CA / Palm Springs
Palm Springs Art Museum
Ai Weiwei’s Circle of Animals/ Zodiac Heads: Gold
to May 31  
Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei’s 12 animal heads of gilded bronze are based on a set that was part of an Italian-made 18th-century clock and fountain in Beijing; it was destroyed by British and French troops in 1860. In re-creating a work of traditional Chinese imagery that was made and unmade by Europeans, Ai has formed a hybrid of past and present, East and West, destruction and renewal, others’ ideas and his own. 

CA / Sacremento
Crocker Art Museum
Of Cottages and Castles: The Art of California Faience
to May 17
The terraces, stairways, ceilings, floors, and walls lavishly adorned in decorative tile at Hearst Castle are California Faience pottery studio’s most spectacular legacy. But before the company – started by two classmates from Alfred University back East – tackled that project for William Randolph Hearst in the 1920s, the company had been making a name for itself with vases, sculptures, and (of course) tile. This is the first exhibition to focus on all of the company’s work, with examples of the Hearst tiles as well as decorative creations in art deco, arts and crafts, and moderne styles. 

FL / Sr. Petersburg
Florida CraftArt Exhibition Gallery
Garden of Earthly Pleasures
to Apr. 18
Artists in a botanically abundant state, where gardeners can dig and plant year-round, interpret the title of this juried show in a wide range of craft mediums. 

IL / Elmhurst
Elmhurst Art Museum
On the Brink: New Work by Nnenna Okore
to May 3  
Nnenna Okore’s large sculptures and installations have roots in both the Chicago cityscape where she now lives and the small Nigerian town where she grew up. Her materials are space, light, and shadow as much as burlap, newspapers, twine, and plastic bags; weaving them all together, she creates new beauty from the discarded and the decaying.  

MI / Bloomfield Hills
Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Art Museum
Bent, Cast, and Forged: The Jewelry of Harry Bertoia
to Nov. 29
Harry Bertoia’s furniture and sculptures are modernist icons, but it all started with jewelry: The experiments in form and fabrication that he made in his jewelry resounded throughout his later work. 

MO / St. Louis
AKC Museum of the Dog
Dogs in Porcelain Sculpture
The recent gift of 125 porcelain dogs from the estate of collector Glen Twiford is the heart of this ongoing and delightful display of 19th- and 20th-century canines from the kilns of Royal Doulton, Meissen, Royal Copenhagen, Rosenthal, Nymphenburg, and Hutschenreuther. This new pack joins the museum’s 700-plus sculptures, paintings, prints, and decorative objects, all devoted to humankind’s four-legged, wet-nosed BFF. 

MO / St. Louis
Craft Alliance, Delmar Loop Gallery
Small Buildings: Built, Unbuilt, Unbuildable
to May 10
Some of the sculptures, maquettes, drawings, and other pieces in this show are architects’ or installation artists’ actual models. Others riff on architectural models, but refer to no future full-size project. All are finely crafted works that invert the usual size relationship between people and the structures that surround them, turning viewers into giants. 

NE / Omaha
Kaneko
Fiber
to Apr. 25
The organization founded by ACC Fellow Jun Kaneko and his wife, Ree, hosts a fiber extravaganza with six exhibitions: “Fiber Legends,” works by Nick Cave, Sheila Hicks, and Jon Eric Riis; “Global Threads,” with work by international artists Yoshiko Wada, Jessica Hemmings, Mary Zicafoose, and Susan Knight; the American Tapestry Biennial; “Fabric of Survival,” a Holocaust survivor’s story told in 36 fabric pictures; “Florabunda,” a look at fabric design in the golden age of the Hawaiian shirt; and “The Quilted Conscience Project,” which aims to build bridges between immigrant or refugee children and established communities in the US.

NY / Howes Cave
Iroquois Indian Museum
Buckskin to Bikinis: Haudenosaunee Wearable Art
Apr. 2 – Nov. 30 
This show brings together work of about 30 Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) designers who create innovative apparel that honors traditions without being limited by them. Fringe, leather, beads, and feathers are reconsidered and reclaimed to become elements of couture fashion, streetwear, accessories, and other wearables that express themes of cultural change and appropriation, and personal and political identity. 

NC / Charlotte
Mint Museum Uptown
Body Embellishment
Apr. 11 – Sep. 6
The Mint has gathered some 100 examples of the ways people are adorning, augmenting, and altering themselves in the 21st century: experimental fashion, extravagant tattoos, innovative jewelry, and sculptural nail art, all of which just might evoke equal amounts of: Why? And how? And wow! 

NY / Corning
GlassFest
May 21 – 24
Corning, the Crystal City, raises a glass to its history as a center of innovation (made there: the first Edison lightbulb, mirrors for the Hubble space telescope, Pyrex cookware, lots of glass art) with a weekend of exhibitions, demos, food, music, and fireworks. 

OH / Toledo
Toledo Museum of Art
Drawn, Cut & Layered: The Art of Werner Pfeiffer
to May 3
Paper pops way beyond its usual two dimensions in this show of nearly 200 of Werner Pfeiffer’s artist books, sculptures, dimensional prints, and collages. Some have moving parts; all reflect the artist’s love of puzzles, wordplay, and machines. This is the first major exhibition devoted to Pfeiffer’s artist books and works in paper, drawn from his half-century-long career.