Happening

Adrián Villar Rojas is turning two museum floors into a cave, layering traces of rituals and geological activity. The Argentine artist works between the organic and inorganic, with earth and auto parts mingling with tree branches and industrial scraps. Here among the accumulation is a bronze triceratops skull, with one horn morphing into a rendering of a prehistoric female figurine found in a French cave. This merging of the human past and the animal past asks us to consider how we view our history, and if other species should be recognized in our cultural foundations.

Robert Rauschenberg frequently brought his textural use of materials to dance collaborations, and in honor of the centennial of his birth on October 22, the Trisha Brown Dance Company and the Merce Cunningham Trust are touring pieces featuring his sets and costumes. The series kicks off at the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina, with performances on June 12 and 13 of Brown’s Set and Reset and Cunningham’s Travelogue. Further dates are planned across the country through April 2026, with new dates to be announced, so keep an eye out for these seminal modern dance pieces arriving near you. Ongoing through April 2026.

What if we treated the flourishing of a tree like a sporting event? Artist Amanda Lovelee is expanding on her previous pep rallies for the planet and pennant flags made to cheer on common weeds with this outdoor exhibition. Two “trees-in-residence” are the stars of the celebratory programming staged at the museum’s bleachers. This project engages with deeper ideas of how plants are migrating due to climate change, and how we can welcome them to ensure that our local biodiversity continues to thrive.

Remembering one’s past can be like sifting through the remains of an extinct age. Nick Cave takes that idea to a colossal scale in Mammoth, the largest commission from a single artist by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Reflecting on his childhood in Missouri, the artist best known for creating wearable Soundsuits in response to police violence uses that same transformative approach to his and his country’s roots. A centerpiece is a huge light table with objects from everyday life—such as his grandmother’s thimble collection—elevated into artifacts.

In November 2020, a fire destroyed the Doris Duke Theater, a central performance space for the annual Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, which showcases companies from across the globe. Now it is reborn as a “living lab for the future of dance,” anticipating robotics, immersive performances, and other technology while still maintaining a connection to the surrounding natural beauty. This summer’s reopening features Taiwanese choreographer and roboticist Huang Yi and Korean choreographer Eun-Me Ahn, who uses 3D holographic projections. Opens July 9, 2025.

After a major conservation project on its striking Louis I. Kahn-designed home, the Yale Center for British Art reopens with a re-installation of its collection and two shows spotlighting solo artists: J. M. W. Turner: Romance and Reality and Tracey Emin: I Loved You Until The Morning. With its skylit, concrete-framed galleries, it’s an exhibition setting like no other, where English Romanticism and contemporary art pop in equal measure. Opening March 29, 2025.

Unveiling alongside the fiftieth anniversary of the mass migration of Vietnamese refugees following the end of the Vietnam War, We Have Arrived by artists Denise Duong and Gabriel Friedman takes on the sculptural form of a small fishing boat. It is adorned with details recalling the stories of the hundreds of thousands of individuals who made that often harrowing journey, including many to Oklahoma City. Installed in the city’s Asian District in Military Park—itself home to a Vietnam War memorial—it honors the history and resilience of this vibrant local community. To debut in spring 2025.

Following architectural installations like her 2023 rooftop commission at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York that presented an Afrofuturist temple, artist Lauren Halsey is transforming a vacant lot in her South Central LA neighborhood. The sculpture park’s full name is sister dreamer, lauren halsey’s architectural ode to tha surge n splurge of south central los angeles. The park will feature her distinctive remixing of forms inspired by ancient Egypt—such as sphinxes and columns—graffiti tags, and nods to local culture. Community programming is planned to be integral to the garden space. Opening Spring 2025.