Just like the verdant fields in Borrego Springs, San Diego County’s visual arts landscape will be in full bloom this season, with a bounty of vibrant exhibitions and events to keep art lovers busy all spring. Here are a few shows to add to your vernal to-do list.
“Charlie Parker as a Little Boy” (1958, oil and lacquer on paper mounted on hard board) by Richard Allen Morris at the R.B. Stevenson Gallery through the end of March. (R.B. Stevenson Gallery)
Art Gallery Month
It began with a simple goal: raise the visibility of San Diego’s “San Diego’s gallery ecosystem and reinforce that collecting art locally matters.” Art Gallery Month is back, with 11 galleries participating from all over the county, from Carlsbad and Escondido to Little Italy, Hillcrest and Old Town. “The idea has always been about visibility and participation,” says Patric Stillman of The Studio Door, one of the founding participating galleries. “When galleries move together, the public pays attention. March becomes a reason to plan a weekend around art. … Commercial galleries play a critical role in the cultural ecosystem, even if they don’t always receive the same public recognition as museums or nonprofit institutions. We provide sustained representation for working artists, cultivate collectors and create consistent opportunities for artwork to enter private and corporate collections. Galleries are small businesses, but they are also long-term partners in artists’ careers. Without commercial galleries, many artists simply would not have the visibility or economic support needed to sustain their practice.” Participating galleries this year include Adelman Fine Art, Meyer Fine Art, Sparks Gallery, The Studio Door, Visions Art + Supply, PHES Gallery, Distinction Gallery, Madison Gallery, R.B. Stevenson Gallery, Stefanie Bales Fine Art, Thumbprint Gallery and Woodward Contemporary. Through the end of March. Details at https://the-studio-door-1.squarespace.com/art-gallery-month-2026.
“Skinchangers” by Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya is part of a new exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego titled “In the Garden of Earthly Delights: I Bend to Paradise,” on view until May 24 at ICA San Diego Central in Balboa Park. (Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya)
Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego: “In the Garden of Earthly Delights: I Bend to Paradise”
Mexican-American artist Ruben Ulises Rodriguez Montoya’s first solo museum show in California has landed at ICA San Diego’s central campus in Balboa Park. “Drawing from ancestral folklore, border politics, popular culture and science fiction, Rodriguez Montoya’s exhibition relays the story of a stowaway vampire adrift on the wreckage of a spaceship meant to ferry the privileged into the future,” the museum says of the exhibition, which opened Feb. 21. His “sculptures and installations, made from disused materials and silicone, trace the vampire’s journey from wholeness to rupture and back again, mirroring the divisiveness, fear and longing that shape our contemporary moment.” Through May 24. ICA San Diego Central, 1439 El Prado, San Diego. Free, donations welcome. 760-436-6611, icasandiego.org
“Homage to Stella” by Kaori Fukuyama is part of a new exhibition this spring at the La Jolla Historical Society titled “Space Maker,” which is on display through June 7. (Kaori Fukuyama)
La Jolla Historical Society: “Space Maker”
Lauren Lockhart, the executive director of La Jolla Historical Society, said this of the society’s current show, which opened Feb. 28 and is on display all spring: “This exhibit examines where art and architecture meet, tracing how creative practices rooted in design influence the shaping of spaces, objects and communities. Featuring a blend of historic pieces with contemporary works by local artists, the exhibition highlights wide-ranging interpretations of form, geometry and place. Through these varied perspectives, the exhibition uncovers the reciprocal relationship between artistic expression and architectural thinking — revealing how each discipline informs, echoes and transforms the other.” The roster of featured artists includes Russell Forester, Robert Irwin, Miki Iwasaki, Irma Sofía Poeter, Kaori Fukuyama, Maha Bazzari and others. Through June 7. La Jolla Historical Society, 780 Prospect St., La Jolla. Free. 858-459-5335, lajollahistory.org
Rosendo Rodriguez’s “Mermaid” (20th century, Mexico; painted clay. (Gift of Mayde Meiers Herberg / Ron Kerner photo)
Mingei International Museum: “To Catch a Fish”
With San Diego’s legacy as a fishing town, it seems only appropriate that a new exhibition at the Mingei, opening in early May, will “illuminate the relationship between people and fish.” “To Catch a Fish” will feature more than 60 pieces, from utilitarian objects like fish traps and nets to artworks with spiritual significance like amulets and saints. The show, on display through November, will also feature the work of contemporary artist Marianne Nicolson, who examines the impact of commercial fisheries in British Columbia’s Indigenous communities. May 2-Nov. 1. Mingei International Museum, 1439 El Prado, Balboa Park, San Diego. Free to $15. 619-239-0003, mingei.org/visit
Married music artists and art collectors Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys explore “Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys,” a large-scale exhibition that will be presented April 18 through Aug. 9 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego in La Jolla. (Earl Manning)
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego: “Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys”
When this landmark exhibition opens in La Jolla next month, MCASD becomes the sole West Coast venue showing a large-scale exhibit from the private collection of married music and cultural artists Swizz Beatz (Kasseem Dean) and Alicia Keys. Running from April 18 through Aug. 9, it will be the first time artwork — 130 pieces in total — from the couple’s massive collection will be on display in San Diego. The exhibition, organized by the Brooklyn Museum in 2024, will feature the work of 37 Black American and diasporic artists from Africa, Europe, the United States and the Caribbean. The exhibition “offers an exciting opportunity for MCASD to participate more meaningfully in crucial dialogues about Black joy, resistance and cultural identity in contemporary art,” said Amy Crum, associate curator at MCASD. “Many of the artists in the exhibition are already in MCASD’s collection and the exhibition will give our visitors a chance to experience them in a new way.” Public preview: 6 to 9 p.m. April 17. April 18-Aug. 9. Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, 700 Prospect St., La Jolla. $25 general admission, $20 San Diego and Tijuana residents, $15 students, educators and those 55 and over. 858-453-3541, mcasd.org
Brothers James Hubbell, left, and Bert Hubbell photographed in 1960. Their shared art legacy will featured in an exhibition this spring at the Oceanside Museum. (Ilan-Lael Foundation)
Oceanside Museum of Art: “Brothers in Arts: James Hubbell and Bert Hubbell”
When Mexican-born artist Francisco Eme wanted to understand nature and our place in it, he didn’t have to look far. He literally just had to look at the space behind his suburban San Diego home. The sloped canyon became his laboratory. A years-long exploration and investigation has led to a new multimedia exhibition opening in late October that “explores the tension between urbanization and native ecology in San Diego’s suburban canyons.” The exhibition will feature “five years of photographs, videos, sound recordings and collected artifacts documenting one canyon’s quiet resistance to the sprawl surrounding it.” April 11-Sept. 6. Oceanside Museum of Art, 704 Pier View Way, Oceanside. $15 adult; $10 seniors 65 and up; free for members, youth 17 and under, college students with I.D., and active military and dependents with I.D. 760-435-3720, oma-online.org
The Fine Arts Gallery (renamed the San Diego Museum of Art in 1978) can be seen behind the Arch of the Future in Balboa Park’s Plaza de Panama during the 1935 California Pacific International Exposition. (San Diego History Center)
San Diego Museum of Art: “Forging a Legacy: 15 Years of Landmark Acquisitions”
The San Diego Museum of Art is celebrating its centennial all year long with numerous exhibitions and events. This exhibit, which opens May 16, takes a deep dive into the Balboa Park institution’s most recent acquisitions, including Claude Monet’s “Eglise de Varengeville, effet matinal,” an 1882 oil on canvas from the collection of John and Toni Bloomberg. It came from what the museum calls the “formidable Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modern collection of Toni Bloomberg, who with her late husband, John, built a massive collection of American and Impressionist art, including masterpieces by Pissarro and Monet. Today, the museum is home to more than 32,000 works of art, and the merger in 2023 with the Museum of Photographic Arts only expanded that collection, adding to the museum’s photographic collections. Through Sept. 7. San Diego Museum of Art, 1450 El Prado, San Diego. $25 general admission, $15 for seniors 65 and over, free for youth under 17, students and military. 619-232-7931, sdmart.org
This “Sea of Debris” collage is one of many pieces showcased in “Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea” at the San Diego Natural History Museum. It’s on display from May 22 through Feb. 28, 2027. (SDNH)
San Diego Natural History Museum: “Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea”
Ever wonder what trash would look like as art? Find out on May 22, when “Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea” opens at the San Diego Natural History Museum, which describes it as “a stunning exhibition that transforms ocean debris into impossible-to-ignore sculpture.” The expansive show — spread out across 3,000 square feet in the museum’s second floor gallery — will feature more than 25 marine creatures, all made entirely from waste collected along the coast. The organization behind the traveling exhibit is the Washed Ashore Project, a nonprofit based in North Bend, Ore., “dedicated to educating and creating awareness about marine debris and plastic pollution through art.” May 22-Feb. 28. San Diego Natural History Museum, 1788 El Prado, San Diego. $14-$24. 619-232-3821, sdnat.org
Space 4 Art: “The Medium Is the Message,” “Instructions for Unrest: Art Against Complacency” and “The Color of Silence”
It’ll be a busy spring for Space 4 Art, which kicks off the season with “The Medium Is the Message,” a group exhibition curated by Material Projects DTLA and hosted at Art Produce gallery in North Park. Inspired by Marshall McLuhan’s 1967 book “The Medium Is the Massage,” the exhibition is curated by Los Angeles-based artists Andie Ryan Round and John Dewey. Jennifer de Poyen, Space 4 Art’s executive director, says the exhibition — which opened March 6 — is part of a yearlong effort to provide the community with “essential and incredibly diverse arts programming.” The curators say it “explores how meaning in visual art emerges through the relationship between material and content, and centers visual art as a site where artists manipulate medium and message to challenge perception and expectation.” An artist panel discussion will be held March 18 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. When “The Medium Is the Message” closes, another exhibit will open at Art Produce, where Space 4 Art has a year-long residency: “Instructions for Unrest: Art Against Complacency,” curated by local arts leader and educator Alessandra Moctezuma, professor of fine art at San Diego Mesa College and director of the college’s art gallery. Opening April 18, Moctezuma says it will shine “a light on artists who have raised their voices against injustice and brings together artworks from various perspectives that speak to social justice locally, nationally and across the world.” A third show, opening June 4, is “The Color of Silence,” curated by artist Francisco “Eme” Morales, gallery director at The Front Arte & Cultura in San Ysidro. The exhibition, closing July 1, “explores the contradictions and relationships between silence, noise, emptiness and saturation, and includes visual artists as well as sound performances and multimedia interventions,” Morales says. Free. Space 4 Art at Art Produce, 3139 University Ave., North Park. Space 4 Art is also producing a series of artist panels, workshops and performances this spring. sdspace4art.org