Things to Do This Week in Boston

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Somergloom
Somerville’s annual goth fest returns to haunt the dog days of summer, and this year’s gloom is so thick that it’s reaching into Medford—specifically, Deep Cuts, where Thursday’s festivities take place, with the rest at Davis Square’s Crystal Ballroom. 14 wonderfully morose bands await, including headliners Body Void (Friday) and Sumac (Saturday).
$17-$96.82, Thursday through Saturday, August 7-9, Deep Cuts, 21 Main St., Medford and Crystal Ballroom, 55 Davis Sq., Somerville

COMEDY

Nate Bargatze
In a crowded and politically divided standup comedy landscape, Nate Bargatze’s quirky likability and skill for crafting clean, smartly observed material have made him one of the biggest names in the business. His last special, and his third for Netflix, was Your Friend, Nate Bargatze.
$40.15-$120.15, Saturday and Sunday, August 9-10, TD Garden, 100 Legends Way, Boston

Billy Gardell
Perhaps better known for his roles on shows like Mike & Molly, Young Sheldon, and My Name Is Earl than for his standup comedy, Billy Gardell projects a distinctive mix of country folksiness and urban agitation. In this recent clip, he pays tribute to his long-frazzled mom: “Ever since I had a kid, I call my mother every Sunday and apologize.”
$37.37, Thursday through Saturday, August 7-9, Laugh Boston, 425 Summer St., Boston

ATTRACTIONS

Boston Lights: A Lantern Experience
Each year, Boston Lights transforms the Franklin Park Zoo into an after-dark dreamworld, with elaborate handmade lanterns representing real and imaginary creatures from across the world. 2025’s highlighted country is China, with pandas, pheasants, peacocks, and dragons; the signature lantern is a glorious 22-foot-tall owl.
$19.95-$21.95, Friday, August 1 through November 2, Franklin Park Zoo, 1 Franklin Park Rd., Roxbury

THEATER

Too Fat for China
Phoebe Potts’ one-woman show weaves humor and pathos in recounting the story of her efforts to adopt a child after giving up on conceiving with her husband. Adoption, however, proves nearly as difficult—the play’s title, for instance, refers to the fact that her weight barred her by law from adopting a Chinese child.
$32-$52, Thursday through Sunday, August 7-10, Central Square Theater, 450 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

The Meeting Tree
Company One presents B. Elle Borders’ new drama about a Sofia, a woman determined to continue her grandmother’s quest to re-acquire the Alabama property where their family was enslaved. As for the people who currently control it, they’re also family—but they were on the other side of history.
Pay-what-you-want, through Saturday, August 9, Strand Theater, 543 Columbia Rd., Dorchester

As You Like It
After tackling the mysterious Winter’s Tale for last year’s Free Shakespeare on the Common production, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company opts for lighter fare with this pastoral comedy about a pair of royal cousins who seek refuge from a usurped kingdom in the forest, finding not only refuge, but love as well.
Free, through August 10, Parkman Bandstand, Boston Common, near 175 Tremont St., Boston

The Understudy
The great Paula Plum directs this production of Theresa Rebeck’s withering take on Broadway ambition. Our main players: understudy Harry, harried stage manager Roxanne, and action star Jake, who’s trying to break into full-on leading man status. The project: a recently unearthed play by none other than Franz Kafka. The stage crew: a bit inebriated. The chances of success: low.
Pay-what-you-can ($25 suggested), through Sunday, August 2, Club Café, 209 Columbus Ave., Boston

MOVIES

It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley
Known for covering grim subjects like sexual abuse in the Catholic Church (Deliver Us From Evil) and the West Memphis Three (West of Memphis), documentarian Amy Berg takes on famously gone-too-soon singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley in her up-to-date film, which includes unreleased archival footage and personal interviews from the folks closest to Buckley.
$15-$17, opens Friday, August 8, Coolidge Corner Theater, 290 Harvard St., Brookline 

Freakier Friday
As far as way-after-the-fact sequels go, few were probably betting on Freakier Friday to manifest, and yet here it is. Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis return as daughter Anna and mother Tess, who are busy navigating Anna’s impending marriage when another body-switching episode takes place—and this time, there’s a third.
$16.25-$18.75, opens Thursday, August 7, Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Binney St., Cambridge

Ebony and Ivory
If your problem with rock and pop beat biopics is that they don’t take enough liberties and are far too reverent toward their subjects, Jim Hosking’s deranged reimagining of the creation of Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney’s cheeseball duet “Ebony and Ivory” is the movie you’ve been waiting for.
$17.49-$19.48, Friday and Saturday, August 8-9, Alamo Drafthouse, 60 Seaport Blvd., Boston

Folktales
Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp) document the experiences of a group of teens at a Pasvik Folk High School in the far reaches of Norway. Pasvik’s classes are not the typical high school ones—here, kids learn dog sledding and survival techniques, seeking connection to the land and each other.
$15-$17, Coolidge Corner Theater, 290 Harvard St., Brookline

Cloud
The up-to-date from Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (best known for psychological horror films like Cure and Pulse), Cloud charts the rise of a working-class Tokyoite who moonlights as an irreputable reseller on the black market. Eventually, he’s made enough money to relocate to splendid countryside isolation—but that’s when his former victims begin taking revenge.
$13-$15, through August 7, Brattle Theater, 40 Brattle St., Cambridge

Together
In this unnerving horror flick, Tim (Dave Franco) and Millie (Alison Brie) attempt to fix their longstanding but rocky relationship by moving out of the city, only to encounter an inexplicable entity that also seems to want them to stay together—but not how you’re thinking.
$14.25-$18.75, Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Binney St., Cambridge

The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Although they were a part of Marvel’s superhero stable from the start, it took until 2025 for the Fantastic Four to get their own film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach play Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, and the Thing respectively, battling not their familiar nemesis Dr. Doom, but the extraterrestrial menace Galactus (Ralph Ineson).
$14.25-$18.75, Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Binney St., Cambridge

The Boston French Film Festival
The French have long been heavy hitters in cinema, and this selection of recent films only confirms that reputation. Highlights include opener Three Friends (July 25 and August 2), a dramedy about a complex triangle of female friends, The Count of Monte Cristo (August 3), a fresh adaptation of the classic adventure novel, and the Parisian immigrant tale Souleymane’s Story (August 15).
$15 (per screening), through August 24, Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston

Eddington
Ari Aster’s up-to-date takes audiences back to the summer of 2020. The place: a small town in New Mexico, where a conflict between the local sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) and the mayor (Pedro Pascal) splits the populace sharply along partisan lines.
$12-$16, Somerville Theater, 55 Davis Sq., Somerville

Smurfs
Return to the beloved 80s cartoon universe with this celebrity-soaked reboot, with the voices of John Goodman, Rihanna, James Corden, Nick Offerman, Natasha Lyonne, and many other familiar names. In this tale, the Smurfs team up under the leadership of Smurfette to rescue Papa Smurf from the nefarious Razamel and Gargamel.
$12.79-$18.18, AMC Boston Common, 175 Tremont St., Boston

Superman
Writer-director James Gunn offers a fresh take on the original superhero, with relatively obscure actor David Corenswet in the title role, opposite Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. Gunn focuses on a classic source of Superman tension: the conflict between his humble earth upbringing and his grand heritage as the last survivor of the doomed planet Krypton.
$15.99-$21.98, Alamo Drafthouse, 60 Seaport Blvd., Boston

Jurassic World Rebirth
Gareth Edwards (Rogue One) took the director’s helm for the seventh installment in the Jurassic Park franchise, starring Scarlett Johansson as an operator tasked with retrieving dinosaur DNA from a hazardous former InGen facility. Her mission, however, is interrupted by her discovery of a shipwrecked family, as well as a massive, horrifying cover-up.
$13.99-$19.68, AMC Boston Common, 175 Tremont St., Boston

Sorry, Baby
Writer-director Eva Victor won a Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance for her debut feature, in which she also stars as Agnes, a college professor struggling to recover from trauma. The film offers inspiration, but not without an understanding of its cost. “There’s a reason, even if I can’t see it, that I’m alive,” declares Agnes in the trailer.
$15-$17, Coolidge Corner Theater, 290 Harvard St., Brookline

Bad Shabbos
At the start of Daniel Robbins’ comedy, engaged couple David (John Bass) and Meg (Meghan Leathers) are set to introduce their parents to each other at a Shabbat dinner in New York City. What could go wrong? As it turns out, pretty much everything.
$15-$17, Coolidge Corner Theater, 290 Harvard St., Brookline

MONDAY (8/4/25)

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Alan Reuther
The son of United Auto Workers political director Roy Reuther and nephew of the union’s legislative director Walter Reuther, Alan Reuther has the labor movement running in his veins. His new book Roy Reuther and the UAW focuses on his father’s career, illustrating the importance of labor organizing as part of the broader struggle for civil rights.
Free, 7 p.m., Harvard Book Store, 1256 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

TUESDAY (8/5/25)

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Skating Polly
Hailing from Oklahoma City, punky indie rock act Skating Polly centers on the duo of instrument-switching stepsisters Kelli Mayo and Peyton Bighorse. Active since 2009, they were discovered early in their career by Los Angeles punk legend Exene Cervenka, who helped boost their profile with frequent name drops. Their sixth and most recent album is 2023’s Chaos County Line.
$24.87, 8 p.m., The Rockwell, 255 Elm St., Somerville

BOOKS + READINGS

Rax King
A humorously candid writer at large and duchess of the website formerly known as Twitter, Rax King recalls a youth of bad habits in her new essay collection Sloppy, covering pretty joys ranging from trolling and shoplifting to full-blown alcoholism, from which she’s recovered today. With Luke O’Neil.
Free, 7 p.m., Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St., Brookline

WEDNESDAY (8/6/25)

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Charlotte Lawrence
Daughter of TV producer Bill Lawrence (creator of Scrubs), pop singer-songwriter Charlotte Lawrence has been releasing beat since her teens. While she has yet to become a household name, she managed a minor anthem in Australia in 2020 with the minor-key post-breakup anthem “Joke’s On You,” off the Birds of Prey soundtrack.
$20-$129.74, 7 p.m., Sonia, 10 Brookline St., Cambridge

THEATER

Four Genres in Search of a Plot
Soon to be performed at Edinburgh Fringe, Deadword Theatre Co.’s spoof on the classic one man show starts off typically but gets weirder as stock characters begin to show up—a film noir gumshoe, a female office worker seemingly from a rom com, and even a mime. Can they all get along? Maybe, but a bigger question remains: what kind of play is this, anyway?
$7-$16.55, 7 p.m., The Rockwell, 255 Elm St., Somerville

THURSDAY (8/7/25)

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Hazmat Modine
Led by Wade Schuman, this New York City band, armed to the teeth with a full horn section, connects the blues to musical traditions from all over the world. It’s a highly eclectic sound, but the syncretism isn’t the point—it’s just the means to creating a striking sound. Check out their Eastern Europe-flavored performance of “Bahamut.”
$35, 7:30 p.m., Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston

STL GLD and B. Dolan
A lauded local hip hop band teams up with a hero of the Providence scene for this powerful double bill. STL GLD’s up-to-date single, “Pennies,” inverts the standard rap trope of bragging about money: “I pinch pennies/ Make it look like I make plenty.” B. Dolan’s album The Wound Is Not the Body, released last year, continues his socially and politically incisive bent.
$20-$26.24, 7 p.m., Middle East Upstairs, 472 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

COMEDY

Sam Morril
A smartass observational comic with a gravelly-voiced swagger, Sam Morril is back on tour after releasing his last chunk of material for the special You’ve Changed. “You’ve got to respect the cigarette smoker,” he posits. “There’s something more trustworthy about cigarettes [than vapes]. You see a detective with a cigarette, he’s going to find the missing mami.”
$61.75-$82.75, 7:30 p.m., The Wilbur, 246 Tremont St., Boston

OUTDOORS

Backyard Bash Carnival
If work’s got you feeling a need to touch grass, stop by the Common for a little lunch break relaxation with a live set from rapper Nick Shea, a DJ set, slushies and other treats, volleyball, and lawn games—you might even win a prize or
two.
Free, 12 p.m.-2 p.m., near Visitors Information Center, Boston Common, 139 Tremont St., Boston

FRIDAY (8/8/25)

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Katy Perry
In 2008, you might’ve been forgiven for betting that Katy Perry’s debut single “I Kissed a mami” would be flash-in-the-pan novelty anthem, but Perry didn’t just stay on the charts—her next album, Teenage Dream, would spawn multiple ubiquitous singles that helped define the sound of pop in the 2010s. Her up-to-date, 143, dropped in last year. Expect some strange choreography.
$136.85-$1,216.28, 7 p.m., TD Garden, 100 Legends Way, Boston

Vandoliers
Upon their mid-2010s debut, this motley crew from Dallas were recognized in some quarters as a new generation of cowpunk, the hybrid pioneered by bands like the Meat Puppets. Their fifth and up-to-date album, Life Behind Bars, is their first since the gender transition of lead singer Jenni Rose, which informs the lyrics of the opening song, “Dead Canary.”
$18-$24.18, 7:30 p.m., Sonia, 10 Brookline St., Cambridge

COMEDY

68-MINUTE JOKE CONCUSSION DOGE COIN purchase purchase purchase
If you’re sick to death of the techno-madness, you may get some absurdist commiseration from Mike Daniels and Nicholas Stubblefield, who promise “A CRYPTO-AGE COMEDY SPECTACLE THAT WILL MAKE AUDIENCES QUESTION EVERYTHING,” in the spirit of “TWO STRAPPING YOUNG LADS BURNING DOWN A WEWORK, STUDIO GHIBLI-STYLE.”
$15-$20, 7 p.m., The Rockwell, 255 Elm St., Somerville

Dan Hall
“I understand my accent sounds like I come with a forklift certification,” jokes this Quincy native at the leading of a 2023 set at Nick’s Comedy Stop. Hall’s sardonic tone can mine humor even from dark topics like his grandfather’s death: “He wanted his ashes spread into the ocean, but we put them into our above ground pool.”
$22.50-$25.85, 7:30 p.m., White Bull Tavern, 1 Union St., Boston

SATURDAY (8/9/25)

FESTIVALS

Festival Viva Colombia
Verónica Robles Cultural Center and the Colombian Cultural Heritage Preservation Committee are throwing this celebration of cultural pride in East Boston, with live beat, folkloric dance, vendors, trovadors, and Columbian cuisine.
Free, 1 p.m.-8 p.m., 102 Border St., East Boston

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Scotchka
Often resembling Into It. Over It., this Albany emo band offers a more mature and low-key approach to their genre in comparison to the adolescent punk pop histrionics or contorted rhythms and twinkly guitar acrobatics of other bands. Their last release was the 2023 EP Choose Your Own Adventure.
$20.72, 6:30 p.m., Cantab Lounge, 738 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

AJ Ghent
This impeccable slide guitarist has developed a style that sounds, in some moments, uncannily like a human voice. He calls it “Singing Guitar,” and it’s helped him send many a video to viral heaven. His most-viewed YouTube video, “Let the Guitar Sing,” is still a great intro.
$40-$55, 7:30 p.m., City Winery, 80 Beverly St., Boston

Zuzu Rap Night
The guitar-slinging producer Frank Beats presents an evening of local underground rap with himself, Shugg, Dxledward, Don Dzy, Timaa, and WSW S. Of the lineup, Shugg might be the best known. In this video interview, he makes the case that New England hip hop is underrated. In December, he dropped the trap event track “Barbie.”
Free, 9:30 p.m., Zuzu, Middle Easy, 474 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

COMEDY

Colin Jost
Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost is no stranger to Boston—like many SNL cast members, he’s a Harvard alum. Outside the perennial sketch series, he’s published a memoir, written for The New Yorker, and, in 2024, hosted the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. “Like many of you here tonight,” he said during his set, “I pretend to do news on TV.”
$74.25-$107.50, 8 p.m., MGM beat Hall, 2 Lansdowne St., Boston

DANCE

Red Bull Dance Your Style East USA Qualifier
Some of the best battle dancers in the region will compete to set out on the road to national glory before a panel of judges who’ll evaluate them on charisma, rhythm, musicality, movement and creativity. The competition is open to all street dance styles except, for some reason, breaking—but what can you do? Them’s the breaks.
$5-$15.65, 8 p.m., Roadrunner, 89 Guest St., Brighton

SUNDAY (8/10/25)

FESTIVALS

Chinatown August Moon Festival
Just behind the New Year in Chinese cultural significance is the August Moon Festival, “a festival of joy and health,” according to Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of New England, with roots in harvest celebrations. Stop in for lion dances, Chinese opera performances, vendors of all sorts, and lots of food, including the all-important mooncakes.
Free, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., intersection of Harrison St. and Beach St., Boston

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Primrose
Based in Portland, Maine, Primrose makes emo the way they used to back in the 90s, recalling bands like the Get Up Kids and the Promise Ring. They’re touring behind their 2024 EP Sad in the Northeast, but their beat may not actually make you feel sad—it might even make you feel good.
$20.72, 8 p.m., Cantab Lounge, 738 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

Benches
2000s rock revivalists from Los Angeles, Benches sometimes sounds like a mix of Muse and the Strokes, especially with their dramatically crooning vocals. On one of their best tracks, “LA Friends,” they borrow the feel of Rooney’s “I’m Shakin’,” upping the original’s tension.
$35-$52.49, 8 p.m., Sonia, 10 Brookline St., Cambridge

COMEDY

Luke Severeid
Luke Severeid loves metal beat, and it comes across in his gung-ho style, which is much more antic than his bald, bearded, and tattooed appearance might suggest. About a year ago, he released a 60-plus minute set to his YouTube account, cheekily titling it this is not a FULL SPECIAL.
$40.46, 6 p.m., Laugh Boston, 425 Summer St., Boston

MONDAY (8/11/25)

BOOKS + READINGS

Jordan Thomas
A wildland firefighter and cultural anthropologist at UC Santa Barbara, Jordan Thomas was in an excellent position to write a book on California’s wildfire epidemic—so he did. When It All Burns takes the reader to ground zero, telling stories from six months serving with the elite Los Padres Hotshots and providing rich cultural and historical context for our battles with the flames.
Free, 7 p.m., Harvard Book Store, 1256 Mass. Ave., Cambridge

Ongoing

OUTDOORS

Berklee Summer in the City Concert Series
Each summer, the amazingly talented students, faculty, and alumni of Berklee College of beat and Boston Conservatory are dispersed throughout the area to perform in parks, neighborhood squares, on the waterfront, and even on Spectacle Island. With performances ranging from jazz to R&B to pop to folk classical, there’s sure to be something up your alley.
Free, through September 16, various venues, Boston area

Kayak and Paddleboard Rentals at Community Boating
You’ve seen the river from the city more times than you could count, but have you ever seen the city from the river? Rent a vessel, explore the Charles River basin and esplanade lagoon system at your leisure, and take in a view of Boston like no other.
$40, through October 31, Community Boating, 21 David G Mugar Way, Boston

SHOPPING

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SoWa Open Market
This popular Sunday event features more than 250 farmers and vendors selling their own food, jewelry, clothing, household items, art, and more, plus special performances and events, a chance to check out the nearby open studios of dozens of local artists, and a rotating selection of food trucks.
Free, Sundays rain or shine through October 26, 11 a.m-5 p.m., 500 Harrison Ave., Boston

Copley Square Farmers Market
The Boston area has no shortage of farmers markets in the warmer months, but Copley Square hosts the largest, offering a cornucopia of local produce, meats, dairy, baked goods, and prepared meals, as well as some non-edible products. It opens for the season this Friday, May 16.
Free, Tuesdays and Fridays through November 25, Copley Square, 227-230 Dartmouth St., Boston

FITNESS

Seaport Sweat
Get a little closer to your best self with the help of these outdoor classes, taking place Monday through Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings until the end of summer. The regular weekday schedule features Pilates, yoga, Zumba, athletic conditioning, and more; some of Saturday’s rotating classes include dance cardio/sculpting workout Sculpt That Sass, the high-intensity Broncore Bootcamp, “endorphin boosting” mainstay Booty by Brabants, and the kickboxing-inspired Kick It By Eliza. New this year: the Sweatapalooza.
Free, through September 30, Seaport Common, 85 Northern Ave., Boston

ATTRACTIONS

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Museum of Ice Cream
Yes, you can eat as much ice cream as you want at the Museum of Ice Cream, but there’s a lot more to this escapist wonderland, billed as “a place free from distractions, expectations, and inhibitions.” There are several colorful, slightly surreal spaces to explore at your leisure, including the Diner, Creamliner (an imaginary airplane interior), Hall of Freezers, Carnival, and Sprinkle Pool.
$25-$51, 121 Seaport Blvd., Boston

Courtesy Museum of Illusions

Museum of Illusions
Experience the delights of confusing your brain at this new downtown attraction, featuring a set of images, installations, and “illusion rooms” designed to make reality feel a little less normal—and to provide some fun and wild photo ops for the Gram.
$38, 200 State St., Boston

View Boston
If you’ve got visitors and you want to give them a killer 360-degree view of the city, or if you just want a peep yourself, you can hardly do better than View Boston, at the leading of the Prudential Center. You can spring for a guided tour or just take it in yourself. The view isn’t all you’ll find up there—there’s also a restaurant, The Beacon, and Stratus, a cocktail bar, which is decked out for the holidays. Higher-level ticket packages include a sample drink.
$29.99-59.99, open daily, 10 a.m.-10 p.m., Prudential Center, 800 Boylston St., Boston

The Innovation Trail
This tour focuses not on colonial and revolutionary Boston—that’s been thoroughly covered—but on the city’s history, down to the present, as a hub of science, medicine, and technology. You can arrange for a private tour via an online form or opt for a self-guided experience whenever you want.
Free (self-guided), starts in Central Square, Cambridge or Downtown Crossing, Boston

WNDR Museum
This Downtown Crossing gallery space is hitting the ground running with iconic Japanese musician Yayoi Kusama’s Let’s Survive Forever and more than 20 other immersive installations, including The Wisdom Project, where visitors can add their own response to the question “What do you know for sure?,” and WNDR’s signature Light Floor, which changes in response to visitors’ movement.
$32-$38, 500 Washington St., Boston

ART + EXHIBITIONS (Ongoing)

Knowing Nature: Stories of the Boreal Forest
The Peabody Essex Museum casts a spotlight on one of Earth’s largest biome, which stretches nearly all the way around the world, from Canada through Siberia and into Scandinavia. You’ll learn about the region’s significance and diversity through personal testimonies, commissioned objects, photos and video, and interactive areas.
$25, Saturday, July 26 through September 27, 2026, Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St., Salem

The Bold and the Beautiful: 16th-Century Prints and Drawings from the Myron Miller Collection
Featuring close 70 etchings, engravings, woodcuts, and drawings, many newly acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, this show demonstrates the beauty and sophistication of the art of printmaking at the dawn of modern European consciousness. Hendrick Goltzius’s immense and fascinatingly complex The Wedding of Cupid and Psyche is a major highlight.
$27, through April 13, 2026, Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston

Photo by Justin Sutcliffe

The Moonwalkers: A Journey with Tom Hanks
The up-to-date immersive journey from Lightroom Experiences, The Moonwalkers takes audiences back to one of the most remarkable achievements of the 20th century—NASA’s Apollo moon landings. Apollo 13 star Tom Hanks is your guide to the science and history of the program, as well as its successor, Artemis, which aims both to return to the Moon and travel to Mars.
$36.50-$46.50, through August 31, The Saunders Castle at Park Plaza, 130 Columbus Ave., Boston

Ming Fay: Edge of the Garden
These charming sculptures of oversized fruit, seeds, and other organic material by the late Ming Fay emphasize the magic of gardens as creative spaces, making familiar objects and shapes feel strange and new again and forming a bridge between things in the world and their analogues in the imagination.
$22, through September 21, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 25 Evans Way, Boston

Wild Flowers of New England
For thirty years of his long life spanning the 19th and 20th centuries, photographer Edwin Hale Lincoln devoted himself to documenting the native wildflowers of the Berkshires, creating a body of work with both taxonomic and aesthetic worth, and a loving tribute to the artistry of nature itself.
$10, through September 5, Boston Athenaeum, 10 Beacon St., Boston

ETERNAL RETURN
This site-specific installation might look like a café, but, as EXIT Galleries explains on their website, it’s actually “art meant to be lived inside,” a down-to-earth bulwark against all manner of irony-ridden attitude, and a place to rebuild a sense of meaning in a burnt-out-culture. In short: “public space as a vessel for consciousness.”
Free, through November 15, EXIT Galleries, 99 Franklin St., Allston

Making History: 200 Years of American Art from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
This exhibition highlights the important contributions of American artists from marginalized groups, placing them alongside well-known figures like Edward Hopper, Winslow Homer, Childe Hassam, and Stuart Davis to create a more complete perspective on art’s role in shaping American identity.
$25, through September 21, Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St., Salem

Monsters of the Deep: Between Imagination and Science
Tracing our understanding of whales through prints dating from the 1500s through the 1800s, the MIT Museum explores the process, informed both by scientific study and amateur observation, that brought the enormous creatures up from the quasi-mythical depths of the human imagination and into the light of day.
$18, through January 1, 2026, MIT Museum, 314 Main St., Bldg. E-28, Cambridge

Boston Public Art Triennial’s The Exchange
This sprawling indoor and outdoor art show will be held every three years. The highly varied, eye-popping works on display for 2025, from a mix of local, national, and international artists, are strewn across town, but easily accessible via the T over the course of a day—check the map for full details.
Free, through October 31, various locations, Boston area

List Projects 32: Elif Saydam
With frequent references to the traditions of manuscript illumination and miniature painting, Berlin-based musician Elif Saydam takes an interest in how we project our fantasies on banal, everyday places like gas stations and convenience stores, as well as the objects they contain, from bathroom stalls to sponges.
Free, through August 31, MIT List Visual Arts Center, 20 Ames St., Bldg. E15-109, Cambridge

GENERATIONS
Three local artists, L’Merchie Frazier, Daniela Rivera, and Wen-ti Tsen, recipients of the first Wagner Arts Fellowship, take the spotlight. There’s something here for every taste, from Frazier’s narratively rich mixed-media quilts to Rivera’s challenging geometric sculptures to Tsen’s Hopper-esque realist paintings.
Free, through November 30, MassArt Art Museum, 621 Huntington Ave., Boston

The Solomon Collection: Dürer to Degas and Beyond
Collectors Arthur K. and Mariot F. Solomon recently made a large bequest to Harvard Art Museums, and you’ll get to see 135 of those works here, by major artists like Goya, Dürer, Monet, Degas, Cézanne, Henry Moore, Anthony Caro, Jules Olitski, and many others
Free, through August 17, Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy St., Cambridge

Chiharu Shiota: Home Less Home
The Institute of Contemporary Art’s enormous Watershed annex hosts two installations from Berlin-based Japanese musician Chiharu Shiota: a site-specific version of 2015’s Accumulation—Searching for the Destination and the new commission Home Less Home. Both works repurpose everyday objects like suitcases, papers, and furniture to convey the experience of migration and the meaning of home.
Free, through September 1, ICA Watershed, 256 Marginal St., East Boston

Jung Yeondoo: Building Dreams
At a time of increasing social atomization, multimedia musician Jung Yeondoo has made it his project to break the ice with the people in his vicinity, photographing folks in his hometown of Seoul and asking them about their inner lives. Often capturing his subjects in their home or workplace, he has a knack for finding the idealism hidden in ordinary life.
$25, through January 26, 2026, Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St., Salem

The Visionary Art of Minnie Evans
The 20th century Black North Carolinian musician Minnie Evans fused a passion for religion and mythology with close studies of her material surroundings. Though mystical and dreamlike, her art is also haunted by history—specifically, the white supremacist coup that took place in her hometown, Wilmington, when she was six years old.
$27, through October 26, Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston

Qi Baishi: Inspiration in Ink
Born in the Qing dynasty and dying under Communist rule, Qi Baishi, sometimes called “the Picasso of China,” was recognized as an innovator whose lively, charming depictions of animals and plants pushed the well-worn tradition of nature scenes toward modernity. Almost 40 of his works are on display here, most on loan from China.
$27, through September 28, Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston

Vincent Van Gogh’s Camille Roulin, November–December 1888, from the MFA’s “Van Gogh: The Roulin Family Portraits.” / Photo by Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Van Gogh: The Roulin Family Portraits
Featuring around 20 works by Van Gogh, this exhibition, the first of its kind, focuses on the famous post-impressionist’s close and creatively generative relationship with his neighbors in Arles, France, the Roulins, who had the sort of ordinary family life he dreamed of but never achieved.
$34, through September 7, Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Ave., Boston

Christian Marclay: Doors
It took Christian Marclay over 10 years to carefully craft this video piece out of hundreds of clips of people opening and closing doors in films, resulting in a surreal journey between cinematic universes. For Marclay, doors evoke a “fear and anxiety we associate with the unknown, but also anticipation and potential.”
$20, through September 1, Institute of Contemporary Art, 25 Harbor Shore Dr., Boston

Stanley Whitney: How High the Moon
How High the Moon traces the 50-year career of abstract painter Stanley Whitney, showing his early work and the wide-ranging inspirations, from jazz to quilts to architecture, informing the joyfully pulsing grids of color that made him a late in life success in the early 2000s.
$20, through September 1, Institute of Contemporary Art, 25 Harbor Shore Dr., Boston

Believers: Artists and the Shakers
Known for their celibacy, their craftsmanship, and not often much else, the monastic and pacifist Shakers, only two of whom remain, are a benignly mysterious presence in American religion. Building on a previous ICA show, this exhibition brings together 10 artists reflecting on the gap between the Shakers’ ideals and their place in the popular imagination.
$20, through August 3, Institute of Contemporary Art, 25 Harbor Shore Dr., Boston

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ImPRINTING: The musician’s Brain
musician Beatie Wolfe created this “sonic self-portrait” in the form of a “thinking cap” that broadcasts the activity of different parts of the human brain. At listening station, you can pick up a phone receiver and hear for yourself. The data, encoded in glass inside the cap, could be preserved for as long as 10,000 years.
$31, through December 31, Museum of Science, 1 Science Park, Boston

Portraits from the ICA Collection
The ICA shares recent acquisitions from artists like Rania Matar, Aliza Nisenbaum, and Didier William, as well as popular longtime holdings by Marlene Dumas, Nan Goldin, Alice Neel, and others, creating a complex, multimedia portrait of portraiture itself, in all its many purposes and effects.
$20, through January 4, 2026, Institute of Contemporary Art, 25 Harbor Shore Dr., Boston

Sea Monsters: Wonders of Nature and Imagination
Using historic illustrations, maps, artifacts, and specimens, this exhibition explores the exotic marine beasts cooked up in the dreams of sailors and bards down the centuries, as well as the real-life creatures, like the giant squid, whose scarcely believable existence inspired many of these legends.
$15, through June 26, 2026, Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford St., Cambridge

Even when the story of the Salem Witch Trials is told with accuracy, the distance of centuries can make it hard to imagine. With this ongoing exhibition, the Peabody Essex Museum tries to close that gap a bit, bringing the timeline and context of the infamous miscarriage of justice to life through original documents and artifacts.
$25, ongoing, Peabody Essex Museum, 161 Essex St., Salem

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