Things to Do This Week in Boston

FESTIVALS

Harvard Arts Festival
Each year, Harvard shows off the talents of its students, staff, alumni, and faculty at this campus-wide mega-event, with dozens of indoor and outdoor performances, exhibitions, art-making workshops, and other offerings. If you’re looking for an anchor event, the Arts Fest Performance Fair (Saturday afternoon) is billed as “a jewel of the festival” and features dance and music from around the world.
Free, Thursday through Sunday, May 1-4, various locations, Harvard University campus, 1350 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

THEATER

Mean Girls
Fans of Tina Fey’s 2004 high school comedy classic will find the same basic plot here, but with songs from Jeff Richmond (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and Nell Benjamin (the Legally Blonde musical). Debuting in 2018, this Mean Girls proved successful enough to see its own film version last year.
$58.50-$254.50, Tuesday through Sunday, April 29-May 4, Emerson Colonial Theater, 106 Boylston St., Boston

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, Friday, May 2 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, Thursday, May 1 through May 18, Museum of Science, 1 Science Park, Boston

Sugar
Directed by Audrey Seraphin and written by Tara Moses (The Thanksgiving Play, Where We Belong), Fresh Ink Theater’s latest production centers on twentysomething Brooke, who’s down on her luck in most ways, bereft of a support system and constantly in the red despite working three jobs. To get out of her quagmire, she turns to sex work—and that’s when things get interesting.
$10-$35, through Saturday, May 3, Plaza Black Box Theater, Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont St., Boston

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Actors’ Shakespeare Project takes inspiration from the famous club kids of turn-of-the-millennium New York City for director Maurice Emmanuel Parent’s production of the Bard’s fantasy frolic, which also puts a new spin on the play’s central four-way romantic kerfuffle.
$20-$74, through Sunday, May 4, Mosesian Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal St., Watertown

COMEDY

Jiaoying Summers
The Chinese answer to the late, great Joan Rivers, Jiaoying Summers offers unvarnished, witty perspectives in her sketch videos, standup, and podcast Tiger MILF. She’s not afraid to court controversy—a few years back, she was banned from TikTok for joking about China’s one child policy. In this bit, she even finds the humor in her own suicide attempt.
$33, Friday and Saturday, May 2-3, Laugh Boston, 425 Summer St., Boston

MUSIC

Handel & Haydn Society: Beethoven, Mozart, and The Bear
Celebrated fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout takes the lead role in Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto, followed by some of Mozart’s music from Thamos, King of Egypt and, rounding out the program, Haydn’s delightful Symphony No. 82, which has long been associated with dancing bears.
$33-$117, Friday and Sunday, May 2 and 4, Symphony Hall, 301 Mass. Ave., Boston

DANCE

BoSoma Dance Company: Interconnections
Katherine Hooper directs three of her own pieces exploring action and time: Regret, Butterfly Effect, and On the Rails. You’ll also see Eddy Ocampo’s WIPE and two new creations from BoSoma alums Stephanie Boisvert and Julia Sykes. All three pieces explore contemporary female experience, from confining gender roles to the journey of motherhood.
$40-$50, Saturday and Sunday, May 3-4, Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont St., Boston

FOOD + DRINK

Panda Fest
This travelling pan-Asian fair features a market, tastings, special activities, modern and traditional music and dance performances, more than 60 food vendors, and at least one giant inflatable panda. Noodles, dumplings, beef skewers, panda-shaped sweet treats, calligraphy, teas, accessories—it’s all here and a lot more.
$13-$25, Friday through Sunday, May 2-4, City Hall Plaza, 1 City Hall Sq., Boston

MOVIES

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

An Unfinished Film
In this new Chinese documentary/fiction hybrid, a crew arrives in Wuhan in 2019 to finish a movie abandoned a decade earlier, only to be stymied again by a sudden event of global import—and if you’re thinking that event is COVID-19, you are correct.
$13-$15, Friday through Monday, May 2-5, Brattle Theater, 40 Brattle St., Cambridge

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, opens Thursday, May 1, 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

Independent Film Festival Boston
Catch a new documentary about To Catch a Predator, the unconventional rock doc Pavements, the Japanese dystopic vision Happyend, the retro computer nightmare OBEX, the Tim Robinson/Paul Rudd black comedy Friendship, and more work from the bleeding edge at this annual cinephile’s feast.
$16-$20, through April 30, Brattle Theater, 40 Brattle St. Cambridge and Somerville Theater, 55 Davis Sq., Somerville

Sneaks
If a bunch of cars could carry an animated film, why not a bunch of shoes? Perhaps that was the question behind this family-friendly romp about a pair of collector kicks (Anthony Mackie and Chloe Bailey) forcibly separated from their owner by the fiendish Collector (Laurence Fishburne).
$11.59-$17.68, AMC Boston Common, 175 Tremont St., Boston

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

Drop
Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus) starts getting spammed by an anonymous stalker while on a date in this paranoia-inducing thriller from director Christopher Landon (Happy Death Day). As things escalate, the stalker threatens her loved one and even demands she kill for him. Who is this guy, and how much blood will be spilled before she finds out?
$10.99-$14.49, Alamo Drafthouse, 60 Seaport Blvd., Boston

Mickey 17
Six years after Parasite became an international sensation, Bong Joon-ho is back with a sci-fi tale starring Robert Pattinson as a desperate, out of work citizen of a dark future who signs up to become an “expendable” in a space colony, Niflheim. Each time his work inevitably kills him, he’s replaced by a clone—a system that works fine until the 17^th in this succession turns out not to be dead.
$11.59-$17.68, AMC Boston Common, 175 Tremont St., Boston 

ALSO

• Where to Eat in Greater Boston This Month
• 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.

WEDNESDAY (4/30/25)

MUSIC

The Blue Stones
A two-man blues rock machine in the tradition of the White Stripes and Black Keys, this band from the Detroit-adjacent city of Windsor, Ontario has scored several top ten hits in Canada, including the thunderous 2019 single “Shakin’ Off the Rust,” which made it to number one. They’re now on their fourth album, Metro, which dropped at the end of March.
$36.67, 8 p.m., Royale, 279 Tremont St., Boston

COMEDY

Wednesday’s Rising Stars ft. Logan O’Brien
A member of local sketch/podcast trio the South Shore Boyz, Logan O’Brien recently performed at the Boston Comedy Festival. One of his solo video projects is reading strange and/or nasty Yelp reviews for area strip clubs. Other comics on the bill: Antoine Neserella, Mike Daniels, Monica Carroll, and Justin Hoff.
$15-$20, 8 p.m., The Comedy Studio, 5 John F. Kennedy St., Cambridge

THURSDAY (5/1/25)

MUSIC

Sharon Van Etten and the Attachment Theory
The vibey indie singer-songwriter and her band are touring behind their self-titled new album, which dropped in February. One of its highlights, “Idiot Box,” sounds like Bruce Springsteen doing his own version of the post-punk that thrived at the height of his own fame.
$49.34-$77.72, 8 p.m., Roadrunner, 89 Guest St., Brighton

COMEDY

Youngmi Mayer: Hairy Butthole
The title of this show isn’t meant to gross out, but to reference a Korean saying: “If you laugh while crying, hair grows out of your butthole.” Across three acts, comedian, author, and podcaster Youngmi Mayer, in successive character as her grandmother, her mother, and finally herself, tells a series of Korean folktales.
$15-$20, 7 p.m., The Rockwell, 255 Elm St., Somerville

FRIDAY (5/2/25)

MUSIC

Ciara Moser and Friends
Blind Austrian Irish bass virtuoso Ciara Moser and her international band will perform a unique mixture of Irish folk and jazz fusion from Moser’s project The Rose of Battle, taking inspiration from some of the great Irish poets, including the blind 18th century bard Antoine Ó Raifteirí.
$15, 8 p.m., The Lilypad, 1353 Cambridge St., Cambridge

Palmyra
This folk trio met at James Madison University in Virginia and perfected their sound in a shared home during the lockdowns. While many folk artists try to project timelessness, Palmyra isn’t afraid to toss pop covers like “Pumped Up Kicks” into their repertoire, or to write songs about subjects like taking psych meds. Their newest album, Restless, dropped in March.
$15-$21.04, 8 p.m., Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

Lady Blackbird
The only proper word for an artist with a look and voice like Lady Blackbird’s is “diva”—for proof, check out this smoldering cover of Screamin’ Jay” Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell On You.” The Lady has found her greatest success in the United Kingdom, where both her full-length albums, 2021’s Black Acid Soul and 2024’s Slang Spirituals, have topped the Jazz & Blues chart.
$25-$45, 7:30 p.m., City Winery, 80 Beverly St., Boston

FASHION 

Artwear: The Somerville Open Studios 2025 Fashion Show
Check out the wearable work of local designers who blur the boundaries of fashion and art, from the punky fabric collage of Mia Brillantes to the stylish clown vibes of Lexie Butterfly to Consuelo Perez’s modernizations of 18^th century courtly opulence.
Free, 7 p.m., Crystal Ballroom, 55 Davis Sq., Somerville

MUSEUMS

First Fridays: Space Jam
Space is the place at this month’s 21+ evening event at the ICA, with themed art activities, “extraterrestrial cocktails,” and performances from rapper dot dev (formerly Pink Navel) and electronic musician Daedelus, a former artist-in-residence at the SETI Institute.
$30-$35, 6 p.m.-10 p.m., Institute of Contemporary Art, 25 Harbor Shore Dr., Boston

SATURDAY (5/3/25)

MUSIC

BADBADNOTGOOD
Equally comfortable in the idioms of jazz and hip hop, this adventurous Canadian instrumental trio has worked with Kendrick Lamar (“Lust”), Daniel Caesar (“Get You”), and many other notables. Their latest album, 2024’s Mid Spiral, is a feast of chilled-out soul and funk grooves.
$48.37-$82.59, 8 p.m., Roadrunner, 89 Guest St., Brighton

Cheekface
Like They Might Be Giants or Ween, Los Angeles geek rock trio Cheekface makes music that’s too well-crafted to be written off as novelty pop but too amusing to completely beat the allegations. Their new album Middle Spoon contains several catchy tunes whose surface humor and nerdy delivery disguise a darker assessment of modern life.
$34.16, 8 p.m., The Sinclair, 52 Church St., Cambridge

COMEDY

Billy Wayne Davis
Describing himself on Instagram as “smart, Southern, and sneakily hilarious,” this Tennessee native excels at standup storytelling. His 2022 special Testify starts with him clearing the air about his Southern accent: “People think we’re way dumber than we actually are,” he laments. “It’s the opposite of the British accent.”
$25-$30, 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., The Comedy Studio, 5 John F. Kennedy St., Cambridge

VARIETY

Varietopia
Paul F. Tompkins hosts this modern vaudevillian production, a featuring music, comedy, and “other forms of live entertainment.” There’s no telling exactly what you’ll see, but this clip from 2022, in which Elphaba from Wicked sings “Islands in the Stream” with Santa Claus, should give you an idea of the silliness that awaits.
$37.50-$53.50, 7 p.m., The Wilbur, 246 Tremont St., Boston

SUNDAY (5/4/25)

FESTIVALS

Harvard Square MayFair
One of the most time-honored traditions on the Harvard Square calendar, MayFair, celebrating its 40^th year in 2025, is a diverse mix of performances, vendors, food, drink, and more. Five different stages with music and dance lineups will be spread around the Square, as well as an Asian Street Food and Music Festival.
Free, 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Harvard Square, Cambridge

BOOKS + READINGS

Ed Helms
A former Daily Show correspondent known for his roles in the Hangover films and The Office, Ed Helms has kept busy more recently with his podcast SNAFU, sharing tales of epic failure from history. He’ll be at WBUR to discuss the podcast’s new eponymous companion book, which covers bizarre ventures like the CIA’s attempts to train cats as spies.
$20-$52, 6:30 p.m., WBUR CitySpace, 890 Comm. Ave., Boston

COMEDY

Ramy Youssef
Best known for his Hulu series Ramy, relentlessly introspective comic Ramy Youssef expanded his reach into the realm of animation this year with the Amazon debut of #1 Happy Family USA, about an Egyptian American family living uncomfortably in the years immediately following 9/11. His last special, More Feelings, appeared last year on HBO.
$48.50-$94.40, 7 p.m., The Wilbur, 246 Tremont St., Boston

MUSIC

Hope Tala
Having built up a good deal of buzz over the past several years around singles like the hybrid bossa nova/R&B confection “Lovestained,” British singer-songwriter Hope Tala finally delivered a debut album, Hope Handwritten, this February. At her recent Coachella appearance, she paid tribute to Lily Allen with a cover of “Smile.”
$36, 8 p.m., Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston

MONDAY (5/5/25)

MUSIC

George Clanton
This electronic musician released early music under a couple of monikers before defaulting to his given name on the 2015 album 100% Electronica. In 2019, he co-founded the first-ever vaporwave music festival, 100% Electronicon. His last solo album, 2023’s Oh Rap I Ya, evokes a faded, warped version of ’80s and ’90s pop R&B, with vocals reminiscent of Tears for Fears.
$36, 8 p.m., Paradise Rock Club, 967 Comm. Ave., Boston

Ongoing

SHOPPING

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, May 4 through October 26, 11 a.m-5 p.m., 500 Harrison Ave., 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

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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)

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, Saturday, May 3 through September 28, Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston

Eric Antoniou
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; it opens with a launch party for the book on Thursday.
Free, Thursday, May 1 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 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

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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

Frank M. Costantino: Visionary Projects
The Boston Athenaeum provides a look behind the scenes of the architectural process through this spotlight on local illustrator Frank M. Costantino, whose 50-year career has included many close-to-home projects, including Hynes Convention Center, the Esplanade, and the Old State House.
$10, through Saturday, May 3, Boston Athenaeum, 10 ½ Beacon St., Boston

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

Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools: 300 Years of Flemish Masterworks
When it comes to painting, nobody in Europe did it quite like the Flemish, inhabitants of modern-day Belgium who revolutionized the art between the 15th and 17th centuries, in terms both of technique and subject matter. Artists on display include Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Hans Memling, Jan Gossaert, Jan Brueghel, and many more. You’ll also get to see a recreated “cabinet of curiosities.”
$20, through Sunday, May 4, Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St., Salem

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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