created over the past 20 years, the exhibition will highlight a wide range of techniques—including 3-D printing, weaving, embroidery, collage, and the use of nontraditional materials like rusted cans and lake water—that reinterpret the traditional practice of photography. Through these artworks, New Terrain serves as an entry point into deeper narratives about technology, identity, political activism, and history through the concept of the landscape. This exhibition is organized by Nancy Kathryn Burns, the Museum’s Stoddard Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs.

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Museum Exhibitions - Ongoing Throughout Boston Design Week