Discover the best winter 2025–2026 museum exhibitions worldwide, from Cézanne and Basquiat to major ecological, political, and contemporary art shows.

BY KAZEEM ADELEKE, ARTCENTRON

Winter 2025–2026 museum exhibitions present one of the most ambitious global art seasons in recent years. Across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, major museums are unveiling landmark retrospectives, ecological exhibitions, political histories, and visionary contemporary projects. From the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, institutions are reexamining modernism, environmental responsibility, identity, and collective memory.

This comprehensive guide highlights the best museum exhibitions to see in winter 2025–2026, featuring must-see shows by Cézanne, Basquiat, Frida Kahlo, Ron Mueck, Helene Schjerfbeck, and leading contemporary artists worldwide. Whether you’re planning international travel or looking for standout exhibitions close to home, these are the defining art events of the season.

What are the Best Museum Exhibitions to see in Winter 2025–2026?

Winter 2025–2026 features major global museum exhibitions, including Cézanne at Fondation Beyeler, Basquiat in Denmark, Frida Kahlo in Houston, Ron Mueck in Sydney, and ecological art surveys in Bilbao and Düsseldorf. Museums worldwide are presenting landmark retrospectives, contemporary installations, and politically engaged art addressing climate change, identity, and history.

Helene Schjerfbeck: A Quiet Revolution in Portraiture

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York | December 5, 2025 – April 5, 2026

The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents the first major U.S. survey of Finnish modernist Helene Schjerfbeck, positioning her as a pivotal figure in international modern art. Featuring 60 works, the exhibition emphasizes her psychologically charged self-portraits. Through reduced color palettes and restrained line, Schjerfbeck stripped portraiture to its emotional core. The exhibition reclaims her influence on Nordic modernism and situates her alongside Europe’s most innovative early modern painters.

Arts of the Earth: Rethinking Land, Labor, and Ecology

Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain | December 5, 2025 – May 3, 2026

One of Europe’s most important environmental art exhibitions of 2025, this sweeping survey traces artistic engagement with land from historic Earthworks to contemporary ecological practice. Featuring artists such as Asunción Molinos Gordo, the exhibition emphasizes sustainability, agriculture, and community knowledge. It marks a shift from artistic intervention toward environmental care, preservation, and repair.

Land and Soil: How We Live Together

Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf | November 29, 2025 – April 19, 2026

This exhibition examines humanity’s fraught relationship with land, industry, and ecology. Pairing historical figures like Joseph Beuys with emerging international artists, it critiques extractive systems while proposing new forms of coexistence. A closing performance at the Garzweiler mine underscores the exhibition’s urgent engagement with energy, land use, and reclamation.

Joyce Pensato: Large-Scale Chaos and Character

Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami | December 2, 2025 – March 15, 2026

The ICA Miami presents the first comprehensive survey of Joyce Pensato since her death. Sixty-five works reveal how Pensato transformed pop culture icons into raw, expressive portraits. Her black-and-white paintings merge humor, aggression, and painterly discipline, affirming her place as one of the most singular American painters of her generation.

Fantastic Realities: Visionary Worlds Unbound

American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore | October 4, 2025 – September 6, 2026

Celebrating its 30th anniversary, AVAM presents more than 130 works exploring imagined worlds and alternative realities. From painted dreamscapes to sculptural mythologies, the exhibition challenges distinctions between fantasy and truth, emphasizing creativity as a tool for understanding lived experience.

Minerva Cuevas: Social Ecology

Museu de Arte de São Paulo (MASP) | December 5, 2025 – March 8, 2026

Mexican artist Minerva Cuevas examines climate, capitalism, and corporate extraction through research-driven installations. Drawing on the oil-rich Campeche region, Cuevas juxtaposes pre-Hispanic symbols with corporate branding to expose how industry reshapes land and identity. MASP offers the most comprehensive overview of her political and ecological practice to date.

Esther and the Dream of One Loving Human Family

American Visionary Art Museum, Baltimore | Through December 2030

This long-term installation showcases Esther Nisenthal Krinitz’s embroidered testimonies of Holocaust survival. Expanded to include collaborative works with South African and Rwandan communities, the exhibition draws connections between global histories of trauma, resilience, and reconciliation.

Ron Mueck: Encounter

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney | December 6, 2025–April 12, 2026

Australian audiences receive a major survey of Ron Mueck’s hyperreal sculptures. Anchored by the monumental A Girl, the exhibition explores scale, vulnerability, and human presence. Mueck’s uncanny realism continues to redefine contemporary figurative sculpture.