Sometimes it seems like the art world has a short attention span, skipping from one trend to the next, so it’s satisfying to find exhibitions that hold onto histories and memories. In different ways, the shows below all maintain a connection with the past. For artists Candida Alvarez and Thomas Holton, this may mean summoning childhood memories and cultural traditions or looking back on tender and casual moments among family. For other artists, such as those included in Queer Lineages at the Wallach Art Gallery, drawing on the past involves learning from artistic precursors who broke down boundaries. Or, if you’re squeezing in a late-summer trip upstate, you could be exploring a fascinating history of mushrooms and the equally fascinating story of a renegade mycologist. —Natalie Haddad, Reviews EditorCandida Alvarez: Circle, Point, HoopEl Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Avenue, East Harlem, ManhattanThrough August 3Candida Alvarez, “Mary in the Sky with Diamonds” (Mary en el cielo con diamantes) (2005), acrylic and enamel on canvas (photo Valentina Di Liscia/Hyperallergic)“Throughout [Alvarez’s] oeuvre, abstraction and representation bleed into one another in the same way that memories momentarily coagulate into images before dissolving again.” —NHRead the full review.Thomas Holton: The Lams of Ludlow StreetBaxter St. Camera Club, 154 Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, ManhattanThrough August 13Thomas Holton, “A Crowded Christmas” (2022), archival inkjet print (photo Lisa Yin Zhang/Hyperallergic)“These photos reveal the beauty emergent from a lifestyle of frequenting businesses run by those of the mother culture, of scrimping and upcycling, and of dutiful ingenuity.” —Lisa Yin ZhangRead the full review.Homage: Queer Lineages on VideoWallach Art Gallery, 615 West 129th Street, 6th Floor, Manhattanville, ManhattanThrough October 19Installation view of Kang Seung Lee, “The Heart of a Hand” (2022) in Homage: Queer Lineages on Video at the Wallach Art Gallery (photo Daniel Larkin/Hyperallergic)“In Homage: Queer Lineages on Video, artists draw upon the legacies of folks who opened the doors we now get to walk through.” —Daniel LarkinRead the full review.Outcasts: Mary Banning’s World of MushroomsNew York State Museum, 222 Madison Avenue, Albany, New YorkThrough January 4, 2026Installation view of Outcasts: Mary Banning’s World of Mushrooms at the New York State Museum, Albany, showing three botanical illustrations by Banning (photo Alexis Clements/Hyperallergic)“Not only was [Banning] one of the first women to put a name to an entire group, or taxon, of fungus, but a full 23 of the 175 species she records in the manuscript were unknown in the field at the time” —Alexis ClementsRead the full review.