Art Road Trip: 10 Exhibits to See This Fall

Featured on newsweek.com

Imagine for a moment that a group of art enthusiasts have squeezed into mom’s old minivan (perhaps dragging along some art skeptics for good measure), loaded up the car with snacks and playlists, and set out to visit some of the country’s top museums. There are hundreds of exhibits they could see this fall, but perhaps there's not enough time to reach them all.

Newsweek has compiled a list of 10 worthy stops from New York to Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, from Dallas to Detroit and Chicago, and from Boston to Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

Whatever the tastes of the imaginary road trippers, this list has the potential to intrigue and satisfy each member of the troop—and even perhaps to capture the attention and win the affections of those who are not naturally inclined to step over the threshold of a museum.

"Picasso Sculpture"
September 14, 2015–February 7, 2016
Museum of Modern Art, New York City 

Pablo Picasso is a household name if there ever was one, but the familiar paintings and drawings that come to mind when he’s mentioned are not the protagonists of this exhibit. Instead, the Museum of Modern Art has decided to focus on Picasso’s work in three dimensions to highlight a lesser-known side of one of the most well-known artists of the 20th century.

Unlike his painting, which was continual throughout his lifetime, Picasso turned to sculpture several times over the years for discrete periods. The exhibit is divided into chapters, with each gallery or two corresponding to Picasso’s various forays into the medium. “Whereas in some rooms it’s an emphasis on a kind of serious mood, others may be a much more lighthearted whimsical mood,” says Ann Temkin, the Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis chief curator of painting and sculpture. There are “rooms that border on abstraction and others might be absolutely figurative,” she adds, with sculptures that “seem like somebody you could talk to or pet.”

Visitors will see works like the She-Goat (1950), made of bronze and often on display at MoMA; Guitar (1924), made of painted sheet metal, a tin box and iron wire, reminiscent of Picasso’s cubist paintings and a sculpture that “completely changed the world,” Temkin says; and Bull’s Head (1942), fashioned from a bicycle seat and handlebars.

"Spirit and Matter: Masterpieces From the Keir Collection of Islamic Art"
September 18, 2015–July 31, 2016
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas

The Dallas Museum of Art is the first institution in North America to mount an exhibition of pieces from the Keir Collection—the rarely shown collection that comprises almost 2,000 works of Islamic art made over the course of 13 centuries on three continents. The collection has begun arriving in Dallas this year for a long-term loan of a decade and a half.

The show is an introduction to Islamic art and culture that features pottery, metalwork, works on paper and textiles, Sabiha Al Khemir, the DMA’s senior advisor for Islamic art and curator of the exhibit, tells Newsweek. "The majority of Islamic art does not have a religious function, but is filled with spirituality."

Until now, Islamic art didn’t have much of a presence in Dallas or Texas in general, says Al Khemir, despite the fact that the state ranks fifth in the country in percentage of the population identifying as Muslim adherents. But with the Keir Collection loan, the DMA becomes the third-largest holder of Islamic art in the country after the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Smithsonian's Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington, D.C. “This is an encyclopedic museum,” Al Khemir says. “We have a responsibility to represent23 percent of the world population.”

The Broad’s Inaugural Installation
Opened September 20
The Broad, Los Angeles

The new building housing works from Eli and Edythe Broad’s collection of contemporary art is a work of art in itself. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro—the firm responsible for the High Line and the upcoming expansion of MoMA in New York City—the bright white facade faces the Walt Disney Concert Hall and Museum of Contemporary Art and houses 50,000 square feet of exhibition space.

The inaugural installation includes more than 250 works by at least five dozen artists, representing just a fraction of the 2,000-piece collection. On the third floor, beneath more than 300 skylights, visitors can see works made primarily between the 1950s and the 1990s by artists such as Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Roy Lichtenstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Cindy Sherman. The first floor features more recent works such as Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirrored Room (2013), an immersive display of mirrors and LED lights.

“As vast as the inaugural installation is, very few galleries show the full depth of our holdings in the work of any given artist,” Joanne Heyler, The Broad’s founding director and curator of this first show, said in a press release. “This gives the public just a hint at the totality of the collection—and a reason to come back many times to see fresh rotations, new acquisitions and more in-depth special exhibitions.”

Click here to see the full list.