London Calling, One More Time
The mood on the street might be gloomy, but inside, the clubs, hotels, and restaurants of this town are buzzier—and posher—than ever.
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Beverly Hills, “Paul McCartney Rearview Mirror: Photographs, December 1963–February 1964” (Until June 21)
This collection of Paul McCartney’s photographs starts in London, with a blurry self-portrait (selfie, if you will) of the 21-year-old star mugging in the mirror of his bedroom. The 36 photos are an intimate peek at the early days of The Beatles’ fame from behind McCartney’s 35 mm Pentax: mobs of press and photographers greeting them in Paris, fans chasing their taxi down the street in New York, candids of the band on tour, and playful self-portraits in Parisian hotels. Coinciding with the massive touring exhibition “Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Storm” that debuted at the National Portrait Gallery in London, this show makes a tighter selection and presents new photos. gagosian.com
Boston, “Stanley Whitney: How High the Moon” (Until Sept. 1)
Stanley Whitney has begun his paintings in the top left corner of the canvas for the past 20 years, ever since he set on his signature color-blocked abstract paintings. He works down from there, one color summoning up the next. “I follow the paintings wherever they take me,” he explains, “If the painting goes out the door, I follow it out the door; if it goes out the window, I follow it out the window.” This is, surprisingly, the first retrospective to ever cover the length of the American painter’s five-decade career, with over 100 paintings, drawings, prints, and sketchbooks. icaboston.org
Los Angeles, “Cataclysm: The 1972 Diane Arbus Retrospective Revisited” (Until June 21)
No one had expected Diane Arbus’s retrospective at the MoMA, a year after her death, to be so cataclysmic. In her lifetime, the American photographer was known but not exactly famous—she exhibited only once and sold a handful of pictures. But the exhibition was the museum’s most highly attended one-person exhibition ever. Arbus’s choice of subject, people on the periphery of society, and her intimate style of photography were divisive: The New York Times called the show “an artistic and a human triumph,” while Susan Sontag disparagingly wrote that Arbus “shows people who are pathetic, pitiable, as well as horrible, repulsive, but it does not arouse any compassionate feelings.” This show commemorates the momentous retrospective by reassembling its 113 photographs over 50 years later. davidzwirner.com
Miami, “Olga de Amaral” (Opens May 1)
Olga de Amaral was one of the only Latin American fiber artists to gain international recognition during the fiber art movement of the ’60s and ’70s. The 2021 title of the 93-year-old Colombian artist’s first U.S. retrospective, To Weave a Rock, seems to perfectly capture the spirit of her practice: surprising, experimental, seemingly impossible. She weaves, knits, knots, and braids textiles into unexpected forms, sculptures, and tapestries. In 1976, she made a six-story-tall tapestry out of wool textiles, and in 1996 she began Estelas, a series of fabric glazed with acrylic paint and gold leaf. This retrospective, first held at Fondation Cartier in Paris, follows the evolution of her career across six decades with 50 transfixing works. icamiami.org
New York, “Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers” (Until Jan. 18, 2026)
In 2015, Rashid Johnson began his most well-known series Anxious Men, gestural portraits out of black soap and wax on tiles, which expressed his anxieties around Black masculinity and fatherhood. But he’s proven that his oeuvre is not restricted by any medium. By 2018, his Anxious Men became the mosaics of fragmented mirror and ceramics in Broken Men. Born in Chicago in 1977, Johnson has become a powerful force in contemporary art over the past 30 years. Now, at 48, he reflects on his career and experiments anew. For his first solo presentation in New York, and his largest ever, Johnson brings together almost 90 works, including paintings, sculptures, film, and video, as well as an installation of plants that turns the museum rotunda into a lush greenhouse. guggenheim.org
