6 thought-provoking museum exhibitions to check out this winter

One way to keep warm this winter is by seeking refuge in a museum. Safe from the elements, it is easy to while away the day taking in the permanent collections. If you visit one of these six museums, there are currently fascinating temporary exhibitions, like the Art Institute Chicago’s dive into Frida Kahlo’s friendship with Mary Reynolds and the Tate Modern’s celebration of Leigh Bowery’s audacious performance art.

‘A Room of Her Own: The Estrados of Viceregal Spain,’ the Hispanic Society Museum & Library, New York City

“A Room of Her Own: The Estrados of Viceregal Spain” offers a glimpse into the estrados, or private drawing rooms for women, “once found in the homes of the elite in Spain and the Spanish Americas,” Vogue said. These curated spaces of both “opulence and confinement” contained valuable and rare books, paintings and decorative items and today are “bound up in complex notions of gender, cultural exchange, colonialism and power.” This is the first exhibition of its kind on estrados, and many of the more than 60 “exquisite” items on display from the Hispanic Society Museum & Library’s permanent collection have never been on view before now. (Through March 9, 2025)

‘Frida Kahlo’s Month in Paris: A Friendship with Mary Reynolds,’ Art Institute Chicago

Frida Kahlo made only one trip to Europe, traveling from Mexico to France in January 1939. It was on this visit that she had a “brief yet pivotal encounter” with American bookbinder Mary Reynolds, who “stood at the center of a rich Parisian artistic community,” Art Institute Chicago said. Through 100 paintings, book bindings, photographs and archival materials, “Frida Kahlo’s Month in Paris: A Friendship with Mary Reynolds” traces her time in the city and fledgling relationship with Reynolds while providing a deeper understanding on “how artists serve to inspire one another — whether through chance encounters or long-held friendships — or an extraordinary mixture of both.” (March 29 through July 13, 2025)

‘Leigh Bowery!’, Tate Modern, London

Leigh Bowery was many things: an artist, club kid, party promoter and musician. His name is “synonymous with self-expression, radical fashion and camp performance art,” Secret London said. A breakout star of London’s ’80s nightlife scene, Bowery, who died in 1994, “pushed boundaries” with his work, defying the “conventions of fashion, art and identity.” “Leigh Bowery!” offers a rare opportunity to see fashions and costumes he designed solo alongside collaborations with Lucian Freud, Michael Clark, Nicola Rainbird and other contemporaries. (Feb. 27 through Aug. 31, 2025)

‘New Work: Samson Young,’ San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

In his first solo exhibition on the U.S. West Coast, multidisciplinary artist Samson Young uses performances, installations and video to “rigorously examine the cultural, political and historical contexts of sound,” the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art said. Young embraces new technology, and making its debut in the exhibition is the multimedia installation “Intentness and songs,” which “poetically traces the idiosyncratic rhythms of love, memory and experiences of time.” (Through June 22, 2025)

‘Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art,’ Alte Pinakothek, Munich

During her lifetime, the Dutch still-life painter Rachel Ruysch achieved great fame, and while her floral pieces showing “gangly blooms and bountiful stems” left viewers “wowed,” they have “since been sidelined by the works of her male colleagues,” ARTnews said. “Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art,” the first major monographic exhibition of her paintings, aims to change that. The show coincides with the 360th anniversary of Ruysch’s birth, and there is a “special focus” on how her works are “unlikely snapshots of Dutch colonialism in action.” (Through March 16, 2025)

‘Strategic Interplay: African Art and Imagery in Black and White,’ Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio

Chess swept through the African continent in the 7th century, and since then the royal game and art, “two fields of strategic endeavor, have intertwined, inspired and influenced each other in ways both overt and indirect,” the Toledo Museum of Art said. “Strategic Interplay: African Art and Imagery in Black and White” explores this connection and is “intended to bring out the most serious and playful sides of African art,” Lanisa Kitchiner, senior manager of interpretation and African art curator, said to the Toledo Blade. Two fascinating pieces on display are a Baga Nimba shoulder mask from Guinea and a Toussian mask from Burkina Faso, acquired by the museum earlier this year. (Through Feb. 23, 2025)