From walking through mist and dancing rainbows, to London’s unusual and colorful annual assemblage of art—there’s plenty of truly unmissable art shows to see across the world this summer, no matter where you are traveling to.

 Left: Olafur Eliasson, Water pendulum, 2010. Right: Olafur Eliasson, Map for unthought thoughts, 2014. Photos: Xing Yu. Both Courtesy of Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing. © 2018 Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson: The unspeakable openness of things at Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing, China

Olafur Eliasson’s first solo exhibition in the Chinese capital uses large-scale immersive installations to comment on the country’s dangerous and rising pollution levels. This critical and monumental show spans the Red Brick Museum’s eight exhibition halls and gardens, with each space dedicated to a specific natural phenomenon. Visitors are greeted with the intense light of an orange circle—a work created specifically for this exhibition, before moving to rooms filled with dancing water and man-made rainbows. Olafur Eliasson, the Icelandic-Danish artist famed for his 2003 installation at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, heightens the sensations of his spectators through mist and illusion, creating a dialogue between man and nature and making full use of the impressive architecture of the Red Brick Museum.

The unspeakable openness of things is on view at Red Brick Museum until August 12, 2018.

Left: Yayoi Kusama with Narcissus Garden installed in Venice Biennale, Italy, 1966. Courtesy David Zwirner, New York; Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore/Shanghai; Victoria Miro, London/Venice. © YAYOI KUSAMA. Right: Rockaway! featuring a site-specific installation of Narcissus Garden by Yayoi Kusama. Photo: Pablo Enriquez. Artwork courtesy Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore/Shanghai; Victoria Miro, London/Venice; and David Zwirner, New York. Image courtesy MoMA PS1. © YAYOI KUSAMA

Yayoi Kusama: Narcissus Garden at Rockaway! presented by MoMA PS1, New York, United States

Comprised of over 1,500 mirrored stainless steel spheres, Yayoi Kusama’s site-specific installation Narcissus Garden, is currently on display as part of Rockaway!—a free public art festival in Fort Tilden, New York. The Japanese artist, known for her dizzyingly impressive walk-in installations such as Infinity Mirrors, first presented this work as an unofficial performance during the 1966 Venice Biennale. Kusama stood amongst the silver spheres, installed in front of the Italian Pavilion, selling them for $2 each. Cited as a critique on the commercialization of contemporary art, Narcissus Garden was the first time Kusama had staged a politically charged work. The piece’s resurrection and instalment at Rockaway! this summer provides a new way of looking at the work, against the backdrop of a former military base.

Narcissus Garden is on view as part of Rockaway! until September 3, 2018.

Left: Grayson Perry, Selfie with Political Causes, 2018. Courtesy of the artist and Paragon | Contemporary Editions Ltd. Right: Michael Landy RA, Closing Down Sale, 1992. Courtesy of the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery. © Michael Landy

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London, United Kingdom

Co-organized by Royal Academician and Turner Prize winning artist Grayson Perry, the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year. The annual London affair contains a mixture of art by renowned household names and amateur artists and this show is said to be its biggest and brightest yet. Over 1,300 works in a multitude of mediums by artists such as Mona Hatoum, Tracey Emin, David Hockney and Anish Kapoor sit inside the newly-expanded London institution. There is even a piece by infamously mysterious street artist Banksy that was at first rejected because he submitted it under a false name. After sending it back using his real identity, the artist’s statement on Brexit, suitably priced at £350 million (the amount of money promised by the Leave campaign would be donated to the NHS if the UK left the EU) is now displayed amongst an appropriately disjointed, yet intensely engaging, cluster of works.

The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is open until August 19, 2018.

Joan Miró: A Wild Spirit at Miró Mallorca Fundació, Palma, Spain

After traveling to Seoul, Bologna and Turin, this exhibition of the Spanish Surrealist master Joan Miró is returning to Mallorca and the house where the artist lived and worked until his death in 1983. Exploring his influences and ties to place, this show gives a unique and deeply personal insight into Miró’s inner spirit and ways of thinking. Providing visitors with a chance to look around his studio, house and sculpture garden, it captures the dynamism and innovation of his later artistic years—his wild and less frequently documented period.

Miró, a wild spirit is a permanent exhibition on view at Miró Mallorca Fundació.

Installation Views of Günther Förg: A Fragile Beauty, 2018, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Photos: Gert Jan van Rooij

Günther Förg: A Fragile Beauty at Stedelijk, Amsterdam, Netherlands

The major survey of the work of Günther Förg on display at the Stedelijk Museum traces the evolution of the German artist’s rebellious approach to modern art. Each room in the exhibition is entirely unique, reflecting the continuously developing nature of Förg’s oeuvre and his resistance of categorization. While one room is filled with his solid block experimentations with color, another is decorated with his iconic Bauhaus photographs. Förg was an artist who rejected the notion of boundaries between disciplines, movements and mediums, creating an unpredictable yet consistently stimulating body of work that continues to inspire contemporary artists.

Günther Förg: A Fragile Beauty is on view at the Stedelijk Museum until October 14, 2018.

By Jess Harrison