Wake up, New York — it’s that time of year again! Fall is almost here, that sweet spot between the summer slump and holiday slowdown, and with it rears the full force of the art world. Complain all we might about the weather getting colder and everything speeding up and the students packing the morning commute — there’s something enchanting about fall, something motivating about the rush. This season, the art world’s back with what feels like the strongest slate of shows in a minute (and not a New York one). We’ve recommended more than 80 exhibitions across all five boroughs for your fall art schedule.
First, some big museum re-openings: The Studio Museum in Harlem returns after a seven-year makeover, and the new New Museum debuts on the Bowery. It’s also the autumn of Rauschenberg: On the 100th anniversary of his birth, both the Guggenheim and the Museum of the City of New York are opening exhibitions. And in a bizarre coincidence, Mika Rottenberg and Lady Pink are both displaying public artworks depicting feet on the High Line and on the facade of MoMA PS1, respectively.
Why ever leave New York? Everyone swings by eventually. Case in point: Monet’s coming to the Brooklyn Museum, Renoir to the Morgan, and Ruth Asawa and Wifredo Lam to MoMA, just to name a few. Elsewhere, you can encounter architectural interventions by Duane Linklater at Dia Chelsea and Jeffrey Gibson at The Met’s facade. Throwbacks abound, from Sixties Surreal at the Whitney to centuries-old luxury liturgical objects at the Morgan. And, of course, there are the shows about New York itself. The Leslie-Lohman Museum is exhibiting photographs of David Wojnarowicz-as-Rimbaud’s peregrinations around the Lower East Side and other corners of the city in the ’70s, for one, while the New York Historical is celebrating the spirited queer performers of the Harlem Renaissance. We’ve even got a whole section on public art to see outdoors during that lovely mild autumn weather.
But that’s enough of a preview. Check out our full guide to the fall season below, and keep coming back. We hope it will serve as a resource you can return to again and again, hunting for just the right thing. Trust me: You’ll find it. —Lisa Yin Zhang, Associate Editor
Opening in September | October | November | Outdoors in the City
Now on View
Homage: Queer lineages on video
Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University, 615 West 129th Street, 6th Floor, Harlem, Manhattan
Through Oct. 19
Seven artists, including Carolyn Lazard and Rirkrit Tiravanija, interrogate queer identity politics, intergenerational kinship, and traditional forms of commemorative documentary in this exhibition. Eight video and film installations centering queer subjects in the Columbia University gallery range from a couple of minutes in runtime to more than 10 hours.
Read our review.
Nina Chanel Abney: San Juan Heal and Jacolby Satterwhite: An Eclectic Dance to the Music of Time
Lincoln Center, 10 Lincoln Center Plaza, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Through Oct. 21
Gracing the 65th Street facade of David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, Nina Chanel Abney’s vibrant patchwork commission “San Juan Heal” (2022) pays homage to a once-thriving primarily Black and Brown neighborhood that was demolished to make way for the arts complex. Inside, Jacolby Satterwhite’s sweeping digital video in the hall’s lobby reimagines a utopian city landscape built on equitable artistry.
Lorna Simpson: Source Notes
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Through Nov. 2
Lorna Simpson’s genre-bending paintings, interlaced with imagery from magazines and archival collections, take center stage in this landmark presentation spanning the last decade of her practice. Shown alongside a selection of Simpson’s sculptures and collages, these works plumb the politics of identity and visibility.
From the Bronx to the Battery: The Subway Sun
Poster House, 119 West 23rd Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Through Nov. 2
This exhibition shines a light on the history of the funny and informative mock newspaper The Subway Sun, which adorned the walls of New York City’s underground during the mid-20th century. Displayed in the museum’s foyer, 17 original posters revisit the artistry of the late cartoonists Fred Cooper and Amelia Opdyke Jones, who designed the periodical’s iconic two-toned graphics.
Read our feature here.
(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
Through Jan. 4, 2026
Three leading contemporary artists forge connections between intersecting historical periods, diverse cultural perspectives, and distinct Asian regions by putting their practices in conversation with a selection of ancient works and artifacts from the museum’s collection. The resulting exhibition redefines Asian art history by deconstructing and expanding pre-existing concepts of identity and cultural heritage.
Read our review.
Lisa Yuskavage: Drawings
Morgan Library and Museum, 225 Madison Avenue, Midtown, Manhattan
Through Jan. 4, 2026
Tender, exhibitionist, and sometimes uncanny female nudes can be seen across dozens of sketches, drawings, and studies in this exhibition by Philadelphia-born artist Lisa Yuskavage. The first extensive museum survey of her drawings, the show includes works from the 1990s through the present.
Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Through Jan. 18, 2026
Across his three-decade career, Rashid Johnson has constructed an erudite body of work that draws from history, literature, music, and philosophy, with a focus on the complexity of Black diasporic identities. Ninety works transforming the Guggenheim’s rotunda include spray-painted text pieces, paintings made of black soap, a piano, and sculptures comprising plants, shelves, video monitors, ceramics, and even books.
Read our review.
Umber Majeed: J😊Y TECH
Queens Museum, Grand Central Parkway and Van Wyck Expressway, Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens
Through Jan. 18, 2026
The Jackson Heights phone repair shop meets the museum in the work of Umber Majeed. Drawing on the institution’s history as a World’s Fair host, the visual language of Queens and its South Asian communities, and her uncle’s defunct travel agency, Majeed crafts a technologically innovative show exploring diasporic aesthetics. Visitors are invited to use their phones to access AR experiences that activate her drawings.
Read our review.
Shifting Landscapes
Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street, Meatpacking District, Manhattan
Through January 25, 2026
Some 120 works by more than 80 artists, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Martin Wong, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Ana Mendieta, and Gordon Matta-Clark, examine how political, ecological, and social forces influence artists’ representations of their environments. Organized thematically across the museum’s entire sixth floor, the show explores topics such as industrialization, geopolitical borders, ecofeminism, and alternative geographies.
The Magical City: George Morrison’s New York
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Through May 31, 2026
This exhibition celebrates the life and legacy of Ojibwe artist George Morrison, an influential leader in the American Abstract Expressionist movement, through its presentation of 35 paintings and drawings. Rooted in his time in New York, which he referred to as a “Magical City,” the show also introduces two of the museum’s recent acquisitions by Morrison.
Opening in September
Flora Yukhnovich’s Four Seasons
The Frick Collection, 1 East 70th Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Sept. 3–March 9, 2026
Millennial British painter Flora Yukhnovich reacts to 18th-century Rococo painter François Boucher’s Four Seasons series (1563–73) in this site-specific installation. Covering the walls of the newly reopened Frick Collection’s Cabinet Gallery, the artist will create an abstract mural meant to place Boucher’s series in dialogue with contemporary aesthetics.
Amazonia Açu
Americas Society, 680 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Sept. 3–April 18, 2026
The Americas Society presents a pluralistic image of the Amazon rainforest with multi-media works curated by representatives of each of the nine countries that encompass the vast jungle. Focusing on Indigenous knowledge, this exhibition seeks to dispel stereotypical portrayals of the region, replacing them with a nuanced perspective that highlights its multifaceted histories and communities.
Influence and Identity: Twentieth Century Portrait Photography from the Bank of America Collection
National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South, Gramercy Park, Manhattan
Sept. 5–Nov. 26
The National Art Club’s Italian Renaissance-meets-Victorian Gothic building in Gramercy Park presents more than 80 photos of iconic 20th-century figures, including Marilyn Monroe, Miles Davis, and Winston Churchill. One highlight is Yousuf Karsh’s 1956 photograph of Georgia O’Keeffe, in which the abstract artist cuts a sleek silhouette beneath a deer skull hanging on a wall, one hand wrapped around the gnarled tree trunk by her side.
Ministry: Reverend Joyce McDonald
Bronx Museum, 1040 Grand Concourse, Concourse, The Bronx
Sept. 6–Jan. 11, 2026
In this landmark show, over 75 sculptural works by activist and artist Reverend Joyce McDonald explore her battles with addiction, HIV, and her own ministry. Ordained by the Church of the Open Door in 2009, McDonald crafts small-scale ceramic sculptures that often depict scenes of embrace. The exhibition also includes archival materials delving into her family history and her decades-long membership in the arts and activism organization Visual AIDS, whose executive director, Kyle Croft, curated the show.
Press & Pull: Two Decades at the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop
James Gallery at CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, Murray Hill, Manhattan
Sept. 9–Nov. 14
The James Gallery looks back at more than 20 years of the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, whose namesake master printer and educator died in 2003. Prints by over 30 participating artists — including Chakaia Booker, Maren Hassinger, and the late Faith Ringgold — are on view alongside works by Blackburn, as well as archival materials chronicling the evolution of one of the country’s oldest collaborative printshops.
June Leaf: Shooting from the Heart
Grey Art Museum at New York University, 18 Cooper Square, East Village, Manhattan
Sept. 9–Dec. 13
Just over a year after the sculptor and painter June Leaf’s passing at the age of 94, the Grey Art Museum is hosting an exhibition that organizes the artist’s kinetic works around recurring themes. This show surveys Leaf’s figurative sculptures and paintings, which explore the feminine form, dissect the anatomy of the body in motion, and depict scenes of urban life.
Carried Over
International Studio and Curatorial Program, 1040 Metropolitan Avenue, East Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Sept. 9–Jan. 16, 2026
While the term “diaspora” connotes the dispersal of people from a particular point of origin, the title of this multi-media exhibition instead draws attention to the careful preservation of culture amid migration. In this group show, three African and Indigenous diasporic artists utilize materials and imagery “carried over” from their cultures to explore placemaking and resistance.
Hong Seon Jang: Minor Landscaping
Korea Society, 350 Madison Avenue, 24th Floor, Midtown, Manhattan
Sept. 10–Dec. 5
Inspired by industrial design, Hong Seon Jang’s sculptures subvert traditional notions of societal infrastructure. In one work on view in Minor Landscaping, Jang converts a police barricade into a seesaw-like structure, examining the relationship between power and subordination.
Dress, Dreams, and Desire: Fashion and Psychoanalysis
The Museum at FIT, 227 West 27th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Sept. 10–Jan. 4, 2026
Sigmund Freud is back! In this exhibition, the Museum at FIT examines 100 clothing items by the most recognizable names in fashion, including Gianni and Donatella Versace and Alexander McQueen, through a psychoanalytic lens. Curated by Valerie Steele, the show charts the evolution of fashion alongside the propagation of theories on sex, ego, and the unconscious.
Athi-Patra Ruga: Lord, I gotta keep on (movin’)
Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, 26 Wooster Street, Soho, Manhattan
Sept. 11–Jan. 18, 2026
At the world’s only LGBTQ+ art museum, South African artist Athi-Patra Ruga conjures a glittering vision of Azania, a queer Black matriarchy named after an ancient term for a part of southeastern Africa. His seamless use of textiles, glass, video, and other mediums renders this mythological society as a space of liberated possibility, peopled by femme figures from South African and global Black history — his grandmother among them.
Sing a New Song: The Psalms in Medieval Art and Life
Morgan Library and Museum, 225 Madison Avenue, Midtown, Manhattan
Sept. 12–Jan. 4, 2026
It’s impossible to count how many times humans have read, uttered, or sung the 150 sacred poems in the Hebrew Book of Psalms. This exhibition at the sumptuous Morgan Library takes a closer look at the role of Psalms in Medieval Europe, tracing their presence in glimmering illuminated manuscripts and everyday life, from childhood prayers to deathbed invocations.
Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries
Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street, Turtle Bay, Manhattan
Sept. 12–Jan. 11, 2026
Chiharu Shiota’s haunting, immersive red webs take on new significance in Two Home Countries, timed to the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. The Japanese-born, Berlin-based artist pairs earlier works with a site-specific installation to magnify the highly emotional experience of encountering her work, where personal and collective identities collide in the face of loss.
Duane Linklater: 12 + 2
Dia Chelsea, 537 West 22nd Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Sept. 12–Jan. 24, 2026
Omaskêko Cree artist Duane Linklater brilliantly scales up the 14 poles of a teepee to encompass the space of Dia Chelsea. The result is a poignant meditation on ecology comprising music, performances, samples of rock and soil, and sculptures honoring the wallowing of North American buffalo, which he says have “shaped, marked, and, in turn, regenerated the land from time immemorial.”
Robert Rauschenberg’s New York: Pictures from the Real World
Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue, Carnegie Hill, Manhattan
Sept. 12–March 22, 2026
Robert Rauschenberg may be synonymous with New York, but this exhibition proves that we still have much to learn from his revolutionary practice and relationship to the city. Soak in his spirited use of photography and found materials here, and then mark your calendar for the Guggenheim’s massive show opening in October, both staged on the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birthday.
The New York Sari
New York Historical, 170 Central Park West, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Sept. 12–April 26, 2026
An antidote to mango diaspora poetry (if you know, you know), this inventive show explores the intricacies of South Asian America through the sari. With archival photos, textiles, and works by artists including Chitra Ganesh, The New York Sari weaves a sorely needed critical timeline through the layered political, artistic, casteist, and cultural dimensions of a single garment.
Fia Backström: The Great Society
Queens Museum, Grand Central Parkway and Van Wyck Expressway, Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens
Sept. 13–Jan. 18, 2026
Rural communities in West Virginia, a woefully misrepresented region of the country, give powerful testimony through embroidery and photography in this exhibition. Artist Fia Backström spoke with activists, divinity scholars, and community members to inform her sensitive meditations on labor, environmental disaster, and the power of collective healing.
New Photography 2025: Lines of Belonging
Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
Sept. 14–Jan. 17, 2026
In an era of infinite scrolling, photography’s restraint can be a balm. Works by 13 artists and collectives in New Photography are just that. Featuring images from four cities — Kathmandu, New Orleans, Johannesburg, and Mexico City — this edition of the Museum of Modern Art’s recurring photography series invites us into scenes of community that defy societal constraints, a welcome offering now more than ever.
Man Ray: When Objects Dream
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Sept. 14–Feb. 1, 2026
Man Ray once characterized what he called “rayographs” — photos taken without a camera — as portraits of “when objects dream.” It’s this alluring description that guides The Met’s examination of the rayograph in the context of the artist’s earlier works. Around 160 paintings, photos, drawings, and paintings capture the breadth of his imaginative, path-breaking practice.
Data Consciousness: Reframing Blackness in Contemporary Print
Print Center New York, 535 West 24th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Sept. 18–Dec. 13
Over a century after W. E. B. Du Bois presented groundbreaking data visualizations of Black American society, five artists and collectives look to his infographics to explore Black creativity in an era of surveillance. This must-see constellation of work, whose title references Du Bois’s theory of double-consciousness, both engages with data and offers ways for Black artists to reclaim autonomy from constrictive technologies.
Coco Fusco: Tomorrow, I Will Become an Island
El Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Avenue, East Harlem, Manhattan
Sept. 18–Jan. 11, 2026
Coco Fusco’s long-overdue retrospective arrives in her hometown this fall, gathering highlights from her expansive practice that explores race, power, and imagery. Among her highly influential video works, photographs, and writings, visitors can encounter her iconic 1992–94 performance “Two Undiscovered Amerindians Discover the West,” a biting critique of colonial memory.
Mimosa Echard: Facial
Women’s History Museum: Grisette à l’enfer
Lu Yang: DOKU! DOKU! DOKU!: samsara.exe
Amant, 315 Maujer St, East Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Sept. 18–Feb. 15, 2026
Three exhibitions at Amant touch on everything from digital avatars and collaborative fashion to a meditation on Manhattan as a machine. Lu Yang shows three feature-length videos exploring reincarnation via a virtual doppelganger, and artist duo Women’s History Museum offers multimedia works on labor and femininity. Meanwhile, Mimosa Echard takes inspiration from Manhattan beauty salons to trace the currents of femininity through the urban landscape.
100 Works on Paper Benefit Exhibition 2025
Kentler International Drawing Space, 353 Van Brunt Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn
Sept. 20–Oct. 17
Established 35 years ago by artists Florence Neal and Scott Pfaffman, the Kentler International Drawing Space has stuck by its founding mission: supporting artists working in the medium at different stages of their career, while embracing expansive definitions of what a drawing can be. In this spirit, the center’s annual benefit show will include over 100 works ranging in technique and material, from chine collé and pastel on paper to Japanese mokuhanga.
Magdalena Dukiewicz and Caroline Garcia
Wave Hill Public Garden and Cultural Center, 4900 Independence Avenue, Riverdale, The Bronx
Sept. 20–Nov. 2
In this lush urban haven spanning 28 acres, two very different site-specific exhibitions engage with the surrounding environment. In the Sunroom, Caroline Garcia transforms her research on local native flora and Indigenous history into recycled plastic sculptures that reimagine Native tools crafted from organic elements. On the Sun Porch, Magdalena Dukiewicz will translate data on industrial land contamination and socioeconomic markers to build an interactive sound installation that invites reflection on humanity’s ecological footprint.
Witnessing Humanity: The Art of John Wilson
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Sept. 20–Feb. 8, 2026
Throughout his more than six-decade career drawing from 20th-century racial justice and labor movements, John Wilson represented Black people in ways that centered their autonomy, dignity, and splendor, seeking to redress the glaring absence of such depictions. The late artist’s largest exhibition to date will notably include maquettes and sketches for pivotal pieces, such as his 1986 bronze bust of Martin Luther King Jr. on view at the US Capitol.
The Future Was Then: The Changing Face of Fascist Italy
Poster House, 119 West 23rd Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Sept. 27–Feb. 22, 2026
In an ambitious show that couldn’t be more timely, Poster House examines the ambiguous boundaries between art and propaganda at the height of Italy’s fascist regime. Dozens of works on loan from the Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli in Bologna, which chronicles Italian visual culture from the early 1900s to the 1970s, illustrate how avant-garde aesthetics bled into state-sponsored advertising during Mussolini’s rise to power.
Read our feature here.
Will Beattie: Open Sky
UrbanGlass, 647 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
Sept. 24–Nov. 14
Technology is a prism through which perception shifts and refracts in Will Beattie’s multidimensional glass sculptures. Titled after French media theorist Paul Virilio’s 1997 critique of modern information, communication, and surveillance systems, this show presents a selection of the artist’s cast glass objects, which incorporate early audio mechanisms to create sensory experiences at the intersection of light and sound.
Sixties Surreal
Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort Street, Meatpacking District, Manhattan
Sept. 24–Jan. 19, 2026
More than 100 artists — including Diane Arbus, David Hammons, Yayoi Kusama, and Romare Bearden — are part of this survey, which resurrects the lesser-known erotic and fantastical undertones of American art between 1958 and 1972. The show argues that the groundwork for Surrealism in the 1960s was laid earlier in the century, as seismic sociopolitical shifts in the United States rendered real life uncanny.
An Ecology of Quilts: The Natural History of American Textiles
American Folk Art Museum, 2 Lincoln Square, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Sept. 26–March 1, 2026
An exquisite selection from the American Folk Art Museum’s collection of hundreds of quilts spanning the 18th to 20th centuries will trace an arc between quilting and the natural world. From the alchemy of dyeing techniques to the violent history of the cotton gin, this exhibition will plumb the environmental and sociopolitical complexities of one of our oldest and most enduring art forms.
In Our Time: Eleven Artists + W.E.B. Du Bois
Pratt Manhattan Gallery, 144 West 14th Street, West Village, Manhattan
Sept. 26–Dec. 20
A star-studded roster in this exhibition marks the 60th anniversary of historian and sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois’s death. Eleven artists — including Derrick Adams, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Theaster Gates, Julie Mehretu, and Mickalene Thomas — contribute photographs, sculptures, videos, installations, and more to build on Du Bois’s legacy in Pan-Africanism, women’s rights, environmental stewardship, and anti-nuclear advocacy.
Armando Guadalupe Cortés: Dead Parrot Radio
Smack Mellon, 92 Plymouth Street, Dumbo, Brooklyn
Sept. 27–Dec. 14
Armando Guadalupe Cortés’s large-scale installations explore spectatorship and performance, drawing on knowledge inherited from his native Mexico, wider Latin American cultural traditions, and experiences of migration and hybridity. His new work at Smack Mellon, a combination of sound and sculpture, will continue these inquiries with a focus on communication technologies.
11,000 Strings
Park Avenue Armory, 643 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Sept. 30–Oct. 7
Austrian composer Georg Friedrich Haas’s latest work dares to radically expand what an instrument can be. Described as a “concert installation,” this piece situates the audience at the center, encircled by 50 upright pianos tuned to minuscule increments as musicians from the Klangforum Wien orchestra plunge listeners into an experiential soundscape.
In The Wake of Blind Navigation: Boekie Woekie – Books by Artists
Center for Book Arts, 28 West 27th Street, 3rd Floor, Nomad, Manhattan
Sept. 30–Dec. 13
This show introduces American audiences to the work, legacy, and anarchist spirit of the Amsterdam-based independent bookshop Boekie Woekie, founded by a group of artists in 1986. With its sustainable self-publishing model, the celebrated store is a fresh reminder that a life outside the art market is still possible.
Opening in October
Jesse Mockrin
Merikokeb Berhanu
James Cohan, 48 Walker Street and 52 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
Oct. 9–Nov. 1
Across its two spaces on Walker Street, mere steps apart, James Cohan Gallery is showing artists who reward close looking. Los Angeles-based painter Jesse Mockrin’s portraits possess the cinematic luminosity and charming oddness of Mannerism, while Maryland-based painter Merikokeb Berhanu’s biomorphic paintings in lurid colors teem with detail and color.
Tatiana Arocha: Entre la Coca y el Oro
Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, 1000 Richmond Terrace, North Shore, Staten Island
Oct. 12–Jan. 11, 2026
The Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, a stately Greek Revival building on the campus of the historic Snug Harbor Cultural Center on Staten Island, brings us a show of work by Tatiana Arocha. It’s a fitting match: The New York-based artist probes the relationship between people and land through prints, drawings, fieldwork, photographs, plant-pressing, and more.
Nicole Eisenman
52 Walker, 52 Walker Street, Tribeca, Manhattan
Oct.–Jan. 30, 2026
Known for expressive figuration that explores the limits of human joy, anguish, and absurdity, Nicole Eisenman builds narratives that exude both humor and discomfort. In this solo exhibition, visitors will literally step inside the artist’s imagination, entering a room where an imagined story unravels via sculptures, video elements, and paintings, including new work and loans from public collections.
David Wojnarowicz: Arthur Rimbaud in New York
Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, 26 Wooster Street, Soho, Manhattan
Oct. 1–Jan. 18, 2026
There’s simply no way a show combining 20th-century American artist David Wojnarowicz with 19th-century French poet Arthur Rimbaud can be a dud. The two are deeply related — Rimbaud was an inspiration to Wojnarowicz, and they were both runaway teens dreaming of an artistic life amid volatile times. This show features photographs from the latter’s Arthur Rimbaud in New York series (1978–79), in which he posed around the city in a cut-out mask of the poet’s face.
In Practice: Nadim Choufi
In Practice: Coco Klockner
SculptureCenter, 44-19 Purves Street, Long Island City, Queens
Oct. 2–11 and Oct. 18–Dec.22
In Practice, SculptureCenter’s taste-making annual open call supporting emerging artists and curators, is back with two solo shows: Lebanese artist Nadim Choufi’s book/ exhibition/ experience, as well as Coco Klockner’s multimedia architectural inventions exploring trans identity.
To the Holy Sepulcher: Treasures from the Terra Sancta Museum
The Frick Collection, 1 East 70th Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Oct. 2–Jan. 5, 2026
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in East Jerusalem — built on what Christians believe to be the site of Jesus’s crucifixion, burial, and resurrection — is jam-packed with centuries-old liturgical objects made by Europe’s finest goldsmiths and artists. This is a rare chance for New Yorkers to get a taste of the priceless treasures stored within the ancient city’s walls.
Designing Motherhood: Things that Make and Break Our Births
Museum of Arts and Design, 2 Columbus Circle, Midtown, Manhattan
Oct. 4–March 15, 2026
This wide-ranging exhibition gathers 150 years’ worth of tools related to fertility, pregnancy, postpartum, parenthood, and reproductive health, all analyzed through the lens of design. Expect everything from vintage baby monitors and doula zines to a 19th-century vaginal speculum and a 1936 tampon.
Vaginal Davis: Magnificent Product
MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens
Oct. 9–March 2, 2026
A career-spanning tribute to queer icon Vaginal Davis, this show chronicles the prismatic work of the LA-born, Berlin-based performer, visual artist, author, filmmaker, musician, activist, and educator. After its run at MoMA PS1, the show will travel to Moderna Museet in Stockholm and Gropius Bau in Berlin.
Seydou Keïta: A Tactile Lens
Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Oct. 10–March 8, 2026
If you don’t yet know about late photographer Seydou Keïta’s portraits of everyday Malians in the capital city of Bamako, you’re in for a treat. Taken primarily in his studio in the mid-20th century, these exquisite photographs are sensitive, inventive, and timeless.
The Gay Harlem Renaissance
New York Historical, 170 Central Park West, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Oct. 10–March 8, 2026
Marking the centennial of the groundbreaking 1925 anthology The New Negro, edited by Alain Locke, this exhibition takes us on a historical tour of the beauty, hardships, and triumphs of Black queer life in Harlem in the 1920s and ’30s, including the thriving arts scenes of speakeasies and nightclubs.
Monet and Venice
Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Oct. 11–Feb. 1, 2026
Heads up — New York is getting its largest Monet exhibition in over 25 years! More than 100 paintings, watercolors, books, and pieces of ephemera come together to showcase the French painter’s elegiac vision of the historic city. The show is accompanied by sound pieces by Niles Luther, the Brooklyn Museum’s composer-in-residence.
Lower East Side Yearbook: A Living Archive
Abrons Art Center, 466 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Oct. 17–Jan. 4, 2026
Led by artist Destiny Mata, this “yearbook” is a living photographic archive of Manhattan’s ever-unique Lower East Side neighborhood, as seen by its public housing residents. It is at once a photography exhibition and a community-building project.
Voice of Space: UFOs and Paranormal Phenomena
The Drawing Center, 35 Wooster Street, Soho, Manhattan
Oct. 17–Feb. 1, 2026
Just in time for Halloween, an exhibition at the Drawing Center takes on the paranormal. Consisting of both historical and contemporary works, the show touches upon themes like religion, technology, and scientific (or possibly pseudoscientific) theories about spacetime. Featured artists include Noland Oswald Dennis, Isa Genzken, Howardena Pindell, Pope.L, and even René Magritte.
Renoir Drawings
The Morgan Library and Museum, 225 Madison Avenue, Midtown, Manhattan
Oct. 17–Feb. 8, 2026
Seeing a Renoir painting in person is a rare privilege, but it’s rarer still to spend time with his lesser-displayed drawings. The first of its kind in a century, this exhibition provides a glimpse into the creative process and artistic methods of the Impressionist master through 100 drawings, pastels, watercolors, prints, and more.
Carolina Paz
A.I.R. Gallery, 155 Plymouth Street, Dumbo, Brooklyn
Oct. 18–Nov. 16
For her first solo show in New York City, Brooklyn-based artist Carolina Paz presents small-scale paintings, a participatory installation, and a salon taking place at her nearby studio at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. One highlight of this show is “imagining spaces” (2025), in which visitors are invited to arrange 1,200 one-inch painted cubes. Taken together, the show is an invitation to sense, think, and create in relation to others.
Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective
Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
Oct. 19–Feb. 7, 2026
The first posthumous survey of iconic Japanese-American artist Ruth Asawa features around 300 artworks — not just those famous wire sculptures, but also bronze casts, drawings, prints, and public works. This exhibition demonstrates how deeply embedded art was in her life: She created every day, often using quotidian materials like paper. In the presence of such rich offerings of her work, her commitment to community and creativity comes to life.
Opening in November
New Humans: Memories of the Future
New Museum, 235 Bowery, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Opening this fall
This fall, the New Museum will reopen its expanded space — now over 60,000 square feet — with commissions by Klára Hosnedlová in the staircase and Tschabalala Self on the facade, plus this exhibition about what it means to be human amid world-shattering technological developments. Spanning the entire museum, notable contemporary artists in the show include Pierre Huyghe, Tau Lewis, Wangechi Mutu, Precious Okoyomon, Anicka Yi, and many others.
Ayoung Kim
MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens
Nov. 6–March 16, 2026
Ayoung Kim is a renowned figure in Korean art, having represented the nation in the 2015 Venice Biennale. Now, a major show consisting of video installations will take over the third-floor galleries of MoMA PS1. Using video game engineering, recorded footage, and generative AI, Kim makes work that is simultaneously speculative and grounded in real-world geopolitics.
Lotty Rosenfeld: Disobedient Spaces
Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University, 615 West 129th Street, 6th Floor, Harlem, Manhattan
Nov. 7–March 15, 2026
One of the most influential feminist artists of the last century gets her first solo retrospective in the United States at Columbia University’s art gallery. Highlights of the Chilean artist’s extensive career across printmaking, site-specific installation, and video encompass political works that challenged militarization under the Pinochet dictatorship, including a work in which she transformed road markings into crosses.
Gabriele Münter: Contours of a World
Solomon R. Guggenheim, 1071 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Nov. 7–April 26, 2026
When Gabriele Münter was growing up in Germany, the public schooling system excluded women. So, she forged her own path — so successfully that she became a founding member of the famed Blue Rider artist group. This exhibition spans the years 1908 to 1920 and ranges from abstract paintings to photographs. Together, these works chart not just Münter’s career but a critical chapter in German art history.
Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream
Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
Nov. 10–March 28, 2026
The late Afro-Cuban artist Wifredo Lam gets his most extensive retrospective in this show. With over 150 rarely exhibited artworks, the exhibition includes paintings, works on paper, and ceramics dating from the 1920s to the ’70s. Lam’s life spanned two world wars and multiple countries, including France, Spain, and Italy — and it shows in his cosmopolitan work, which melds European modernity, Caribbean aesthetic tradition, and African diasporic visual culture.
Tom Lloyd
Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 West 125th Street, Harlem, Manhattan
Nov. 15–winter
After seven years, the Studio Museum in Harlem is reopening with the work of late artist, activist, and educator Tom Lloyd. It’s fitting, as the institution’s first exhibition in 1968 was dedicated to the artist. The show explores his founding of the Store Front Museum in Queens, as well as his work with the Art Workers’ Coalition, formed to pressure New York City museums to institute economic and political changes. (Don’t those issues sound familiar?)
Stirring the Melting Pot: Photographs from The New York Historical Collection
New York Historical, 170 Central Park West, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Nov. 28–Mar. 29, 2026
The immigrant experience is often part and parcel of being a New Yorker. This exhibition draws on the vast collection of the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library to assemble photographs of the city’s immigrant communities over time. It coincides with a digital initiative inviting museumgoers across the country to share birthday wishes for our democracy, which would not be a democracy without immigrants.
Clearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass
National Museum of the American Indian, 1 Bowling Green, Financial District, Manhattan
Nov. 15–May 29, 2026
Glass art becomes a vessel for Indigenous stories in this exhibition, which traces around half a century of material history through more than 100 artworks by nearly 30 artists, including stained-glass portraits, experimental vases, and glass totems. One highlight is the work of Dale Chihuly, who founded the first glass program at Santa Fe’s Institute of American Indian Arts.
Outdoors in the City
Jennie C. Jones: Ensemble
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Roof Garden, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Through Oct. 19
Brooklyn-based artist Jennie C. Jones brings musical dynamism to The Met’s historic Roof Garden, the last commission before the space closes for renovation until 2030. Ensemble features a monumental Aeolian harp, trapezoidal zither, and leaning one-string, drawing inspiration from the materials and soundscape of the garden itself.
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Van Gogh’s Flowers
New York Botanical Garden, 2900 Southern Boulevard, Fordham, The Bronx
Through Oct. 26
Sculptures of radiant sunflowers and exquisite irises meet bold-colored botanical installations in this 250-acre celebration of Vincent van Gogh’s artistry. On select evenings, visitors can experience the exhibition under the glow of a kaleidoscopic drone display.
Turbulence 2025
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 990 Washington Avenue, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Through Oct. 26
Architect and artist Suchi Reddy invites visitors to walk through the mirrored passageways of her eight-foot-tall (~2.4-meter-tall) sculpture at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, located right next to the Brooklyn Museum. The sonic and visual installation fuses bioacoustic research and environmental consciousness to reimagine our emotional connection to nature.
Harlem Sculpture Gardens
West Harlem Art Fund and New York Artists Equity Association, various locations, Harlem, Manhattan
Through Oct. 30
Take an afternoon (or three) to explore this year’s Harlem Sculpture Gardens, but don’t let the name fool you. Rather than a standalone lawn, this initiative transforms existing parks across the historic neighborhood into a collective sculpture show, including over 25 works dotting places like Jackie Robinson Park and the Ralph Ellison Memorial in Riverside Park, where you can discover a work by the late American-Mexican artist Elizabeth Catlett.
Rest/Play
Governor’s Island Arts, various locations on Governor’s Island, Manhattan
Through Nov. 2
Governor’s Island — those 120 acres of open green space just a quick ferry ride from the tip of Manhattan — is home to an exhibition dedicated to rest and recreation, and goodness knows we need it. Works by Nina Chanel Abney, Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis, Arlene Shechet, and Hank Willis Thomas invite visitors to play, reflect, lounge, and explore.
Melissa Joseph: Tender
Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Through Nov. 2
Known for her labor-intensive works made from needle-felted wool, Brooklyn-based artist Melissa Joseph transforms the Brooklyn Museum’s outdoor plaza steps into a massive orange blanket, patterned with hexagons that offer portals into daily scenes of connection and community.
Thaddeus Mosley: Touching the Earth
City Hall Park (Public Art Fund), Broadway and Chambers Street, Financial District, Manhattan
Through Nov. 16
Modernist artistry meets West African maskmaking and jazz music in Thaddeus Mosley’s eight bronze sculptures interspersed throughout City Hall Park. Cast from abstract timber works the artist created between 1996 and 2021, the sculptures culminate in the large-scale archway “Gate III” (2022).
Lightscape: Winter Light Art Trail
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 990 Washington Avenue, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn
Nov. 21–Jan. 4, 2026
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden calls this annual display New York City’s “most dazzling light show,” and they might just have a case. The illuminated trails lead visitors through lit-up sculptures, site-specific music, and colorful projections. It’s a cozy and unusual way to enjoy a place best known for its verdant foliage in the warmer months.
Torkwase Dyson: Akua
Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 1 (Public Art Fund), 2 Furman Street, Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn
Through March 8, 2026
Recordings of conversations sourced from Black archives, natural ambient sounds, and electronic beats course through this multi-channel installation exploring the intersections of space, language, and memory. Located in Brooklyn Bridge Park and defined by crisscrossing monumental beams, “Akua” is the artist’s first major public soundscape in New York City.
Larry Bell: Improvisations in the Park
Madison Square Park, 11 Madison Avenue, Nomad, Manhattan
Sept. 30–March 15, 2026
Light and Space pioneer Larry Bell debuts his first public commission in New York with this piece, his largest outdoor work to date. Monumental cube sculptures and nested arrangements across six lawns play on opacity, reflection, and perspective to engage visitors with the surrounding environment, inviting us to observe the work’s evolution as it interacts with weather patterns, natural elements, and seasonal shifts.
The Socrates Annual 2025: Up/rooted
Socrates Sculpture Park, 32-01 Vernon Boulevard, Long Island City, Queens
Through April 6, 2026
The Socrates Annual is one of the yearly highlights of the New York City art scene. Set outside on the grass with one of the best views of the city behind it, the show is the culmination of an annual open call. This year’s artists — Natalia Nakazawa, Pioneers Go East Collective, Rowan Renee, Catherine Telford-Keogh, and Zipporah Camille Thompson — engage the theme of roots, both ecologically and socially.
Kinfolk: Portals of Remembrance
New York City AIDS Memorial, 76 Greenwich Avenue, Greenwich Village, Manhattan
Through April 30, 2026
The digital platform Kinfolk and the city’s AIDS Memorial come together to present this exhibition consisting of a trio of AR monuments by artists Derek Fordjour, Egyptt LaBeija, Tourmaline, and Jacolby Satterwhite. Satterwhite honors legendary musician Sylvester, while Fordjour meditates on the idea of the Black horse jockey. Together, these works reimagine commemoration in the digital age.
The High Line, 30th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Through May 2026
Argentinian artist Mika Rottenberg has installed a monumental pink foot on the High Line — and it’s also a sprinkler. A fantastic, if somewhat bizarre, and deeply surreal artwork to visit during those hotter fall days, the 10-foot-tall sculpture is bumpy and phallic, gross yet oddly charming; its red toenails, for instance, match the playful and grotesque mouths that adorn its shaft.
Molly Gochman: Monuments to Motherhood
Prospect Park Alliance, Grand Army Plaza entrance, Prospect Park, Brooklyn
Through May 10, 2026
If you’ve been to Prospect Park recently, you’ve almost certainly seen the bronze tangle that is Molly Gochman’s monument to caregivers of all kinds. Repurposing a material that often immortalizes men’s violence to honor mothering instead, Gochman’s soft loops feel as intimate as they are monumental. Approaching the sculpture is like walking toward an embrace.
Lady Pink: Foundations
MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens
Through June 26, 2026
Identifiable by her signature spray-paint tag “Pink,” Lady Pink rose to prominence as one of the most renowned women graffiti artists in New York City by the mid-1980s. In a mural depicting a monumental stone foot covered with street art, the Ecuadorian-born artist eulogizes a demolished building across the street from MoMA PS1 that once served as an incubator for New York street art.
Monira Al Qadiri: First Sun
Public Art Fund, Doris C. Freedman Plaza, Central Park, Manhattan
Sept. 3–Aug. 2, 2026
This painted aluminum sculpture by Monira Al Qadiri takes inspiration from the androgynous deity Khepri, the ancient Egyptian god of the rising sun. By reimagining the ancient hybrid human-scarab figure, the Senegalese-Kuwaiti sculptor invites us to question our own relationship with nature and gender.
Jeffrey Gibson: The Animal That Therefore I Am
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Sept. 12–June 9, 2026
Last year, Jeffrey Gibson became the first Native artist to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale. For this year’s facade commission at The Met, the artist brings his characteristically interdisciplinary spirit to four new figurative sculptures exploring the interplay of living beings and our environment.
The Modern Window: Pao Houa Her
Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street, Midtown, Manhattan
Through Fall 2026
Spotlighting the work of Laos-born Hmong photographer Pao Houa Her, this sidewalk-facing window installation uses multilayered imagery of seemingly idyllic poppies and a jungle landscape to grapple with the artist’s complex relationship with her homeland, which she and her family were forced to flee decades ago to evade government persecution.
