The art world has been slow to recognize the dynamic work of Carmen Herrera, who at the age of 101 finally got a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2016. Now a presentation of the Cuban–American artist’s large-scale sculptures—based on the geometric shapes in her paintings and which she designed five decades ago but never realized—has arrived in Houston as part of the five-year anniversary celebration for Buffalo Bayou Park. Standing seven feet in height and twelve feet wide on the Fondren Foundation Meadow, the monumental sculptures feature interconnected abstract forms, contrasting their bold colors with the green space and the skyline. buffalobayou.org

Artist Shan Goshorn used traditional Cherokee weaving to reflect on indigenous history, making baskets from reproductions of archival documents like maps, treaties, and photographs to physically dismantle the oppression of the past and commemorate endurance and self-representation. The impact of the Tulsa-based artist, who died in 2018, is highlighted in this exhibition that joins her work with four contemporary Native American women artists. A catalogue and online videos further delve into her powerful practice, from her last piece (which wove the names of murdered and missing women into a female form) to vessels made from tribal prayers of healing for the children forcibly assimilated in Indian boarding schools. gilcrease.org

It took until 2001 for the Massachusetts legislature to absolve all the victims of the Salem witch trials. Still, centuries after the episode of hysteria that resulted in the deaths of twenty-five people between June 1692 and March 1693, we are grappling with its legacy of injustice, intolerance, and violence in the name of religion. The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem is reexamining this complex history through original witch-trial documents which are rarely on view, as well as contextual materials revealing the origins of Puritan witch hunts, personal belongings from victims and perpetrators, and even a piece of the old Salem jail. Blog posts and an episode of the museum’s ongoing podcast further investigate how these prosecutions based on divisiveness and fear resonate today. pem.org

The twelve earthen mounds in Spiro, Oklahoma, are among the most significant sites of early civilization in the United States. This first major exhibition to examine the Spiro Mounds brings together around 200 objects, from engraved shells and effigy pipes to pearl bead necklaces and embossed copper sheets, to survey Spiro’s role in one of the most advanced prehistoric cultures. Excavated—or looted—in the early twentieth century, the reunited works reveal the daily life, ceremonies, and beliefs of the Mississippian people, who established themselves in Oklahoma more than one thousand years ago. Contemporary indigenous art reflects on this past, including the possibility that Spiro was abandoned due to ecological change, and how that history can resonate with the present. nationalcowboymuseum.org

When the Rothko Chapel opened in February 1971, it was a sacred space like none that had come before, with fourteen huge paintings in varying shades of black arranged in an octagonal room illuminated by a skylight. It was one of the last works completed by artist Mark Rothko, who considered how abstraction combined with careful attention to architecture could instill a meditative calm without a humanistic focus. This year the Moody Center for the Arts is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary by re-staging 1975 Marden, Novros, Rothko: Painting in the Age of Actuality, originally supported by Dominique de Menil, who commissioned the chapel. The new show also presents contemporary art reflecting on the groundbreaking non-denominational chapel and its immersive encounter with art. moody.rice.edu

In the 1960s and 1970s, artists used geometric forms and motion to create surprising and disorienting effects. The Oklahoma City Museum of Art has a strong representation of op (optical) and kinetic art in its permanent collection and now unites those holdings with major loans to explore how these two art movements challenged perception through real and perceived motion. An accompanying catalogue further explores this work, like paintings by Richard Anuszkiewicz (who employed contrasting intense colors for shimmering effects) the pioneering mobiles and kinetic sculptures of Alexander Calder, and the hallucinatory optical illusions painted by Victor Vasarely. okcmoa.com