Some Particular Heaven: Ideas of Utopia in the BAMPFA Collection

In one gallery, a gold Buddha sits in a glass case between an Asian scroll painting and a gilded medieval panel. Different centuries and traditions, side by side, each picturing a better world.

Utopia comes from the Greek for "no place", and the curators fill BAMPFA's lower-level galleries with it, all from the museum's own collection, in four groups: spiritual practice, abstraction as contemplation, design for a better world, and activism from the late 1960s on. You move from fifteenth-century paintings and Buddhist hanging scrolls to contemporary photographs and installations. The show includes Revolution in Our Lifetime, by the painter William Rhodes and Emory Douglas, the Black Panther Party's Minister of Culture from 1967 to 1982.

It's included in the $18 admission, free on first Thursdays and for under-14s, and runs until July 11, 2027. Graduate students lead tours on select Wednesdays at 12:15 PM and Sundays at 2 PM, and Douglas and Rhodes discuss their piece in a ticketed talk on November 14.