15 Museum Exhibitions to See Across the US This Fall

15 Museum Exhibitions to See Across the US This Fall Tony Cokes’s riffs on the video essay, a Grandma Moses retrospective, and Abbas Akhavan’s US museum debut are among the shows to look forward to this season. The circus is coming to town, although maybe not in the form you’d expect. The art world, in all its acrobatics, pageantry, and occasional fun, is returning to cities across the United States this fall with a spate of acts. Artist Karon Davis ushers us into the big top in an exhibition rife with circus archetypes at the Seattle Art Museum. In a group show at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, we’re given front seats to the circus that is American democracy. There may be no ringmaster inside this tent, but there’s certainly showbiz: the Denver Art Museum has dedicated an entire show to the diva phenomenon, while at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for Contemporary Art, Tony Cokes takes the shears to the codes of popular culture. The magic act continues elsewhere: every piece of rubbish that jewelry designer Bernhard Schobinger touched turned into gold, as evidenced by a new show at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. And up north, a photography exhibition at the Milwaukee Museum of Art pairs the alchemy of resource extraction with that of photography, a comparison that needs no smoke and mirrors, save for the one in a DSLR camera. — Phillip Pyle, associate editor Read our 2026 fall guides for New York and Los Angeles. Turn the volume up! Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina Aug. 27–July 11, 2027 The allusion to NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s celebratory quoting of rapper KRS-One’s “Turn the Volume Up” (2020) in this exhibition’s title is fitting considering its interrogation of democratic participation. Works by artists including Kara Walker, Lyle Ashton Harris, Mike Kelley, and Sam Durant are presented as chronicles of the history of collective action through voting and organizing, inspiring a rare moment of hope amid America’s 250th anniversary. Going Underground: The Jewels of Bernhard Schobinger Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, Texas Sept. 3–Jan. 3, 2027 Fishing lures from Lake Zurich and asphalt chunks from a New York City street are among the materials found in Schobinger’s idiosyncratic jewelry pieces. With influences extending from Concrete Art, Dada, and the Situationists to Japanese culture and punk, Schobinger disrupts jewelry as an elitist luxury through his scavenged, rebellious, and rubbish-composed innovations. Joe Feddersen: Earth, Water, Sky Missoula Art Museum, Missoula, Montana Sept. 4–Dec. 31 How do we treat the natural world? Colville artist Joe Feddersen explores the tension in that existential question through decorated woven baskets, spray-painted monoprint collages, and sandblasted blown glass works marked with indigenous symbolisms. This exhibition probes the complex and fragile bond between humans and the environment across four decades of Feddersen's multimedia practice. Grandma Moses: A Good Day’s Work Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, Bentonville, Arkansas Sept. 12–March 29, 2027 You can almost hear the festive clamor of the townsfolk in “Deep Snow” (1957), one of the many intimate depictions of rural life in Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses’s oeuvre. Paintings of farmers knee-deep in hay, green patchwork expanses, and a barnyard wedding (before it became a trend) are part of this major show reviving the postwar legacy of Grandma Moses, who opened her first solo exhibition at 80 years old. The Gift: Emma Amos with Friends Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio Sept. 13–Jan. 24, 2027 As a gift for her daughter India’s 20th birthday, artist Emma Amos painted 48 watercolor portraits of women artists, art historians, and critics in her community. This exhibition brings together the entire suite of paintings in The Gift (1990–94), which includes portraits of Elizabeth Catlett, Lorna Simpson, bell hooks, Faith Ringgold, Howardena Pindell, Lucy Lippard, and Kay WalkingStick, for the first time in two decades. Tony Cokes: Texts, Tracks, Talks (1992–2026) Institute for Contemporary Art, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia Sept. 18–Feb. 21, 2027 Tony Cokes’s confrontational text-based, sensory-driven practice samples moments, fragments, and movements across culture and history, spurring new and critical connections that diverge from dominant media narratives. Marking a welcome return to his alma mater, this exhibition presents a survey of the multimedia artist’s existing works alongside newly commissioned ones centering on themes of production, artistic intent, and the development of personal identity. From Noguchi to Asawa: Designing Postwar America Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Sept. 20–Jan. 10, 2027 Isamu Noguchi and George Nakashima are among the six Japanese American artists featured in this exhibition that reconsiders the aesthetics of modern America. From album covers to living room lamps, the objects on display illuminate the influence of the artists’ practices in galleries and later, in American homes, where even the most quiet designs were informed by the traumas of World War II and Japanese-American concentration camps in the United States. Martin Puryear: Nexus High Museum, Atlanta, Georgia Sept. 25–Jan. 17, 2027 This touring exhibition maps the conceptual evolution of Puryear’s contemplative, craft-driven sculpture practice over the last 60 years. Alongside a selection of new works, the artist’s most recognizable pieces are supplemented with rarely seen drawings, prints, and sculptures that nod to his fastidious research and lifelong curiosity. Suzanne Jackson: What Is Love Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston, Massachusetts Sept. 26–Jan. 18, 2027 From ethereal acrylic washes from the 1970s to a hanging patchwork sculpture from 2017, this retrospective spans Jackson’s career as a painter, dancer, poet, and admirer of the Californian landscape. Infusing her art with luminous imagery and daring abstraction, Jackson positions beauty as political, surrealism as material, and Black artists’ right to make peaceful art as inviolable. Wilmer Wilson IV: SKIRL! Institute for Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Sept. 26–Feb. 21, 2027 The cheeky, nutty, tenacious, and ubiquitous eastern gray squirrel gets its long-overdue spotlight in Wilmer Wilson IV’s new series of installations, sculptures, performances, and works on paper. As the product of the inaugural edition of the museum’s new research-driven residency, Wilmer’s project examines the social, civic, and cultural relevance of the species whose identity ping-pongs between pest, pet, and wildlife. DIVA Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado Oct. 4–Jan. 31, 2027 What drives star power? DIVA answers this by mapping the on- and offstage expectations of performing virtuosas across nearly 150 years of entertainment and fashion history. Honoring the goddesses of opera and silent film, the sex symbols of Hollywood’s Golden Age, jazz and soul icons, and the various iterations of the modern pop star, this exhibition explores the social currency and radical impact of stardom. Fighting for Freedom: Black Craftspeople and the Pursuit of Independence Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina Oct. 16, 2026–May 9, 2027 This exhibition examines Black craftwork from the Revolutionary War through the present, identifying how the resilience, agency, and personal expression of African American artisans were integral to the route to freedom. These artifacts and design objects, which demonstrate mastery in smithing, carpentry, weaving, and pottery, also shed light on Black communities’ critical contributions to the material culture of the United States. Beneath the Surface: Mining and American Photography Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin Oct. 23–Jan. 18, 2027 If you drive a car, have a cellphone, use a camera, or own a single piece of plastic, this exhibition is for you. Beneath the Surface juxtaposes the history of American mining, drilling, and fracking with the evolution of photography over nearly two centuries, tracing the social, economic, material, and political evolution of the polarizing industry taking place beneath our feet. Karon Davis: Not My Circus Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington Nov. 5–July 4, 2027 In this exhibition themed around the big top, Karon Davis introduces carnivalesque tableaux made from plaster-cast sculptures modeled on those most familiar to her, including herself. As the specters of circuses past haunt today’s oft-empty or repurposed tents, Davis’s subjects carry an unnerving energy, with a despairing clown and a vulnerable knife-thrower's assistant creating an insidious tango between the lighthearted and bleak aspects of performance. Abbas Akhavan: Variations on a Garden Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota Nov. 12–April 18, 2027 Abbas Akhavan’s ephemeral installations probe various conflicts between humans and the natural world through lenses of privacy and preservation. As the first United States museum survey of the Iranian-Canadian artist who represented Canada during the 61st Venice Biennale, this exhibition highlights Akhavan’s use of soil, fauna, and water to emphasize humanity’s role in negotiating the ceaseless and sometimes indifferent forces of biology.