Things to Do This Week in Boston

Your frequently updated guide to getting off the couch and out of the house.


Things to do in Boston (clockwise from top left): Wu-Tang Clan headline TD Garden; City Splash takes place on the Charles River / Photo by Artemisia Luk; Mr. Cardboard comes to the Rockwell; comic Ariel Elias comes to the Comedy Studio; Back to the Future: The Musical at Citizens Opera House; and Dropkick Murphys play a free show in Quincy Center.

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MULTIPLE DAYS
Ongoing through Monday, July 14 (and Beyond)

FESTIVALS

Boston JerkFest
Whether it’s on chicken, pork, seafood, or veggies, there’s nothing like the earthy, savory flavor of jerk cooking—and that’s not the only thing you’ll find at this popular Caribbean food fest. The main event is Saturday, with a special Rum & Brew session on Friday, featuring live music from Barbadian “Queen of Soca” Alison Hinds.
$44.52-$125, Friday and Saturday, July 11-12, McCurdy Outdoor Track, Harvard University, 145 N Harvard St., Allston

THEATER

Back to the Future: The Musical
Given the importance of music throughout Robert Zemeckis’ 1985 sci-fi comedy classic Back to the Future, this Broadway adaptation isn’t so surprising—what might be more surprising is the successful transposition of the film’s special effects to the stage. Original trilogy composer Alan Silvestri returned to write new music; original screenwriter Bob Gale wrote the book.
$57.50-$341.85, through July 20, Citizens Opera House, 539 Washington St., Boston

Kufre N’ Quay
Kufre N’ Quay sees its world premiere as part of Boston’s Ufot Family Cycle, a complete production, split between several local theater companies, of homegrown playwright Mfoniso Udofia’s theatrical epic. The Boston Arts Academy and Wheelock Family Theater team up to deliver the story of 12-year-old African immigrant boy who falls for a Black American girl at the local youth center.
$21.40-$41.80, Thursday, July 10 through July 26, Boston Arts Academy Main Stage Theater, 174 Ipswich St., Boston

Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)
American Repertory Theater hosts this musical rom-com production from English company Kiln Theatre. The couple: a British man, Dougal, who’s travelled to New York City for the second wedding of a father he doesn’t know very well, and an American, Kate, the sister of the bride, whose initial offer to pick up Dougal at the airport turns into a longer adventure.
$35-$150, through Sunday, July 13, Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St., Cambridge

MOVIES

Lauren Loesberg’s Year One screens at the Somerville International Film Festival.

Somerville International Film Festival
Catch some fresh cinema you won’t easily find anywhere else at this Davis Square mini fest, featuring two shorts programs and two features: Saturday’s Year One, about a college freshman who discovers an alter ego taking over her life, and Sunday’s The Strike, a documentary on the experiences of incarcerated Californian men in solitary confinement.
Free, Saturday and Sunday, July 11-12, The Rockwell, 255 Elm St., Somerville

Superman
Writer-director James Gunn offers a fresh take on the original superhero, with relatively obscure actor David Corenswet in the title role, opposite Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. Gunn focuses on a classic source of Superman tension: the conflict between his humble earth upbringing and his grand heritage as the last survivor of the doomed planet Krypton.
$15.99-$21.98, opens Thursday, July 10, Alamo Drafthouse, 60 Seaport Blvd., Boston

Familiar Touch
Kathleen Chalfant plays Ruth, a strong-willed elderly woman struggling to adjust to nursing home life and the reality of old age in this drama from writer-director Sarah Friedland. Fans of Bob’s Burgers, Archer, and numerous other animated TV productions will immediately recognize H. Jon Benjamin in a rare on-screen role as Ruth’s son.
$13-$15, Saturday, July 12 through July 17, Brattle Theater, 40 Brattle St., Cambridge

Jurassic World Rebirth
Gareth Edwards (Rogue One) took the director’s helm for the seventh installment in the Jurassic Park franchise, starring Scarlett Johansson as an operator tasked with retrieving dinosaur DNA from a hazardous former InGen facility. Her mission, however, is interrupted by her discovery of a shipwrecked family, as well as a massive, horrifying cover-up.
$13.75-$18.75, Landmark Kendal Square Cinema, 355 Binney St., Cambridge

Sorry, Baby
Writer-director Eva Victor won a Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance for her debut feature, in which she also stars as Agnes, a college professor struggling to recover from trauma. The film offers inspiration, but not without an understanding of its cost. “There’s a reason, even if I can’t see it, that I’m alive,” declares Agnes in the trailer.
$15-$17, Coolidge Corner Theater, 290 Harvard St., Brookline

Spawn of Jaws: Blockbusters and Wannabe Blockbusters
They don’t make summer blockbusters like they used to—so why not just watch the old ones on the big screen again? The Brattle’s serving up Grease, 1977’s Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien and Aliens, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, E.T., Poltergeist, Tim Burton’s Batman, and a lot more in this series.
$13-$15, through July 10, Brattle Theater, 40 Brattle St., Cambridge

M3GAN 2.0
Though panned by many, 2022’s M3GAN, a campy sci-fi twist on the evil doll genre, was a not-so-guilty pleasure for many others—enough, evidently, to justify this sequel, in which M3GAN’s creator Gemma (Allison Williams) redesigns the murderous android to battle a rogue AI based on her own software.
$16.75-$18.75, Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Binney St., Cambridge

Bad Shabbos
At the start of Daniel Robbins’ comedy, engaged couple David (John Bass) and Meg (Meghan Leathers) are set to introduce their parents to each other at a Shabbat dinner in New York City. What could go wrong? As it turns out, pretty much everything.
$15-$17, Coolidge Corner Theater, 290 Harvard St., Brookline

28 Years Later
If 2002’s 28 Days Later and 2007’s 28 Weeks Later showed how it started, this new installment of the aggro zombie series shows how it’s going—and it’s not going great. Danny Boyle and Alex Garland return as writer and director, respectively, with a cast including Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes, and Jack O’Connell.
$12.99-$18.48, Alamo Drafthouse, 60 Seaport Blvd., Boston

Elio
In Pixar’s latest creation, a misfit kid who dreams of outer space (Yonas Kibreab) finds himself unexpectedly drawn into an extraterrestrial world and mistaken for the ambassador from Earth. Now, he has to help save the Universe—no sweat, right?
$12.79-$24.18, AMC Boston Common, 175 Tremont St., Boston

Materialists
Dakota Johnson stars in writer-director Celine Song’s rom-com as a matchmaker caught between a wealthy client who looks perfect on paper (Pedro Pascal) and an old flame (Chris Evans) who knows her better but hasn’t done much with his own life. But is that really such a bad thing?
$12-$16, Somerville Theater, 55 Davis Sq., Somerville

The Phoenician Scheme
Despite the best efforts of some pranksters to replace him with AI, Wes Anderson continues to pump out movies at an increasingly rapid pace— the delightfully convoluted The Phoenician Scheme, starring Benicio del Toro as shifty businessman and arms dealer Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda, is his fourth already this decade.
$12-$16, Somerville Theater, 55 Davis Sq., Somerville

The Life of Chuck
Based on Stephen King’s non-horror novella of the same name, Mike Flanagan’s decades-spanning character study in reverse stars Tom Hiddleston as Chuck, a regular guy with a regular life. If that doesn’t sound Stephen King enough for you, don’t worry—there’s a bit more going on than that.
$15-$17, Coolidge Corner Theater, 290 Harvard St., Brookline

Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning
The indefatigable Tom Cruise returns for the eighth time as super spy Ethan Hunt. Immediately following the previous installment, Dead Reckoning Part One, Final Reckoning resumes Hunt’s quest to stop the assassin Gabriel Martinelli (Esai Morales) from acquiring a powerful AI called the Entity. Catch it here in IMAX.
$12.69-$25.18, AMC Boston Common, 175 Tremont St., Boston

ALSO


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TUESDAY (7/8/25)

MUSIC

Max Fry
Both immediate and delirious, Max Fry’s stylish, echoey punk sounds kind of like how it feels to drink coffee to wake up, but instead of waking you up it just makes you feel tired and wired at the same time. Is this the mood of the moment? It’s certainly one of them. Check out his most recent single, “Obsessed.”
$25-$26.19, 6:30 p.m., Sonia, 10 Brookline St., Cambridge

MOVIES

Stealing Pulp Fiction
Jason Alexander plays a Frank Reynolds-esque therapist who joins forces with three of his patients (Jon Rudnitsky, Karan Soni and Cazzie David) to burgle Quentin Tarantino’s private print of Pulp Fiction in this unsung 2024 heist comedy, in which the famously allusive director gets a taste of his own cinema geek medicine.
$16, 7:30 p.m., Somerville Theater, 55 Davis Sq., Somerville


WEDNESDAY (7/9/25)

MUSIC

MC Chris
The nerdcore rap icon, known for his work with Adult Swim, celebrates 20 years of touring this year. Recent projects include an upcoming Marvel-themed album, King in Black, and a new podcast, None of This Matters, with Dana Snyder, the voice of Master Shake on Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
$25-$30.31, 7 p.m., Sonia, 10 Brookline St., Cambridge

COMEDY

Tara Cannistraci
Bronx native Tara Cannistraci loves a good fakeout—in this holiday-themed bit, she brings up the notion of a gender neutral Santa, but if you’re expecting conservative cheap shots, she’s got you right where she wants you. When she’s not on stage, she hosts a podcast, Cawfee Tawk, and a web series, Boroughbreds.
$37.37, 7 p.m., Laugh Boston, 425 Summer St., Boston


THURSDAY (7/10/25)

MUSIC

Wavves
With tracks like “So Bored,” from his blown-out sophomore album Wavvves, San Diego’s Nathan Williams helped launch a slacker surf rock revolution at the start of the 2010s, begetting a (no pun intended) wave of copycats. Subsequent releases saw Williams clean up his sound, embracing more conventional punk pop. His latest, Spun, is his first album of new music in four years.
$39.47, 8 p.m., The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge

BOOKS + READINGS

Jeremy Tiang
This celebrated Singaporean author discusses his 2017 debut novel State of Emergency, which looks back at the political upheaval in his region in the years after World War II—a topic not often discussed here in the United States. Tiang tells his heavily researched story through the medium of a fictional extended family in whom this history reverberates down to the present day.
Free, 7 p.m., Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St., Brookline

Mary Jo Bang
Mary Jo Bang completes her new translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy with the Paradiso, the great Florentine poet’s vision of heaven. While heaven might sound a bit dull in comparison to the exotic sufferings of hell and purgatory, nothing is so simple with Dante, and Bang’s translation has won praise for rendering his medieval imagination palpable and relevant to modern ears.
Free, 7 p.m., Porter Square Books, 1815 Mass. Ave., Cambridge


FRIDAY (7/11/25)

MUSIC

Wu-Tang Clan
The legendary 9-man Brooklyn rap group claims this is their final tour—whether or not you believe that, you’ll see them performing popular tracks from their first and second albums, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and Wu-Tang Forever, plus a few songs they’ve never done live.
$11.85-$706.20, 8 p.m., TD Garden, 100 Legends Way, Boston

Rusko
A key figure in the popularization of dubstep—he’s even sheepishly taken responsibility on at least one occasion for so-called “brostep” music—this British producer was most active in the late 2000s and 2010s. In February, he dropped a new EP, 1 Man Army, featuring five tracks of heart-pumping drum and bass.
$28.75, 9:30 p.m., Big Night Live, 110 Causeway St., Boston

Cap’n Jazz
One of the defining bands of emo’s 1990s golden age, Illinois’ Cap’n Jazz existed for just six years, but numerous bands emerged from their ashes, including The Promise Ring, American Football, and Joan of Arc. This is the band’s second reunion tour, observing the 30th anniversary of their sole album, known to fans as Shmap’n Shmazz.
$56.33, 7 p.m., Royale, 279 Tremont St., Boston

Sarah and the Sundays
Though now based in Austin, this folky indie rock quintet came together in high school in Connecticut, and despite their name, nobody in the band is named Sarah. Their new album, Like A Damn Dog, embraces a range of sonic moods; frontman Liam Yorgensen’s emotive vocals are a highlight throughout. Note: this show was rescheduled from March 22.
$31-$36, 8 p.m., Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm. Ave., Boston

COMEDY

G. Williams: Nurses’ Night Out
A veteran of Operation Desert Storm and a longtime pediatric nurse, G. Williams has seen battle in more ways than one. In this clip from 2014, he has fun breaking the stereotypes about nurses, as well as breaking the news to parents that their baby is actually just as cute as all the other babies.
$25-$30, 7:30 p.m., City Winery, 80 Beverly St., Boston

MOVIES

Hung Up On A Dream
Rooney’s Robert Schwartzman directed this 2023 documentary on the legendary British Invasion band the Zombies, whose 1969 album Odessey and Oracle is often cited as one of the great masterpieces of its era. In addition to the screening, Zombies lead singer Colin Blunstone will perform a live acoustic set with Rooney.
$47.15-$90.35, 7:15 p.m., Somerville Theater, 55 Davis Sq., Somerville


SATURDAY (7/12/25)

SUMMER FUN

City Splash 2024. / Photo by Artemisia Luk

City Splash
Banned for decades until 2013, recreational swimming off the Charles River Esplanade is now permitted just once a year, and Saturday’s the day for 2025. There will also be food trucks, a vendor village and other activities in celebration of the Charles River Conservancy’s 25th anniversary.
Free, 12 p.m.-4 p.m., Fiedler Field, Charles River Esplanade, Boston

MUSIC

Dropkick Murphys
Boston’s de facto house band celebrates the 400th birthday of Quincy, the city where the punk band formed, and the release of its newest album, For the People, with a free outdoor show. This is going to be something.
Free, 4 p.m., Hancock Street across from the Quincy Common

Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys
Informed by a host of gothic and sci-fi aesthetics, this theatrical band has been holding their “Dada-esque circus carnival run amuck” long enough to qualify as a local institution. Their latest missive, Brick Through a Limousine, runs the gamut, encompassing punk aggression, off-Broadway torch songs, melancholic piano balladry, post-grunge sludge, and more.
$30.30, 8 p.m., The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge

MegaGoneFree
A rapper and singer with enough personality for two pop stars, MegaGoneFree has over 6 million followers on TikTok. Her footprint isn’t nearly as big anywhere else, but if she keeps making clever songs like “Take This L,” that probably won’t last long.
$20, 7 p.m., Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

DANCE

Fourth Dimension Tap Company: Dreamer
Aiming to capture “the power of imagining what’s next,” Dreamer concludes a trilogy of meditations on time from local tap troupe Fourth Dimension. The show takes inspiration from the group members’ own hopes, making it a testament to the power of art to project intentions into the universe.
$27.50, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St., Boston

COMEDY

Ralph Barbosa and René Vaca
Slyly clever standup Ralph Barbosa’s 2023 Netflix special Cowabunga was a popular pick on its ever-more crowded platform; the follow-up will arrive on Hulu this year. In this clip, he ribs himself being jealous of his girlfriend’s ex, even though the ex is out of the picture. He’s joined by up-and-comer René Vaca.
$39.95-$125.05, 7 p.m., Boch Center Wang Theater, 270 Tremont St., Boston

Luke Abranches and Wyatt Feegrado
Born in in 2008 and 1999, respectively, these two amusingly edgy comedians enjoy taking turns firing shots at pop culture from both sides of Gen Z. They don’t just dish it out, either—in this clip, Abranches successfully wins over a skeptical contingent in the crowd with his equal opportunity political cynicism.
$26, 5:30 p.m., The Comedy Studio, 5 John F. Kennedy St., Cambridge

PODCASTS

Welcome To Night Vale
Fictional podcasts rarely catch on like their nonfictional counterparts, but Welcome to Night Vale, about a weird little desert town where normal days are uncommon, has earned a loyal and sizable following since 2012, spinning an ever more complex web of characters and phenomena and cultivating a distinctive tone somewhere between This American Life and The Twilight Zone.
$47.25, 8 p.m., The Wilbur, 246 Tremont St., Boston


SUNDAY (7/13/25)

FESTIVALS

Bastille Day Celebration
Swoon to traditional French accordion music, treat yourself to delicious pastries and breads from Noir, Praliné French Patisserie, Colette Bakery, Kured, MakoMacarons, and Nouvelle Maison, watch the excitement of the Course des Cafés (a competition between restaurant servers), and dance to a DJ set at the end of the evening.
Free, 4 p.m.-8 p.m., The Charles Hotel, 1 Bennett St., Cambridge

MUSIC

Ab-Soul
A longtime associate of Kendrick Lamar, with whom he participated in the supergroup Black Hippy, Ab-Soul released his sixth solo album, Soul Burger, this past November. Its last single was “Crazier,” an acrobatic lyrical performance over a suitably deranged anti-beat. Another highlight: the Jay-Z-referencing, sax-driven “Squeeze 1St 2.”
$36-$108, 8 p.m., Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston

Petite Noir
Born in Belgium to a Congolese family and raised in South Africa, this enigmatic indie pop singer-songwriter aims to express “the fragmented identity of today’s African diaspora,” as he puts it in his bio. His unique sound, which he’s dubbed Noirwave, combines a brooding post-punk mood with Afropop beats.
$26.94, 8 p.m., Warehouse XI, 7 Sanborn Ct., Somerville

OPERA

Rigoletto
Boston Summer Opera serves up Verdi’s tragic opera, best known for its aria “La donna è mobile,” whose melody is practically synonymous with Italian opera itself. The aria’s bouncy quality, however, belies an otherwise dark plot concerning a jester whose insult humor provokes a curse from one of its recipients.
$24.79, 3 p.m., Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave., Boston

COMEDY

Ariel Elias
It’s the stuff of standup dreams: in 2022, Jimmy Kimmel was so impressed watching a clip of sardonic Kentucky-raised comic Ariel Elias besting a particularly aggressive heckler that he invited her on his show for her late night debut. She crushed it, of course.
$20, 7 p.m., The Comedy Studio, 5 John F. Kennedy St., Cambridge


MONDAY (7/14/25)

MUSIC

The Rose
Nobody was exactly begging for a revival of Coldplay, Jason Mraz, John Mayer, and similarly mellow adult contemporary pop bands from the 2000s, and that’s the genius of this Korean band’s charming new EP WRLD, which may leave you wondering if it’s even okay to feel this good in 2025—but that’s just the magic of K-pop at work.
$91.25-$213.50, 8 p.m., MGM Music Hall, 2 Lansdowne St., Boston

COMEDY

Mr. Cardboard
Levi Meltzer and Miles Calderon, a pair of clowns trained in at the prestigious École Philippe Gaulier, are the twisted minds behind this two-man show. Billed as “a disturbingly delightful, unhinged Pixar film,” Mr. Cardboard will be a breath of fresh air for anyone tired of the usual standup fare.
$15.52-$17, 8:30 p.m., The Rockwell, 255 Elm St., Somerville


Ongoing

OUTDOORS

Berklee Summer in the City Concert Series
Each summer, the amazingly talented students, faculty, and alumni of Berklee College of Music and Boston Conservatory are dispersed throughout the area to perform in parks, neighborhood squares, on the waterfront, and even on Spectacle Island. With performances ranging from jazz to R&B to pop to folk classical, there’s sure to be something up your alley.
Free, through September 16, various venues, Boston area

Kayak and Paddleboard Rentals at Community Boating
You’ve seen the river from the city more times than you could count, but have you ever seen the city from the river? Rent a vessel, explore the Charles River basin and esplanade lagoon system at your leisure, and take in a view of Boston like no other.
$40, through October 31, Community Boating, 21 David G Mugar Way, Boston

SHOPPING

Courtesy

SoWa Open Market
This popular Sunday event features more than 250 farmers and vendors selling their own food, jewelry, clothing, household items, art, and more, plus special performances and events, a chance to check out the nearby open studios of dozens of local artists, and a rotating selection of food trucks.
Free, Sundays rain or shine through October 26, 11 a.m-5 p.m., 500 Harrison Ave., Boston

Copley Square Farmers Market
The Boston area has no shortage of farmers markets in the warmer months, but Copley Square hosts the largest, offering a cornucopia of local produce, meats, dairy, baked goods, and prepared meals, as well as some non-edible products. It opens for the season this Friday, May 16.
Free, Tuesdays and Fridays through November 25, Copley Square, 227-230 Dartmouth St., Boston

FITNESS

Seaport Sweat
Get a little closer to your best self with the help of these outdoor classes, taking place Monday through Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings until the end of summer. The regular weekday schedule features Pilates, yoga, Zumba, athletic conditioning, and more; some of Saturday’s rotating classes include dance cardio/sculpting workout Sculpt That Sass, the high-intensity Broncore Bootcamp, “endorphin boosting” mainstay Booty by Brabants, and the kickboxing-inspired Kick It By Eliza. New this year: the Sweatapalooza.
Free, through September 30, Seaport Common, 85 Northern Ave., Boston

ATTRACTIONS

Courtesy

Museum of Ice Cream
Yes, you can eat as much ice cream as you want at the Museum of Ice Cream, but there’s a lot more to this escapist wonderland, billed as “a place free from distractions, expectations, and inhibitions.” There are several colorful, slightly surreal spaces to explore at your leisure, including the Diner, Creamliner (an imaginary airplane interior), Hall of Freezers, Carnival, and Sprinkle Pool.
$25-$51, 121 Seaport Blvd., Boston

Courtesy Museum of Illusions

Museum of Illusions
Experience the delights of confusing your brain at this new downtown attraction, featuring a set of images, installations, and “illusion rooms” designed to make reality feel a little less normal—and to provide some fun and crazy photo ops for the Gram.
$38, 200 State St., Boston

View Boston
If you’ve got visitors and you want to give them a killer 360-degree view of the city, or if you just want a peep yourself, you can hardly do better than View Boston, at the top of the Prudential Center. You can spring for a guided tour or just take it in yourself. The view isn’t all you’ll find up there—there’s also a restaurant, The Beacon, and Stratus, a cocktail bar, which is decked out for the holidays. Higher-level ticket packages include a sample drink.
$29.99-59.99, open daily, 10 a.m.-10 p.m., Prudential Center, 800 Boylston St., Boston

The Innovation Trail
This tour focuses not on colonial and revolutionary Boston—that’s been thoroughly covered—but on the city’s history, down to the present, as a hub of science, medicine, and technology. You can arrange for a private tour via an online form or opt for a self-guided experience whenever you want.
Free (self-guided), starts in Central Square, Cambridge or Downtown Crossing, Boston

WNDR Museum
This Downtown Crossing gallery space is hitting the ground running with iconic Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s Let’s Survive Forever and more than 20 other immersive installations, including The Wisdom Project, where visitors can add their own response to the question “What do you know for sure?,” and WNDR’s signature Light Floor, which changes in response to visitors’ movement.
$32-$38, 500 Washington St., Boston


ART + EXHIBITIONS (Ongoing)

Photo by Justin Sutcliffe

The Moonwalkers: A Journey with Tom Hanks
The latest immersive journey from Lightroom Experiences, The Moonwalkers takes audiences back to one of the most remarkable achievements of the 20th century—NASA’s Apollo moon landings. Apollo 13 star Tom Hanks is your guide to the science and history of the program, as well as its successor, Artemis, which aims both to return to the Moon and travel to Mars.
$36.50-$46.50, through August 31, The Saunders Castle at Park Plaza, 130 Columbus Ave., Boston

Ming Fay: Edge of the Garden
These charming sculptures of oversized fruit, seeds, and other organic material by the late Ming Fay emphasize the magic of gardens as creative spaces, making familiar objects and shapes feel strange and new again and forming a bridge between things in the world and their analogues in the imagination.
$22, through September 21, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 25 Evans Way, Boston

Wild Flowers of New England
For thirty years of his long life spanning the 19th and 20th centuries, photographer Edwin Hale Lincoln devoted himself to documenting the native wildflowers of the Berkshires, creating a body of work with both taxonomic and aesthetic value, and a loving tribute to the artistry of nature itself.
$10, through September 5, Boston Athenaeum, 10 Beacon St., Boston

ETERNAL RETURN
This site-specific installation might look like a café, but, as EXIT Galleries explains on their website, it’s actually “art meant to be lived inside,” a down-to-earth bulwark against all manner of irony-ridden attitude, and a place to rebuild a sense of meaning in a burnt-out-culture. In short: “public space as a vessel for consciousness.”
Free, through November 15, EXIT Galleries, 99 Franklin St., Allston

Making History: 200 Years of American Art from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
This exhibition highlights the important contributions of American artists from marginalized groups, placing them alongside well-known figures like Edward Hopper, Winslow Homer, Childe Hassam, and Stuart Davis to create a more complete perspective on art’s role in shaping American identity.
$25, through September 21, Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St., Salem

Monsters of the Deep: Between Imagination and Science
Tracing our understanding of whales through prints dating from the 1500s through the 1800s, the MIT Museum explores the process, informed both by scientific study and amateur observation, that brought the enormous creatures up from the quasi-mythical depths of the human imagination and into the light of day.
$18, through January 1, 2026, MIT Museum, 314 Main St., Bldg. E-28, Cambridge

Boston Public Art Triennial’s The Exchange
This sprawling indoor and outdoor art show will be held every three years. The highly varied, eye-popping works on display for 2025, from a mix of local, national, and international artists, are strewn across town, but easily accessible via the T over the course of a day—check the map for full details.
Free, through October 31, various locations, Boston area

List Projects 32: Elif Saydam
With frequent references to the traditions of manuscript illumination and miniature painting, Berlin-based artist Elif Saydam takes an interest in how we project our fantasies on banal, everyday places like gas stations and convenience stores, as well as the objects they contain, from bathroom stalls to sponges.
Free, through August 31, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 20 Ames St., Bldg. E15-109, Cambridge

GENERATIONS
Three local artists, L’Merchie Frazier, Daniela Rivera, and Wen-ti Tsen, recipients of the first Wagner Arts Fellowship, take the spotlight. There’s something here for every taste, from Frazier’s narratively rich mixed-media quilts to Rivera’s challenging geometric sculptures to Tsen’s Hopper-esque realist paintings.
Free, through November 30, MassArt Art Museum, 621 Huntington Ave., Boston

The Solomon Collection: Dürer to Degas and Beyond
Collectors Arthur K. and Mariot F. Solomon recently made a large bequest to Harvard Art Museums, and you’ll get to see 135 of those works here, by major artists like Goya, Dürer, Monet, Degas, Cézanne, Henry Moore, Anthony Caro, Jules Olitski, and many others
Free, through August 17, Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

Chiharu Shiota: Home Less Home
The Institute of Contemporary Art’s enormous Watershed annex hosts two installations from Berlin-based Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota: a site-specific version of 2015’s Accumulation—Searching for the Destination and the new commission Home Less Home. Both works repurpose everyday objects like suitcases, papers, and furniture to convey the experience of migration and the meaning of home.
Free, through September 1, ICA Watershed, 256 Marginal St., East Boston

Jung Yeondoo: Building Dreams
At a time of increasing social atomization, multimedia artist Jung Yeondoo has made it his project to break the ice with the people in his vicinity, photographing folks in his hometown of Seoul and asking them about their inner lives. Often capturing his subjects in their home or workplace, he has a knack for finding the idealism hidden in ordinary life.
$25, through January 26, 2026, Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St., Salem

The Visionary Art of Minnie Evans
The 20th century Black North Carolinian artist Minnie Evans fused a passion for religion and mythology with close studies of her material surroundings. Though mystical and dreamlike, her art is also haunted by history—specifically, the white supremacist coup that took place in her hometown, Wilmington, when she was six years old.
$27, through October 26, Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston

Qi Baishi: Inspiration in Ink
Born in the Qing dynasty and dying under Communist rule, Qi Baishi, sometimes called “the Picasso of China,” was recognized as an innovator whose lively, charming depictions of animals and plants pushed the well-worn tradition of nature scenes toward modernity. Almost 40 of his works are on display here, most on loan from China.
$27, through September 28, Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston

Luis Arnías: Slow Loops
Interdisciplinary artist Luis Arnías offers a pair of 16mm film meditations on Black life and history. Bisagras focuses on two important sites on both sides of the transatlantic slave trade; the still-in-progress Noise Cloud shows how public parks gained an even greater importance as gathering spaces for people of all races in the turbulent year 2020.
Free, through July 19, Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts, 551 Tremont St., Boston

Aileen Erickson: Changing Seasons, Save Travels
If you’ve ever brought a rock, piece of driftwood, or bit of seaglass home from the beach, you might understand why Aileen Erickson felt so compelled to paint her own beach finds in this series. Rendered in a cartoon-like fashion within thick black lines, these objects become containers of memory, gaining in symbolic depth what they lose in spatial depth.
Free, through July 19, Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts, 551 Tremont St., Boston

Vincent Van Gogh’s Camille Roulin, November–December 1888, from the MFA’s “Van Gogh: The Roulin Family Portraits.” / Photo by Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Van Gogh: The Roulin Family Portraits
Featuring around 20 works by Van Gogh, this exhibition, the first of its kind, focuses on the famous post-impressionist’s close and creatively generative relationship with his neighbors in Arles, France, the Roulins, who had the sort of ordinary family life he dreamed of but never achieved.
$34, through September 7, Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston

Christian Marclay: Doors
It took Christian Marclay over 10 years to carefully craft this video piece out of hundreds of clips of people opening and closing doors in films, resulting in a surreal journey between cinematic universes. For Marclay, doors evoke a “fear and anxiety we associate with the unknown, but also anticipation and potential.”
$20, through September 1, Institute of Contemporary Art, 25 Harbor Shore Dr., Boston

Stanley Whitney: How High the Moon
How High the Moon traces the 50-year career of abstract painter Stanley Whitney, showing his early work and the wide-ranging inspirations, from jazz to quilts to architecture, informing the joyfully pulsing grids of color that made him a late in life success in the early 2000s.
$20, through September 1, Institute of Contemporary Art, 25 Harbor Shore Dr., Boston

Edvard Munch, “Two Human Beings (The Lonely Ones),” 1906–08. Oil on canvas. Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, The Philip and Lynn Straus Collection.

Edvard Munch: Technically Speaking
While The Scream made Edvard Munch a household name in art history, its fame has come somewhat at the expense of the rest of his large and remarkable oeuvre. Featuring around 70 works, many from Harvard Art Museums’ own collection, this exhibition highlights the emotive Norwegian expressionist’s innovations in materials and techniques.
Free, through July 27, Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

Pedro Gómez-Egaña: The Great Learning
Columbian artist Pedro Gómez-Egaña’s first American museum exhibition explores our contemporary experience of time, as he puts it, “in an age when contrasting temporalities coexist with an intensity that often feels irreconcilable.” To convey the idea, he transposes this fracture of time into a space whose solidity is constantly interrupted, multiplied, and otherwise messed with.
Free, through July 27, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 20 Ames St., Bldg. E15-109, Cambridge

Believers: Artists and the Shakers
Known for their celibacy, their craftsmanship, and not often much else, the monastic and pacifist Shakers, only two of whom remain, are a benignly mysterious presence in American religion. Building on a previous ICA show, this exhibition brings together 10 artists reflecting on the gap between the Shakers’ ideals and their place in the popular imagination.
$20, through August 3, Institute of Contemporary Art, 25 Harbor Shore Dr., Boston

Courtesy

ImPRINTING: The Artist’s Brain
Artist Beatie Wolfe created this “sonic self-portrait” in the form of a “thinking cap” that broadcasts the activity of different parts of the human brain. At listening station, you can pick up a phone receiver and hear for yourself. The data, encoded in glass inside the cap, could be preserved for as long as 10,000 years.
$31, through December 31, Museum of Science, 1 Science Park, Boston

Portraits from the ICA Collection
The ICA shares recent acquisitions from artists like Rania Matar, Aliza Nisenbaum, and Didier William, as well as popular longtime holdings by Marlene Dumas, Nan Goldin, Alice Neel, and others, creating a complex, multimedia portrait of portraiture itself, in all its many purposes and effects.
$20, through January 4, 2026, Institute of Contemporary Art, 25 Harbor Shore Dr., Boston

Sea Monsters: Wonders of Nature and Imagination
Using historic illustrations, maps, artifacts, and specimens, this exhibition explores the exotic marine beasts cooked up in the dreams of sailors and bards down the centuries, as well as the real-life creatures, like the giant squid, whose scarcely believable existence inspired many of these legends.
$15, through June 26, 2026, Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford St., Cambridge

The Salem Witch Trials 1692
Even when the story of the Salem Witch Trials is told with accuracy, the distance of centuries can make it hard to imagine. With this ongoing exhibition, the Peabody Essex Museum tries to close that gap a bit, bringing the timeline and context of the infamous miscarriage of justice to life through original documents and artifacts.
$25, ongoing, Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St., Salem

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