Happy New Year and welcome to a 2023 that appears (fingers crossed) promising for art lovers and travelers. I am also coming out of something of a blogging hibernation to breathe life back into my weekly round-up after a 2022 that had my time and attention focused on other priorities and without the same energy and optimism for the often-depressing state of the art world. But in recent months, with the successful planning and recruitment of excited students signing up to join the Paris Field School I will be co-running in June, along with finding something to a closer to a “new normal” in the balance of post-pandemic teaching and research, I am finding myself itching and excited to reconnect with those who find these kinds of posts of interest.
The art world and art tourism, as an industry having the spent the better part of three years under a cloud of uncertainty, also appears to be awakening. With pandemic restrictions preventing large-scale exhibitions since 2020, it is heartening to see the calendars of “future exhibitions” sections of major museum and galleries advertising some fantastic shows for the year ahead. What I present here below is part of a tradition that I started back in 2011 on my website when I responded to students and blog visitors who would ask me what I would recommend as art cities and art shows to visit in the year ahead. In subsequent years, I developed the top ten selection of modern and contemporary art exhibitions in part based upon where I planned to travel, but also based upon where I would want to go if I had the time and resources. For 2023, I have already booked travel to New York and Paris and hope to make it to London in the fall (the selections for these cities below are big highlights for me), but I always have a list like this in mind when talking to artists and fellow art travellers. And yes, always a selection closer to home (I’m looking at you Vancouver). Happy exploring and best wishes for the year ahead—I hope this list whets your appetite for a return to travel and a return to experiencing art in person.
P.S. I present the exhibitions in chronological order of opening, not in any other oder of preference— they are all special and important in their own way.
NEW YORK| Meret Oppenheim, My Exhibition (Jan 1 – Mar 4)
STOCKHOLM| Moderna Museet: Laurie Anderson (Jan 4-Mar 9)
LOS ANGELES| LACMA: Coded: Art Enters the Computer Age, 1952-1982 (Feb 12-July 2)
PARIS| ORSAY: Manet/Degas (Mar 28-July23)
NEW YORK| WHITNEY: Josh Kline: Project For A New American Century (Apr 19-Aug 31)
PARIS| Foundation Louis Vuitton: BASQUIAT X WARHOL. Painting 4 Hands (May 4-Aug 28
AMSTERDAM| Modern (May 18-Sept 24)
VANCOUVER| VAG: Fashion Fictions (May 27-Oct 9)
LONDON|Royal Academy of Arts: Marina Abramovic (Sept 23-Dec 10)
