Field Notes: Five Cultural Events Defining Fall 2025
Summer has faded, and the creative world has sharpened its focus. This season's calendar is stacked with moments that bridge beauty, intellectual stimulation, and intimacy. Here are five events that caught our eye, and might be worth a journey of your own.
Robert Rauschenberg at Gemini G.E.L.: Celebrating Four Decades of Innovation & Collaboration
Any survey of post-war American art would be woefully incomplete without Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008). Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles presents Robert Rauschenberg at Gemini G.E.L.: Celebrating Four Decades of Innovation & Collaboration, a sweeping centennial exhibition of Robert Rauschenberg’s storied printmaking practice, honoring the artist’s enduring dialogue with the print workshop he first joined in 1967. The artists’ first print edition with Gemini G.E.L., titled Booster, was originally intended to include one single, full-body x-ray, conceived as a “self-portrait of inner man”. Obviously, this was an impossible feat to produce, so the artist and Gemini’s founders decided to scan the artist’s body in six sections to complete the image.
Drawing upon a meticulous curatorial selection of emblematic works—such as Sky Garden from the Stoned Moon series—the exhibition explores the space between paper, ink, found materials, and photographic imagery, evoking Rauschenberg’s restless impulse to expand the expressive reach of print media.
The Los Angeles Gemini G.E.L. exhibit (running through December 19th, 2025 ) is a companion exhibition to Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl in New York City, with that on view until December 20th, 2025. Both presentations mark the centennial of Rauschenberg’s birth and shine an important light on the 40-year relationship between one of the giants of 20th-century art and the publisher, artists’ workshop, and gallery. geminigel.com
Above: Robert Rauschenberg, 'Booster,' 1967, 5-color lithograph & screenprint,72" x 35 1/2", Edition of 3
38th Tokyo International Film Festival
The 38th Tokyo International Film Festival unfolds in several cinemas across Hibiya, Marunouchi, Yurakucho, and Ginza. TIFF continues to serve as Japan’s preeminent gateway to world cinema, offering a thoughtfully edited mix of gala premieres, competition films, and regional showcases.
This year’s opening film is Climbing for Life (Junji Sakamoto), and the festival will conclude with Hamnet by Chloé Zhao—framing a boundary-crossing arc between Japanese auteur cinema and global storytelling. As filmmakers, critics, and cinephiles gather, the festival reaffirms its dual role: as a showcase of cinematic excellence and as a hub for cultural diplomacy, creative risk-taking, and film industry renewal. From October 27 to November 5, 2025.
Leslie Hewitt: Achromatic Scales
Leslie Hewitt: Achromatic Scales, the first U.S. exhibition to bring together three of the artist’s ongoing series—Riffs on Real Time, Chromatic Grounds, and Riffs on Real Time with Ground– is now on view at The Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach. Through a carefully calibrated orchestration of layered photographic images (including personal snapshots of family and friends), archival ephemera, and abstract photograms, Hewitt probes how images inhabit time, memory, and space.
Hewitt references Black literary touchstones and post-Civil Rights era pop culture, while adding her voice to art historical traditions, such as still life, minimalism, and conceptualism. With Hewitt serving concurrently as the Norton’s 2025 Artist-in-Residence, the show deepens its resonance by intertwining studio practice with public engagement, offering a rare opportunity to experience new works and evolving ideas in tandem. On view through February 22, 2026. norton.org
Above: Riffs on Real Time with Ground (Green Mesh), 2017, Digital chromogenic print, silver gelatin print, with custom wood frame, Unique, 41 x 91 in. (104.1 x 231.1 cm). Courtesy of the Artist and Perrotin. Photo: Guillaume Ziccarell
Frankfurter Buchmesse 2025
Messe Frankfurt hosts the annual Frankfurter Buchmesse, the premier gathering for the global publishing community, a dense intersection of ideas, rights, and cultural exchange. This year’s edition underscores its evolving mission as a bridge between the written word and film/streaming media, with Book-to-Screen Day spotlighting adaptation, cross-industry partnerships, and narrative translation across forms. With curated author programs and a robust hybrid platform, Frankfurt 2025 highlights the ever-evolving terrain where text, image, voice, and screen converge. From October 15 to October 19, 2025. buchmesse.de
Kōgei Dining 202
In November, the MOA Museum of Art in Atami hosts Kōgei Dining 2025, an immersive celebration of traditional Japanese craftsmanship (“工芸“ or Kōgei), cuisine, and performance. Over five days, guests dine on seasonal dishes served on tableware crafted by Living National Treasures and master artisans, with each piece a quiet collaboration between maker and meal.
The experience extends beyond the table, with daily artist talks exploring the philosophy and process behind Kōgei, and intimate Buyō performances by Bando Tamasaburo on the museum’s Noh stage. Kōgei Dining is an act of reverence for the handmade, the well-prepared, and the fleeting beauty of a shared moment. From November 15th to 19th, 2025. moaart.or.jp
Additional photos courtesy of Tokyo Film Festival, Frankfurter Buchmesse, & MOA Museum of Art