Curated by Tiffany Bell, Lena Fritsch, and Frances Morris

What is it we talk about when we talk about Agnes Martin? I wondered this recently at the Hirshhorn Museum, as I watched several couples blissfully gravitate to the same stately painting, exclaiming: “An Agnes Martin!” A towering figure, Martin honed a practice that is instantly recognizable and widely revered—though neither condition is necessarily good for deep consideration. This expansive survey promises a compelling overview of fifty years of production (1954–2004) and occasions a thorough catalogue addressing the full range of Martin’s work and influential writings. The show will include some obscure surprises—from early experiments in sculpture to late geometrics, but, more important, it may refocus its viewers on nuances in the familiar. Martin must be seen and reseen in person, otherwise she’s loved into neglect. Travels to the K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Nov. 7, 2015–Feb. 2016; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Apr. 24–Sept. 11, 2016; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, dates TBA.

— Matt Saunders

Curated by Jasper Sharp and Sarah Lea

Joseph Cornell was famously bound to his tiny home in Queens, a caregiver for his family. As it turns out, many of his assembled boxes haven’t done much traveling either, since they’ve remained for the most part in American collections. But this summer, Cornell’s work will venture abroad to the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, where the curators will showcase the myriad ways in which Cornell’s intimate assemblages explored the world by way of imagery. Eighty-odd works will be shown—including box constructions, collages, and films; viewers will be able to wander and wend through the many fragments of Cornell’s itinerant imagination: from found souvenir photography and pictorial specimens of exotic fauna to celestial maps that suggest both a dream destination and a guide for navigating elsewhere. Travels to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Oct. 20, 2015–Jan. 10, 2016.

— Sarah K. Rich