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As the snow turns to slush, it is the perfect time to seek refuge in an intimate gallery. After the quieter January, this month offers a tantalising assortment of art exhibitions in New York City. New Zealand-based artist Lauren Drescher looks at mystical and medieval iconography inspired by the sea to create a collection of whimsical reliefs. Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination, explores themes such as Pan-African subjectivity and solidarity through photography, while at Goodman Gallery, jazz is at the heart of Sam Nhlengethwa’s paintings. Japanese artist ob looks at how growing up in a digital-first generation can blur the boundaries between what is real and fake, while at David Zwirner an ode is made to Dan Flavin’s fluorescent grids. 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
Lauren Drescher: Swimmers
Planthouse until 21 February, 2026
The solo exhibition by the New Zealand-based artist brings together a collection of drypoint and relief prints which dive into her relationship with the sea, rivers and lakes. Mystical and medieval iconography is an inspiration, such as mermaids, sea creatures, and sirens.
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
Sam Nhlengethwa: All Blues
Goodman Gallery New York until 19 February 2026
All Blues ,is an exhibition which involves a personal body of work shaped by numerology, abstraction and Sam Nhlengethwa’s enduring love of jazz. It focuses on a series of ten square works which are significant to the artist. In 2010, the year Nhlengethwa turned 55, marked the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis’s landmark album Kind of Blue, whereby the artist staged an exhibition of the same name at Goodman Gallery Johannesburg. Now, over 15 years later, Nhlengethwa has returned to these paintings, revisiting these memories and injecting them into a fresh series.
Phantom Tales
Perrotin New York until 21 February 2026
Discover the new paintings and drawings by Japanese artist ob. Her paintings, are inspired by nui-dori, a Japanese hobby of taking photos of stuffed toys in everyday life. They are set against a backdrop of hazy atmospheres which contrast with rigid forms, exploring how imagination can blur and merge with reality.
Marguerite Humeau
White Cube until 21 February 2026
‘Darkness becomes a presence that guides us towards new forms of cooperation, from a void to be conquered to a teacher of collective survival,’ says Marguerite Humeau on her exhibition Torches, which is currently on view at the Helsinki Art Museum. Her solo exhibition at White Cube draws on the ecosystems of caves and their darkness.
Dan Flavin: Grids
David Zwirner until 21 February 2026
Dan Flavin began working with grids in 1976. The first focused examination of this form, this presentation will include several re-creations of the way Flavin installed the grids in significant exhibitions during his lifetime. Flavin was known for utilising fluorescent lamps and creating installations which established and redefined space. davidzwirner.com
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.
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.
‘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.
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