Congolese sculptor Bodys Isek Kingelez, who passed away in 2015, built incredible models of colorful buildings and whole cities that he called “extreme maquettes.” The Museum of Modern Art is opening his first retrospective, covering three decades of his transformation of commercial packaging and other mundane materials into miniature architectural marvels. In the sculptures’ imaginative forms are elements of twentieth century postmodern building projects in Africa, as well as the dystopian and utopian potential in the sprawl of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. moma.org

Earlier this year, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs opened the Ent Center for the Arts, a new state-of-the-art hub for visual and performing arts on its campus. One of the first exhibitions in its Marie Walsh Sharpe Gallery of Contemporary Art is Lazy Stitch, a group showcase on the bead as an object connecting humans through land and time. Organized by Cannupa Hanska Luger , an artist whose recent projects include the reflective Mirror Shields for water protectors at Standing Rock , the exhibition features Kathy Elkwoman Whitman, Jesse Hazelip, Kali Spitzer, and Chip Thomas. uccs.edu

Entering Do Ho Suh’s Hub installation is like stepping into a half-remembered dream, as fabric-formed hallways and doors lead into ethereal architectural space. This exhibition transforms the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s galleries through a succession of semi-transparent passageways and rooms, all based on places in which the Korean artist has lived. The immersive experience is joined by Suh’s Specimens sculptures—translucent versions of household objects—further examining how home can feel alien. americanart.si.edu

In paintings, videos, and installations, Xiaoze Xie responds to the history of banned books in China. Large-scale still lifes lushly capture the tattered pages and fabric wrapped books that survive on the shelves of libraries and rarebook collections, while a sprawling display case holds numerous examples of forbidden literature. Based in Beijing and California, he considers how books can be sites of conflict and how censorship shapes our collective cultural knowledge. The exhibition is the first in the Denver Art Museum’s new Eyes On series, highlighting contemporary artists. denverartmuseum.org

Using the distinctive red earth of Oklahoma, Rena Detrixhe is covering the center of Philbrook Downtown’s Meinig Gallery with a tapestry of dirt. The Tulsa-based artist is inspired by the complicated heritage of the state’s landscapes in relation to its people, from land runs to the Dust Bowl to pipelines. In the creation of Red Dirt Rug, Detrixhe decorates the locally sourced soil with patterns made from found shoe soles. philbrook.org

From the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s, Germany grappled with the brutality of the Holocaust, its defeat and occupation after World War II, and the emerging Cold War. The art created during this period embodied a harrowing and emotional landscape. Inventur includes more than 160 works by almost fifty German artists, and some pieces are on view in the United States for the first time. Including photography, sculpture, painting, commercial design, and drawing, the exhibition is the first to take this perspective on a complex moment in art. harvardartmuseums.org