Listed below are the partner museum shows we're most excited about this season, which are always free for you and a guest with your Cultivist Card in hand.

Venice, Julie Mehretu at Palazzo Grassi (until 6 January)

Palazzo Grassi is hosting a major exhibition dedicated to American artist Julie Mehretu, featuring over sixty works spanning a twenty-five-year period, including recent pieces from 2021-2023. The exhibition not only showcases Mehretu's abstract paintings and prints but also explores her artistic community by presenting works from artists and writers who have been influential collaborators and friends.

Los Angeles, ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN at LACMA (until 6 October 2024).

This exhibition will feature over 250 objects—in mediums including painting, drawing, prints, photography, artist’s books, film, and installation—that use everything from gunpowder to chocolate. Exploring Ruscha’s landmark contributions to postwar American art as well as lesser-known aspects of his six-decade career, the exhibition will offer new perspectives on a body of work that has influenced generations of artists, architects, designers, and writers.

Los Angeles, Simone Leigh at LACMA and CAAM (26 May - 20 January 2025)

Simone Leigh's traveling exhibition, organised by the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston and co-presented at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the California African American Museum, is the first comprehensive survey of the artist's diverse work spanning 20 years. Featuring ceramics, bronze, video, and installations, the exhibit explores Black femme subjectivity and knowledge production, referencing African diaspora processes and traditions.

New York, Joan Jonas: Good Night Good Morning, at the Museum of Modern Art (until 6 July)

Joan Jonas's most comprehensive retrospective in the United States offers fresh perspectives on the artist's work, providing unprecedented access to archival materials and insights into her creative process. Spanning drawings, photographs, notebooks, oral histories, film screenings, performances, and installations, the exhibition traces Jonas's career development, from explorations of technology and ritual in the 1960s and 1970s to more recent works addressing ecology and the landscape.

London, Angelica Kauffman at the Royal Academy (until 30 June)

Angelica Kauffman RA, a prominent 18th-century artist, is showcased in this comprehensive exhibition, exploring her journey from a child prodigy to a highly sought-after European painter. Renowned for celebrity portraits and innovative history paintings, Kauffman's impact on European art is traced, featuring works depicting influential figures, her pioneering focus on female protagonists in classical history, and her contributions as a founding member of the Royal Academy.

Paris, Paris 1847: Inventing Impressionism at Musée d'Orsay (until 14 July)

In 1874, a group of artists, including Monet, Renoir, and Degas, broke free from artistic rules and organised the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris, marking the birth of Impressionism. The Musée d'Orsay's current exhibition, Paris 1874, explores the circumstances and artistic evolution of this movement amid the post-war crisis, showcasing works that challenged traditional norms and emphasised the radical modernity of these young artists.

Houston, Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West, at MFA Houston (9 June – 2 September)

In his luminous paintings, Raqib Shaw blends Eastern and Western influences to create mesmerising works of art that merge fable, history, and autobiography. Shaw’s mysterious paintings seamlessly combine references to Western art history with Asian ornamental aesthetics and philosophical traditions. Reflecting these intertwined histories, the exhibition’s title—Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West—is taken from the Rudyard Kipling poem “The Ballad of East and West.”

San Francisco, New Work: Mary Lovelace O’Neal, at SFMoMA (until 20 October)

The exhibition showcases new works made from 2021 through 2023 at her studio in Mйrida, Mexico. The last time Lovelace O’Neal’s work was the subject of an exhibition at SFMOMA was in 1979, when her paintings were paired with works by the artist George C. Longfish. Curated by Eungie Joo, the museum’s head of contemporary art, “New Work: Mary Lovelace O’Neal” features six mixed-media paintings on canvases covered in black pigment. Acrylic, pastels, charcoal and masking tape are used in her compositions. Joo selected the paintings in conversation with Lovelace O’Neal with a consideration of visual and thematic cohesion.

Chicago, Georgia O’Keeffe: My NewWorks at The Art Institute of Chicago (2 June - 22 September) 

Renowned for her floral and Southwestern landscape paintings, Georgia O’Keeffe turned her attention to New York City's built environment in the 1920s. Residing in the Shelton Hotel, the city's tallest residential skyscraper at the time, she embarked on a five-year period of experimental artwork, capturing monumental skyscrapers from street-level and suspended views from her 30th-floor apartment, exploring the dynamic interplay between the organic and inorganic elements of New York's cityscape.

Tokyo, Theaster Gates: Afro-Mingei at Mori Art Museum (until 1 September)

Internationally acclaimed artist Theaster Gates' diverse practice, spanning sculpture, ceramics, architecture, music, performance, and design, is showcased in his first comprehensive exhibition in Japan. The exhibition highlights Gates' innovative work, including new pieces created for the show, as well as his connections to Japan, particularly his projects in Tokoname. Through his exploration of "Afro-Mingei," a philosophy combining Japanese Mingei folk art with Black aesthetics, Gates presents an opportunity to delve into questions of race, culture, and politics while celebrating craft and cultural hybridity.