Can an artist simultaneously celebrate and critique pop culture? Those familiar with the incredibly varied work of Richard Prince have seen appropriation, pop culture, and cultural criticism battle it out over the span of his 30-year career. His medium of expression varies greatly, from recreating photography, paintings, reprints of comics, and even collecting clay auto-body molds. The duality of his work is evident in his 1980s photographic recreations of the Marlboro advertising campaign, which celebrates the iconic image of the cowboy and Western landscape, while drawing attention to the hypocrisy that such an image would be used to advertise an addictive, unhealthy vice. His Nurses, inspired by the covers of pulp-fiction hospital romance novel covers, are both alluring and unsettling. Also, regardless of where his aesthetic inspiration takes him, each series of work explores concepts of artistic ownership, as he recreates and sometimes simply reprints photography, imitating iconic corporate symbols, or reprinting text or quotes from writers. Prince forces the viewer to reconsider context, drawing attention to the irony of pop culture, while bringing what is normally left unsaid to the forefront. After Hours Preview Party features food, film screenings of Rendezvous and The Honeymoon Killers, a text-based art activity, and music by Skoal Kodiak for $35 from 9 p.m. to midnight Friday, March 21. — Jessica Armbruster

It's hard to explain the suburbs to someone who has never lived in one. Like an exclusive fraternity, the 'burbs are full of cultural tics that influence our culture, political climate, and society in ways we might not even realize. The Walker's "Worlds Away" explores the split personality of the suburbs; how they can be simultaneously hailed as a utopian realization of family values and the American dream, and criticized for being an intestinal tract, shitting out conformity and homogeneity. In this group show featuring 30 artists and architects, works include colorful photography: a man mowing a dead lawn, a woman proudly standing in front of her McMansion in a silk robe, as well as architectural designs proposing the dawn of a new suburban aesthetic. The Walker After Hours Preview Party promises to be far more fun than a soccer-mom ice-cream social thanks to music by the appropriately named Alpha Consumer, and DJ Glen Leslie, and a screening of Jonathan Kaplan's Over the Edge (1979), a flick about a planned community and the teen hooligans who act out against it. Just don't try to make small talk about your sprinkler system or new SUV. The opening party is $35 from 9 p.m. to midnight on Friday, February 15. — Jessica Armbruster

Though August Sander's photography runs the gamut from nature to architecture to street performance, he is easily best known for his portraits, including his epic series, "People of the 20th Century." The extensive project of documenting German society began in the 1920s, growing to over 600 portraits of individuals who hailed mainly from the Cologne region. Subjects spanned the full spectrum, including wealthy politicians, homeless artists, farmers, housewives, children, and others. Sander sought objectivity in his photography, striving "to see things as they are and not as they should or could be." Perhaps this is why his work was banned by the Nazis in the 1930s; his frank and matter-of-fact photography captured a diverse, cosmopolitan, and culturally rich country, which conflicted with the Aryan ideology. Though Sander passed in 1964, his work carries on today with his grandson Gerhard, and his influence can be seen in the work of many later photographers, including Diane Arbus and Richard Avedon. The Weinstein Gallery will feature 23 large-format images from original negatives from his collection. Opening reception 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Friday, February 22. — Jessica Armbruster

The Arizona/Mexico border is a wild, controversial, and sometimes dangerous place; particularly for a young girl following in the footsteps of her immigrant parents. The two-time Ivey award-winning troupe Off-Leash Area tells her story through movement, ritual, and puppetry, along with a text by Anishinaabe playwright Marcie Rendon. Composer Ben Siems offers an original score that provides the haunting soundtrack for the Sonoran Desert where the heroine discovers her strength in the midst of the national, cultural, political, and personal influences that define the region. The experiences described in "Border Crossing" are the product of a recent research trip that included meetings with small-town Tucson snowbirds, Latino border patrolmen, and Native social workers, among others. — Caroline Palmer

Eugenics, the practice of changing the composition of a population through sterilization, or discouraging reproduction among people with "undesirable" traits and encouraging it among those with "desirable" traits, is an unsettling concept. But what "Deadly Medicine" shows about eugenics in Nazi Germany is downright terrifying. Organized and circulated by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the display demonstrates that eliminating non-Aryans or unwanted members of society from the German population was not and could not have been a solely military or government operation. It took the efforts and compliance of scientists, anthropologists, geneticists, and doctors to plan and execute a path toward eugenics, forced sterilization, and genocide. "Deadly Medicine" shows this tragedy of the rise of eugenics in Germany from before the Nazi regime to its peak through video of survivors, photographs, propaganda, and objects. Throughout the display's run, the Science Museum will host a lecture series with experts discussing the ideas "Deadly Medicine" presents. On April 10, Eva Kor, survivor of Dr. Josef Mengele's harsh experiments on twins at Auschwitz, will speak about her process of forgiveness. — Ben Palosaari

It turns out Lucille Ball's hair wasn't her only red trait. The FBI had a file outlining its suspicion that Ball was a scheming commie. This little-known nugget of America's history of terror and subversion is just one of hundreds displayed in this exhibit from the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., "The Enemy Within." Although the all-encompassing term "war on terror" has gained substantial popularity since 2001, administrations have been battling terroristic groups and individuals since the end of the American Revolution. A few prime examples include the 1919 bombing of Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer's home in response to his anticommunist raids, the explosion of the Munitions Depot in New York Harbor in 1916, and the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. In addition to these past terror threats, the exhibit identifies current hate groups functioning inside the U.S. today, and an eight-minute film, Under Siege (no, not the one starring Steven Segal fighting mercenaries on a Navy battleship, although that film would be fitting, too), analyzing current terror threats to America today. As part of the History Lounge series, this Tuesday at 7:00 p.m., author and Minnesota historian Annette Atkins and Minnesota Historical Society Curator Patrick Coleman will discuss how Minnesotans dealt with fear, terror, and government surveillance in the early part of the 20th century. — Ben Palosaari