This summer’s offerings encompass art that’s dazzling, funny, playful, thought-provoking, and nature-centric. Mark your calendars now!

1. “Across Shared Waters” at Williams College Museum of Art

“Across Shared Waters: Contemporary Artists in Dialogue with Tibetan Art from the Jack Shear Collection” juxtaposes selections of thangka (traditional Tibetan Buddhist rolled paintings dating from the 18th to 20th centuries) from the Jack Shear Collection with pieces by contemporary artists of Himalayan heritage who live around the world. Some of the new works take cues from the traditional paintings, while others resonate, or highlight cultural differences, with the older pieces. “Across Shared Waters” is curated by Ariana Maki. Through July 16

2. “In What Way Wham? (White Noise and other works, 1996-2023)” at MASS MoCA

Joseph Grigely, who has been deaf since the age of 10, has amassed over 30,000 notes given to him by those who don’t know sign language. In White Noise, he will paper two huge rooms at MASS MoCA with these missives, creating an epic visual installation of what hearing-abled people would take for granted as spoken messages. In the exhibition’s other works, he further explores issues of language, archives, and the foibles of communication. Through March 2024

3.  ”Edvard Munch: Trembling Earth” at Clark Art Institute

Mention Edvard Munch and you probably think of The Scream, in which the Norwegian artist captured the torment and existential dilemma of being human. But in the exhibition “Edvard Munch: Trembling Earth,” approximately 75 works (many from the Munchmuseet in Oslo) focus on our relationship to the earth and landscape, revealing new facets of the body of work by this famed artist. Curator Jay A. Clarke explores how Munch used nature to plumb the topics of human psychology, garden and farm cultivation, and the mythology of the forest, all during a time of industrialization. It might resonate with current times in surprising ways. June 10-October 15

4. “Tony Sarg: Genius at Play” at Norman Rockwell Museum

The debate between high and low art is eternal, but without a doubt, some of Tony Sarg’s work is of the highest order—his balloon designs for the earliest Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parades. The exhibition showcases Sarg’s (1880-1942) wide-ranging output—illustrations, marionettes, commercial products, animations, window displays, and stage sets. Celebrated as the father of modern puppetry in North America, his wit and affection for animals and people emerge in his creations, eliciting joy while teasing the imagination. The show is curated by Stephanie Haboush Plunkett and Lenore D. Miller, working with local exhibition design consultant Carl Sprague. June 10-November 5

5. “Pippa Garner: $ell Your $elf” at Art Omi

The West Coast produced many memorable conceptual artists in the `70s and `80s. Pippa Garner was among them, but is lesser known than contemporaries like Chris Burden and Ed Ruscha. More than 100 of Garner’s varied works will be on display at Art Omi, which commissioned a custom pickup with its exterior reversed, marking the 50th anniversary of her Backwards Car. The new truck will be in performances in Ghent and Manhattan during the exhibition. Garner, trained in car design, has explored commodification of things and humans. She began gender hacking using hormones and her own body as media. She also transformed banal items with wit and absurdity, and made a line of T-shirts with powerful punchlines. Sara O’Keeffe curated the show with Guy Weltchek. June 24-October 28

6. “Erika Verzutti: New Moons” at CCS Bard’s Hessel Museum

Brazilian artist Erika Verzutti’s sculptures and wall pieces (60 works from the last 15 years) display Verzutti’s inquisitiveness about nature, the cosmos, and influences from art history, including Brancusi and Koons. Abstract forms combine with flora, fauna, and snippets of news headlines and online ephemera in witty, dimensional pieces with traces of the artist’s actual hand. Curated by Lauren Cornell, the Hessel Museum show follows several prominent exhibitions of Verzutti’s oeuvre at Museu de Arte de São Paulo and Paris’s Centre Pompidou. June 24-October 15

7. Martine Kaczynski, “Threshold” at Turley Gallery

Kaczynski will show drawings and large-scale sculpture using a breadth of materials including cast rubber and cement, printed fabric, and Styrofoam. Her work negotiates the in-between—separation and departure, the symbolic threshold of time and space. As a child of the Holocaust, stability and home are recurring themes. She places recognizable objects—a canopy, fences—in situations that evoke uncertainty as they’re deprived of their designated functions. July 1-30

8. Elisa Soliven, “Infinity Weight” at LABspace

In the context of history, the form of the sculpted bust has loaded meaning. It has often been used to honor well-known people (usually men) of certain achievements. Soliven spins the medium, rendering colorful, semi-abstracted versions of busts with stars—asters—for faces, and geometrical motifs dotting their torsos. Soliven will show a selection of these ceramic busts, plus vessels and oil pastel drawings related to the 3-D work. August 5-September 10

9. David McIntyre, “Walking” at Hudson Hall

McIntyre’s exhibition of photographs, “Walking,” shares its title with Henry Thoreau’s last publication, about guarding nature for its own sake. Hudson-based McIntyre’s stunning photographs appear almost painterly, and capture the exhilarating beauty and scope of flora. Upon confronting such magnificence, no admonitions about preventing climate change are necessary, letting nature state its own case for preservation. McIntyre was born in Scotland, and has worked as a photojournalist and portrait and fashion photographer. August 24-October 8

10. “Roz Chast: Buildings, Bananas, and Beyond” at Carol Corey Fine Art

Who hasn’t chuckled at a Roz Chast cartoon and stuck it to the fridge? No one else captures the foibles of being human and the tenderness of contemporary life better than Chast, whose cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker for four decades. Relatives, friends, and domestic and city life are among the countless subjects she appraises. The renowned cartoonist and artist will show new gouache works on paper, embroidery pieces, and recent drawings. Chast, whose latest graphic narrative, I Must Be Dreaming, drops on October 24, gives a talk at Corey Fine Art on Saturday, September 9 at 4pm. August 26-October 1

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