Museum exhibitions mean great art gathered in one location, but they  can also trasnlate into long lines, hard-to-get tickets, and, unless the exhibition is nearby, travel expenses. Added to these impediments, unless one is constantly on the lookout, shows can be overlooked, only discovered after they close. Thankfully many museums do their best to create a visual and aural record of the exhibition online through images, illustrated lectures, audio guides, and gallery talks. Here are five such exhibitions, some current and some past.

“One with Eternity: Yayoi Kusama in the Hirshhorn Collection” opened in Washington, DC, on the first of April, 2022, and runs through November 27. The blockbuster show includes five of Kusama’s instillations, including two immersive Infinity Mirror Rooms. A fee-based online lecture about the artist and work will run on June 15. Those not willing to wait (or pay) might like to consider the Tate Modern’s page about its upcoming exhibition. There is a gallery guide and a film.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston recently opened new galleries devoted to Dutch and Flemish art. As part of that launch, the museum offered an in-depth consideration of Anthony van Dyck’s Self-Portrait as Icarus. Several of the experts connected the painting to the Fall of Icarus, once attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder. In relation to that, poetry lovers might want to also consider the NYT’s “Close Read” article on W.H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts.”

“Johannes Phokela: Only Sun in the Sky Knows How I Feel – (A Lucid Dream)” at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) in Cape Town, South Africa, closes at the end of this month. The exhibition features new works by Phokela and surveys the last three decades of his artistic output. The museum offers an audio tour and a gallery one as well.

The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis hosted an exhibition on the work of Amy Sherald in 2018. Perhaps best known for her portrait of Michelle Obama, which is displayed in the National Portrait Gallery, Sherald paints portraits of Black Americans whom she encounters in her everyday routine (while grocery shopping or going to the movies) in vivid and lush realism. The show was supported by an audio conversation with the artist, a gallery guide, and an artist talk. See even more of Sherald's work at Hauser & Wirth.

Held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, “Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry” opened in 2017 and featured 10 works by Vermeer and 60+ by others painting at the same time including Gerard ter Borch, Gerrit Dou, and Pieter de Hooch. Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., the museum's curator of northern baroque paintings, offered a lecture about how the painters knew and admired each other’s work and how they were influenced by one another. There is an exhibition book, and a visual archive of the display.

Even more accessible to those with a library or personal subscription are the NYT's gallery of "Close Read" pieces on artworks. Each visually immersive article offers a chance to understand a work of art from both an artistic and a social or historical context. These are pieces that educate and delight.