Observer’s Guide to the Must-See Museum Shows of 2025

As the art world gears up for the spring season, Observer has scoured the programs of the most prestigious museums worldwide to compile a list of must-see museum exhibitions in 2025. This year’s lineup embraces a truly global perspective, with standout shows stretching from the U.S. to China and beyond. Highlights include a major survey on Indigenous art, the most comprehensive U.S. retrospective of Caspar David Friedrich to date, Australia’s first grand retrospective of Yayoi Kusama and Hong Kong’s inaugural blockbuster exhibition on Picasso. These are the shows that demand a spot on your cultural calendar—and promise to redefine what’s worth seeing in 2025 and beyond.

Australia’s largest Yayoi Kusama retrospective

National Gallery of Victoria, through April 15, 2025

The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne has launched a monumental, “Yayoi Kusama,” running through Spring 2025. Spanning an extraordinary eight decades of her artistic practice, this retrospective sets a global benchmark, featuring the largest number of Kusama’s immersive environments ever assembled. It’s not just the most comprehensive retrospective of her career to date—it’s also the largest Kusama exhibition ever mounted in Australia. The show traces the artist’s journey from her 1930s childhood to her current status as a cultural icon, showcasing the full breadth of her creativity and infinite imagination. Kusama’s work builds a paradoxical, mesmerizing personal universe, exploring profound physical forces while captivating audiences worldwide with the playful exuberance of her signature polka dots.

Among the standout features is the debut of Infinity Mirrored Room – My Heart is Filled to the Brim with Sparkling Light (2024), a kaleidoscopic immersive environment designed to dazzle. Adding to the spectacle, the NGV has acquired Dancing Pumpkin, a towering 5-meter-tall bronze sculpture that transforms her iconic polka dots into a conceptual and experimental marvel, inviting audiences to walk beneath its massive form. Visitors can also immerse themselves in THE HOPE OF THE POLKA DOTS BURIED IN INFINITY WILL ETERNALLY COVER THE UNIVERSE (2019), a sprawling tangle of 6-meter-high tentacular forms covered in yellow-and-black polka dots. Another highlight is a new iteration of Kusama’s pivotal work, Narcissus Garden, first unveiled (unofficially) at the 1966 Venice Biennale and now a permanent part of the NGV collection.

Kusama’s signature polka dots extend beyond the gallery’s walls, transforming NGV International’s public spaces into a visual playground. More than 60 plane trees along the road in front of the museum are wrapped in pink-and-white polka dots, while additional site-specific works and a children’s exhibition ensure accessibility to a wider audience.

Caspar David Friedrich’s most comprehensive U.S. exhibition

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, February 8, 2025 through May 11, 2025

Emily Kam Kngwarray’s first European survey

Tate Modern, July 10, 2025 through January 11, 2026

The Tate Modern in London is set to present the first major European survey of Emily Kam Kngwarray, celebrated as one of Australia’s most significant Indigenous artists. A senior Anmatyerr woman from the Utopia region, northeast of Mparntwe/Alice Springs, Kngwarray’s paintings are deeply rooted in traditional rituals that connect to the land and its natural forces. Her work dives into the collective unconscious, exploring the profound interconnection between all living beings. Emerging from this spiritual and ecological engagement, her canvases translate the energies of her homeland into intricate patterns of dots and bold linear structures, evoking a continuous flow of natural vibrations.

Kngwarray holds a trailblazing legacy. She became the first Australian Indigenous artist to debut internationally with a major gallery like Gagosian following her first commercial solo exhibition at Utopia Art, Sydney, in 1990. Her impact continued after her death in 1996, with her work representing Australia at the 1997 Venice Biennale, cementing her status as one of the country’s leading modern painters. Her art challenges conventional views of Aboriginal Australian art, demonstrating its powerful ability to resonate on a global stage.

Traveling from its debut at the NGA, the Tate Modern exhibition will bring Kngwarray’s extraordinary story to life. It will feature a series of monumental shimmering canvases she created in her late 70s and early 80s, many of which will be shown outside Australia for the first time.

Picasso’s first major exhibition in Hong Kong

M+ Museum, opening in March 2025

Coinciding with Hong Kong Art Month and perfectly timed with Art Basel Hong Kong, the M+ Museum is set to unveil one of the season’s most anticipated exhibitions: “Picasso for Asia: A Conversation.” This landmark show marks the first major exhibition dedicated to Pablo Picasso in Hong Kong in over a decade. Bringing a fresh, groundbreaking perspective to the Spanish master’s legacy, the exhibition juxtaposes more than sixty of his masterpieces, on loan from the Musée National Picasso-Paris, with around eighty works by Asian and Asian-diasporic artists from the M+ Collections.

This unprecedented dialogue between the twentieth-century European icon and contemporary Asian artists promises to illuminate the dynamic interchange of references and appropriations that shaped Modern art’s revolutionary visual languages. By placing these works in conversation, “Picasso for Asia” explores the fertile cross-pollination of ideas between East and West while probing deeper questions about origin and reception, invention and adaptation.

“Corps et âmes” at the Pinault Collection, the Bourse de Commerce

La Bourse-Fondation Pinault in Paris,  March 5 through August 25

It’s a given that every exhibition at La Bourse-Fondation Pinault in Paris comes with razor-sharp curation, unprecedented dialogues between artworks and a showcase of exceptional pieces from the French billionaire’s collection. Opening its 2025 season, La Bourse presents “Corps et âmes,” a sweeping exploration of the body’s significance in contemporary thought, as expressed by some twenty artists from the Pinault Collection. This ambitious exhibition delves into the complex interplay between body and soul, physicality and spirituality—two interconnected poles central to the human experience.

The show’s works span time periods and cultural contexts, offering a universal and cross-cultural examination of a theme that feels strikingly relevant in an era where advancing technologies blur and even replace our sensory and psychological interactions with the world. The exhibition poses vital questions about the boundaries and extensions of the body and soul in modern life. Visitors can expect to encounter major figures, with pieces by Auguste Rodin, Duane Hanson, Georg Baselitz, Michael Armitage, Ana Mendieta, Miriam Cahn, Philip Guston, Marlene Dumas, David Hammons, Kerry James Marshall, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, Mira Schor, Arthur Jafa and Deana Lawson, among others.

Set against the stunning curves of the Bourse de Commerce, the exhibition weaves a rich choreography of voices and narratives that invites viewers to rediscover the body as a site of vitality and transformation. In the words of Jacques Rancière, it celebrates the body in the “possession of all their vital energies,” urging us to reflect on what it means to inhabit and transcend physical and spiritual selves.

A Ruth Asawa retrospective

 SFMOMA, April 5 through September / MoMa, October 19, 2025 through February  7, 2026

Debuting in San Francisco before moving to New York, this show marks the first major posthumous retrospective of Ruth Asawa’s work since her 1973 exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art. Spanning six decades of her career and showcasing more than 300 pieces, the exhibition delves into the full spectrum of Asawa’s awe-inspiring practice. It highlights her mastery of materials and techniques, with a particular focus on her longtime San Francisco home and garden as the heart of her creative universe.

Asawa’s signature looped-wire sculptures—elegant circular and globular forms that seem to float weightlessly from the ceiling—create mesmerizing interplays of light, shadow and space within the gallery. These iconic works will be paired with lesser-known explorations of material and form across a variety of mediums, including wire sculpture, bronze casts, drawings, paintings, prints and public art projects. Charting her relentless inventiveness and disciplined devotion to her practice, the exhibition provides a rich perspective on the interconnectedness of Asawa’s artistic vision and her fearless experimentation.

In addition to her own work, the show features select pieces by peers and mentors who shaped and influenced her artistic journey. These include luminaries like Josef Albers, Imogen Cunningham, Buckminster Fuller, Ray Johnson, Hazel Larsen Archer, Merry Renk and Marguerite Wildenhain, offering a broader context for the creative dialogues that informed Asawa’s groundbreaking career.

Rashid Johnson taking over the Guggenheim

This year, the Guggenheim’s iconic rotunda will be transformed by African American artist Rashid Johnson in an ambitious mid-career survey showcasing the breadth of his three-decade-long career. Featuring 90 works, the exhibition spans Johnson’s diverse practice, from black-soap paintings and spray-painted text pieces to monumental sculptures, film and video. It celebrates Johnson’s pivotal role in championing Black culture and aesthetics while seamlessly weaving together popular expressions and art history. At its core, the show probes the intricate relationship between the individual human psyche and the sweeping historical events that shape collective experience.

Organized into thematic sections, the exhibition addresses key narratives within Johnson’s work, including social alienation, rebirth and escapism, offering a loose chronology of his artistic evolution. From his beginnings as an idealistic thinker to his current stature as a seasoned scholar, the show highlights Johnson’s ability to draw inspiration across disciplines, incorporating history, philosophy, literature and music into his deeply layered practice. Evocatively titled “A Poem for Deep Thinkers,” the exhibition will be accompanied by a robust performance and public engagement program developed in collaboration with both existing and new community partners, transforming the Guggenheim rotunda into a dynamic hub for community activation and exchange.

Adding another dimension to the experience, the museum’s top ramp will feature Johnson’s large-scale site-specific installation, Sanguine, which incorporates an embedded piano. This intervention will come alive as a venue for programmed musical performances, further animating the Guggenheim as a space for creativity and community.

An Anicka Yi exhibition travels to China

UCCA Beijing, March 22 through June 15

Following its debut at the Leeum Museum in Seoul during last year’s Seoul Art Week, Anicka Yi’s first major exhibition in Asia has arrived at UCCA Beijing. Blending science, technology, biology and sensory experiences, Yi’s groundbreaking practice explores the possibilities of coexistence between humans and non-human entities. Her work envisions entirely new ecosystems, synthetic biology and a reimagined type of symbiosis. Featuring newly commissioned pieces alongside a selection of her earlier works, this comprehensive exhibition introduces audiences to Yi’s distinctive artistic universe. Conceived as a dynamic, boundaryless laboratory, the show presents natural processes and technological modifications in an ever-evolving cycle of metamorphosis, creation, destruction and regeneration. Grounded in her “biology of senses” and developed in collaboration with experts across diverse fields, Yi’s works in There Exists Another Evolution, But In This One challenge conventional anthropocentric perspectives. The exhibition invites viewers to consider new paths for sustainable coexistence, offering a bold vision of what the future could hold through the lens of art and science.

Also in 2025, UCCA Beijing’s stellar lineup will include a solo exhibition featuring newly commissioned video installations by Pipilotti Rist, Yang Fudong’s most comprehensive institutional exhibition to date—and his first in Beijing—and the first solo exhibition in China by British artist Lubaina Himid.

Fra Angelico at Palazzo Strozzi

Continuing its tradition of alternating between contemporary blockbusters and rigorously academic surveys, Florence’s esteemed cultural institutions will host a landmark exhibition next year dedicated to Fra Angelico, a pivotal figure of the Quattrocento. Marking the first major show in Florence dedicated to the artist in over seventy years, “Angelico” will unfold across two iconic venues: Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo di San Marco. The exhibition promises a once-in-a-lifetime experience, featuring restored masterpieces and reuniting works separated for over two centuries, with loans from world-renowned institutions like the Louvre in Paris, the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

This ambitious exhibition showcases Angelico’s groundbreaking artistic language, which departed from the rigid canons of Gothic painting to pioneer a naturalism that laid the groundwork for Renaissance art. His mastery of perspective and organic light brought a new sense of tridimensionality to his compositions, enveloping his figures in a luminous realism that bridged the divine and the earthly. Angelico’s ‘Sacred Naturalism’ situates biblical narratives within a humanized world, suggesting an elegant continuity between the celestial and the terrestrial. Through subtle facial expressions, refined gestures and vibrant symbolic color, his works evoke a deeply sensory engagement while retaining an ethereal, otherworldly quality that transcends ordinary experience.

Fra Angelico’s harmonious compositions, emotive depth and radiant use of light influenced an entire generation of Italian painters, bridging the stylistic chasm between medieval and early modern art.

Nick Cave’s remake of the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Smithsonian American Art Museum, November 21, 2025 through January 3, 2027

Known for his exuberant Soundsuits—originally created in response to racialized police violence—Nick Cave has spent decades weaving history, identity and resilience into his groundbreaking work. His iconic sculptural costumes, rich with chameleonic flair, blend elements of African American heritage with pop culture, fashion and historical motifs, forming a visual language as eclectic as it is profound. With “Mammoth,” Cave will transform the museum’s galleries into an immersive wonderland, crafting a landscape from mammoth-inspired hides and bones, a video projection that brings the long-extinct animals to life and a monumental beaded curtain depicting the Missouri family farm where he spent his childhood.

This site-specific presentation expands Cave’s exploration of identity, race and culture to embrace themes of natural history and the planet’s evolutionary story. By linking the past to the precarious future of the American landscape, the exhibition confronts erased and repressed histories while invoking the primordial spirit of survival and adaptation. At its core, “Mammoth” reflects on humanity’s evolving relationship with the environment, disrupted by the very “developments” that define the Anthropocene. Through this thought-provoking fusion of personal memory, cultural critique and ecological awareness, Cave invites viewers to reconsider the stories we tell about survival—past, present and future.

An exhibition co-curated by artist Jeffrey Gibson at ICA Boston

As the spotlight on Indigenous contemporary art continues to grow, the ICA Boston will present a groundbreaking exhibition in 2025: “An Indigenous Present,” co-curated by artist Jeffrey Gibson—a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent—and independent curator Jenelle Porter. Building on their landmark 2023 publication of the same name, the exhibition examines the evolution and translation of Indigenous culture through the lens of contemporary creative expression. At its heart is an exploration of abstraction, as employed by Indigenous artists to reflect, reinterpret and expand concepts tied to traditions and spirituality.

Much like the publication, the exhibition prioritizes transculturalism over rigid affiliations and contemporaneity over outdated categorizations. It underscores the fertile exchange of ideas across cultures and celebrates formal innovation over adherence to traditional customs. In doing so, it highlights the dynamic spirit of Indigenous creativity as it continues to evolve within the global cultural conversation.

Gibson’s curatorial approach extends beyond visual art, encompassing the diverse practices of more than sixty contemporary artists, photographers, musicians, writers and other creators. The result is a rich tapestry of perspectives and mediums, offering audiences a compelling view of how Indigenous concepts and forms are being reimagined in today’s cultural landscape.

Wael Shawky’s Venice Biennale video debuts in the U.S.

MOCA Los Angeles, February 20 through March 16

Next year, timed to coincide with Frieze Los Angeles, LA MOCA will host the U.S. debut of Wael Shawky’s widely acclaimed film installation Drama 1882, which premiered at the Egyptian Pavilion during the 2024 Venice Biennale. This ambitious eight-part opera revisits the populist Urabi Revolution in Egypt (1879-1882), which arose in defiance of British imperialism. The story begins with a seemingly mundane cafe brawl between a local donkey owner and a Maltese man—an incident that spiraled into events ultimately leading to over seventy years of British colonial rule in Egypt.

Blending fact, speculation and fiction, Shawky reimagines methods of historical storytelling, presenting a spectacular and deeply dramatic restaging of these pivotal events. The opera unfolds against the vibrant, expressionist sets of a historic theater in Alexandria, where it was both performed and filmed, creating an immersive visual and narrative experience. According to Shawky, the work “conjures a sense of entertainment, of catastrophe, and our inherent doubt in history,” challenging viewers to question the narratives and interpretations that shape our understanding of the past.