Costa Rica Art Exhibitions: What's On Now
w/c 1 June 2026
Costa Rica has a serious contemporary art scene, and it extends well beyond the country's landscapes. Artists here are working across installation, printmaking, textile and socially engaged practice — producing work that holds its own in an international context.
From San José independent art spaces to Guanacaste's galleries, Costa Rica's contemporary scene is more dispersed — and more active — than most visitors expect.
MÍRAME's select weekly listings are a guide to what's on across the country. Read below or in our current newsletter.
MÍRAME selected Costa Rican art exhibitions:
New this week
•Tienda Temporal | Arte, Cerámica, Satisfactory San José. OPENING 6 June, 1-6.30pm. On until 28 June.
Exhibitions ordered by closing date
•Entre lo Visible y lo Oculto: Poéticas de la Máscara (Between the Visible and the Hidden: Poetics of the Mask), Adrián Arguedas, Galería Rafa Fernández, San José. On until 13 June.
•Memoria topográfica. Revisión 1999–2026, Federico Herrero, Museum of Costa Rican Art, San José . On until 15 November 2026.
Currently on view (no published end date)
• Siempre estoy empezando muchas veces (I Am Always Beginning Many Times) & Hola oruga, mariposa goodbye (Hello Caterpillar, Butterfly Goodbye) deCERCA San José.
• Cuerpo y Permanencia, Francisco Zúñiga, Museum of Costa Rican Art, San José.
• Anamorfosis Pequeñas Fracturas, Emmanuel Rodríguez Chaves, abra.espacio, San José.
• Pieles (Skins), Ulises Rivera Lopez | Francisco Vazquez May, Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo de Costa Rica, San José.
•Tienda Temporal | Arte, Cerámica, Satisfactory San José. OPENING 6 June, 1-6.30pm. On until 28 June.
Satisfactory San José transforms into a temporary store this month, presenting five visual artists — Laura Astorga, Carlos Fernández, Verónica Navas, Sergio Rojas and Ulillo — in dialogue with eleven Costa Rican ceramic projects, among them Arila Cerámica, Marquito Barrito, Pez Cocinado and Caña Brava. The format is commercial — pieces are presented to be collected, acquired or gifted — making this one of the more accessible entry points into San José's contemporary craft and art scene this season. Worth a visit. Contact Satisfactory for more information.
Satisfactory San José is an independent, interdisciplinary art and residency space in Barrio Escalanate nieghbourhood.
Entre lo Visible y lo Oculto: Poéticas de la Máscara (Between the Visible and the Hidden: Poetics of the Mask), Galería Rafa Fernández, San José. On until 13 June.
Entre lo Visible y lo Oculto: Poéticas de la Máscara presents works by MÍRAME artist Adrián Arguedas from the permanent collection of the Museo de Arte Costarricense. The exhibition examines the mask as a cultural and political object — what it conceals, what it reveals, and what it says about identity.
On view at Galería Rafa Fernández until 13 June.
Memoria topográfica. Revisión 1999–2026, Federico Herrero, Museum of Costa Rican Art, San José . On until 15 November 2026.
One of Costa Rica's most internationally recognised painters, Federico Herrero won the Golden Lion at the 2001 Venice Biennale and has works in the permanent collection of the Guggenheim in New York.
A major retrospective spanning 27 years of work, this show occupies the MAC's Nave Central with more than 30 paintings on canvas alongside archival materials, an in-situ projection room, and an intervention on the museum's terrace. Works range from small to large format and were drawn largely from private Costa Rican collections, many appearing together in a museum context for the first time.
The conceptual thread is San José as creative laboratory as the urban, luminous, fragmentary environment that has shaped Federico Herrero's visual language.
Sponsored by BAC. Admission free through November.
Siempre estoy empezando muchas veces (I Am Always Beginning Many Times) & Hola oruga, mariposa goodbye (Hello Caterpillar, Butterfly Goodbye), deCERCA San José.
Two exhibitions open simultaneously at deCERCA San José this month to bid farewell to the gallery's San José space, which is closing its doors.
The first is a group show, including artists Nadya M. Aguilar, Javier Calvo, Paquita Cruz and Ignacio Quirós. The title is a phrase by Francisco Amighetti, and it speaks to the condition of perpetual beginning that defines artistic practice. The second is a solo presentation by Marcela Araya, Hola oruga, mariposa goodbye, an intimate body of work exploring transformation and threshold.
Definitely worth a visit. Contact deCERCA directly for more information.
Cuerpo y Permanencia, Francisco Zúñiga, Museum of Costa Rican Art, San José.
Room XIV of the Museum of Costa Rican Art in San José hosts a solo exhibition of Francisco Zúñiga, one of Costa Rica's most important artistic figures. The work on show investigates the monumentality and beauty of the human body.
Anamorfosis Pequeñas Fracturas, Emmanuel Rodríguez Chaves, abra.espacio, San José.
Rodríguez Chaves layers archival material, digital sources and painted intervention to examine how images construct — and distort — collective memory. Anamorfosis Pequeñas Fracturas is a focused and well-argued show at one of the more interesting of San José's independent art spaces.
Free admission. Contact abra.espacio directly for visiting hours.
Pieles (Skins), Ulises Rivera Lopez | Francisco Vazquez May, Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo de Costa Rica, San José.
An outdoor installation on the museum esplanade that works on the boundary between bioconstruction and contemporary art — earthen materials, bamboo framing, and a direct engagement with the urban site around it. Visible from outside the museum without requiring entry.
Please contact the museum directly for more information.
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