Exhibitions in New York
May 2026
May 2026 at a glance: 24 exhibitions opened, 0 closed, and 37 more were on view across the city.
Opened in May
Fade1 MayThe Studio Museum in Harlem · Past
The sixth in the Studio Museum's landmark "F" series, this group show gathers seventeen artists of African descent exploring spirituality, surrealism and nonlinear time.
Friends Who Came to See Me: Drawings from John Ashbery's Collection1 MayThe Morgan Library & Museum
About twenty-five works on paper from poet John Ashbery's personal collection, including portraits and collaborations by his artist friends, 1945–2007.
Common Sense1 MayBrooklyn Museum
An exhibition that puts America's past in dialogue with its present.
Collections Spotlight, Summer 20265 MayThe Morgan Library & Museum
A rotating display in the historic library showcasing treasures from the Morgan's four curatorial departments, refreshed three times a year.
The Declaration of Independence: Rare Americana from the Collection5 MayThe Morgan Library & Museum
The rare Dunlap broadside of the Declaration of Independence shown alongside Revolutionary-era documents and artifacts from the Morgan's collection.
Jasper Johns: Copy/Trace7 MayDavid Zwirner · Free · Past
Curated by Jeffrey Weiss, this show of drawings and prints examines how Johns has used copying and tracing as representational methods across six decades.
Gerhard Richter: Landschaften7 MayDavid Zwirner · Free · Past
Richter's photorealist landscapes from the 1960s to the 2000s hang alongside his Abstract Paintings, tracing how representation and abstraction feed each other.
Statics of an Egg8 MayDavid Zwirner · Free · Past
A Tribeca group show uniting contemporary Japanese-born artists with their pioneering predecessors around gravity as physical force, psychological weight, and cultural motif.
Keisha Scarville: Where Salt Meets Black Water8 MayBrooklyn Museum · Free
In this site-specific installation, Keisha Scarville overlays portraits and still lifes onto abstract patterns, many sourced from garments owned by her late mother, Alma. Several images come from her series Mama's Clothes.
- Costume Art10 May
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Inaugurating the new Conde Nast Galleries, the Costume Institute pairs nearly 400 garments with paintings and sculpture to explore how art has depicted the dressed body.
- Eliza Douglas: GHOSTS12 May
Gagosian · Free · Past
New mixed-media paintings in Eliza Douglas's first solo New York exhibition, curated by Francesco Bonami, at Gagosian's Park & 75 space.
Set in Stone12 MayDavid Zwirner · Free · Past
A collaboration with Galerie Kugel pairing modern and contemporary art with antique hardstone objects, exploring translucency, luminosity, and color across millennia.
Firelei Báez. feet squelching on wet grass, nourished by uncertainty12 MayHauser & Wirth · Free · Past
Across two floors of the 22nd Street gallery, Firelei Báez shows new paintings, works on paper and large-scale bronzes extending her engagement with colonial legacies and the African diaspora.
Carol Rama. I See You You See Me12 MayHauser & Wirth · Free · Past
The gallery's first exhibition devoted to radical Italian artist Carol Rama (1918-2015), gathering key works in paint, textile, sculpture and bricolage made between 1947 and 1998.
Lisa Yuskavage14 MayDavid Zwirner · Free · Past
Yuskavage's tenth solo show with the gallery brings new paintings, works on paper, and her first collages, marking two decades since her 2006 debut here.
Paul Thek: Dream of Vanishing15 MayPace Gallery · Free · Past
Over fifty paintings, sculptures and drawings, including the Technological Reliquaries, survey Paul Thek's preoccupation with disappearance, erasure and the ephemeral, with rarely seen works.
Julian Schnabel: Italy Through Its Trees15 MayPace Gallery · Free · Past
Paintings on maps and plate paintings of Italy's umbrella pines open a new chapter in Schnabel's decades-long relationship with the country, drawing on two of his longest-running bodies of work.
David Hockney: The Moon Room15 MayPace Gallery · Free · Past
Fifteen iPad paintings from Hockney's Moon Room series, made in pandemic quarantine at his Normandy farmhouse in 2020, capture the moon's changing phases and nocturnal landscapes.
Emily Kam Kngwarray: The Turning Season15 MayPace Gallery · Free · Past
A career-spanning survey of the Anmatyerr artist's paintings and textiles from 1981 to 1995, following her 2025 Tate Modern retrospective, rooting abstraction in ancestral connection and ecology.
Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses16 MayBrooklyn Museum
North American debut of Dutch couturier Iris van Herpen, with 140+ sculptural haute couture creations shown alongside contemporary art, design, and natural history specimens.
- Goal Zone: Interactive Soccer Experience18 May
American Museum of Natural History
An all-ages interactive play space for testing soccer skills, part of the museum's World Cup, World Cultures series celebrating the science and community of sport.
- Creatures of Myth and Imagination: Europe and the Americas18 May
The Met Cloisters
Set in the medieval galleries of The Met Cloisters, this exhibition gathers over 50 works from Europe and the ancient Americas (500 to 1500 CE) exploring myth, hybrid creatures and the imagination.
- Impact: The End of the Age of Dinosaurs18 May
American Museum of Natural History
A before-and-after look at the asteroid strike that ended the age of dinosaurs 66 million years ago and reshaped life on Earth.
Hujar: Contact22 MayThe Morgan Library & Museum
Over 110 contact sheets and 20 enlargements trace photographer Peter Hujar's creative evolution from the 1950s through 1987.
Was on view in May
Sendak, Mozart, and The Magic Fluteto 28 JunThe Morgan Library & Museum · Past
Maurice Sendak's set and costume designs for Mozart's The Magic Flute, with preparatory sketches and watercolors from the 1980 Houston Grand Opera production.
Helen Frankenthaler: The Moment and the Distanceto 2 JulGagosian · Free · Past
Four decades of Helen Frankenthaler's pioneering Color Field paintings (1960–1992), with more than twenty of her largest and most ambitious canvases, on West 21st Street.
- Everyday Rebellions: Collection Conversationsto 5 Jul
Brooklyn Museum · Past
Inspired by Gloria Steinem, this Center for Feminist Art show pairs new acquisitions with rarely seen collection works by artists such as Beverly Semmes and Sarah Sze.
Life with P. — Philip Guston: Paintings and Drawings 1964–1978to 10 JulHauser & Wirth · Free · Past
At the new 18th Street editions space, intimate Guston paintings and 'Poem Pictures' reflecting on his marriage to poet Musa McKim, with three large figurative works never before exhibited.
The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Towerto 12 JulMuseum of Modern Art (MoMA) · Past
A focused show on Kisho Kurokawa's landmark 1972 Metabolist tower, centered on a fully restored capsule (A1305) alongside models, drawings, archival film, and tenant interviews tracing the building's 50-year history and 2022 demolition.
Giuseppe Penone: The Reflection of Bronzeto 17 JulGagosian · Free · Past
New sculptures by Italian Arte Povera master Giuseppe Penone exploring the character and possibilities of bronze, curated by Adam D. Weinberg, in the Chelsea gallery.
- Gothic by Design: The Dawn of Architectural Draftsmanshipto 19 Jul
The Metropolitan Museum of Art · Past
The first exhibition to study Gothic architectural drawings as art, with more than 90 drawings, prints, sculptures, and goldsmith works tracing how master masons visualized cathedrals.
- Allison Katz. Outta the Bagto 24 Jul
Hauser & Wirth · Free · Past
Allison Katz's first solo exhibition with the gallery in New York, at the Wooster Street space in SoHo, presenting new paintings by the Montreal-born, London-based artist.
Drawing Meaning: Trauma and Children's Art After 9/11to 31 JulNational September 11 Memorial & Museum · Past
A special exhibition exploring how young artists from around the world used art to process the trauma of 9/11 and to help heal themselves and others.
Carol Boveto 2 AugSolomon R. Guggenheim Museum · Past
The first museum survey of Carol Bove (b. 1971) fills Wright's spiral rotunda, tracing 25+ years of work from paperback-book assemblages and paper collages to towering, brightly painted steel sculptures.
Ruffles & Ribbons: Fashion Plates from the Time of Marie Antoinetteto 3 AugThe Frick Collection · Past
A Cabinet installation of 24 hand-colored engravings of late-18th-century French fashion from the Gallerie des modes, depicting garments worn under Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
Art of Noiseto 16 AugCooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum · Past
Organized with SFMOMA, this exhibition explores a century of design's relationship to music through concert posters, album art, phonographs, radios, digital players, and sound systems.
Devon Turnbull: HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3to 16 AugCooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum · Past
An immersive listening room by Brooklyn artist and audio engineer Devon Turnbull (OJAS), featuring handcrafted high-fidelity sound systems, daily playlists, and live operator sessions.
From Now: A Collection in Contextto 16 AugThe Studio Museum in Harlem · Past
An evolving display drawn from across the Studio Museum's collection, putting works from the 19th century to today in dialogue through themes that rotate over the year.
Homeroom: Red Canary Song: Touch the Heartto 17 AugMoMA PS1 · Free · Past
Queens collective Red Canary Song, led by migrant massage and sex workers across the Asian diaspora, presents dim sum dining tables, portraits, and still lifes on migration, care, and mutual aid.
Marcel Duchampto 22 AugMuseum of Modern Art (MoMA) · Past
The first North American Duchamp retrospective in over 50 years, gathering six decades of paintings, sculpture, readymades, film, and photography by the radical pioneer of conceptual art.
Hyundai Terrace Commission: Kelly Akashito 23 AugWhitney Museum of American Art · Past
Sculptor Kelly Akashi transforms the Whitney's open-air terrace with glass, bronze and stone works, including Monument (Altadena), a glass-brick response to losses from the 2025 Eaton Fire.
To Be A Placeto 30 AugThe Studio Museum in Harlem · Past
A visual timeline of documents, media and ephemera tracing the Studio Museum's nearly sixty-year history, from its first Fifth Avenue loft to its new home on 125th Street.
New Humans: Memories of the Futureto 31 AugNew Museum · Past
The reopening's museum-wide show gathers more than 200 artists, writers and scientists to trace a century of art reckoning with what it means to be human amid sweeping technological change.
Greater New York 2026to 7 SeptMoMA PS1 · Free · Past
MoMA PS1's signature survey of NYC-area artists, in its sixth edition for the institution's 50th anniversary. The main run closed August 17; select galleries continue on view as an extended partial view through September 7, 2026.
Frida and Diego: The Last Dreamto 12 SeptMuseum of Modern Art (MoMA)
A focused look at MoMA's Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera holdings, with six Kahlo paintings plus over a dozen Rivera works, mounted alongside the Met Opera's premiere of El Ultimo Sueno de Frida y Diego.
Shaping the Future Through Traditionto 13 SeptAmerican Museum of Natural History
Curated by filmmaker Michael Bourquin of Iskut First Nation, featuring multimedia works by Indigenous artists.
Marcel Duchampto 26 SeptGagosian · Free
A landmark gathering of Marcel Duchamp's revolutionary readymades, the everyday objects he declared art and that upended the 20th century, on Madison Avenue.
Robert Rauschenberg: Important Early Works from the Cy Twombly Foundationto 26 SeptGagosian · Free
Six important early works by Robert Rauschenberg from the Cy Twombly Foundation, including pieces from his Black Painting, Elemental Sculpture, and Combine series, shown alongside the Duchamp exhibition marking the Rauschenberg centennial.
Made in America: The Industrial Photography of Christopher Payneto 27 SeptCooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
More than 70 large-format photographs by Christopher Payne documenting American factories and craft, from musical instruments and flags to semiconductors and aerospace components.
Peggy Weil: Core Memoryto 4 OctMuseum of Modern Art (MoMA)
Two of Peggy Weil's immersive underscapes, 88 Cores and 18 Cores, visualize Earth's deep climatic history on the 24-foot screen in MoMA's lobby.
Whitney Biennial 2026to 12 OctWhitney Museum of American Art
The 82nd edition of the Whitney's landmark survey of contemporary American art, gathering fifty-six artists, duos and collectives exploring interspecies kinship, geopolitics, technology and precarious ecologies.
Andy Warhol Family Albumto 19 OctWhitney Museum of American Art
A collection of Polaroid photographs Andy Warhol shot in 1972–73, drawn from the personal "family albums" he kept documenting collaborators, celebrities, friends and daily life.
Luminous Colorto 8 NovThe Morgan Library & Museum
Nineteenth-century oil sketches from the Thaw Collection exploring how artists captured light and luminosity through color.
David Byrne: Stairwell Drawingsto 31 DecPace Gallery · Free
Nine life-size drawings by Talking Heads' David Byrne line the stairwell landings between the flagship's first and seventh floors, reflecting his surreal, playful sensibility.
Collection in Focus: Modern European Currentsto 10 JanSolomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Early 20th-century European avant-garde painting drawn from the collection, with works by Kandinsky, Goncharova, Franz Marc and others who reimagined painting for a rapidly changing world.
David Lamelas: The Machineto 16 JanDia Chelsea · Free
A comprehensive survey of Argentine Conceptual artist David Lamelas, tracing his work from 1965 to today across film, sculpture and performance, unfolding as exhibition, film program and live work.
Breaking the Mold: Brooklyn Museum at 200to 7 FebBrooklyn Museum
Three chapters of longtime favorites and new standouts, bringing fresh narratives to the fore while exploring the collection's history and future evolution. Marks the Museum's bicentennial.
Kapwani Kiwanga: BLEEDto 1 AprThe Studio Museum in Harlem
A site-specific installation by Kapwani Kiwanga reworking the quilting "flying geese" pattern in natural dyes, evoking the Underground Railroad and histories of Black resistance.
- Flip Sides: Seeing Korean Art Anewto 31 May
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Treasured Korean objects are turned around to reveal their interiors, reverses, and hidden details, offering a fuller view of each work's form across two rotations.
- Our Flag Was Still Thereto 28 Feb
National September 11 Memorial & Museum
Historic American flags tied to 9/11, including the Ground Zero Flag, paired with personal stories in Foundation Hall to mark the nation's 250th anniversary.
Rubin Museum Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Roomto 20 AprBrooklyn Museum
A six-year installation of the Rubin Museum's beloved Tibetan Buddhist Shrine Room within the Arts of Asia galleries: over 100 thangkas, sculptures, and ritual objects arranged as an elaborate household shrine, with chanted prayers, butter lamps, and incense.
Stay in the loop on New York
A short note now and then when something new opens worth your time.