BY RYAN WADDOUPS
From stylish furnishings inspired by painter Roberto Ruspoli’s resplendent Mediterranean frescoes to Nifemi Marcus-Bello’s thought-provoking inquiries into culturally significant materials
December brings a perceptible shift as the year winds down and the creative world steadies itself before a fresh cycle begins. Shorter days sharpen our senses, and the bustle of the holidays encourages a more instinctive pull toward warmth and engagement. It turns out that galleries and museums are leaning into work that mirrors the season’s contemplative cadence, offering welcome moments of pause before the calendar resets. From the Haas Brothers’ uncanny menagerie of fuzzy creatures at Cranbrook Art Museum to Danish weaver Marie Holst’s woven tapestries that capture our complicated relationship with nature, below are the collectible design exhibitions not to be missed in December.
“Haas Brothers: Uncanny Valley” at Cranbrook Art Museum | Bloomfield Hills, MI
A magical menagerie of fuzzy creatures has convened at the Cranbrook Art Museum to celebrate the first mid-career survey of twins Nikolai and Simon Haas, who have fashioned wildly imaginative surrealist sculptures as the Haas Brothers since 2010. This show gathers around 100 works that seductively traverse the uncanny valley, highlighting series such as Beasts—personality-rich zoomorphic sculptures—and Accretion ceramics, whose coral-like appearance is created through applying thousands of layers of porcelain slip. Accompanying the show is a Phaidon monograph that forays even deeper into the brothers’ imaginative world.
Until February 22, 2026
