Via artnet.com by Sarah Cascone

Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party (1974–1979). Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum.

1. “Inside the Dinner Party Studio” at the National Museum of Women in the Arts Library, Washington, DC, September 17, 2017–January 5, 2018

It took Judy Chicago five years to create The Dinner Party, perhaps the most famous feminist piece in the history of art. That painstaking process is explored at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, showcasing the artist’s research in uncovering the stories of history’s forgotten women, as well as film documentation of the work of Chicago and her hundreds of volunteers. (At the Brooklyn Museum, where the piece is permanently on display, “Roots of The Dinner Party: History in the Making,” which also recounts the work’s genesis, is on view October 20, 2017–March 4, 2018.)

National Museum of Women in the Arts is located at 1250 New York Ave NW, Washington, DC. General admission is $10.

by artist Phil Collins

2. “Phil Collins: My heart’s in my hand, and my hand is pierced, and my hand’s in the bag, and the bag is shut, and my heart is caught” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, October 7, 2017–January 28, 2018

My heart’s in my hand…, a collaboratively made sound work from British artist Phil Collins, gets its first US museum show. Collins tapped a homeless shelter in Cologne, Germany, to participate in the work’s creation, setting up a phone booth there with free local and international calling. The artist then enlisted musician friends to transform the anonymous conversations into musical compositions. Viewers can listen to the resulting recordings on vinyl in an installation of six listening booths at the museum.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland is located at 11400 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland. General admission is $9.50.

Ugo Rondinone, It’s late and the wind carries a faint sound as it moves through the trees. It could be anything. The jingling of little bells perhaps, or the tiny flickering out of tiny lives. I stroll down the sidewalk and close my eyes and open them and wait for my mind to go perfectly blank. Like a room no one has ever entered, a room without any doors or windows. A place where nothing happens. (1999– 2000). Courtesy of the artist.

3. “Ugo Rondinone: good evening beautiful blue” at the Bass Museum of Art, Miami, October 8, 2017–February 19, 2018

Among the inaugural offerings of the newly-reopened Bass Museum of Art, this Ugo Rondinone retrospective spans three decades worth of work, including the artist’s delightfully creepy vocabulary of solitude (2014), an army of 45 life-size clown sculptures cast from life and outfitted in sparkly rainbow attire. The show will end with the blue-tinged six-channel video installation It’s late It’s late and the wind carries a faint sound as it moves through the trees.… (1999–2000), not seen in the US in nearly 20 years.

The Bass Museum of Art is located at 2100 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach. General admission is $10.

Sheila Pepe, Common Sense II (2010), detail. Installation view, “Hand + Made: The Performative Impulse in Art & Craft,” Contemporary Art Museum Houston, Texas.

4. “Sheila Pepe: Hot Mess Formalism” at the Phoenix Art Museum, October 14–January 28, 2018

This traveling exhibition is the first mid-career survey for Sheila Pepe, a cross-disciplinary artist and prominent lesbian feminist who figured in the Lesbian Separatist movement of the 1980s, and has become known for her immersive crocheted structures. The show will feature some 70 works, including a three-story, site-specific fabric installation specially commissioned by the Phoenix Art Museum.

The Phoenix Art Museum is located at 1625 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona. General admission $18.

Karim Ben Khelifa, The Enemy (2017). Courtesy the artist and MIT Arts.

5. “Karim Ben Khelifa: The Enemy” at the MIT Museum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, October 15–December 31, 2017

Photojournalist Karim Ben Khelifa has created an immersive VR experience that inserts viewers into the heart of military conflicts in the Congo, El Salvadore, and the Middle East between Israel and Palestine. By simulating interactions with combatants, the piece, here in its first North American outing, invites audiences to reconsider their attitudes towards violence and suffering. With this unique blend of science, journalism, art, and technology, Khelifa hopes to highlight the similarities between people, and how much these apparent enemies have in common with each other, and the viewer.

The MIT Museum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is located at 265 Massachusetts Avenue, Building N51, Cambridge, Massachusetts. General admission is $10.