Art News

An inside look at events and happenings in the contemporary art world.

View of the main entry plaza of the new Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State. Architect: Allied Works. Rendering: Courtesy of MIR.

Palmer Museum reopens
The Palmer Museum of Art will celebrate the public opening of its new home at the Arboretum at Penn State on June 1 and 2. The weekend celebration invites guests to be a part of the official ribbon cutting with Penn State president Neeli Bendapudi, museum director Erin Coe and other distinguished guests beginning at 9:30 a.m. Guided tours of the museum and Arboretum, artmaking activities, refreshments and other festivities will take place 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. The new 73,000-square-foot building within the Arboretum at Penn State will be a larger facility that features educational spaces, including a teaching gallery, flexible event spaces and nearly twice the exhibition space of the current museum on Curtin Road, allowing for expanded access to Penn State’s growing collection of 10,500 works of art.

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Kristine Potter exhibition
The Momentary in Bentonville, Arkansas, recently opened Kristine Potter: Dark Waters, an exhibition of “richly detailed black-and-white photographs inspired by the enigmatic terrain surrounding bodies of water that bear names of violence in the American South: places like ‘Murder Creek,’ ‘Deadman’s Branch,’ and ‘Bloody Fork.’ The series of photographs, complemented by a video and sound installation, unravels the deeply held associations between land and a history of violence in this area of the nation,” the museum notes. Kristine Potter: Dark Waters is accompanied by Potter’s second monograph, co-published by the Momentary and Aperture. The exhibition is curated by Aperture executive director Sarah Meister; Alejo Benedetti, curator of contemporary art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Momentary; and Elise Raborg, curatorial associate of contemporary art at Crystal Bridges and the Momentary. The show will be available for viewing through October 13.

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Wangari Mathenge, The Ascendants XVIII (She Is Here And So Are You), 2021, oil on canvas. Dallas Museum of Art, TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund, 2022.27. © Wangari Mathenge.

When You See Me
Currently on view at the Dallas Museum of Art, When You See Me: Visibility in Contemporary Art/History is a pioneering exhibition that brings together more than 60 works by established and up-and-coming artists. Predominantly artists of color, women and queer artists, the exhibition features such creative minds as Rashid Johnson, Simone Leigh, Tschabalala Self, Puppies Puppies, Hernan Bas, Salman Toor, Marisol, Theaster Gates, Samuel Levi Jones and many more. The artists in the exhibition utilize visibility as the framework with which to explore the issue of representation, while simultaneously investigating the power of invisibility. When You See Me: Visibility in Contemporary Art/History is on view through April 13, 2025.

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A view of the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas.

Rothko Chapel restoration
Founded in 1971 by artist Mark Rothko and philanthropists and art collectors John and Dominique de Menil, the cultural landmark the Rothko Chapel recently broke ground on Phase II of its “Opening Spaces” campus plan. The $42-million restoration and expansion project is a multi-year campaign, with Phase II initiating the process of introducing flexible, multi-use indoor and outdoor spaces for programming, gathering and reflection.

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Keith Jackson, Thomas, 2024, oil on canvas with sand and molding paste, 48 x 60"

Keith Jackson/Desmond Lewis show
Red Arrow Gallery is hosting the duo exhibition To Til a Seed, featuring the artwork of oil painter Keith Jackson and mixed media artist Desmond Lewis. The show contains four oil paintings depicting sharecropping and tenant farmers from Jackson’s Southeastern Missouri upbringing, as well as a site-specific installation with accompanying audio from Lewis. “The pairing of these artists’ work comes on the heels of their time spent together at the prestigious Skowhegan Artist Residency program where the two met and soon acknowledged their similarities in person and practice, although nearly three decades apart in age,” the gallery notes. To Til a Seed opens May 18 with an opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. and will be on view through June 29. —