Museums to Visit in California This Year

Happy Monday.

The New York Times published a special section on museums over the weekend, with more than two dozen articles about how institutions across the country are striving to offer their visitors more to see, do and feel.

I highly recommend browsing the full series. One of the articles covers the ways that museums are making better use of their outdoor spaces; another highlights a museum dedicated to the history and science of nuclear weapons; and there is a profile of a joint show mounted by two museums, one on each side of the U.S.-Mexico border.

There’s also a long list of American museums to visit this year, including several on the West Coast, as well as a guide to new and exciting museum programs for children.

And, of course, there is a lot going on in the art world in California. Here are some of the highlights:

• The Broad in Los Angeles will open a sweeping exhibition on May 25 covering 20 years of work by Mickalene Thomas, an artist who was exploring the Black female figure well before it became so popular.

  “It’s difficult to understand, from where we are now, how radical her work was when I first showed it,” Susanne Vielmetter, a Los Angeles gallerist who gave Thomas one of her first solo shows in 2007, told my colleague Robin Pogrebin. “I cannot think of a single artist who at that time was making portraiture of female Black figures from a perspective of female desire.”

• An unusual collaboration among 10 large public universities, including U.C.L.A., will bring shows focused on democracy to campus museums across the country. It’s part of an effort to reduce political polarization and increase student voter turnout.

• From May 4 through Aug. 18, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will be showcasing visual and technological artifacts from the world of music, including early listening devices and iconic album covers, in its “Art of Noise” exhibition. But, as Chris Colin explains, what the show really explores is humans’ relationship to music.

• At the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in Los Angeles County, a new installation by the artist Betye Saar manipulates light to simulate the stages of nightfall. It’s one of many shows across the country in which artists are playing with darkness.

• Museums dedicated to the natural sciences have long been associated with dark spaces and nature dioramas, but that may be changing. At the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County, a new area will soon be opened that features a theater, a cafe and new seating and exhibition spaces. “There is nature in L.A., and we believe that if you have a better understanding of what’s in your backyard and your neighborhood, you’ll have a much better appreciation of life on our planet,” Lori Bettison-Varga, the museum’s president and director, told The Times.