8 Essential Shows to See Around the World in 2023, From a Fresh Look at Alexander McQueen’s Genius to the Louvre’s Treasures of Love

A new year means new museum shows. Here's our round-up of must-see exhibitions outside of the U.S. and Europe.

Alexander McQueen, Look 9; Look 29; Look 1; Look 31, from the "Horn of Plenty collection." Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, Paris, 10 March 2009 © Alexander McQueen. Photo © Robert Fairer.

There’s more art to see beyond the United States and Europe, and we’ve rounded up some of the most exciting shows debuting in the new year. From a spotlight on female designers to a survey of the Belle Epoque in South Korea, here’s what we have our eye on around the world in 2023.

 

Undercurrent: The New Future of Japanese Contemporary Art
Powerlong Art Museum, Shanghai
through January 29, 2023

Courtesy of the Powerlong Art Museum.

Courtesy of the Powerlong Art Museum.

Described as “a concentrated display of the new generation of Japanese artists in China,” this show features around 100 artworks by 16 emerging and established Japanese contemporary artists. The group came of age in the 1990s, and is often associated with the country’s “Lost 20 years,” when Japan’s economy cratered.

 

MMCA Lee Kun-hee Collection: Monet, Picasso, and the Masters of the Belle Epoque
National Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art, Gwacheon, South Korea
through February 26, 2023

Camille Pissarro, <i>The Cereal Market in Pontoise </i> (1893). Courtesy of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, South Korea.

Camille Pissarro, The Cereal Market in Pontoise (1893). Courtesy of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, South Korea.

Nearly 100 works donated to the museum by the heirs of late Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee are on view in this sprawling exhibition focused on luminaries of Paris’s “Belle Epoque.” The show is divided into four sections: “Pissarro and Gauguin, Two Masters in Paris Who Met as Mentor and Mentee”; “Monet, Renoir, and Picasso, Masters Who Blossomed through Friendship and Respect”; “Picasso, Miró, and Dalí, Spanish Painters in Paris”; and “Picasso and Chagall, Masters Who Captured Beautiful Moments in Life.”

 

McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
through April 16, 2023

A selection of Alexander McQueen''s designs featured in "Mind, Mythos, Muse." Courtesy of the National Gallery of VIctoria.

A selection of Alexander McQueen’s designs featured in “Mind, Mythos, Muse.” Courtesy of the National Gallery of Victoria.

Fashion designer Alexander McQueen remains a source of endless discussion, even more than 12 years after his death in 2010. The exhibition features artwork drawn from the collections of the National Gallery and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art displayed alongside McQueen’s own designs “that help to illuminate the interdisciplinary impulse that defined his career.”

 

Egon Schiele from the Collection of the Leopold Museum–Young Genius in Vienna 1900
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Japan
January 26–April 9, 2023

Egon Schiele, Self-Portrait with Chinese Lantern Plant (1912). Courtesy of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum & the Leopold Art Museum.

After three decades, the work of Egon Schiele is returning to Tokyo in this exhibition tracing “the dramatic life of a genius who died too young.” The show features 50 artworks by Schiele accompanied by some 120 works by other Viennese artists, including Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, and Richard Gerstl, to tell a comprehensive story of fin-de-siècle Viennese art.

 

Liu Kuo-sung: Experimentation as Method
National Gallery Singapore
January 13–November 26, 2023

Liu Kuo-Sung, <i>The Earth, Our Home (B)</i> (2004). Courtesy of Christie's Images, Ltd.

Liu Kuo-Sung, The Earth, Our Home (B) (2004). Courtesy of Christie’s Images, Ltd.

The forthcoming exhibition will be the largest show dedicated to Chinese artist Liu Kuo-Sung by a public Singaporean institution, with more than 60 paintings and 150 of the artist’s personal objects. Best known for his expressive ink paintings, Kuo-Sung helped to modernize the practice with his “Space” series, which incorporates photographs of the Earth taken by U.S. astronauts on the Apollo 8 mission in 1968.

 

Painting Love in the Louvre Collections
National Art Center, Tokyo
March 1–June 12, 2023

François Gérard, Cupid and Psyche (1767). Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre) /Tony Querrec / distributed by AMF-DNPartcom.

 

Art aficionados certainly love the Louvre, but this expansive show in Japan’s capital city delves into love at the Louvre—specifically 74 paintings from the legendary Paris museum’s collection that display amorousness in classical European art ranging from the chaste to the blush-worthy. Go with your special someone, or maybe meet them there.

 

Parall(elles): A History of Women in Design
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
February 18–May 28, 2023

Dorothy Hafner, Fred Flintstone, Flash Gordon and Marie Antoinette coffee service (form); Blue Loop with Headdress (decoration), (1984). MMFA, Liliane and David M. Stewart Collection. Photo Annie Fafard.

Designs by American and Canadian women are the subject of this sprawling exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Stewart Program for Modern Design. Objects from the mid-19th century through today highlight the breadth of styles and media that female designers made while marginalized in social, political, and personal settings. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) has also commissioned ceramicist Molly Hatch to create a giant mosaic of 198 hand-painted plates that will take over the exhibition pavilion.

 

Ningiukulu Teevee: Chronicles for the Curious
National Gallery of Ontario
Opens January 14, 2023

Ningiukulu Teevee, Shaman Revealed (2007). © Ningiukulu Teevee, courtesy Dorset Fine Arts. 2008/17.

Kinngait (Cape Dorset)-based Ningiukulu Teevee is a graphic artist whose work first debuted at the National Gallery of Ontario only two years ago. Her “bold color, unique perspectives, and meticulous graphic style” have cemented her as a favorite among collectors.


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