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If you are tired of the same routine of waking up and staring at the screen, perhaps longing for an escape, here is a selection of art shows and exhibits from across the globe to consider checking out. From London to Berlin, New York to Toronto, artists construct their craft through stories, history, and guiding voices.

Title: Feeding Consciousness // Artist: Dominic Harris // Place: Halcyon Gallery // Location: London

Running from May 25 to August 13, Feeding Consciousness comes from notable British digital artist Dominic Harris. This will mark the first exhibit at Halcyon Gallery’s new flagship London gallery at 148 Bond Street.

These digital paintings were done by hand through an assemblance process, with a key attraction being a 10-foot digital sculpture inspired by the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel. Leaning in with artificial intelligence and datasets, the top five trending subjects on Google UK’s search engine are the focal points of the presentation. 180 LCD screens will showcase the works, which include a piece called Endurance, a take on the Antarctic landscape that comes with no hardware, as well as Elements, which follows moving butterflies pieced together with elements of wood, earth, water, fire, and metal and backed by an interactive soundtrack.

 

Title: The Evolution and Construction of Time // Artist: Renato Calaj // Place: Area35 ArtGallery // Location: Milan

Utilizing dimensions and mechanics, artist Renato Calaj’s metal structures can be seen as “solitary sculptures in space,” as well as formidable components of a greater architectural composition. These structures were previously used to cover the exterior of buildings while they were being restored. The digital installation also comes with artwork made from enamel, resin, and acrylic base, plus further coated with spray paint on canvas. All works draw on time, space, and the (in)consistencies generated from change. The exhibit runs until June 29.

Title: Woodland // Artist: Sarah Anne Johnson // Place: Stephen Bulger Gallery // Location: Toronto

As part of Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, Sarah Anne Johnson’s Woodland marks the artist’s sixth solo exhibition at the gallery. With focus on forests near Winnipeg, Manitoba, emphasis is placed on the Indigenous connection to the surrounding areas and the sacred, precious, and historical elements found in the land. Each mixed-media piece is designed using oil paint, holographic stickers, and dyes, flirting with shapes and colour while beckoning us to get lost in the leaves. The exhibit runs until June 24. 

Title: Coded: Art Enters the Computer Age, 1952 – 1982 // Artist(s): Various // Place: Los Angeles County Museum of Art // Los Angeles

On until July 12, Coded harnesses the artistry that emerged from computer technology straight from the mainframe. What is digital art? How do creatives use computers to create art which is machine-driven?

This exhibit attempts to trace a technical lineage, rewinding to when the computer entered society. The exhibit also comes with a soundtrack by Mark “Frosty” McNeil and LACMA, which weaves together the evolution of computer music, complete with microprocessors and dub work.

 

Title: An Evening with Danielle Brathwaite – Shirley // Artist: Danielle Brathwaite – Shirley // Place: MoMA // Location: New York // Date: May 22 @ 7PM

Black trans experiences are in focus for this special presentation from Berlin-and-London-based artist and video game developer Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. Shirley’s Blackzilla (2018) and Digging for Black Trans Life (2019) will make their North American premieres. Each look at how stereotypes create our understanding of gender recognition. Built with an all-encompassing approach that looks beyond just the surface, clothing, pronouns, money, and safety are discussed with and for the trans community. The screening will also come with a conversation between Brathwaite-Shirley and Binghao Wong, who is a C-MAP Asia Fellow in MoMA’s International Program. All tickets are available on May 15.

Title: Ed Pien: Present: Past/Future // Artist: Ed Pien // Place: Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) // Location: Toronto

This participatory art project is an intimate look at the process of aging, told through life stories of 13 Cuban seniors. Over the past nine years, these seniors have been in consistent contact with the Taiwanese-born Canadian artist Ed Pien. The plan is to continue these artist-subject relations for years to come. Audio, video, photography, furniture, and vintage TVs are fused together to form meaning and feeling around aging, with construction also drawn from interviews with each person in their own homes. While six of the 13 participating elderly folks passed away, their contributions and conversations live on in picture and memory. Mark your calendar on June 3, too, as Pien will appear live for a chat alongside the exhibit’s guest curator Catherine Sicot. The exhibit concludes on June 4.

Photo of Dionne Clementina Anyo Reyes, 2019.
Photo by Claudio Pelaez Sordo

 

Title: Choosing a New Me //Artist: Tatsuhito Horikoshi // Place: A2Z Art Gallery // Location: Paris

Japanese artist Tatsuhito Horikoshi unravels his identity and explores persona complexities through various avatars. His oil paintings touch on freedom, acceptance, social class, and the always penetrable battle within. Titles contain an angel, ghost, knight, friend, and son, each inspired by his appreciation of characters found in games. The show kicks off on May 11 and runs until June 10.

“The expression of the cartoon-style characters is familiar to me and feels real and is suitable for expressing the mood of the era around me,” Horikoshi said, adding that he always wonders if he is playing someone else’s role.

“My desire to change myself also plays a role,” he concludes.

 

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Title: New Photography 2023 // Artist(s): Various // Place: MoMA // Location: New York

New Photography 2023 features work by Kelani Abass, Akinbode Akinbiyi, Yagazie Emezi, Amanda Iheme, Abraham Oghobase, Karl Ohiri, and Logo Oluwamuyiwa. Each international artist uses the lens to create their own photographic presents, ushering in another phase of MoMA’s beloved New Photography series (which has been in existence since 1985). This collection features art from the port city of Lagos, aka Nigeria’s commercial capital. The subject matter varies from architecture to personal reflection to historical names and more. This series opens to the public on May 28 and runs until September 16.

Title: Flowers on a River: The Art of Chinese Flower and Bird Painting, 1368 – 1911 // Artist(s): Various // Place: China Institute Gallery // Location: New York

Over 100 Chinese works from 59 artists are included in this special exhibition of Chinese flower-and-bird paintings. This is a first-of-its-kind exhibit to be held outside of China, housed at the only museum in the U.S. which exclusively shows Chinese art. The paintings explore the natural world across five centuries and feature pictorials of flowers, birds, fish, and insects. The works have been loaned from China’s Tianjin Museum and Changzhou Museum, given exclusively for the reopening of the CIG. The show is organized in three parts: Precious Plums of the Palace: Academicism and Court Artists; Fragrant Plums in the Wild: The Literati Art, Painters and Painting Schools; and Vitality of Nature: Flower-and-Bird Painting and Social Customs.

Touching on the Ming and Qing periods, which saw the rise of women, this exhibit features eight women artists, including the famed and “absolute talents” Ma Quan and Yun Bing, who rose to stardom during the Qing dynasty. There is also a 42-horizontal scroll, Flowers on a River, 1967, by legendary Chinese artist Zhu Da which has not been seen outside of China since 2013. The exhibit runs until June 23.

Following this exhibit, Flowers on a River will make its way to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, available for viewing from October 15, 2023, to January 14, 2024.

 

Title: 100 Works for Berlin // Artist: Gerhard Richter // Place: National Gallery in Berlin (Neue Nationalgalerie) // Location: Berlin

Visitors will get a chance to take in a first and entire view of iconic painter, sculptor, and photographer Gerhard Richter’s “Birkeanu” collection. The 91-year-old, who began painting in 1962, has donated 100 pieces to the exhibit, including large-scale abstract paintings based on four photographs secretly taken by Jewish prisoners at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. There is also a large mirror that reflects the work and summons onlookers further inside the pieces. Richter has also provided additional works: Squatters’ House (1989) and 4900 Colours (2007), among others.

 

Title: Glassrain // Artist: Rúrí // Place: Icelandic Art Center / Location: Reykjavik (Iceland)

A clear thread holds together 500 separate shards of glass in this exhibit (which was first developed in 1984). Each piece of glass hangs from the ceiling, with size variations and motion helping to juxtapose their visual space in the room. The exhibit runs until September 17.

(Photo courtesy of Icelandic Art Center)

 

 

Title: Crossing Borders // Artist: Nalini Malani // Place: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts // Location: Montreal

For the first time in Canada, Indian artist Nalini Malani, seen as a pioneer in video art in India, will showcase some of her most memorable large-scale works from recent years. Malani uses a collective of cultural, civic, and gender topics experienced through a historical and mythological scope. Can You Hear Me? (2018-2020) is a “nine-channel animation chamber with 88 hand-drawn iPad stop-motion animations…in what the artist describes as a human brain full of turmoil and ideas,” according to the exhibit’s release information. Also, expect to see two local Montreal artists, Iuliana Irimia and Cassandra Dickie, who collaborated with Malani on the artist’s ongoing series called City of Desires (1991 – present). Finally, a Ballad of a Woman, 2023, will project on the north side of Sherbrooke Street every evening from dusk until 11 p.m. The video is inspired by the work of Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska, a Nobel Prize winner. The exhibit runs until August 20.