“Please try to pay attention,” said the voice of the elder before switching back to his native Tlingit tongue.

The Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art in Manhattan, Kansas, hosts “Charles Lindsay: Field Station 4,” a spaced-out immersive installation that repurposes government surplus equipment into five funky multi-media sculptures.

Few creatures spark unconditional joy like the butterfly. One of its most regal and familiar species, the monarch, annually appears sailing along the stiff winds of the Great Plains. Their 3,000-mile migration route stretches from the fir forests of Michoacán, Mexico, all the way to Canada and back.

Bruce Hartman, an accomplished local museum director and collector, is helping Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, expand the canon of American art history. Hartman’s recent loans of exceptional, if little known, 20th-century Native American works from his personal collection have given Crystal Bridges’ Modern permanent collection galleries a refreshed look while showing the way forward for a more inclusive, nuanced picture of American Modernism.