Los Angeles County Museum of Art
“The Arts in Latin America, 1492–1820” (Aug. 5–Oct. 28)
“Dan Flavin: A Retrospective” (through Aug. 12)

With L.A.’s large Latino population, it’s appropriate that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is the last of three venues for this groundbreaking exhibition that explores three centuries of colonial art in Latin America. The 200 objects in the show include major works of painting, sculpture and the decorative arts, encompassing ceramics, gold, silver and textiles. Many of them come from remote Catholic churches and have never been seen before in the United States. They reveal a very different picture of the art of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies than that traditionally held. Instead of a second-rate imitation of European art, the exhibition reveals an aesthetic born of a creative melding of indigenous, European, African and even Asian cultures. This unique and fascinating vision informed the creation of luxury products for the rich, as well as the powerful imagery required by a zealous, proselytizing Christian church.

Also on view in July and into August is a show for lovers of contemporary art, a retrospective of the minimalist sculptor Dan Flavin. For more than 30 years, Flavin worked almost entirely with fluorescent tubes, and you’ll be amazed at the variety and beauty of his mesmerizing work, which ranks him among the most important sculptors of the 20th century.

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark
“Richard Avedon” (Aug. 24–Jan. 13)

In the nearly three years since Richard Avedon died, his position as one of the great fashion and portrait photographers of the 20th century has only increased. His severe, yet elegant, bizarre and humorous work virtually defined these genres in the 1960s and ’70s. The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is presenting the first major retrospective in 10 years, which means the artist’s late work will now be seen for the first time within the context of his entire career. The show will include roughly 150 photographs, dating from the 1940s to Avedon’s death at age 81. For those who lived through this period, this exhibition should be like a trip down memory lane. The exhibition travels to the Forma International Centre for Photography in Milan from Feb. 13 to May 25, 2008. Also on view at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is “Boundaries of Architecture I,” a fascinating study of the impact of engineering technology on contemporary architecture (through Oct. 21).

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
“Edward Hopper” (through Aug. 19)

Boston is the first stop for this retrospective of Edward Hopper, co-organized with the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Art Institute of Chicago. This comprehensive show covers the artist’s entire career, from student days to his last works, and most important it prominently includes drawings and prints alongside the iconic paintings, demonstrating that Hopper was one of the great American printmakers of the 20th century. But the show’s focus is on the famous paintings made from 1925 to 1950, “Automat” (1927), “Early Sunday Morning” (1930) and “Nighthawks” (1942), works that have come to define America of the 1920s and ’30s and powerfully portray the sense of alienation that modernity was bringing to the world’s most advanced nation.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo.
Steven Holl–designed Bloch Building
“Manet to Matisse: Impressionist Masters from the Marion and Henry Bloch ollection” (through Sept. 9)
“Developing Greatness: The Origins of American Photography, 1839–1885” (through Dec. 30)
“Harry Callahan” (through Oct. 21).

Everyone is talking about the recently opened, dazzling new 165,000-square-foot wing designed by New York architect Steven Holl, which in and of itself makes Kansas City a destination this summer. The partially submerged building melds into the landscape, becoming an underground glass gallery filled with natural light that houses special installations of work by Isamu Noguchi and Walter de Maria. In conjunction with the opening of the new wing, the museum is presenting the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection of the new building’s namesakes, Henry Bloch, chairman of the board, and his wife, Marion. (For more on the Blochs, see “Magnificent Obsession,” Art & Antiques, June 2006.) Titled “Manet to Matisse,” the show presents an impressive selection of signature works by Renoir, Degas, van Gogh, Gauguin and Cézanne. But be sure to catch two significant photography shows being offered as well, both drawn from the enormous, recently donated Hallmark Photography Collection. “Developing Greatness: The Origins of American Photography, 1839 to 1885” is a longoverdue look at the evolution in America of the newly invented medium. “Harry Callahan” focuses on the Chicago modernist whose spectacular spare formalist compositions rank him among the great photographers of the century.

Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.
“Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination” (through August 19)

This is the Cornell show to end all Cornell shows. The first major retrospective in 26 years, it contains more than 180 works, 30 of which have never been publicly shown before. The show’s curator is the world’s preeminent Cornell scholar, Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, chief curator of the Peabody-Essex and formerly at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which co-organized the show and where it opened earlier this year (The tour ends at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Oct 6, 2007–Jan. 6, 2008.) Hartigan not only puts this self-taught New York artist, known for his poetic use of common materials, into the context of Surrealism, but she also demonstrates his relationship to such diverse sources as celestial navigation, Renaissance art and ballet. A special treat is the inclusion of the artist’s rarely seen films, which were extremely influential for contemporary artists in the 1950s and ’60s.