Six Must-See Exhibitions in Chelsea this Summer

Yayoi Kusama at David Zwirner

Opening June 17

“I Want Your Tears to Flow with the Words I Wrote”

Japanese multimedium artist Yayoi Kusama, who uses art to work through her mental health issues, creates visually mesmerizing sculptures, paintings, and installations. A selection of twelve paintings from the ongoing series “My Eternal Soul,” which she began in 2009, will be the show’s focus. The works incorporate recurring visual schemes made popular throughout Kusama’s eight-decade career, such as geometric patterns from her multiple immersive “Infinity Room” installations. Toyko-based gallery Ota Fine Arts and London-based gallery Victoria Miro will host concurrent exhibitions with works from the “My Eternal Soul” series.

Frank Bowling at Hauser & Wirth

Through July 30

“Frank Bowling – London/New York”

Guyana-born British painter Frank Bowling makes abstract works that speak to his transatlantic dual identity as part of the Windrush generation. Artworks from across more than 50 years, from 1967 onward, highlight how the artist’s use of paint has impacted the field of abstraction. Bowling’s paintings will be presented concurrently at the gallery’s New York and London locations.

Jennifer Bartlett at Paula Cooper Gallery

Through August 13

Employing the grid and various self-imposed rubrics, painter Jennifer Bartlett has long explored subjects such as houses, mountains, trees, gardens, and the ocean. In this selection of altered map works from the early 2000s, the artist renders as brightly colored abstractions countries in Africa and the Middle East that she has never visited.

Stuart Davis at Kasmin

Through August 13

“Stuart Davis in Havana”

Early modernist painter Stuart Davis is perhaps best known for his bold, colorful jazz-influenced canvases from the 1940s and ’50s, as well as his early associations with the Ashcan School of artists in New York. While recovering from the Spanish flu at the end of 1919, Davis took a formative trip to Havana with friend and fellow painter Glenn O. Coleman. On view are ten watercolors Davis painted at that time in Havana, along with related ephemera. Highlights include Dancers on Havana Street, Woman with Shawl, and Parque Centrale—Cuba, all painted in 1920.

“Social Works” at Gagosian

Through August 13

David Adjaye, Zalika Azim, Allana Clarke, Kenturah Davis, Theaster Gates, Linda Goode Bryant, Lauren Halsey, Titus Kaphar, Rick Lowe, Christie Neptune, Alexandria Smith, and Carrie Mae Weems

In the group exhibition “Social Works,” twelve artists consider the relationship between Black social practice and personal, public, institutional, and psychological space. Curated by critic Antwaun Sargent, the show engages events of the last year through a range of approaches. Highlights include David Adjaye’s large-scale walled maze sculpture Asaase (2021), which pays homage to West African architecture, and an installation by Theaster Gates commemorating DJ Frankie Knuckles, who led the 1980s Black and queer house music scene.

Brea Souders at Bruce Silverstein

Through August 20

“Vistas”

Google Photo Sphere creates a 360-degree panoramic view of a scene while removing the photographer’s image, leaving behind only shadows as a trace. Recalling early twentieth-century picture postcards, Brea Souders’s hand-colored photographs comprise Photo Sphere images taken in national parks throughout the American West. The looming shadows amid artificially colored landscapes convey a foreboding sense of potential human impact on the terrain.