Spend a night (or day) at these Boston museums

It’s winter. It’s dark, it’s cold, it’s wet, it’s not a time to be outdoors. Thankfully life — and love, pain, magic, and chaos — are all blooming at exhibitions at our local museums.

“Sara Cwynar: Alphabet”

Now through Aug. 3, Institute of Contemporary Art

We’re living in a world of images. Facebook photos, Instagram snapshots, the 5,000 pictures everybody seems to have on their phone. Artist Sara Cwynar looks at the excess of images through a collage aesthetic influenced by design and advertising. For the ICA, Cwynar created a photo-based installation called Alphabet and a photo mural for the museum’s Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall. Maybe it’s a good time to stop looking at tiny digital photos and take in the big picture. icaboston.org

“The Great Learning” and “Virgo”

Now through July 27, List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge

Pedro Gómez-Egaña makes his U.S. museum debut with his largest ever solo exhibition. “The Great Learning” is a sonic and spatial composition — gallery “orchestrators” activate the work in real time for visitors to interact with. Anchoring the installation is “Virgo,” where set-like living spaces divided by walls provide a path for people to weave through the installation. It looks (and sounds) like nothing you’ve ever seen. listart.mit.edu

“Waters of the Abyss: An Intersection of Spirit and Freedom, Fabiola Jean-Louis”

Feb. 27 to May 25

Multi-disciplinary artist Fabiola Jean-Louis welcomes visitors to interact with the old and new, spiritual and earthly, macro and micro. For this, the Haitian artist has combined a wild and unlikely mix of mediums — paper pulp, stones, shells, metals, glass, and more. The works come together in an autobiographical blueprint, a holy space, and site of introspection across the Gardner’s three rotating exhibition galleries. gardnermuseum.org

“Van Gogh: The Roulin Family Portraits”

March 30 to Sept. 7, Museum of Fine Arts

Yes, this is more than a month away. Yes, we are already excited. During Van Gogh’s time in the south of France in 1888 and 1889, he painted portraits of his neighbors, the Roulins. The MFA will display the first exhibit dedicated to the Roulin portraits with a couple dozen of the portraits pulled from its collection and loads from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Museum of Modern Art in New York and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Beside the portraits, Dutch art and Japanese woodblock prints will show how past works influenced Van Gogh’s portrait style. mfa.org

“Laser Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon”

Friday and Saturdays, ongoing, Charles Hayden Planetarium

Need to just forget it all for the length of an LP? The Museum of Science feels you. Sit back, relax, and let your mind float downstream as you take in a landscape of light and sound set to Pink Floyd’s landmark album. It’s way more fun than listening to the album on earbuds on the T. mos.org.