Histories are at the heart of some of our favorite shows, from queer video art to the cultural and familial traditions invoked by Candida Alvarez and Thomas Holton.

Abstraction and representation bleed into one another in the same way that memories momentarily coagulate into images before dissolving again.

From Saya Woolfalk’s hyperrealism to Ben Shahn’s Social Realism, our favorite shows at the moment are all about building and improving worlds.

A survey of work by the pioneering Mexican feminist artist reimagine landscapes and home interiors as sites of political and emotional tension.

From Julia Margaret Cameron to Chloe Dzubilo, to 150 years of the Art Students League of New York, “visionary” is a theme in the shows below.

As an HIV-positive trans woman and advocate, Dzubilo faced challenges that should have been history by the early 2000s, yet persist today.

Whether it’s Hilma af Klint finding the soul in nature or a new perspective on chinoiserie at The Met, the shows below are about seeing things differently.

The artworks in Spora, unfolding over three years at the Swiss Institute, linger in the mind, its interconnections multiplying like spores.

Her Nature Studies invoke the promise of something greater, a direct line from the material world to the spiritual experience that art is presumed to offer.

A new translation of a beloved Argentine comic, artists over 50 tell their stories, diasporic Puerto Rican art history, and more to enjoy by the seaside (or your A/C).

Spirituality, magic, and transformation are recurring themes in some of our favorite exhibitions on view, from Mestre Didi to Renée Stout.

The Brazilian artist and Candomblé priest established an international art practice that foregrounded diasporic African perspectives.

From Glenn Ligon’s critique of society’s ills to Diane Arbus’s complicity in them, the solo shows below provide plenty of food for thought.

An exhibition of Ligon’s well-known works at the Brant Foundation shows how language fails us and confronts us with silence.

Our favorite shows right now address systemic abuses in the US with style and intelligence, but we’re also enjoying some intimate and abstract works.

The more you connect the dots in his work, the more the insidious and catastrophic work of the US government, law enforcement, and military come to the fore.

Dig into new and upcoming tomes on the long lineage of LGBTQ+ art, from Beauford Delaney’s bond with James Baldwin to iconic lesbian photographer JEB and Alice Austen.

Repurposed objects by Kiah Celeste and Yuji Agematsu and re-imagined architecture by feminist architect Phyllis Birkby are among our favorite artworks this week.

Her gorgeous, tactile sculptures are not just symbolic of human lives, but reflections of embodiment in all of its fragility and resilience.

From ceramic alligators to Nordic traditions, artists focusing on personal concerns and identity are making some fascinating work.

From local concerns in the Bronx to global issues in Queens, plus a trip to see Indigenous art in New Jersey, our favorite art is far-reaching right now.

The Book of Marvels is the kind of show that’s hard to avoid at archival art institutions, wherein problematic historical content, aesthetic appeal, and fantasy all intersect.

Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, Claudia Alarcón, and Nanette Carter are three of the artists whose work we’re enjoying, among many shows that pack a punch.

“Gordon Matta-Clark: NYC Graffiti 1972/3” has the feel of a time capsule that never veers too far into didacticism, while the art almost makes you feel like you’re there.

The art of Marsha P. Johnson, Yoko Ono reappraised, Jack Whitten’s studio notebook, a fictional curator’s Greece trip goes awry, and more to read this season.

From historical shows about labor to investigations of color to John Singer Sargent’s renderings of hands, we’re enjoying a variety of art this week.

A show highlighting work by members of the collective fierce pussy presents them not out on the streets, but communing with one another, like family.

Among our favorite shows at the moment are ones that feature strong, talented women, like Patty Chang, Myrlande Constant, and Amy Sherald.

Standing before Constant’s sumptuous embroideries, shimmering with beads and sequins, is awe-inspiring and joyfully disorienting.

In the artist's works, a woman is at once a social subject pushing back against marginalization and a disruptive energy, a flow that transcends barriers.

From Aaron Gilbert’s take on capitalism to Weegee’s distortions of celebrity culture, these exhibitions all critique or reflect the world around us.

One lesson of this compact, extraordinary exhibition of feminist art is that if you’re being ignored, you can do whatever you want — so take up space.

Our favorite shows of the week all center individual creators, from big names like Tatlin and Kafka to contemporary artists like Judy Linn.

In this exhibition, we are relying on the information we’re given to try to attain a mythologized goal that is always out of reach.

The exhibitions below, featuring such artists as Deborah-Joyce Holman and Luis Fernando Benedit, ask viewers to spend time with art that’s slower to reveal itself.

The artist’s bioart habitats eerily reflect human environments where sociopolitical and socioeconomic cultural conditions force the illusion of standardization as a natural state.

Catherine Murphy, Dorothy Hood, and David Kennedy Cutler are among the artists who are taking us off the path of the everyday and into the inexplicable this week.

As the US government expunges identities through words and names, the artists’ online archive of videos proposes that holding onto these moments is a powerful political act.

Nick Cave leaves behind his Soundsuits, Ericka Beckman reimagines a fairy tale, American Artist explores the sci-fi world of Octavia E. Butler, and more.

Though often associated with the Pictures Generation, Beckman’s work shifts focus from deconstruction to archetypes — and from the commodity to the human.

From Norman Bluhm’s reinvented abstraction to the history of Barbie at the Museum of Arts and Design, we’re looking at a diverse array of art this week.

Manuel Herreros de Lemos and Mateo Manaure Arilla’s sumptuous 1982 film about trans sex workers in Caracas is the centerpiece of a new exhibition.

See socially and politically engaged art, Trenton Doyle Hancock paired with Philip Guston, plus geometric abstraction and some medieval treasures.

Scientia Sexualis attempts a decolonial approach to the subjects of gender, sexuality, and representation in relation to the clinical gaze.

Over 40 works dating from the 12th through the 16th century fill this compact, beautifully curated show.

Sylvia Sleigh, Kenneth Tam, Christine Sun Kim, Paul Gardère, and Rudy Burckhardt are ideal for anyone who desires a glimpse into an artist’s personal life and worldview.

Through his mixed media artworks, Paul Gardère invites his audience into a meaningful and personable dialogue and offers a glimpse into his life.

Depth and wonder abound in shows featuring artists Alexis Rockman, Stephanie H. Shih, Raoul De Keyser, Roxanne Jackson, and Tabboo!

Because the waywardness of his paintings is a product of its unspoken logic, his marks and variations are performing precisely the right roles.

From AbEx giant Cy Twombly to explorations of assimilation by Serena Chang to the politics of prettiness in the portraits of Marie Laurencin, these shows deserve close looking.