Make the most of festive-season time off or winter-weekend rendezvous with a tantalising assortment of art exhibitions in New York City. Vincenzo De Cotiis reimagines Claude Monet’s late water lily landscapes at Carpenters Workshop Gallery, while The Met looks at the career of Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck and her impact within the modern art world. The work of the late Korean artist Kang Seok Ho is a deep dive into the contradictions of the human condition and relationships at Tina Kim Gallery, and Ron Norsworthy explores the ‘American Dream’ through intricate collage reliefs. Don't miss a thing with our monthly updated guide to the best exhibitions to see around NYC.
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The best New York art exhibitions: what to see this month
Vincenzo De Cotiis: Je Marchais Pieds Nus Dans L’Étang
Carpenters Workshop Gallery, New York until 14 February 2026
Vincenzo De Cotiis reimagines Claude Monet’s late water lily landscapes, as a sculptural environment where organic forms. The exhibition features 50 unique works in cast white bronze and hand-painted Murano glass. These materials were selected for their distinct composition and ability to capture light, transparency and reflection, mimicking the shape of water. materials chosen for their ability to capture light, transparency, and the fluidity of water.
Seeing Silence:The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck
The Met from 5 December, 2025 until 5 April, 2026
Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck, although celebrated in Scandinavia, is relatively unknown to the wider world. Schjerfbeck went through immense personal struggles, and produced work through a force of will. This exhibition is an ode to her pieces and how she is deeply involved in the story of modern art.
Fanmania
The Met from 11 December, 2025 until 12 May, 2026
Henri-Gabriel Ibels (French, Paris 1867–1936 Paris). Circus Fan, ca. 1893–95. Lithograph on silk fan leaf. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1938 (38.91.98).
This exhibition dives into the art of the hand-held fan. Innovative artists in 19th century Europe used these accessories as a canvas for their works, adding to its purpose of functional and fashionable objects of communication. The exhibition explores themes of gender, courtship, consumerism, and appropriation.
Kang Seok Ho: Hold Still
Tina Kim Gallery until 24 January 2026
Tina Kim Gallery presents its second solo exhibition of the late Korean artist Kang Seok Ho. The exhibition looks at how the artist captured the human figure which is explored in different materialities and forms. Faces are intertwined, lips become eyes with erotic intent. The exhibition looks at how the artist captures closeness and distance in human relationships.
Big Present
The Foundation of ART NYC until 10 December 2025
‘Big Present’ focuses on two meanings of the word ‘present’, meaning ‘now’ and ‘gift’. This exhibition looks at how these definitions intersect, exploring how art exists not as a possession, but as a gesture of shared presence. Expect to see works from Alex Katz , Yayoi Kusama, Lucy Sparrow, Sunjoo Chung, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré and Zukie.
Ron Norsworthy: American Dream
Edwynn Houk Gallery until 23 December 2025
American Dream looks at domestic interiors of Black middle-class life. Ron Norsworthy creates scenes which finely tread between the achieved and the dreamed. Norsworthy uses collage as his medium, and layers photographs up to four inches deep.
Keiko Narahashi: mirror and messenger
Carvalho until 3 January 2026
‘Mirror and messenger’ is Keiko Narahashi’s inaugural solo exhibition. It comprises a series of sculptures that focuses on water, but as a metaphorical portal, acting as a site of crossing, disappearance, and return.
Lauren Halsey
Gagosian until 20 December, 2025
Lauren Halsey presents an installation of protruded engravings, reminiscent of ancient artefacts, coupled with a large-scale plaza sign sculpture. It is a visually intriguing contrast, honouring the aesthetics of her home community in South Central Los Angeles and the diasporic, mythological features of Black life in the United States.
Franz Gertsch. Presence
Hauser & Wirth until 31 January 2026
This exhibition is an ode to the late Swiss artist Franz Gertsch (1930 – 2022). It looks at eight works spanning Gertsch’s career which vary from a Guadalupe triptych to a Patti Smith portrait.
Jack Whitten: Prime Mover
Dia Beacon, long term view
The sculptor and artist Jack Whitten moved to New York in 1960. After a trip to Greece in 1969 he began to make sculptures and experimental drawings, which then accompanied his painting practice of more than five decades. Dia Beacon now presents a group of recently acquired works on paper which Whitten made during the 1970s using dry and wet black pigments. His work is abstract and explores new tools, materials, and methods of his own design to generate images
Ana Benaroya: Eternal Flame
The Flag Art Foundation until 17 January 2026
New York-based artist Ana Benaroya presents ‘Eternal Flame’ , an expansive display of paintings, works on paper, and monotypes. Benaroya is known for her interpretation of women’s bodies which bridges the gap between femininity and masculinity. Drawing upon art historical motifs and contemporary culture varying from music and comics to movies, Benaroya makes the viewer question how women are seen, and whether a naked body can be viewed without being sexualised.
Abang-guard: ‘Makibaka’
Queens Museum until 18 January 2026
Abang-guard, Film still of "Filipino Community Cultural Center of Delano, California," 2025, time variable
Artist duo Abang-guard (Maureen Catbagan and Jevijoe Vitug) present their first museum solo exhibition which looks at visibility through the lens of immigration. ‘Makibaka’, roughly translated from Tagalog as “coming together for change,” is a rallying cry used by Filipino movements and communities in fighting against exploitative systems. Here, the duo looks at architecture of 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair’s Philippines and New York State Pavilions. This is the foundation of a deep dive into Filipino American labour history.
Gabriele Münter: Contours of a World
Guggenheim from 7 November 2025 until 26 April 2026
Gabriele Münter. Head of a Young Girl (Junges Mädchen), 1908
German painter Gabriele Münter was, and still is, known for her modern art during the early 20th century. Her modus operandi consisted of reimagining landscape, still life and portraiture in a flurry of bold colour. Münter explored modernist movements leaning more towards abstraction. ‘Contours of a World’ explores her work which captures daily life, informed by travel and community.
Graciela Iturbide: ‘Serious Play’
The International Center of Photography until 12 January 2026
Mujer ángel, Desierto de Sonora, México, 1979
Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide presents her first ever retrospective in New York City. The exhibition features nearly 200 photographs spanning five decades of her career. Iturbide is known for her black-and-white images of the local communities in her native Mexico. She travelled extensively giving attention to communal life, indigenous communities and how culture and nature interact with each other.
June Leaf: Shooting from the Heart
Grey Art Museum until 13 December 2025
June Leaf in her Bleecker Street studio, 1994
June Leaf, the late American artist, has been inspired by movement as seen within her art, which she created across seven decades. She transformed motion into a way of understanding the world through painting, sculpture and drawing, working daily between her studios in downtown New York and Nova Scotia, until her final days.
‘Shooting from the Heart’ has a conceptual layout that eschews a chronological order to manoeuvre the visitors around a life of ceaseless curiosity for movement, both of the body and the mind. After debuting at the Addison Gallery of American Art this past spring, the expansive survey currently occupies New York University’s Grey Art Museum at stone’s throw away from Leaf’s studio in East Village.
Writer: Osman Can Yerebakan
‘Seydou Keïta: A Tactile Lens’
Brooklyn Museum until 8 March 2026
In April 2024, curator and author Catherine E McKinley travelled to Mali to meet the family of legendary photographer Seydou Keïta, to discuss an upcoming exhibition and to ask for their participation. Celebrated as one of the most outstanding 20th-century photographers, Keïta ran a photography studio in the Malian capital, Bamako, between the late 1940s and early 1960s, where he shot black and white portraits of fashionably dressed people, with the patterned backdrops that he is perhaps best known for. He also documented the social and political landscape in pre- and post-independence Mali.
‘Seydou Keïta: A Tactile Lens’, billed as the most extensive North American presentation of the artist, is now open at the Brooklyn Museum, and includes almost 275 works, including portraits, rare images, and never-before-seen negatives, textiles, jewellery, dresses, and the artist’s personal items
Writer Gameli Hamelo
www.brooklynmuseum.org
Torkwase Dyson: Akua
Brooklyn Bridge Park until 8 March 2026
Akua is a public pavilion that has been open since May 2025, and is a calming space to sit and enjoy a moment of introspection. As you enter the pavilion, recorded sounds play across eight speakers, varying from recordings of fields to conversations from Black archives. This layered composition is intended to encourage reflection on the moments of silence between words, and how these can ignite contemplation and imagination.
Rashid Johnson: ‘A Poem for Deep Thinkers’
Guggenheim until 18 January 2026
Chicago-born artist Rashid Johnson presents a major solo show, which spans almost 90 works, inspired by history, philosophy, literature and music. Exploring Johnson’s immersive contemporary works, the exhibition spans from black-soap paintings and spray-painted text to large-scale sculptures, film and videos.
Shining a light on The Subway Sun
New York Transit Museum, ongoing
Historically on the New York subway, posters advised and informed users, encouraging correct etiquette and manners. For 'Shining a light on The Subway Sun', posters designed by illustrators Fred G Cooper and Amelia Opdyke Jones are celebrated, with the exhibition showcasing more than 40 examples from the museum's collection of approximately 120 original poster artworks and more than 100 vintage posters, most produced between 1936 and 1965.
Songs of New York
Museum of the City of New York, ongoing
LL Cool J with Cut Creator, E-Love, and B-Rock, Janette Beckman (1950-), 1986, Museum of the City of New York, 2016
Featuring music from 100 artists, ‘Songs of New York’ explores a full range of genres that have influenced the city from the 1920s through to the present day. Different genres explore different locations, from subways to apartments, nightclubs to neighbourhoods in this immersive, interactive exhibition.
mcny.org
Shifting Landscapes
Whitney Museum of American Art until January 2026
LaToya Ruby FrazierLandscape of the Body (Epilepsy Test), 2011
‘Shifting Landscapes’ is a group show exploring how evolving political, ecological, and social issues motivate artists as they attempt to represent the world around them. The works are drawn from the gallery’s collection, and span various environments, from cityscapes to rural landscapes, bringing ideas of land and place into focus, and considering how society is shaped by the spaces around us.
'In the Shadow of the American Dream: David Wojnarowicz'
The Museum of Modern Art, ongoing
Wojnarowicz's work has been recontextualised by MoMA, which has presented it alongside that of the artist's contemporaries from the 1980s New York downtown scene, including filmmaker Marion Scemama, Donald Moffett, Agosto Machado and painter Martin Wong. Important works here include Wojnarowicz's's 1987 Fire, while Machado’s Shrine is a moving time capsule of ephemera. It includes a ‘Justice for Marsha’ sign, referring to questions around the suspicious death of trans activist Marsha P Johnson in 1992, as well as club flyers and memorial service cards.
Writer: Lauren Cochrane
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Montcalm Mayfair opens a new chapter for a once-overlooked London hotelA thoughtful reinvention brings craftsmanship, character and an unexpected sense of warmth to a London hotel that was never previously on the radar
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Magniberg’s latest bedwear collaboration with Our Legacy is beautifully sun-faded and lived-inColoured using dyes derived from plants and minerals, the new bedding sets and pyjamas are meant to evoke the feeling of ‘a well-worn band T-shirt or your favourite vintage sweatshirt’, says Our Legacy co-founder Jockum Hallin
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Meet the Next Generation of creative stars to know in January Wallpaper*, out nowFrom young designers, artists and architects about to make the world a better place to emerging cultural hotspots for your radar – discover a new dawn in Wallpaper* January 2026, on newsstands
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Nadia Lee Cohen distils a distant American memory into an unflinching new photo book‘Holy Ohio’ documents the British photographer and filmmaker’s personal journey as she reconnects with distant family and her earliest American memories
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Out of office: The Wallpaper* editors’ picks of the weekIt’s been a week of escapism: daydreams of Ghana sparked by lively local projects, glimpses of Tokyo on nostalgic film rolls, and a charming foray into the heart of Christmas as the festive season kicks off in earnest
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Ed Ruscha’s foray into chocolate is sweet, smart and very AmericanArt and chocolate combine deliciously in ‘Made in California’, a project from the artist with andSons Chocolatiers
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Inside the work of photographer Seydou Keïta, who captured portraits across West Africa‘Seydou Keïta: A Tactile Lens’, an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, celebrates the 20th-century photographer
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Out of office: The Wallpaper* editors’ picks of the weekFrom sumo wrestling to Singaporean fare, medieval manuscripts to magnetic exhibitions, the Wallpaper* team have traversed the length and breadth of culture in the capital this week
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María Berrío creates fantastical worlds from Japanese-paper collages in New YorkNew York-based Colombian artist María Berrío explores a love of folklore and myth in delicate and colourful works on paper
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Out of office: the Wallpaper* editors’ picks of the weekAs we approach Frieze, our editors have been trawling the capital's galleries. Elsewhere: a 'Wineglass' marathon, a must-see film, and a visit to a science museum
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June Leaf’s New York survey captures a life in motionJune Leaf made art in many forms for over seven decades, with an unstoppable energy and fierce appetite leading her to rationalise life in her own terms.
