Hyperallergic Spring 2025 New York Art Guide 

FUTURA 2000: BREAKING OUT

Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1040 Grand Concourse, Concourse Village, The Bronx
Through March 30

Titled after his 1980 subway car painting “Break,” this comprehensive retrospective traces the evolution of New York City-based artist Futura 2000’s five-decade career through sculptures, drawings, prints, collaborative works, archival ephemera, and site-specific installations that span early graffiti art to contemporary abstraction.

Robert Frank’s Scrapbook Footage

Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
Spring 2025

Emerging only after Robert Frank’s death in 2019, previously unseen footage from between 1970 and 2006 documenting the artist’s observations of loved ones, collaborators, process, and international travel has been spliced together in a moving-image scrapbook in this exhibition.

Light: Rafaël Rozendaal

Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
Spring 2025

Rafaël Rozendaal’s small digital file commands a large audience at the Museum of Modern Art’s ground-floor lobby. An early fixture of web art, Rozendaal developed an autonomous website that algorithmically generates animations based on storyboard sketches he made on paper.

Beijing Stories: Liu Shiming and Lois Conner

Liu Shiming Art Foundation, 15 East 40th Street, 5th Floor, Murray Hill, Manhattan
Through March 21

After graduating from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, Chinese sculptor Liu Shiming decamped to the countryside. Rural folk traditions and the changing landscape of the capital city — where he eventually returned and remained until his death in 2010 — infuse his rough-hewn sculptures. This exhibition pairs these works with the black-and-white photographs of Lois Conner, who captured the city from a different, often aerial, vantage during the same period.

Black Dress II: Homage

Pratt Manhattan Gallery, 144 West 14th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Through March 22

In 2014, Pratt Manhattan Gallery showed the work of 10 emerging Black fashion designers, including such visionaries as Carrie Mae Weems and Tracy Reese. Since then, the exhibition has expanded into a website, a YouTube channel, and a lecture series. Black Dress II both continues and pays homage to that effort, bringing together work across mediums to highlight not just designers but also tailors, models, hair and makeup artists, and others — and the community and sociopolitical factors that shape their work.

ASMA: Ideal Space for Music

SculptureCenter, 44–19 Purves Street, Long Island City, Queens
Through March 24

ASMA’s immersive exhibition at SculptureCenter, composed of aluminum sculptures, canvas compositions, and eerie characters constructed from silicon, resin, bronze, steel, and glass, explores concepts of disintegration, contamination, and desire. It marks the Mexico City-based artist duo’s inaugural United States institutional exhibition.

Embracing the Parallax: Berenice Abbott and Elizabeth McCausland

Heckscher Museum of Art, 2 Prime Avenue Huntington, New York
Through March 30

Nearly two dozen gelatin silver prints by photographer Berenice Abbott are presented in dialogue with the writings of her lifelong partner, art critic Elizabeth McCausland, offering new insight into the pair’s three-decade intellectual and romantic relationship. As part of the Heckscher’s 2025 Pride initiative, Embracing the Parallax examines the power dynamics of visibility and invisibility, and how documentary photography can generate conversation and foster civil responsibility.

American Artist: Shaper of God

Pioneer Works, 159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
Through April 13

Inspired by the life and work of the late science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler, this exhibition pairs archival materials with video performances, installations, and sculptural works that build on biographical parallels between the author and American Artist. An accompanying monograph and related programming series further delve into Butler’s creative output, as well as contemporary science fiction, and Afrofuturism.

Pets and the City

New York Historical, 170 Central Park West, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Through April 20

Victorian-era portraits of children and kittens, paw-shaped political campaign signage, and early 20th-century photographs of New Yorkers and their four-legged friends come together in a charmingly quirky exhibition tracing 250 years of the city’s visual history through its human and animal residents.

Fashioning Wonder: A Cabinet of Curiosities

The Museum at FIT, 227 West 27th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Through April 20

The cabinet of curiosity, a 17th-century precursor to the modern museum, often included not only specimens, artworks, and artifacts but also clothing. This exhibition provides the first in-depth exploration of the intersection between these encyclopedic cabinets, fashion, and colonialism, featuring earrings evoking scientific specimens, an umbrella with a music box as a handle, and other garments of wonder.

Fern Apfel: Letters Home

Wassaic Project, 37 Furnace Bank Road, Wassaic, New York
Through April 27

Hudson Valley artist Fern Apfel’s unique spin on the “life” in “still life” involves referencing old handwritten letters sourced from all over the world. Her bright, minimalist acrylic compositions call attention to the art of snail mail — its devotion, aesthetics, and timeless conversations.

Winter Workspace

Wave Hill, 4900 Independence Avenue, The Bronx
Through April 27

Across the late winter and early spring, Wave Hill offers eight-week sessions for local artists to develop art inspired by the ecology of this sylvan oasis. On Sundays and during Open Studios, this year’s cohort will be sharing their works-in-progress, from the thick impasto figuration of Ye Zhu to the rustic assemblages of sTo Len. It’s a welcome reprieve from some of the too-slick white cubes you might find downtown. 

Tatlin: Kyiv

The Ukrainian Museum, 222 East 6th Street, Manhattan
Through April 27

The Ukrainian Museum’s first exhibition focused on the pioneering Constructivist artist Vladimir Tatlin includes a recreation of his Kyiv studio and a presentation of his late-1920s illustration and design work, alongside sculpture, film, and photography by his students at the Kyiv Institute of Art.

Ellen Kozak and Scott D. Miller: River-Rising

Hunterdon Art Museum, 7 Lower Center Street, Clinton, New Jersey
Through May 4

In the artists’ immersive four-channel video installation, the surfaces of the Garonne River in France, the Bilbao Estuary, the Hudson River, and the Venice Lagoon ripple asynchronously to a musical score intended to evoke a sense of deep unease regarding humanity’s continued assault on our waterways.

To Conjure: New Archives in Recent Photography

International Center for Photography, 84 Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Through May 5

In this group exhibition, artists Widline Cadet, Koyoltzintli, Tarrah Krajnak, Shala Miller, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Keisha Scarville, and Sasha Wortzel deploy histories of the American South, Caribbean, and Central and South America to redefine archives as not just keepers of the past, but tools to lay the framework for our future. 

Weegee: Society of the Spectacle

International Center for Photography, 84 Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Through May 5 

Drawn primarily from ICP’s vast collection of Weegee’s photography archives, this exhibition presents the two sides of the gritty photojournalist’s practice, as he critiqued and satirized celebrity and popular culture while capturing the spectacle of New York City’s crime scenes and the raw reality of life in the city.

Yehwan Song: Are We Still (Surfing)? 

Pioneer Works, 159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
Through May 11 

Anyone disenchanted with daily doomscrolling on the same five websites might find reprieve in Yehwan Song’s web-based practice. Rejecting hostile, anti-user website interfaces that employ algorithmic performances for corporate interests and surveillance technology, Song’s exhibition reinforces digital agency through projections, kinetic sculptures, and references to water and its influence on the foundational internet lexicon.

John Zorn: Hermetic Cartography at The Drawing Center

Drawing Center, 35 Wooster Street, Soho, Manhattan
Through May 11

The Drawing Center takes an intimate peek into the interior life of avant-garde musician John Zorn in this exhibition of his visual art. Zorn’s works on paper, including musical scores and bold abstract ink creations, are accompanied by a monthly series of concerts held inside the exhibition.

Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Through May 11

For the famed Romanticist’s first comprehensive survey in the United States, some 75 of his works, ranging from completed paintings and drawings to working sketches, are assembled at The Met. The show is a profound investigation of Friedrich’s desire to evoke a sense of deep introspection and an emotional response to the natural world. 

Democratizing Prints: The JoAnn Edinburg Pinkowitz Gift

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Through May 13

This quarterly rotation of viewable prints from The Met’s collection shows selections from a recent gift of hundreds of 20th-century works of Mexican printmaking. Many of the featured artists worked in collaboration with the Taller de Gráfica Popular (Workshop of Popular Graphic Art), a Mexico City art collective founded in 1937 that distributed thousands of prints for leftist causes.

Beatriz Cortez x rafa esparza: Earth and Cosmos 

Americas Society, 680 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Through May 17

Artists Beatriz Cortez and rafa esparza imagine ancient artifacts flying through time and space in this exhibition. esparza, for instance, shows a monument that recalls an Olmec head at the edge of a wormhole, while Cortez explores the ways that people and objects move across land through steel sculptures that suggest looted objects.

Martha Diamond: Deep Time

Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 258 Main Street, Ridgefield, Connecticut
Through May 18

The late Martha Diamond called critic Peter Schjeldahl a friend; rubbed shoulders with artists of the New York School, including Ted Berrigan and Joe Brainard; and lived and worked at the center of the city’s art scene in a loft on the Bowery. Yet somehow, she’s still underregarded. This exhibition places her back in the center of the art world, tracing her career from 1973 to 2009 through paintings, works on paper, and monotypes that capture the ever-changing vistas and tempers of the city. 

Read the review by John Yau here.

The Book of Marvels: Imagining the Medieval World

The Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue, Murray Hill, Manhattan
Through May 25

The Morgan brings to life a trove of medieval beliefs about the world by reuniting two of the few remaining copies of The Book of Marvels. Written by an unknown author in France in the 15th century, it chronicles regions around the world and their inhabitants through received, sometimes inaccurate, knowledge. The exhibition also includes additional objects that illustrate these conceptions, including a manuscript by Marco Polo.

Robert Graham Carter: The Art of Reflection

Heckscher Museum of Art, 2 Prime Avenue, Huntington, New York
Through May 25

The Heckscher Museum of Art delves into the 60-year career of mixed media artist Robert Graham Carter. Shown in Long Island, where Carter has lived since the ’60s, teaching art for more than 50 years, the exhibition presents works related to the legacy of segregation, Black spirituality, and the joy of family.

Neue Sachlichkeit / New Objectivity

Neue Galerie New York, 1048 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Feb. 20–May 26

This exhibition presents two philosophies of the post-World War I New Objectivity movement side-by-side via paintings, sculpture, film, photography, decorative art, and more by artists including Marcel Breuer, Otto Dix, and George Grosz. While both camps turned away from Expressionism toward more objective depictions of the real world, the Classicists prioritized beauty while the Verists emphasized sharp political commentary on Weimar Republic society.

Real Clothes, Real Lives: 200 Years of What Women Wore, the Smith College Historic Clothing Collection

New York Historical, 170 Central Park West, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Through June 22

Drawn from Smith College’s Historic Clothing Collection, this exhibition surveys the rarely seen textile history of ordinary people. Tattered dresses, fast food chain uniforms, mini skirts, and modern suits attest to both the women who wore them and the changes in societal roles over the last two centuries.

Roberto Lugo / Orange and Black

Princeton University Art Museum, Art@Bainbridge, 158 Nassau Street, Princeton, New Jersey
Through July 6

Ancient Greek pottery gets a second life in the work of Puerto Rican artist Roberto Lugo. He swaps heroes in battle with Jackie Robinson up to bat, chronicles the Central Park Five case, and illustrates a Selena Quintanilla concert, narrating scenes of both persecution and community. The same ancient vessels that inspired him will be on view alongside his pottery, bringing this inventive show full circle.

Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night

Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street, Meatpacking District, Manhattan
Through July 6

Artist Christine Sun Kim shaves language down to its bones, upending the visual lexicon of infographics to transcribe Deaf experiences in a world of exclusionary norms. This show surveys over a decade’s worth of her incisive drawings, videos, and sculptures, from her Degrees of Deaf Rage (2018) drawings to her 2024 mural playing on musical notation, “Ghost(ed) Notes.”

Young Joon Kwak: RESISTERHOOD

Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, 26 Wooster Street, Soho, Manhattan
Through July 27

Young Joon Kwak casts, molds, and metamorphosizes the bodies of her loved ones into glittering sculptures. In this show at the only American museum dedicated to LGBTQIA+ artists, Kwak asserts forms of queer and trans resistance that relish in transformation and contradiction with new sculptures, videos, and bold neon pieces.

Above Ground: Art from the Martin Wong Graffiti Collection

Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Through Aug. 10

The 1970s saw the golden age of graffiti in New York, much of it both physically and culturally underground. Above Ground tracks the transition from the underbelly of the city to the center of the art world, drawn from the museum’s deep collection, donated by the late artist Martin Wong. These include big names such as Rammellzee, Lee Quiñones, and Futura 2000, who also has a solo show open through March at the Bronx Museum.

Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial 

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2 East 91st Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Through Aug. 10

For this blockbuster show exploring how design shapes the psychic landscape of spaces we call home, 25 site-specific installations moved into the design museum that was once the home of Andrew Carnegie. Making Home is fittingly organized by theme across floors, with highlights including a bold, eclectic dinner table by Nicole Crowder and Hadiya Williams and the biomorphic furniture of Liam Lee and Tommy Mishima.

Imperial Treasures: Chinese Ceramics of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties from the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection

Asia Society and Museum, 725 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Through Aug. 10

A seemingly familiar tradition is cast in a new light in this exhibition, which explores how Central and Southeast Asian influences left their mark on the ceramic of China’s Ming dynasty, which lasted between approximately the 14th and 17th centuries. Take a deep dive into the stories of these 25 exquisite plates and vessels.

Breakdown: The Promise of Decay

Staten Island Museum at Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden, 1000 Richmond Terrace, Building A, Randall Manor, Staten Island
Through Sept. 28

Concepts of waste, decay, and time find new meaning in this exploration of plastic pollution and its devastating consequences. The Staten Island Museum gathers contemporary artworks, objects in its collection, and lessons from scientific advancements to unearth the hidden yet crucial role that fungi and decompositional processes play in our planet’s life cycles.

Indigenous Identities: Here, Now & Always

Zimmerli Art Museum, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, New Jersey
Through Dec. 21

Curated by the renowned artist and activist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation), whom we lost this past January, Indigenous Identities is an expansive survey of contemporary Native art. With 97 living artists representing more than 74 Native nations and communities throughout North America presenting work across multiple media, this show is not to be missed.

Against Time: The Noguchi Museum 40th Anniversary Reinstallation

Noguchi Museum, 9-01 33rd Road, Astoria, Queens
Through Jan. 11, 2026

Four decades after its opening, the Noguchi Museum invites audiences to step back in time. This exhibition brings works from the museum’s original second-floor presentation back to the space, reimagining Isamu Noguchi’s vision for their installation based on archival images from 1985 to 1988.

Saya Woolfalk: Tumbling into Landscape

Newark Museum of Art, 49 Washington Street, Newark, New Jersey
Ongoing

Saya Woolfalk’s work often calls attention to the connection between body, soul, and the natural world. As an artist-in-residence at the Newark Museum, she embeds a new self-portrait in the idyllic, awe-inspiring landscapes of the institution’s selection of Hudson River School paintings to challenge the art movement’s complex legacy of erasure.

Jeffrey Veregge: Of Gods and Heroes

National Museum of the American Indian, 1 Bowling Green, Financial District, Manhattan
Ongoing

Jeffrey Veregge’s unique “Salish Geek” style, a hybridization of traditional Coast Salish artistry and comic book illustrations, gets an enormous display through two narrative murals at the National Museum of the American Indian’s New York location.

Avram Finkelstein, Something Terrible Has Happened (Corpus Fluxus)

Smack Mellon, 92 Plymouth Street, Dumbo, Brooklyn
Feb. 22–April 27

For artist, writer, and AIDS activist Avram Finkelstein’s first major exhibition of intimate artworks, Smack Mellon focuses on Finkelstein’s consideration of the body through the lenses of accessibility and disability. Also featured is a series of drawings referencing the artist’s experience of a psychiatric evaluation after attempting to come out as a teenager in 1967. 

Mie Yim: Spiked Garden

Smack Mellon, 92 Plymouth Street, Dumbo, Brooklyn
Feb. 22–April 27

Created during the COVID-19 quarantine, Mie Yim’s compact abstract pastel works continue the artist’s divergence from representational imagery and toward colorful, tonal, and gestural oddities that avoid the perils of overthinking. 

A Rose Is

Flag Art Foundation, 545 West 25th Street #9, Chelsea, Manhattan
Feb. 27–June 1

A marker of death, an offering of affection, a materialistic pursuit — the rose is dissected into a seemingly infinite number of meanings in this exhibition. Excerpts of poems, sculpture, and photography by artists including Farah Al Qasimi, Louise Bourgeois, and Robert Mapplethorpe show are included in this visual history of the beloved flower.

Recasting the Past: The Art of Chinese Bronzes, 1100–1900

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Feb. 28–Sept. 28

When Chinese archaeologists rediscovered ancient bronze vessels centuries ago, they spawned a renaissance that inexorably changed Chinese art. The bronze casting technique, originally used to create everyday items, was repurposed and applied to everything from incense burners to flower vases. These later objects were long perceived as inferior, but here, The Met seeks to redress the record.

Breaking the Mold: Brooklyn Museum at 200

Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Crown Heights, Brooklyn
Feb. 28–Feb. 22, 2026

A bicentennial celebration, Breaking the Mold comprises three sections focusing on different aspects of the museum’s collection: art and objects made in the borough and the land it sits on over three centuries; developmental acquisitions that put the institution on the map; and a selection of donated and gifted works of contemporary art.

(Re)Generations: Rina Banerjee, Byron Kim, and Howardena Pindell amid the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection

Asia Society and Museum, 725 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
March 4–Aug. 10

The Asia Society’s collection of “pre-modern Asian art” encompasses a wide range of cultures and traditions, so it’s only fitting that three contemporary artists — Rina Banerjee, Byron Kim, and Howardena Pindell — tackle it from different angles. Their artworks will be in conversation with ancient items from the collection in a kaleidoscopic exhibition, reinvigorating Asian art history and its many facets as a living, breathing organism.

Wish You Were Here: Guidebooks, Viewbooks, Photobooks, and Maps of New York City, 1807-1940

The Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan
March 6–May 10

This exhibition features more than 130 objects, including guidebooks, viewbooks, photobooks, maps, and pamphlets that document the growth and appeal of New York City during the 19th and early 20th centuries. A walk down memory lane for some and introduction for others, it presents the constant evolution of the Big Apple for residents and tourists alike.

Suellen Rocca

Matthew Marks Gallery, 523 West 24th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
March 7–April 19

This six-decade survey highlights the late Suellen Rocca’s unique visual language of playful graphics and patterning, and offbeat references to consumer culture and domesticity. These singular qualities made her stand out among the Hairy Who artists in Chicago’s storied 1960s art scene.

The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt

Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
March 7–Aug. 10

Traditionally read during Purim, the Book of Esther declares the holiday one of “sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor” to commemorate the salvation of the Jewish people. That spirit of generosity is on full view in this exhibition celebrating the influence of the Book on both Jewish and Christian communities in 17th-century Holland through works by Rembrandt and his contemporaries, including the Book in scroll form and paintings of its scenes.

Renée Green: The Equator Has Moved

Dia Beacon, 3 Beekman Street, Beacon, New York
Opens March 7

Multimedia artist Renée Green taps into the wellspring of 1960s–70s conceptual art strategies to trouble the boundaries between truth and fiction. Through new, reconnected, and archival works, Green deploys color, text, audio, materiality, and spatial configuration to analyze the notions of perception and landscape within the context of art history.

Kotobuki: Auspicious Celebrations of Japanese Art from New York Private Collections

Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street, Midtown East, Manhattan
March 13–May 11

This joyful multimedia exhibition, which includes painting, calligraphy, ceramics, and other art forms, approaches the auspicious notion of kotobuki, or celebration, across seven centuries of Japanese art history through a variety of significant cultural objects from important private collections in the New York City area.

Consuelo Kanaga: Catch the Spirit

Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn
March 14–Aug. 3

Consuelo Kanaga, an influential 20th-century American photojournalist, wanted to “catch the spirit” of her subjects. Her 60-year oeuvre sprawls across this retrospective, with around 200 films and images of the marginalized people whom she thoughtfully rendered in her work.

Abang-guard: Makibaka

Queens Museum, Grand Central Parkway and Van Wyck Expressway, Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens
March 16–Oct. 5

What does visibility mean for people in diaspora? Filipino artist duo Abang-guard (Maureen Catbagan and Jevijoe Vitug) explores the question through the topics of immigration and labor. For Makibaka, the artists reconfigure the 1964–65 New York World’s Fair pavilions for the Philippines and New York as an entry point to the history of Filipino-American labor.

Umber Majeed: J😊Y TECH

Queens Museum, Grand Central Parkway and Van Wyck Expressway, Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens
March 16–Oct. 5

Can the early days of the internet yield lessons for the future? Umber Majeed answers with a resounding “yes,” and then some. Her speculative universe reimagines the Pakistan Pavilion at the 1964–65 World’s Fair in New York and its intersections with South Asian diasporic life by leaning into bootleg, “digital kitsch,” augmented reality, and more.

Affordable Art Fair

March 19–23 | affordableartfair.com
Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan

As always, the Affordable Art Fair welcomes introductory and burgeoning collectors with all art offerings from local, domestic, and international galleries priced between $100 and $12,000. The fair’s third iteration of its fellowship program uplifts Nigerian artists Mayowa Nwadike and Asari Aibangbee, Barbadian artist Alanis Forde, and French painter Juliette Vaissière.

Jack Whitten: The Messenger

Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
March 23–Aug. 2

The late Jack Whitten refused categorization in favor of forging his own way through the 1960s New York art scene. The painter used distinctive techniques, making marks with materials such as Afro combs, saws, and squeegees. These and more examples of his enduring legacy will be on view in his first full retrospective, plus several pieces on public display for the first time.

Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
March 25–Aug. 17

Chinoiserie is to China as concepts of a plan is to an actual plan. This exhibition reimagines the European decorative style, inspired by Chinese porcelain and freighted with fantasies about an “exotic East,” through a feminist lens. It brings together almost 200 objects ranging from an 18th-century cup and saucer depicting ships and mermaids to South Korean contemporary artist Lee Bul’s anthropomorphic “Monster: Black” (1998–2011), an object that dares to stare back.

Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair

March 27–30 | brooklynprintfair.com
Powerhouse Arts, 322 3rd Avenue, Gowanus, Brooklyn

For its inaugural edition, the Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair will gather dozens of local and international exhibitors ranging from self-representing printmakers and book artists to academic printmaking departments. Visitors can attend demonstrations, walkthroughs, and panels, plus get a peek into Powerhouse Arts’s own commercial art prints studio.

IFPDA Print Fair 

March 27–30 | fineartprintfair.org
Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan

The International Fine Print Dealers Association’s Print Fair is the largest and oldest art fair devoted to printmaking. This year, over 75 specialized exhibitors will set up shop at the Park Avenue Armory.

Adriana Varejão: Don’t Forget, We Come From the Tropics

Hispanic Society Museum & Library, 3741 Broadway, Washington Heights, Manhattan
March 27–June 22

For this show, Brazilian artist Adriana Varejão debuts large-scale painted ceramic plates inspired by the Amazon Rainforest as part of her ongoing Plate series. The exhibition continues outside: Varejão will wrap a painted fiberglass anaconda around Anna Hyatt Huntington’s 1927 statue of Spanish military figure El Cid in a challenge to its themes of imperialism and human superiority over nature.

Take it home, for (__) shall not repeat the error.

Apexart, 291 Church Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
March 28–May 24

Named after an ambiguous translation of part of an epitaph in Japan’s Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, this group show contends with the United States’s development of the nuclear bomb. Beginning with uranium mining in the Congo and continuing on to the weapon of mass destruction’s nuclear waste footprint, the exhibition calls upon painting, drawing, animation, and more, to construct a linear narrative of the Manhattan Project.

Martin Beck: … for hours, days, or weeks at a time 

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 258 Main Street, Ridgefield, Connecticut
March 30–Oct. 5

Before rainy-day ambiance YouTube videos, there was Syntonic Research Inc. In the 1970s, the American label sold vinyl recordings of the natural world, intended to increase listeners’ efficiency at work and at home. Artist Martin Beck uses a range of mediums to explore this sonic series, considering how end goals of productivity — and even domination — are often couched in the language of self-care and comfort.

Amy Sherald: American Sublime

Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street, Meatpacking District, Manhattan
April 9–Aug. 10

The largest survey of Amy Sherald’s career travels from San Francisco to the Whitney this spring, including over 40 works from 2007 through today in Sherald’s signature grisaille portraiture style. In addition to the 2018 portrait of Michelle Obama that catapulted the artist into the spotlight, the survey includes her painting of Breonna Taylor as well as new and rarely seen works.

WORKING KNOWLEDGE: Shared Imaginings, New Futures 

The Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1040 Grand Concourse, The Bronx
April 11–July 6

An indoor garden ecosystem and an interactive chatbot are just two of the works populating this uniquely engaging show, which gathers artist-designed tools for change — and invites visitors to take them up. Eleven artists and collectives each present a participatory project reflecting a commitment to grassroots organizing, with the South Bronx community at its center.

The Roof Garden Commission: Jennie C. Jones, Ensemble

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
April 15–Oct. 19

The Met’s Roof Garden commissions are always striking visually, but what about sonically? With her outdoor sculptural installation Ensemble, artist Jennie C. Jones explores the relationship between stringed instruments and Modernism, looking to her interest in Black improvisation and avant-garde music.

Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
April 18–Jan. 18, 2026

Through an ever-expanding oeuvre of short films, collages, and multimedia painting, Rashid Johnson has considered Blackness, culture, and the making of art history for nearly three decades. This mid-career survey displays his body of work in the Guggenheim’s rotunda, from a sculptural stage for performances on the ground floor to a site-specific work on the top.

Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction

Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
April 20–Sept. 13

From basketry to painting, this exhibition weaves together approximately 150 objects and artworks that challenge the boundaries of textile as a form. It’s a star-studded show — the works of Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Anni Albers, and Hannah Höch offer invigorating encounters with canvas, paper, and linen — but there are quieter stunners, too, such as Ed Rossbach’s membranous synthetic raffia web.

The Photography Show presented by AIPAD

April 23–27 | aipad.com
Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan

Sixty-five galleries from around the globe will convene with book publishers and guest exhibitors for the world’s longest-running art fair dedicated exclusively to photography. Programming includes talks, walkthroughs, educational events, and the annual presentation of the AIPAD Award.

After Words: Visual and Experimental Poetry in Little Magazines and Small Presses, 1960-2025

Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan
April 23–July 26

Blue and red lines crisscross across a page like subway lines on a map, but the result is not a drawing. This “visual poem” by Robert Lax was part of a broader post-World War II movement, in which poets began to reimagine language as a visual medium rather than a lexical one. The Grolier Club will exhibit 150 publications of this experimental poetry, including works by Cecilia Vicuña and Tom Phillips.

Sargent and Paris

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
April 27–Aug. 3

John Singer Sargent’s “Madame X,” infamous at the time of its completion in 1884 for the sitter’s risqué dress, is in the spotlight once again in this exhibition exploring the artist’s decade studying in Paris. The show will delve into the process behind the pivotal portrait and, crucially, bring Sargent into conversation with the network of patrons, artists, writers, and other contemporaries he encountered abroad.

Spring Art Fairs

Frieze New York

May 7–11 | frieze.com
The Shed, 545 West 30th Street, Hudson Yards, Manhattan

Since its launch in 2012, Frieze New York has presented ambitious gallery lineups and themed presentations from solo artists and groups. This year’s iteration will see its return to The Shed with over 65 exhibitors, where visitors should be sure to stop by the Focus Section, which spotlights emerging artists and galleries and has a track record for showcasing some of the strongest presentations at the fair.

NADA New York

May 7–11 | newartdealers.org
548 West 22nd Street, Chelsea, Manhattan

The New Art Dealers Alliance’s fair is known for bringing younger galleries to the fore. Though already in its 11th year, the New York edition maintains a signature supportive community studded with small and midsized galleries.

Clio Art Fair

May 1–4, 8–11 | clioartfair.com
456 West Broadway, Soho, Manhattan

Held biannually, this self-described “anti-fair” is known for platforming artists without exclusive New York City gallery representation. Clio’s spring edition will take place over the course of two weekends and feature approximately 30 independent artists, who will present works running the gamut of both mediums and prices.

Independent Art Fair

May 8–11 | independenthq.com
Spring Studios, 50 Varick Street, Tribeca, Manhattan

Independent Art Fair celebrates its sweet 16 this year with 82 invite-only exhibitors and a new curatorial initiative focusing on artists who haven’t had more than one solo show in New York. Aptly dubbed Independent Debuts, 22 galleries will be participating in this section.

1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair

May 8–11 | 1-54.org
Halo, 28 Liberty Street, Financial District, Manhattan

The only art fair focused on work by African and diasporic makers, 1-54 has shifted to a Fidi venue for its select curation of over 40 galleries. Emerging, mid-career, and established artists will exhibit in this year’s edition, including Renée Stout, Ibrahim El-Salahi, Aïcha Snoussi, and Slimen Elkamel.

The Other Art Fair

May 8–11 | theotherartfair.com
ZeroSpace Brooklyn, 337–345 Butler Street, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn

Based in Brooklyn, the Other Art Fair stands out for its affordable entrance fees and inclusive ethos, built on a premise of accessibility. This year’s edition will feature over 100 independent artists with artworks priced as low as $100 or less, alongside a photobooth section where visitors can get their portrait taken by Anna Marie Tendler, artist and author of Men Have Called Her Crazy (2024).

TEFAF New York

May 9–13 | tefaf.com
Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan

The 11th edition of TEFAF will once again take place at the Park Avenue Armory, where a roster of 91 global exhibitors will present works including visual art, jewelry, antiquities, and design pieces. Alongside exhibitor booths, attendees can check out the fair’s historic period room displays.

Collection in Focus: Faith Ringgold

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
May 9–Sept. 14

In Faith Ringgold’s “Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach” (1988), a family gathers on a Harlem roof, the George Washington Bridge spanning the horizon line and Ringgold herself aloft in the starlit sky. The Guggenheim will pair Ringgold’s iconic quilt with related works, including pieces by those who inspired her, like Picasso, and those she in turn inspired, like Sanford Biggers.

Sean Scully: The Albee Barn, Montauk

Parrish Art Museum, 279 Montauk Highway, Water Mill, New York
May 11–Sept. 21

Recall an experience so impactful it colored the rest of your life. At the Parrish Art Museum in Long Island, you can see evidence of such a moment in the work of Sean Scully. In 1982, the artist stayed in Montauk for a single month for a residency; this survey showcases how that interplay of landscape and light inflected his abstract paintings for almost half a century after, right where it all began.

Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the Flowers

Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
May 11–Sept. 27

Never-before-seen botanical drawings by the beloved Hilma af Klint will showcase her signature gentleness in each leaf, stamen, and petal. The Swedish mystic artist believed that human truths could be found in the mute wonder of nature. Gazing into the carmine red of a barely blooming tulip supported by a fresh green stalk and bulbous root, you’d be hard-pressed not to believe her.

Iván Argote: Dinosaur

High Line at 30th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Through Spring 2026

Colombian artist Iván Argote reimagines New York City’s most polarizing bird on a massive scale for Chelsea’s elevated public park. Perched above 10th Avenue on a concrete plinth, this 2,000-pound, nearly 16-foot-tall hand-painted sculpture is both a humorous commemoration of the pigeon and a thought-provoking installation that raises questions about the transformation of urban landscapes and the historical narratives embedded in monuments.

Huma Bhabha: Before the End

Brooklyn Bridge Park (Public Art Fund), Pier 3 Greenway Terrace, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Brooklyn
Through March 9

In Brooklyn Bridge Park, four massive bronze sculptures with organic material for heads (bones, horseshoe crabs) and plinth-like torsos rise from the earth atop cement blocks. These sculptures are sphinx-like in their awe-inspiring inscrutability, and recall Assyrian reliefs scored out of rough earth. 

The Socrates Annual

Socrates Sculpture Park, 32-01 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, Queens
Through April 6

Since 2001, the Socrates Sculpture Park’s fellowship program has provided financial and technical support to up-and-coming artists to produce public projects for its yearly park-wide exhibition. This year’s cohort takes on the theme of invasive species through a range of associations, from spotted lanternflies to nationalist media propaganda.

Carmen Winant: My Mother and Eye

JCDecaux bus shelters across New York City (Public Art Fund)
Through April 6

Known for her meticulous photographic practice, which merges collage with installation, Carmen Winant presents 11 compositions documenting cross-country road trips, consisting of more than 1,200 film stills she and her mother took when they were teenagers. Fragmented timelines assembled from Super 8 and 35mm frames comprise the artist’s most personal work yet, to be displayed across 300 bus shelters spanning New York City, Boston, and Chicago.

Van Gogh: Painting with Flowers

New York Botanical Garden, 2900 Southern Boulevard, Bronx Park, The Bronx
May 24–Oct. 26

Forget those “immersive” van Gogh shows that only immerse viewers in projections. At the New York Botanical Garden, you can experience the revered painter’s artworks amid a botanical wonderland. Celebrate spring with recreations of van Gogh’s masterpieces composed of flowers — and pretend you’re actually there, in the blooming fields with the artist himself.