(Bloomberg) -- The best museum exhibitions of 2023 spanned more than 400 years of material, with virtually every artistic medium—painting, sculpture and photography—included. (Sorry, video.) The best news? Eight of the 10 shows are still open if you haven’t seen them yet.

Vermeer

At the Rijksmuseum, the NetherlandsThis was the rare art exhibition to blanket international headlines. Not only did the show, which ran from Feb. 10 to June 4, sell out in days, but when additional tickets were released, eager visitors crashed the museum’s website. So was the exhibition of 28 works by the 17th century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer any good? Short answer: Yes. Slightly longer answer? This was a very old-fashioned exhibition, insofar as it didn’t try to do anything more than put paintings on walls and let the public pour in. The effort of getting all these masterpieces in one place was, the organizers seemed to wager, more than enough. 

Basquiat. The Modena Paintings 

At the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen, SwitzerlandIn 1982, at the ripe age of 21, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-88) was invited to travel to Modena, Italy, where he made eight giant canvases intended for a solo gallery show. The show never happened, and for the better part of 40 years the canvases were scattered to the wind. In reuniting the paintings, the Beyeler did a neat job of showing the artist’s creative process as it extended through a series of separate works; not surprisingly, many of the motifs and ideas on one canvas show up on another, albeit in slightly different form. Today, it’s hard to separate Basquiat from his posthumous celebrity and record-setting auction prices. In the Beyeler show, which ran from June 11 to Aug. 27, the artist and his art were front and center.

Manet/Degas

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkÉdouard Manet (1832–83) and Edgar Degas (1834–1917) shared many inputs: They were born into bourgeois Parisian families, studied the same old masters in the Louvre, traveled to the same countries and had many friends in common. Their output, however, varied dramatically. The resultant compare-and-contrast is the subject of this sweeping, spectacular show. That Manet comes out more favorably in these comparisons is largely immaterial; the parallels (in subject matter, mostly) are fascinating and reward repeat visits. And this doesn’t even include the star of the exhibition, Manet’s Olympia, which has crossed the Atlantic for the first time. Through Jan. 7

Ed Ruscha/Now Then

At the Museum of Modern Art, New YorkRarely is a show such an unmitigated pleasure for neophytes and seasoned art lovers alike. This is mostly to the credit of Ruscha, who has plumbed the depths of American pop culture with intelligence and irony for more than 60 years, creating artworks that often double as wordplay. It also has something to do with the elegant, expansive hang of the show itself; the 200 artworks are spaced far apart, with spare wall text—just enough to put things in context, but not so much that it feels pedantic. Through Jan. 13

Sarah Lucas: Happy Gas

At the Tate Britain, LondonLucas got famous in the 1990s as a so-called Young British Artist (Damien Hirst was in the same group) whose deadpan photography and sculpture poked fun at class, sex and social mores. Thirtysomething years later, the artist, now 60, has maintained her pithiness while expanding into more mature—and often more sophisticated—forms of making art. The centerpiece of the show, a long room wallpapered in self portraits of Lucas eating a banana, from 1990, is a showcase for her female sculptures (often made from stuffed tights) propped on chairs. The pieces, which she calls Bunnies, are deeply weird and oddly compelling, which in its own way is a perfect distillation of Lucas’s oeuvre. Through Jan. 14

Henry Taylor: B Side

At the Whitney Museum of American Art, New YorkThis is not Henry Taylor’s first retrospective, but it’s certainly his best. In recent years, Taylor has shot to fame both as part of the trend for Black figuration and, more compelling, as a person who’s deeply engaged with issues of race and social justice. What this show also makes clear is that Taylor, who was born in Ventura, California, studied at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), and lives and works in Los Angeles, is very much a painter of Southern California: the light, the subject matter, the vignettes, are all—or very nearly—of a place. Some of the works in the show are excellent, others merely interesting. Taken together, they showcase an occasionally humorous and often impassioned chronicler of our time. Through Jan. 28

Frans Hals

At the National Gallery, LondonAs if the National Gallery somehow felt a need to prove the depth of its considerable resources, we have here an immense, 50-work show of the 17th century portraitist of Holland’s golden age. If you aren’t too familiar with Hals (1582-1666), it makes sense; this show is his first major retrospective in 30 years. Hals’ genius lay in his ability to evoke a subject’s personality, particularly if that personality included a sense of jolliness. Using painterly brushstrokes and a masterful understanding of composition, he captured his subjects in portraits that often feel contemporary—snapshot-like moments in time. Through Jan. 21

Ellsworth Kelly at 100

At Glenstone, Potomac, MarylandIn the most significant of many celebrations of Kelly’s centennial, Glenstone, the private museum founded by billionaires Mitch and Emily Rales, has organized a dazzling survey of his major work. There are superb early paintings in which Kelly (1923-2015) first explored abstraction, form and color, which made him famous. There are also little-known photographs in which you can see Kelly’s preoccupation with geometry. His exquisite plant drawings and several minimalist sculptures are included, too. The show’s nearly 70 pieces are drawn from Glenstone’s permanent collection as well as loans from museums around the world. Through March

Mark Rothko

At the Fondation Louis Vuitton, ParisThere’s definitely an argument to be made that Mark Rothko’s (1903-70) lush, hazy color-field abstractions are best admired in solitary contemplation. But this colossal show at the Fondation Louis Vuitton makes a convincing counterargument. Presenting a total of 115 artworks, room after room charts the artist’s slow evolution from not-terrible figuration to sublime abstraction, ending with his late-in-life monochromes. Beautifully arranged and nearly bursting with material (including an unprecedented loan of the so-called Seagram murals from the Tate Modern), the first retrospective in France of the artist in nearly 30 years makes a powerful case that the more Rothkos in one room, the better. Through April 2

El Anatsui: Behind the Red Moon

At the Tate Modern, LondonThe Tate Modern’s annual Hyundai Commission presents a work or series of works made specifically for the museum’s cavernous Turbine Hall.  Previous commissions have certainly been large (they have to be), but never have they had the sort of monumentality of Anatsui’s metal tapestries: Made from liquor bottle tops and small pieces of metal, three works billow from the building’s upper rafters. Anatsui is one of the most interesting artists working today; the Ghanaian sculptor’s practice is preoccupied with history, geography and industry. While the Tate installation is intended to function as a story in three acts, it’s also, to the delight of visitors, visually stunning sculpture—the likes of which London has never seen. Through April 14

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