After selling his early designs in an Atlanta beauty salon, Patrick Kelly moved to Paris and established his fashion house in 1988. His dresses, with colorful pops from buttons and stitched hearts, drew inspiration from his Southern upbringing and the gay club scene, and soon attracted fans such as Grace Jones and Madonna. Yet his most searing work was in confronting racist imagery in popular culture and reclaiming it with joy. The de Young Museum expands on an exhibition that debuted at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2014 with eighty full ensembles from 1984 to 1990, chronicling how in his brief, passionate career the late Black fashion designer pushed the boundaries of American style. deyoung.famsf.org

While in the late 1930s social realism and themes of Americana were dominating art in the United States, in Taos the Transcendental Painting Group was exploring a more spiritual form of expression. Using evocative symbols and exuberant color, they elicited ideas of the unconscious. This traveling exhibition organized by the Crocker Art Museum follows the groundbreaking Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist that opened at the Whitney Museum in 2020. Another World expands the understanding of abstraction outside the usual focus on New York to Southwestern artists like Pelton, Raymond Jonson, Emil Bisttram, Florence Miller Pierce, William Lumpkins, and others. Using luminous hues and dramatic shapes, they painted to conjure a transcendence beyond the physical world. philbrook.org

A comprehensive examination of the seven-decade impact of one of the most significant living artists cannot be easily contained, so the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum have teamed up for simultaneous exhibitions of around 500 pieces chronicling the career of Jasper Johns. Emerging in the 1950s with now-iconic works like Flag, which used the image of the American flag as a bridge between abstraction and representation, Johns has revolutionized art with painting, sculpture, prints, and performances. Referencing his explorations of mirroring and symmetry, the two exhibitions will reflect on each other, so each stands on its own but is illuminated by experiencing the other. philamuseum.org whitney.org

Five museums in San Antonio and Houston will feature more than fifty artists in this year’s Texas Biennial, showcasing diverse work from some of the most thought-provoking artists in Texas as well as “Texpats” with connections to the Lone Star state. Trenton Doyle Hancock, Virginia Jaramillo, Melvin Edwards, Rick Lowe, and Vincent Valdez are among the artists representing media spanning sculpture, painting, experimental video, and performance. Some pieces will be on view to the public and others will be in galleries. The biennial considers timely subjects like art as activism and the complex histories in the state, centered on the theme of A New Landscape, A Possible Horizon. texasbiennial.org

Designed by Renzo Piano and incorporating an existing 1930s streamlined building, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures centers on a permanent three-floor Stories of Cinema exhibition that examines the evolution of film, with highlights including Dorothy’s Wizard of Oz ruby slippers and painted backdrops for films like North by Northwest. The long-awaited opening of the country’s largest museum devoted to filmmaking debuts with an impressive roster of programming, featuring the first North American museum retrospective on legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki of My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. Complementing the museum’s opening are online conversations and screenings celebrating the diverse contributors behind the movies. academymuseum.org

The first permanent art installation from nomadic Denver-based art museum Black Cube is a sculpture, skatepark, and flood-mitigation landscape with undulating concrete where skaters can soar and rain can be guided away from areas where it may stagnate. Created by artist Matt Barton, Community Forms is situated on the public campus of the TAXI development that includes both residential and work spaces. It’s a fresh way to think about public art that fosters community and encourages environmental consciousness while offering a dynamic statement through curvy contours that are perfect for getting air. blackcube.art