Things to Do This Week in Boston

THEATER

The Light in the Piazza
The Huntington’s Artistic Director, Loretta Greco, helms this original production of Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas’ period musical, set in postwar Italy. An American mom, Margaret, has travelled there with her daughter Clara, hoping to expose her to the beauty of the country—but Clara soon becomes more interested in a particular Italian boy.
$29-$185, Thursday, May 8 through June 15, The Huntington Theater, 264 Huntington Ave., Boston

Kimberly Akimbo
The 2023 Tony winner for Best Musical, this adaptation of David Lindsay-Abaire’s play tells the story of a teenage girl with a rapid aging condition that makes her look like an old lady—but unlike the real adults in her life, she at least has an excuse for being immature.
$54.50-$302.50, Tuesday, May 6 through May 18, Emerson Colonial Theater, 106 Boylston St., Boston

Macbeth
Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s Bryn Boice brings the immortal tale of ambition, murder, guilt, and haunting, to the high-tech age, reimagining its famous witches as “ghastly algorithms” wreaking their mindless havoc on human emotions—drumming up envy, fueling rage, and creating a thirst for influence.
$20, Friday and Saturday, May 9-10, Strand Theater, 543 Columbia Rd., Dorchester

Jaja’s African Hair Braiding
A 2024 Tony nominee for Best Play, Jocelyn Bioh’s comedy about the immigrant crew at a West African hair salon in Harlem arrives in Boston courtesy of SpeakEasy Stage. While their business is doing well and the camaraderie is strong (for the most part), they’re about to face the reality of just how unwelcome their presence in America can be.
$25-$80, through May 31, Roberts Studio Theater, Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St., Boston

Utopian Hotline
A co-presentation of the Museum of Science and ArtsEmerson, Brooklyn-based Theater Mitu’s Utopian Hotline combines audio of folks from all walks of life answering the question “How would you envision a more perfect future?” with original music and immersive planetarium visuals. You can contribute your own answer to the question via voicemail—check the link above for details.
$27.50, through May 18, Museum of Science, 1 Science Park, Boston

DANCE

DANCE NOW Boston: Under the Skin
2025’s edition of this yearly collaboration between the dance communities of New York City and Boston features New York’s The Bang Group performing the work of Boston choreographer Marcus Schulkind and Bang founder-directors Jeffrey Kazin and David Parker, plus performances by Bostonians Lorraine Chapman, Emily Jerant-Hendrickson, Margaret Falcone, and Clarence Brooks.
$15-$50 (sliding scale), Saturday and Sunday, May 10-11, The Dance Complex, 536 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

The Head Is Not the Star of the Body
Fans of the indie band Big Thief won’t want to miss this piece from choreographer Cassie Wang, created in response to their songs. Mixing video projection and contemporary dance, Wang explores the concept of longing—how it contributes to identity, how we respond to it in others, and the sense of distance it indexes between people.
$25, Thursday through Sunday, May 8-11, Martin Recital Hall, Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St., Boston

MOVIES

ANI-MANIA!
The Coolidge Corner Theater casts a spotlight Japanese animation with eight features, passing over popular material like Akira and the films of Hayao Miyazaki in favor of some lesser-known gems. Highlights include Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress (May 7), magical romance Weathering with You (May 18), psychedelic arthouse favorite Belladonna of Sadness (May 21), and rock opera Inu-oh (May 28).
$15-$17, through May 28, Coolidge Corner Theater, 290 Harvard St., Brookline

Mother’s Day Mini-Marathon
Does mom love a good movie? Ditch those tired old brunch plans and take her to one of these classic films, which find top-notch directors like Pedro Almodóvar, Martin Scorsese, John Cassavetes, and Pier Paolo Pasolini offering complex and diverse images of motherhood, wherever it’s found.
$10, Friday through Monday, May 8-12, Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge

Juliet & Romeo
The latest cinematic spin on of one the English language’s great love stories preserves the traditional setting in an Italy of centuries past, but adds a contemporary pop soundtrack, borrowing a move from Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 version. Emerging young actors Clara Rugaard and Jamie Ward play the star-crossed lovers.
$11.59-$17.68, AMC Boston Common, 175 Tremont St., Boston

The Legend of Ochi
A gorgeously colorful fantasy vision from first-time director Isaiah Saxon, The Legend of Ochi tells of an ordinary girl, Yuri, who befriends one of the children of a species feared by her people. Against conventional wisdom, she decides to return the adorable little monster back to his home.
$15-$17, Coolidge Corner Theater, 290 Harvard St., Brookline

Thunderbolts*
Marvel’s continued rummaging through the more obscure corners of its superhero pantheon has turned up this team of anti-heroes, brought to life by an all-star cast including Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, and Hannah John-Kamen. If you’re wondering what the asterisk in the title is for, you’ll just have to find out.
$15.98-$19.48, Alamo Drafthouse, 60 Seaport Blvd., Boston

On Swift Horses
Daniel Minahan’s period drama begins when free-spirited gambler Julius (Jacob Elordi), just back from fighting in Korea, shows up one day to crash in the new California home of his brother Lee (Will Poulter) and Lee’s soon-to-be wife Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones). If you’re expecting the usual love triangle, don’t be so sure—but things do get messy.
$17, Coolidge Corner Theater, 290 Harvard St., Brookline

Sinners
Michael B. Jordan doubles down as a pair of twin brothers in Ryan Coogler’s action horror flick, set in a version of the Jim Crow South plagued both by systemic racism and vampires—and if you think the latter might be a metaphor for the former, you might be right.
$12.99-$16.49, Alamo Drafthouse, 60 Seaport Blvd., Boston

The Wedding Banquet
The second film as writer and director for Andrew Ahn (Spa Night, Fire Island) tells the story of of a group of queer friends (Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, and Han Gi-chan) whose scheme involving an IVF treatment and a green card marriage goes awry when one of their grandmothers gets wind of the marriage an takes it a little too seriously.
$15-$17, Coolidge Corner Theater, 290 Harvard St., Brookline

Warfare
Better known for imagining fake wars in Civil War and 28 Days Later, Alex Garland teamed up with Iraq veteran Ray Mendoza to write and direct this intense and intimate depiction of a group of Navy SEALs posted in an Iraqi residence circa 2006.
$16.25-$18.75, Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Binney St., Cambridge

ALSO

• Where to Eat in Greater Boston in May
• The Best Restaurants in Boston’s North End
• The Ultimate Guide to Candlepin Bowling in and around Boston

Want to suggest an event? Email us.

FRIDAY (5/9/25)

MUSIC

Austin Millz
DJ and producer Austin Millz earned praise for successfully taking on a legendary recording with his 2022 remix of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good,” which transmutes the original song’s bluesy joy into dark, glitchy ecstasy. His freshest cut is the deliriously chopped up disco jam  “Love Like This.”
$27.50, 9:30 p.m., Big Night Live, 110 Causeway St., Boston

Jon Muq
A Ugandan transplant in Texas, pop singer-songwriter Jon Muq has declared it his mission to make happy songs for a sad world, and with such instantly accessible, generously emotive compositions as “Flying Away From Home” and “One You Love,” he seems to be succeeding.
$22-$35, 7:30 p.m., City Winery, 80 Beverly St., Boston

San Fermin
2010s indie darlings San Fermin are playing their sophomore album Jackrabbit in full on this 10^th anniversary tour. A grand collision between symphonic indie folk and a more mainstream strain of bombastic 2010s millennial pop, the record, sometimes overwhelming but never dull, still sounds like nothing else around.
$39.95, 8 p.m., Crystal Ballroom, 55 Davis Sq., Somerville

COMEDY

Ziwe: Ziwe’s America
Few comedians are capable of generating such entertaining discomfort as Lawrence, Massachusetts native Ziwe Fumudoh, who remains undefeated both by friends and foes who’ve dared to place themselves in her hot seat. Her fascinatingly strange 2023 interview with expelled Congressman George Santos isn’t her easiest watch, but it’s some of her finest work to date.
$43.50-$53.50, 7:30 p.m., The Wilbur, 246 Tremont St., Boston

SATURDAY (5/10/25)

KID-FRIENDLY

Revere Beach Kite Festival
At this magical season-opening event, kids can build their own kites, test them out, and watch the pros sending their amazing-looking contraptions far into the atmosphere. There will also be live music and other fun kid activities like face painting.
Free, 11 a.m.-2 p.m., Revere Beach near Markey Memorial Bridge, 500 Revere Beach Blvd., Revere

STREET FESTIVAL

Photo by Heidi Besen/Alamy Stock Photo

Somerville PorchFest
While other Boston area spots host their own porchfests, Somerville’s is by far the biggest, with close to 500 bands and artists in every genre performing on porches, lawns, and driveways, staggered across three time zones. While the vibes are generally excellent, things have occasionally gotten out of hand, leading to improved oversight for 2025. Check the map to plan your journey.
Free, 12 p.m. to 6 p.m., various locations, Somerville

MUSIC

Gillian Welch and David Rawlings
Two of America’s finest folk singer-songwriters, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings originally met in Boston, as students at Berklee. Although they’ve co-written most of Welch’s solo songs, they didn’t release an album credited to both until 2020’s All the Good Times (Are Past & Gone). They followed it in 2024 with Woodland.
$76.45-$140.40, 7:30 p.m., Boch Center Wang Theater, 270 Tremont St., Boston

Millyz
Known for his freestyle skills, this local rapper has recorded several times with pal Jadakiss, most recently on “By My Lonely,” the leadoff track on his latest release, Blanco 7, a diverse collection whose diverse beats, ranging from aggressive trap to Kanye-style chipmunk-voiced R&B, give him lots of space to show off his lyrical dexterity and skillful deployment of assonance.
$35.24-$122.45, 8 p.m., MGM Music Hall, 2 Lansdowne St., Boston

COMEDY

Ian Lara
Poised to break through soon in a big way, Ian Lara is currently developing his own TV series. In his 2022 HBO special Romantic Comedy, he takes a wryly positive approach to contemporary shifts in sexual politics: “[Women] don’t even get upset after breakups anymore. You break up with a woman now, she starts living her best life immediately!”
$25, 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m., Laugh Boston, 425 Summer St., Boston

SUNDAY (5/11/25)

MUSIC

Audrey Nuna
This 26-year-old R&B singer-songwriter and rapper paused her studies at New York University’s prestigious Clive Davis Music Institute when her music started taking off, and she has yet to return. 2020’s “Damn Right” and 2019’s “Comic Sans,” both brimming with attitude and confidence, are her biggest Spotify hits; her ambition has only expanded on more recent tracks like “Mine.”
$20-$25, 6:30 p.m., Sonia, 10 Brookline St., Cambridge

Kendall Square Orchestra: Symphony for Science
For 2025, this annual charity concert will benefit the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, which serves more than 11,000 people in Greater Boston. Kristo Kondakçi will conduct the Kendall Square Orchestra, plus guest performers the Women’s Chorus and violinist Julie Leven, through works by Schubert, Mozart, Dvořák, contemporary composer Reena Esmail, and others.
$50-$150, 3 p.m., Symphony Hall, 301 Mass. Ave., Boston

COMEDY

Grant Lyon
“I was my high school valedictorian. Now I’m 39 years old and I live in a house with five comedians. That’s not a joke I’ve written, it’s just a joke I live.” So begins this unabashedly geeky standup’s new Dry Bar special, Silly Mustache Man. When he’s not telling jokes at his own expense, Lyon makes videos about his other passion, board games.
$15-$20, 7 p.m., The Comedy Studio, 5 John F. Kennedy St., Cambridge

MONDAY (5/12/25)

MUSIC

Ichiko Aoba
With their angelic vocals and mysteriously beautiful melodies, the recordings on this Japanese musician’s new album Luminescent Creatures, drawing on jazz, soundtrack music, and chamber pop, seem to have been beamed in from an alternate universe where things are prettier and calmer. Aoba recently appeared on The Late Show, performing the track “Sonar.”
$48, 8 p.m., Berklee Performance Center, 136 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

TUESDAY (5/13/25)

MUSIC

Coco Jones
First seen in a string of Disney Channel productions in the early 2010s (So Random!, Good Luck Charlie, Let It Shine), Coco Jones revived a stalling music career in adulthood with her 2022 single “ICU”, a vibey slow burner that earned her a Grammy for Best R&B Performance. Her first full-length, Why Not More?, dropped at the end of April.
$49.87-$100.01, 8 p.m., Roadrunner, 89 Guest St., Brighton

WEDNESDAY (5/14/25)

MUSIC

Ace Monroe
The long-running Allstonian rock n’ roll dive O’Brien’s pub is a perfect place to catch these amusingly ham-fisted (but somehow also earnestly good) classic rockers. Aerosmith looms large over their sound, but the Nashville-based band pulls enough moves from enough different 70s and 80s bands to feel like a tribute to everyone at once.
$15, 7 p.m., O’Brien’s Pub, 3 Harvard Ave., Allston

BOOKS + READINGS

Marlene Daut
Though Henry Christophe initially fought to liberate Haiti from French rule, he would eventually turn on his fellow revolutionary leaders and install himself as a monarch in the north of the country. His remarkable and complicated story is the subject of Yale professor Marlene Daut’s new book The First and Last King of Haiti.
Free, 7 p.m., Porter Square Books, 1815 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

THURSDAY (5/15/15)

MUSIC

grentperez
This Australian pop singer-songwriter had his first hit at age 20 with “Cherry Wine”, a charming, bossa nova-flavored collection of sweet nothings. When he was even younger, he was already exploiting the calming quality of his tenor croon in a series of videos called “sing u to sleep”.
$54.92-$94.95, 7:30 p.m., Roadrunner, 89 Guest St., Brighton

COMEDY

Popcorn Comedy with Katie Arroyo
Peter Liu and Jason Fishman host this installment of Somerville’s favorite (and only) standup show in a movie theater. In this clip, headliner Katie Arroyo explains her vulnerability to dieting fads: “I have ADHD, so I’ll do literally anything to get fit except small consistent changes and responsible choices.”
$23.18, 7:30 p.m., Somerville Theater, 55 Davis Sq., Somerville

FOOD + DRINK

YUM: A Taste of Immigrant City
Sample diverse eats from Carolicious Gourmet, Sister’s Caribbean, Gauchao Brazilian Cuisine, Rincón Mexicano, Vinny’s Ristorante, and more at this fundraiser for The Welcome Project, a nonprofit assisting immigrant communities in learning English and practicing self-advocacy.
$45-$55, 6:30 p.m., Arts at the Armory, 191 Highland Ave., Somerville

BOOKS + READINGS

Alex Foster
In the alternate reality of Alex Foster’s debut novel Circular Motion, the days are getting shorter—not like in the winter, but because the Earth’s rotation is gradually speeding up, causing increased social and ecological upheaval. Lots of people know why, but others, who profit from the phenomenon, don’t want off the gravy train. Sound familiar?
Free, 7 p.m., Harvard Book Store, 1256 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

FRIDAY (5/16/25)

MUSIC

Mereba
After impressing with her 2019 debut The Jungle Is the Only Way Out, unwaveringly cool neo-soul revivalist Mereba took six years to come out with a sophomore album, The Breeze Grew a Fire. The time has served her well, transforming her shadowy, sparse sound into something lusher and more confident.
$36, 8 p.m., Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston

Carsie Blanton
Tagging music as “political” often implies a confrontational pose, but Carsie Blanton’s gentle, heartfelt vocals make the strident progressive ideas in her lyrics go down easy, whether she’s talking about wealth inequality (“Rich People”) or just imploring her audience to “Be Good”. Her last album was 2024’s After the Revolution
$49.63, 8:30 p.m., The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge

COMEDY

Alan Fitzgerald
Somewhere between a self-deprecating, autobiographical comedian and a sneakier type like Norm Macdonald stands Alan Fitzgerald. In his 2023 special Straight for Pay, he plays with contemporary taboos like fidget spinners, tricking his audience over and over into hoping that one of his seemingly innocent stories won’t end up somewhere awful.
$25.85, 7:30 p.m., White Bull Tavern, 1 Union St., Boston

TJ
To the question of why he got into comedy, Tanael Joachim sardonically replies, “Because my mother failed.” He has a lot more to say about mothers, Haitian American experience, the idiosyncrasies of the English language, and other topics in his 2020 special January 3^rd.
$25-$30, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., The Rockwell, 255 Elm St., Somerville

SATURDAY (5/17/25)

FESTIVALS

The People’s Party
Enjoy food curated by Everybody’s Gotta Eat, dance to DJ sets, and score a few giveaways at this Harvard Square block party. There’s also the Select Vintage Market, accessible for free and featuring more than 100 vendors—or you could go all out and spring for access to the VIP Party Lounge, with “exclusive balcony views” and other perks.
$20-$40, 12 p.m.-7 p.m., Church St., Cambridge

MUSIC

Assol Garcia
One of the biggest morna and coladeira stars from Cabo Verde, Assol Garcia has class and style to burn, expressing her songs’ emotions with a subtlety that might come off as nonchalant to Western ears—but with songs like “Dudú”, it’s more about the journey of grief than the cathartic payoff.
$45-$65, 7:30 p.m., Wimblery Theater, Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St., Boston

 Superheaven
Given the genre’s gloomy preoccupations, grunge took to the grave pretty well, but Superheaven dug it up anyway in the late 2000s, combining it Frankenstein-style with the heavier side of shoegaze to create a sound more 90s than the actual 90s. Their self-titled third album, released in April, may be their most majestic yet.
$39.71, 7:30 p.m., Royale, 279 Tremont St., Boston

Thick
Though they’re signed to the Californian label Epitaph, this Brooklyn trio plays a distinctively East Coast version of punk pop, combining sweet melodies with a slightly arty sort of aggressive guitar rock that descends directly from their New York City forebears. Their last album was 2022’s Happy Now.
$22-$24.13, 8 p.m., Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

COMEDY

D’Aydrian Harding
Given his fondness for in-the-field stunts like getting attacked by dogs, challenging his friend to a boxing match, and just generally jumping over stuff, it’s hard to guess what D’Aydrian Harding will come up with when he’s confined to a stage, but a quick browse of his YouTube channel will not leave you with the impression that he could ever be short on ideas.
$62.25-$142.15, 8 p.m., Citizens House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St., Boston

Luke Null
This musical comic joined the cast of Saturday Night Live for just one season in 2017-18 before heading to Los Angeles. He recently released a new special, Pretty Songs, Dirty Words, which finds him drifting between observational jokes, edgy scenarios smoothed out by the guitar’s dulcet tones, and the gleeful immaturity of Adam Sandler’s comedy songs.
$25-$30, 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., The Comedy Studio, 5 John F Kennedy St., Boston

MOVIES

Lesson Learned
Director Bálint Szimler’s drama provides a look into the educational system in contemporary Hungry, focusing on two characters: Juci, a teacher promoted beyond her comfort level due to a teacher shortage, and Palkó, a new kid in school whose attempt to ingratiate himself with a prank lands him in hot water. Szimler will be on hand for a Q&A after the screening.
$15, 4:30 p.m., Somerville Theater, 55 Davis Sq., Somerville

SUNDAY (5/18/25)

MUSIC

Parliament-Funkadelic
83-year-old George Clinton continues to pilot the Mothership of Funk, and long may he reign. His two-headed band’s legacy in music and pop culture has reverberated down the decades, informing G-funk hip hop, the aesthetic of Afrofuturism, and countless other developments.
$55.75-$107.05, 8 p.m., Citizens House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St., Boston

MOVIES

The Glassworker
While there’s nothing inherently remarkable about a traditional hand-drawn animated movie in the Ghibli mold, The Glassworker is a landmark film because it’s the first of its kind from Pakistan. It’s also just gorgeous, and you’ll be seeing it in all its glory in the Museum of Science’s Mugar Omni Theater. Stick around after for Q&A with director Usman Riaz.
$15, 4 p.m., Museum of Science, 1 Science Park, Boston

MONDAY (5/19/25)

TALKS

A Conversation with Dean Kamen
Though he’s best known as the inventor of the Segway, that novel mode of transportation was only one of the many creations of inventor Dean Kamen, who’ll discuss his more recent innovations in medical technology with the Museum of Science’s Tim Ritchie and Gwill York.
Free, 7 p.m., Museum of Science, 1 Science Park, Boston

Ongoing

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, Monday, May 5 through September 30, Seaport Common, 85 Northern Ave., Boston

ATTRACTIONS

Blue Man Group
They’re hardly the newest act on the scene, but there’s still nothing like Blue Man Group, that trio of funny, expressive bald dudes who don’t seem to know how to talk but do seem to know how to make percussion instruments out of just about anything—and Boston is one of just a handful of cities with their own Blue Man chapter performing in apparent perpetuity.
$49-$150, Charles Playhouse, 74 Warrenton St., Boston

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)

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

Eric Antoniou: Rock to Baroque
Over a 40-year career, local photographer Eric Antoniou has captured some of popular music’s biggest stars on tour in Boston, including David Bowie, Madonna, Donna Summer, the Rolling Stones, B.B. King, U2, Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, and many more. This exhibition serves as a companion to his new book, Rock to Baroque.
Free, through June 30, Panopticon Gallery, 502c Comm. 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

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

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

Leonora Carrington: Dream Weaver
This is the first New England exhibition for Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington, spanning 60 years of her career, most of which she spent as a British expatriate in Mexico. Carrington’s drolly bizarre and mysterious works, equally amusing and unsettling, brought a gothic sensibility to the typical Surrealist fascination with dreams, mythology, and the unconscious.
Free, through June 1, Rose Art Museum, 415 South St., Waltham

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

Free as they want to be: Artists Committed to Memory
Harvard’s Cooper Gallery casts a spotlight on the role of photography and film in shaping our cultural memory of slavery and the post-emancipation era, from the work of 19th century photographer James Presley Ball to the reflections of contemporary figures like William Earle Williams and Omar Victor Diop.
Free, through June 30, Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art, 102 Mount Auburn St., Cambridge

Waters of the Abyss: An Intersection of Spirit and Freedom
Haitian artist Fabiola Jean-Louis’ vibrant, multimedia, Vodou reflection of the Gardner Museum’s collection of predominantly European Catholic uses all three temporary exhibition areas to create an autobiographical, historical, spiritual, and political journey, asking two key questions: “What lies at the heart of Black freedom? How are liberation and spirituality intertwined?”
$22, through May 25, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 25 Evans Way, Boston

Joana Choumali: Languages of West African Marketplaces
There’s a strange disjuncture in this set of 12 hand-quilted and embroidered portraits by Ivorian artist Joana Choumali, whose earnest young West African subjects wear t-shirts printed with silly American slogans and jokes that they don’t know how to translate. From this side of the Atlantic, it’s a surreal and revealing look in the mirror.
Free, through Sunday, May 11, 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

John Wilson, The Young Americans: Gabrielle (detail), 1975. Colored crayon and charcoal on paper. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. © Estate of John Wilson.

Witnessing Humanity: The Art of John Wilson
Throughout his career, Roxbury-born artist John Wilson documented the impacts of racism on Black communities and individuals with defiant power and dignity. Co-organized with the Met in New York, this is the largest exhibition his work to date, with 110 pieces on display, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, and prints, spanning 60 years.
$27, through June 22, Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston

Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World
Bringing together works from an international assortment of 20 lenders, this show investigates the exchange between art and science in Islamic societies from the Middle Ages to the present, with special reference to the concept of wonder in the work of medieval scholar Zakariyya al-Qazwini. Its 170 works range from scientific instruments to maps to paintings to reputedly demon-repelling “magic bowls.”
Free, through June 1, McMullen Museum of Art, 2101 Comm. Ave., Brighton

List Projects 31: Kite
The work of the artist Kite, running the gamut from experimental music to video to sculpture to performance, is not easy to summarize, but several themes return, including emergent technology, the philosophical tradition of her people, the Lakȟóta, and the act of close listening—not only to other people, but to dreams and other intelligent entities as well.
Free, through May 18, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 20 Ames St., Bldg. E15-109, Cambridge

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

Landscape and Labor: Dutch Works on Paper in Van Gogh’s Time
The Museum of Fine Arts examines the Hague School artists of the 19th century Netherlands, whose commitment to scenes of everyday rural life, partly a nostalgic reaction to the rise of industrialism, had a decisive influence on Van Gogh’s earthy early work.
$27, through June 22, Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston

Robert Frank: Mary’s Book
Revealing a more intimate side of the Swiss American photographer, Mary’s Book focuses on a photo scrapbook Robert Frank made in 1949 for his eventual first wife, Mary Lockspeiser. Crucial to the experience of these images are Frank’s poetic inscriptions, which add a personal touch to a set of pictures with few human figures.
$27, through June 22, Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., 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

Titanic: the Artifact Exhibition
Although Robert Ballad, the leader of the team that discovered the wreck of the Titanic, hoped no one would ever go back look for cool stuff there, people totally did. This show, offering a fascinating and intimate glimpse into the famous ocean liner’s lost world, is the first chance Bostonians have had in several years to view these objects.
$39.50-$65, through May 26, The Castle at Park Plaza, 130 Columbus Ave., Boston

Hugh Hayden, Hedges, 2019. Sculpted wood, lumber, hardware, mirror, and carpet. / Hugh Hayden; Courtesy of the Shed Open Call and Lisson Gallery. Photo by Mark Waldhauser Photograph by Mark Waldhauser.

Hugh Hayden: Home Work
Artist Hugh Hayden‘s first New England exhibition is now at Brandeis University’s Rose Art Museum. The surrealist sculptor’s show explores the complexities of the American Dream through unsettling transformations of everyday objects. Taking up 7,000 square feet of gallery space, the exhibition turns familiar items like tables and school desks into challenging artworks. The centerpiece, “Hedges (2019),” features a model suburban house with branches bursting through its walls, placed in a mirrored infinity room that creates endless reflections. Through these works, Hayden comments on both psychological barriers and social inequalities that make the American Dream nearly impossible to achieve for so many today. —JACI CONRY
Rose Art Museum, through June 1, 415 South St., Waltham, 781-736-3434.

The elusive narwhal with its magnificent spiral tooth has inspired art, legend, and cultural practice for centuries. / Glenn Williams, Narwhal Tusk Research

Narwhal: Revealing an Arctic Legend
Instantly recognizable among cetaceans for its remarkably long horn, the narwhal is unlike any other sea creature, seemingly ripped from the pages of a fanciful medieval world map. Not satisfied to stop at the narwhal’s mere oddness, this Smithsonian exhibition dives deep into its changing artic world, with input from scientists and members of the Inuit communities who’ve known it the longest.
$20, through June 15, Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St., Salem

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.
$20, ongoing, Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St., Salem

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