5 Museum Shows To Visit This Summer in the Midwest - Part II

1. Des Moines Art Center – Hurricane Season: Caribbean Art + Climate Change

Every year from June 1 through November 30, people across the Caribbean archipelago hold their breath. It’s hurricane season. Hurricanes and the devastation they bring have long been a part of life in the Caribbean, but with climate change, these storms are getting far more violent. They pick up steam faster than ever before, leaving little time to prepare. The aftermaths of storms are unbearable and shed light on the living legacy of colonialism and ongoing political corruption. Yet even as the effects of climate change wreak havoc on the region, life across the archipelago continues. People adapt. They weather the storm, even as they are weathered by it.

“Hurricane Season” features 58 works in a range of media by six artists from across the Caribbean archipelago and its diaspora: Firelei Báez, Lionel Cruet, Teresita Fernández, Tamika Galanis, Deborah Jack, and Hew Locke.

Thru Sept 22

Des Moines, IA

2. The Cleveland Museum of Art – Picturing the Border

Picturing the Border presents photographs of the US-Mexico borderlands from the 1970s to the present taken by both border residents and outsiders. They range in subject matter from intimate domestic portraits, narratives of migration, and proof of political demonstrations to images of border crossings and clashes between migrants and the US Border Patrol. The earliest images in this exhibition form an origin story for the topicality of the US-Mexico border at present, and demonstrate that the issues of the border have been a critical point of inquiry for artists since the 1970s.

Thru January 5, 2025

Cleveland, OH

3. Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum – Solidarity Now! 1968 Poor People's Campaign

Solidarity Now! 1968 Poor People's Campaign explores one of the most important grassroots movements of the civil rights era: the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968. The exhibition investigates the factors that made this movement a success: the ideas, the emotions, the people, and the place—Resurrection City. Through a moving combination of photographs, objects, video, and oral histories, it explores the significance and impact of this campaign that drew thousands of people to develop a protest community on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to call the nation's attention to the crippling effects of poverty for millions of Americans.

Thru August 18

Springfield, IL

4. Madison Museum of Contemporary Art – William Villalongo: Myths and Migrations

William Villalongo: Myths and Migrations showcases 33 works created in the last two decades by the Brooklyn-based artist William Villalongo. Highly recognized for his paintings, collages, and signature velour paper cut-outs, Villalongo’s striking visual narratives invite the viewer to engage with the complexities and precarity of Black existence.

Thru August 11

Madison, WI

5. Paine Art Center and Gardens – Microsculpture: The Insect Portraits of Levon Biss

Examine extremely fine pigmented scales, velvet-like surface textures, saw-sharp mandibles, swirling patterns and some of the most vibrant, iridescent colors seen in nature with large-scale photographic prints by British photographer Levon Biss.

Thru October 13

Oshkosh, WI