There’s nothing inherently wrong with another exhibition venerating an Old Master or a modern art rock star. But this year, many museums and major institutions are instead highlighting the work of women artists, queer artists, and artists of color who were overlooked in their lifetime, or introducing a generation of fresh voices to their largest audiences yet.
Here, we share 10 artists with major museum solo shows in 2023, spanning everything from sculpture and painting to film and installation art made with artificial intelligence.
Martin Wong
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
February 25–May 14, 2023
Also traveling to: Camden Art Centre, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
In a recent conversation with Interview magazine, artist Oscar yi Hou described Martin Wong as “the OG Gaysian Cowboy,” which seems like a suitable introduction. From the 1970s to the ’90s, the Chinese American painter captured the margins of society, depicting queer life in racialized communities and dense urban landscapes while embedding his vignettes with Chinese iconography, graffiti, images of American Sign Language, and homoerotic undertones.