This week marked the official beginning of spring. With this new beginning we look forward to another year of seeing more and more women continue to bloom and flourish on the museum and gallery walls. Here are our picks for upcoming shows, unveiling this spring, that feature Frida Kahlo, Björk, Yoko Ono, Marilyn Minter, and Pao Houa Her.

1.

Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life
New York Botanical Garden, May 16

Frida Kahlo, Self Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940. Photo: © 2014 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. /Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

“Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life” will be the first to examine Frida Kahlo’s keen appreciation for the beauty and variety of the natural world, as evidenced by her home and garden, as well as the complex use of plant imagery in her artwork. Featuring a rare display of more than a dozen original Kahlo paintings and works on paper, the exhibition re-imagines the iconic artist’s famed garden and studio at the Casa Azul, her lifelong home in Mexico City.

2.

Björk
Museum of Modern Art, March 8

Björk. Still from “Black Lake,” commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and directed by Andrew Thomas Huang, 2015. Courtesy of Wellhart and One Little Indian.

Björk, a retrospective of the multifaceted work of the composer, musician, and singer Björk, draws from more than 20 years of the artist’s daring and innovative projects and her eight full-length albums to chronicle her career through sound, film, visuals, instruments, objects, and costumes.

3.

Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960–1971
Museum of Modern Art, March 17

Yoko Ono. Cut Piece. 1964. Performed by Yoko Ono in New Works of Yoko Ono, Carnegie Recital Hall, New York, March 21, 1965. Photograph by Minoru Niizuma. © Minoru Niizuma. Courtesy Lenono Photo Archive, New York

“Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960–1971” surveys the decisive decade that led up to Ono’s unauthorized exhibition at MoMA, bringing together approximately 125 of her early objects, works on paper, installations, performances, audio recordings, and films, alongside rarely seen archival materials. A number of works invite interaction, including Painting to Be Stepped On (1960/1961) and Ono’s groundbreaking performance, Bag Piece (1964). The exhibition draws upon the 2008 acquisition of the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection Gift, which added approximately 100 of Ono’s artworks and related ephemera to the museum’s holdings.

4.

Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty
Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, April 18

Marilyn Minter, “Coral Ridge Towers (Mom Smoking),” 1969. Gelatin Silver print. Sheet 16 x 20 inches. Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody.

“Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty” features over 25 paintings made between 1976 and 2013, three video works, and several photographs that show Minter’s work in depth. For over three decades,  Minter has produced lush paintings, photographs, and videos that vividly manifest our culture’s complex and contradictory emotions around the feminine body and beauty. Her unique works—from the oversized paintings of makeup-laden lips and eyes to soiled designer shoes—bring into sharp, critical focus the power of desire. As an artist Minter has always made seductive visual statements that demand our attention while never shirking her equally crucial roles as provocateur, critic, and humorist.

5.

Focus: Pao Houa Her
Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Through June 14

Pao Houa Her, Old school Photoshop, 2014.

For her first solo museum exhibition, Minneapolis-based artist Pao Houa Her presents photography and video works that address “the desire to belong, the desire to be recognized, and the desire to be desired” within the Hmong American community. Across the works on view in this exhibition, Her deploys a variety of photographic vernaculars ranging from still-lifes of lush fruits and views of the Laotian landscape to candid portraits of friends and family members, snapshots from community gatherings, and appropriated images culled from the Internet. Amid this disparate array of seemingly idealized imagery, she unravels the complex tensions between traditional practices and the contemporary Hmong American experience, placing an emphasis on the politics of gender and sexuality.