Featured Events in New York in July, 2025 (July Updated)

New York’s age of graffiti began on the city streets in the early 1970s. This new movement, often consciously artistic despite its unsanctioned origins, came of age over the next 20 years. Above Ground centers on the many artists who transitioned from illegally writing on subway cars to creating paintings on canvas and exhibiting in galleries and museums. Their works embody an important transitional moment for the movement’s evolution, as it permeated into broader consciousness and significantly influenced global culture. The exhibition provides a window into a vibrant subculture of young creators and highlights previously unseen treasures from the Museum’s major collection of graffiti-based art. The collection, which was donated by the artist Martin Wong 30 years ago, comprises more than 300 canvases and works on paper. Among the highlights on view in this exhibition are works in aerosol, ink, and other mediums by seminal figures in the street art movement, including Rammellzee, Lee Quiñones, Lady Pink, and Futura 2000. Together, they capture the passions and ambitions of artists transitioning from the street to the walls of prominent galleries in New York and around the world.

Design is a fundamental element of life, an enzyme necessary to our evolution. It helps us cope with change and permeates our personal and social lives, embodying both our strengths and weaknesses. Many designers are intent on creating new behaviors, focusing on habits and circumstances most in need of change. Pirouette: Turning Points in Design features objects—from Post-Its to Spanx—that embodied experiments with new materials, technologies, and concepts; offered unconventional solutions to conventional problems; and had a deep impact both on design and the world at large.

Design is a fundamental element of life, an enzyme necessary to our evolution. It helps us cope with change and permeates our personal and social lives, embodying both our strengths and weaknesses. Many designers are intent on creating new behaviors, focusing on habits and circumstances most in need of change. Pirouette: Turning Points in Design features objects—from Post-Its to Spanx—that embodied experiments with new materials, technologies, and concepts; offered unconventional solutions to conventional problems; and had a deep impact both on design and the world at large.

The traditional East Asian lunar calendar consists of a repeating twelve-year cycle, with each year corresponding to one of the twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac. The association of these creatures with the Chinese calendar began in the third century BCE and became firmly established by the first century CE. The twelve animals are, in sequence: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. Each is believed to embody certain traits that are manifested in the personalities of people born in that year. January 29, 2025, marks the beginning of the Year of the Snake, a creature characterized as alert, calm, and smart.

In works full of sharp wit and incisive commentary, Christine Sun Kim (b. 1980, Orange County, California) engages sound and the complexities of communication in its various modes. Using musical notation, infographics, and language—both in her native American Sign Language (ASL) and written English—she has produced drawings, videos, sculptures, and installations that often explore non-auditory, political dimensions of sound. In many works, Kim draws directly on the spatial dynamism of ASL, translating it into graphic form. By emphasizing images, the body, and physical space, she upends the societal assumption that spoken languages are superior to those that are signed. This exhibition surveys Kim’s entire artistic output to date and features works ranging from early 2010s performance documentation to her recent site-responsive mural, Ghost(ed) Notes (2024), re-created across multiple walls on the eighth floor. Inspired by similarly named works made throughout her career, the exhibition’s title, All Day All Night, points to the vitality Kim brings to her artmaking; she is relentlessly experimental, productive, and dedicated to sharing her Deaf lived experiences with others. This exhibition is organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. The organizing curators are Jennie Goldstein, Jennifer Rubio Associate Curator of the Collection, Whitney Museum of American Art; Pavel Pyś, Curator of Visual Arts and Collections Strategy, Walker Art Center; and Tom Finkelpearl, independent curator; with Rose Pallone, Curatorial Assistant, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Brandon Eng, Curatorial Assistant, Walker Art Center.

Two days before the outbreak of World War II, a scientific paper was published explaining the theoretical process of nuclear fission in which the controlled splitting of an atomic nucleus releases a vast amount of energy. Over the next decade, scientists around the world would perfect the process of harnessing that energy, developing two of the most impactful inventions of the modern era: the nuclear bomb and the nuclear power station. This exhibition chronicles the global development of the nuclear industry, for peaceful and offensive means, examining posters that both promoted and protested its use throughout the second half of the 20th century. It features the entire General Dynamics series, long heralded as one of the finest examples of corporate propaganda ever created, as well as over 60 other posters criticizing the proliferation of nuclear technology. Tim Medland is an independent curator who focuses on the history of visual and material culture. He holds an MA in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester, with a concentration in socially engaged practice. His research interests include environmental activism and sustainability, and the histories of transport, propaganda, colonialism, and migration.

This artwork is featured on the building facade on Gansevoort Street across from the Whitney and the High Line. Four Ways of Being is a newly commissioned work by Amy Sherald (b. 1973, Columbus, Georgia; lives and works in the New York City area). The artwork is comprised of four portraits by the artist—some never before seen in New York—and explores the intersection of past, present, and future. Each painting captures a distinct way of existing in the world. Here, she reimagines her subjects from diverse backgrounds and generations coexisting in a shared moment, inviting the viewer to contemplate the fluidity of time and the complex ways our histories shape our understanding of ourselves.

The first US solo museum exhibition of New York City-based artist Julien Ceccaldi (French/Canadian, b. 1987) features a newly commissioned large-scale painting that transforms the first-floor MoMA PS1 galleries at an architectural scale, casting visitors into a distorted episode drawn from the experience of everyday digital subjugation and hyperconsumerism. Ceccaldi exploits techniques common to both the animation studio and the Italian Renaissance, including trompe l’oeil, overlay, and freeze frame.

This spring, MoMA PS1 presents a retrospective of artist, activist, and musician Alanis Obomsawin (Abenaki, b. 1932), one of Canada’s most renowned filmmakers. Opening March 27, the exhibition spans six decades of her multidisciplinary practice, bringing together a selection of films, sculptures, and sound, as well as rarely seen ephemera that sheds light on their production. Tracing her lasting contributions to social change, The Children Have to Hear Another Story brings Obomsawin’s innovative model of Indigenous cinema into focus.

“The full-of-riches new musical brings the classic record to life.” – The New York Times Step into the heart of Cuba, beyond the glitz of the Tropicana, to a place where blazing trumpets and sizzling guitars set the dance floor on fire. Here, the real sound of Havana is born—and one woman discovers the music that will change her life forever. Inspired by true events, the new Broadway musical Buena Vista Social Club ™ brings the Grammy® Award-winning album to thrilling life—and tells the story of the legends who lived it. A world-class Afro-Cuban band joins a sensational cast of musicians, actors, and dancers from around the world for an authentic experience unlike any you’ve seen or heard before. Don’t miss this unforgettable tale of big dreams, second chances, and the power of art to help us survive. “Give yourself over to Buena Vista Social Club .”

A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical is a stage show celebrating the life and music of the legendary singer-songwriter Neil Diamond. The musical takes the audience on a journey through Diamond's life, from his early days as a struggling songwriter to his rise to fame in the 1960s and beyond. Along the way, the show explores the stories behind some of Diamond's most beloved songs and the moments that inspired them.

Mary Heilmann (b. 1940; San Francisco) once said that "museums are places to hang out," and this exhibition embodies that spirit, inviting social connection and engagement with the Whitney's architecture, the Hudson River, and the surrounding cityscape. The immersive environment includes a hand-painted enlargement of Heilmann's 2020 painting Long Line, as well as a variety of sculptural chairs related to furniture she has displayed in galleries and homes. The influence of 1960s counterculture and geometric Minimalism are reflected in Heilmann's decades-long approach to abstraction, one centered on exuberant color and unorthodox form. Long Line was influenced by the artist's experience watching waves off the coasts of Long Island and California—here it creates a visual rhyme with the Hudson River

"I see New York City as a great big sculpture," Louise Nevelson once remarked. Born in Pereiaslav, Ukraine, Nevelson (1899–1988) lived and worked in Manhattan from the 1920s through the 1980s. Known for her bold monochrome assemblages of stacked and composed found objects, Nevelson was captivated by the city's ever-changing skyline and saw creative potential in discarded materials that she scavenged throughout its streets at night. By painting these sculptures a single color (black), she cloaked the specific, identifying details of disparate objects such as duck decoys, lettuce crates, and pieces of rebar, transforming them into abstract shapes. Collection View: Louise Nevelson reimagines the relationship between Nevelson's work and New York, highlighting the dynamic interplay she sought to suggest in her work between motion and stillness, light and shadow, dawn and dusk.

A dazzling showcase of more than 60 jewelry creations that celebrates our enduring fascination with the cosmos. For millennia, people have been moved by the grandeur of space to explore the workings of our universe—and to create captivating works of art. From the early astronomical observations of Galileo to iconic space missions such as Apollo 11, along with new findings made possible by cutting-edge tools like the James Webb Space Telescope, discoveries about the universe have influenced and inspired artistic expression. A stunning assemblage of astronomically inspired jewelry is the focus of the new exhibition Cosmic Splendor: Jewelry from the Collections of Van Cleef & Arpels.

Este quarto parece uma República! [This Bedroom Looks Like a Republic!] marks the first museum exhibition of interdisciplinary artist Sandra Poulson (Angolan, b. 1995). Featuring an installation of new assemblage works, the exhibition includes sculptures made from furniture and garments, reflecting on the abstraction of nation-building within the domestic sphere. Poulson’s practice takes an archaeological approach to Angolan symbols, codes, and cultural objects to untangle histories, oral traditions, and geopolitics. Seen together, her works shed new light on the transnational circulation of images and material culture in the wake of the Angolan Civil War.

The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) opened New York City’s original underground subway line in October 1904. While the city was one of the most diverse in the country, before the introduction of the subway, most New Yorkers were not in regular contact with people outside their own neighborhoods. Initially extending from the Bronx to Lower Manhattan (with service to Brooklyn beginning in 1908) and forming part of the wider transit system, the convenient and affordable IRT encouraged riders to travel beyond their communities for both work and leisure. In order to entice people to regularly use the subway, the IRT printed two in-car poster campaigns, The Elevated Express and The Subway Sun, that highlighted each borough’s unique attractions. Of these, The Subway Sun was especially successful.

Anita Shapolsky Gallery, renowned for its dedication to Abstract Expressionism, presents “A Dialogue Between Ernest Briggs and Peter Bonner.” This exhibition brings together two generations of abstraction, juxtaposing the bold, gestural work of Ernest Briggs with the introspective, process-driven paintings of Peter Bonner. A key figure in the second generation of Abstract Expressionism, Briggs embodied the movement’s raw energy and spontaneity, using vigorous brushwork to express emotion and the rugged intensity of human nature. In contrast, Bonner explores perception, identity, and memory through layered compositions that invite contemplation beyond the surface.

As our lives become increasingly shaped by the glut of garbage and information, The Gatherers brings into focus current artistic practices grappling with global waste and excess. Featuring fourteen international artists—many showing for the first time in a US museum—the exhibition includes sculptural installation, assemblage, painting, video, and performance. While artists have rummaged for centuries, the exhibition underscores how retooling detritus has new meaning for a generation contending with the impacts of recent world orders, such as the ongoing fallouts and failures of globalization and neoliberalism. Artists in The Gatherers render politics as spatialized in the built environment, drawing attention to how histories reverberate into the future.

This spring, the presentation of late works by French avant-garde artist Francis Picabia (1879 – 1953) travels from Hauser & Wirth’s Paris gallery to 22nd Street in New York. Organized in collaboration with Comité Picabia, and co-curated by its President, Beverley Calté, and art historian Arnauld Pierre, ‘Eternal Beginning’ is the first major exhibition to focus on Picabia’s compelling final period. It features close to 30 paintings created by Picabia between 1945—when he returned to Paris from the South of France—and 1952, the penultimate year of his life. As a complement to the exhibition, Hauser & Wirth Publishers has released a catalogue with fresh scholarship in both English and French on Picabia’s late work.

Nicola Vassell presents Where The I Settles, an exhibition of new and recent work by Che Lovelace, the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. Across a group of multi-paneled paintings, the exhibition radically expands his exploration into the relationship between nature and society in his native Trinidad. Lovelace attends to the many ways that these worlds contrast with one another before eventually reaching a state of unity, which he expresses above all through the act of painting itself.

Fleiss-Vallois presents Windchimes and Prayers, an exhibition curated by Julia Wachtel with works by Julia Wachtel, Wendy White, and Jason Yates.Much like her canvases which juxtapose disparate images in order to establish an ideological connection, Wachtel has selected three works from each artist which together investigate the language of symbols, the emotional manipulation of advertisements, and the commodification of culture in our image-dominated and consumer-driven world. Each artist memorializes, edifies, and analyzes omnipresent yet disposable images and items.

Carpenters Workshop Gallery New York presents a display of works by Aki+Arnaud Cooren, the multidisciplinary design studio known for serene, dreamy, creations that evoke poignant and harmonious confluences with the natural world. The exhibition features new pieces that add to the duo’s acclaimed Ishigaki Lamp series, which won a Créateurs Design Award in 2025 and is inspired by freediving experiences off the coast of Ishigaki island, southern Japan.

In a celebration of modern and contemporary Italian design, Forma & Estetica at Carpenters Workshop Gallery brings together leading figures in the field, exploring how beauty and function intersect in a world shaped by industry, urbanisation and cultural tradition. The exhibition features contemporary artists Vincenzo De Cotiis and Giacomo Ravagli alongside iconic 20th-century designers such as Gio Ponti, Gabriella Crespi, Emilio Lancia, Cesare Leonardi, Franca Stagi, Mario Gottardi, Studio BBPR, and Ico and Luisa Parisi.

An exhibition of Arshile Gorky, Wifredo Lam, Roberto Matta and Oscar Murillo Curated by Oscar Murillo .

TEMPLON New York presents its first exhibition by American painter Will Cotton. In this new body of work, Between Instinct and Reason, the artist continues to reflect on pop culture and a new American mythology. In Cotton’s world of sugary treats, pink unicorns, and hypermasculine cowboys, he is now introducing a new player: the mermaid.

Lévy Gorvy Dayan presents Half Way Home by Los-Angeles based artist Austyn Weiner. Weiner’s debut solo exhibition with the gallery comprises three monumental paintings that form an immersive installation, representing the emotional, physical, and spiritual odyssey she traversed over the past year.

Presenting a dialogue across time and space, Nature and Form explores materiality as a dynamic and ever evolving archive. Artists exhibited go beyond using material solely as a medium of expression and physically construct meaningful conversations in each sculpture.

The Coney Island History Project will open for the season on May 24th with new exhibits by Charles Denson and Amanda Deutch. Coney Island Streets: 1965–1975 and Brooklyn Wilds combine street photography, cyanotypes, native plants, and poetry to explore the natural and urban sides of Coney Island that are not well known. Through the medium of photography, both shows complement each other by exploring the complexity of this New York City neighborhood. With this exhibit, we are introducing our new Wonder Gallery, a collaboration between Charles Denson and Amanda Deutch. More info on our website. Link in bio.

“Into the Dimensional Corridor” is a phrase borrowed from a first season episode of the Star Trek series and refers to a magnetic corridor that allows travel between parallel universes, one of matter and one of anti-matter. In the years leading up to the first installation of “Into the Dimensional Corridor”, Lutz Bacher slowly amassed sheets of Plexiglas from salvage stores throughout Brooklyn and Queens. As the number of sheets grew, she wrote in her notes: “So there was a sense that [this] was something to ‘follow’– wherever it might lead me – ”. As was often the trajectory of her later installations, she did not know where the path would lead or what other objects might finally come together.

Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron explores the path-breaking career of photography’s first widely recognized artist. Cameron (1815–1879) was born in Calcutta to a French mother and an English father; in 1848, with her husband and children, she moved to England, where her sisters introduced her to the elite cultural circles in which they traveled. Residing on the Isle of Wight, where she was close neighbors with the poet Alfred Tennyson, Cameron acquired her first camera at age 48. In only eleven years she would create thousands of exposures and leave an enduring image of the Victorian era as an age of intellectual and spiritual ambition. Her own prodigious drive helped Cameron become a probing portraitist of leading figures such as Tennyson, Thomas Carlyle, G.F. Watts, and Charles Darwin, while her absorption with fine art, notably Renaissance painting, led her to create staged tableaux in a mode that has been perpetually rediscovered by photographers down to the present. Most distinct of all was Cameron’s wholly personal handling of her medium. Heedless of a large camera’s technical limitations, alert to the happy effects of accident, and indifferent to critical scorn, she embraced a style of spontaneous intimacy that distanced her from the photographic establishment of her time and class. Motion blur, highly selective focus, and even fingerprints on the glass negatives (which required developing before their emulsions dried) are among the idiosyncrasies of her singular oeuvre. Cameron was quick to exploit publishing and promotional opportunities: at London’s South Kensington Museum (today the Victoria & Albert Museum) she secured not only an exhibition in 1865 but, a few years later, studio space, and she was the first photographic artist to be collected by the institution. Arresting Beauty features prints from its initial purchase and from subsequent additions to its holdings, which have grown to number nearly one thousand. The exhibition includes Cameron’s large if optically primitive lens (all that survives of her apparatus), pages from her memoir manuscript Annals of My Glass House, and portraits she made in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) after Cameron and her husband moved there in 1875.