Discover the tantalising assortment of art exhibitions New York City has to offer this month. Enjoy the tactile exhibition by Carol Bove, where visitors can explore chess sets, large scale sculptures, and an array of colour nestled in the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Guggenheim Museum. At Marianne Boesky Gallery, Kwamé Azure Gomez draws upon the pulsating rhythm of queer nightlife in her New York debut, while Mexican artist Ileana García Magoda uses the canvas as a mirror to capture her chronic pain. Journey back to 16th century Florence with the work by Raffaello di Giovanni Santi, a pioneer of Italian renaissance art. 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
Roy Lichtenstein: Painting with Scattered Brushstrokes
Gagosian until 25 April 2026
The exhibition focuses on painter Roy Lichtenstein’s works from the 1970s to 1980s, with a selection of sculpture, watercolours, and other works on paper. His pieces highlights spontaneity, bold colour, and abstract movement. With a technique of confident brushstrokes the exhibition highlights the artists use of this as a symbolic device, and originality within his practice.
Kwamé Azure Gomez: Set the Atmosphere
Marianne Boesky Gallery until 18 April 2026
Kwamé Azure Gomez draws upon queer nightlife and the lyrics of gospel music as the focus on her first New York solo exhibition. Capturing the rhythm, pulse and movement, her paintings sit between figuration and abrsratction. Gomez used oil, acrylic, spray paint and modeling pasta to capture topics varying from spiritual dance, queer ballroom culture, Black radical theory, and the history of painting.
Ileana García Magoda: In the Body of Light
Anat Ebgi Gallery until 25 April 2026
Also making her New York Debut is Mexican artist Ileana García Magoda. For her exhibition ‘In the Body of Light’ the artist looks at navigating disability and chronic pain caused by a congenital spinal condition. The artist used yoga and meditation to help deal with pain, painting is also an extension of this. The works are adorned in creases and cuts, using the canvas to mirror her own body and spine.
Helen Frankenthaler & Anthony Caro: SIMILITUDES: Color, Form, Friendship
Yares Art from 11 April 2026
‘SIMILITUDES: Color, Form, Friendship' is an exhibition exploring the friendship between American painter Helen Frankenthaler and British sculptor Anthony Caro, who first became acquainted in New York in 1959. The exhibition looks at the similarities between both their work, and positions their friendship as a place for creative expression. Expect to see over 30 works including paintings, sculptures, and archival materials that illuminate their shared appreciation and use of colour, form, material and space. Alongside this, a selection of letters exchanged between them which spanned over five decades.
Marcel Duchamp
MoMa 12 April until 22 August 2026
Featuring 300 artworks, this exhibition marks the first retrospective of the artist’s work in the United States since 1973. Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) had a career spanning six decades, and worked across varying mediums and played a key part in modern art movements without adhering to one in particular. His work was defined by continuous reinvention and experimentation, having once said, ‘I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.’
Raphael: Sublime Poetry
The Met until 28 June 2026
This is the first comprehensive exhibition on Raffaello di Giovanni Santi (1483–1520), a pioneer of the Italian Renaissance. Bringing together more than 170 of the artist’s works, the exhibition charts his creativity throughout his short life of only 37 years, from his origins in Urbino to Florence where he began to emerge as a peer of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, to his final, prolific decade at the papal court in Rome. There is a particular focus on his portrayal of women, from the use of female models, to depictions of The Madonna and Child, this exhibition is a must for lovers of art history.
Carol Bove
Guggenheim until 2 August 2026
Located in the Frank Lloyd Wright–designed rotunda, Carol Bove’s work is showcased in a first museum survey. It is a retrospective of her career, spanning more than 25 years, and looks at her interest in how her work sits within its surroundings. Discover towering steel sculptures, and paper collages, which explore scale, space, surface and colour. Throughout the exhibition she includes areas for rest and interaction, including comfortable seating built into the architecture, a library in which materials from the artist’s studio may be handled directly, and her own chess tables which encourage people to get involved and play.
David Altmejd; The Serpent
White Cube until 19 April 2025
Canadian artist David Altmejd unveils a new large-scale installation, and a series of busts and bronze sculptures for his latest show at White Cube. The work looks at nature's hierarchies, through a lens of realism and expressionism. Here, he balances growth and decay, man and animal, and how they intersect.
Whitney Biennial
Whitney Museum of American Art until 23 August, 2026
Still from the Whitney Biennial 2026 | Historical Trailer
The longest-running survey of contemporary art in the United States is back as the Whitney museum prepares for its 82nd edition. The biennial will showcase 56 artists and collectives that present work which spans across themes of family relations, geopolitics, mythologies and more.
Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination
MoMA until 5 July 2026
Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, a new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, explores themes such as Pan-African subjectivity and solidarity through photography. The exhibition is the third show at MoMA from the 2019 gift of modern and contemporary African art from collector Jean Pigozzi, alongside a selection of recent acquisitions and key loans.
Writer: Gameli Hamelo
Seeing Silence:The Paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck
The Met 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 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.
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
Gabriele Münter: Contours of a World
Guggenheim 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.
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
'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