Featured Events in New York in May, 2025 (April Updated)

Sean Landers (born 1962) is an American artist. He is best known for using his personal experience as public subject matter and for utilizing diverse styles and media in a performative manner, and is especially known for his word art.His work encompasses many media: painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, writing, video and audio, and he uses humor and confession, gravity and pathos in it, blurring the lines between fact and fiction, reality and fantasy, sincerity and insincerity.

Stephen Friedman Gallery presents Queer Love, an exhibition bringing together a selection of significant and recently discovered erotic drawings by British artist and key Bloomsbury group member Duncan Grant (1885–1978) in dialogue with new works by contemporary queer artists including: Soufiane Ababri, Leilah Babirye, Anthony Cudahy, Kyle Dunn, Alex Foxton, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Wardell Milan, Sola Olulode, Tom Worsfold and Jimmy Wright.

Yancey Richardson presents Sawubona, an exhibition bringing together work from five different series made between 2002–2013 by South African artist and visual activist Zanele Muholi. Their fifth exhibition with the gallery, Sawubona reveals both the historical depth and visual complexity of Muholi’s overarching project of empowering the Black LGTBQIA+ community in South Africa through a collaborative process of representation. Sawubona is also the first gallery exhibition outside of Africa to feature their early work.

Stephen Friedman Gallery presents Queer Love, an exhibition bringing together a selection of significant and recently discovered erotic drawings by British artist and key Bloomsbury group member Duncan Grant (1885–1978) in dialogue with new works by contemporary queer artists including: Soufiane Ababri, Leilah Babirye, Anthony Cudahy, Kyle Dunn, Alex Foxton, Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Wardell Milan, Sola Olulode, Tom Worsfold and Jimmy Wright.

Petzel is pleased to present Eight Dreams, an exhibition of new paintings by Beijing-based artist Xie Nanxing, opening Thursday, April 17, 2025. The show marks Xie’s second solo exhibition with the gallery and will be on view through May 23, 2025, at 520 West 25th Street. The premise is simple enough: eight paintings, all in the same format, all relating to the artist’s dreams. The paintings themselves, however, are less straightforward. Xie’s practice is underpinned by a desire to bring figurative painting into new territory, while at the same time questioning the validity of the medium. It is to this end that his dreams have been exploited, not interpreted or illustrated, as he turns to the language of the unconscious both as a challenge and for support.

Petzel is pleased to present Eight Dreams, an exhibition of new paintings by Beijing-based artist Xie Nanxing, opening Thursday, April 17, 2025. The show marks Xie’s second solo exhibition with the gallery and will be on view through May 23, 2025, at 520 West 25th Street. The premise is simple enough: eight paintings, all in the same format, all relating to the artist’s dreams. The paintings themselves, however, are less straightforward. Xie’s practice is underpinned by a desire to bring figurative painting into new territory, while at the same time questioning the validity of the medium. It is to this end that his dreams have been exploited, not interpreted or illustrated, as he turns to the language of the unconscious both as a challenge and for support.

Gagosian presents Picasso: Tête-à-tête, in partnership with the artist’s daughter Paloma Picasso. Offering a unique opportunity to view over fifty rarely seen paintings, sculptures, and drawings from the full span of the artist’s career—1896 to 1972—the exhibition includes nearly a dozen works that are being exhibited publicly for the very first time and others that have not been shown for decades. Drawn largely from Picasso’s estate, Picasso: Tête-à-tête is the final exhibition to be held at Gagosian’s flagship 980 Madison Avenue gallery.

This spring, the Guggenheim Museum’s iconic rotunda will fill Rashid Johnson’s Anxious Men, spray-painted text works, large-scale sculptures, films, and more in a highly anticipated mid-career exhibition. Rashid Johnson: Poems for a Deep Thinker will bring together nearly 90 works that showcase the Chicago-born, New York-based artist’s wide-ranging practice, exploring themes ranging from history and literature to black pop culture and music.

Gagosian presents Picasso: Tête-à-tête, in partnership with the artist’s daughter Paloma Picasso. Offering a unique opportunity to view over fifty rarely seen paintings, sculptures, and drawings from the full span of the artist’s career—1896 to 1972—the exhibition includes nearly a dozen works that are being exhibited publicly for the very first time and others that have not been shown for decades. Drawn largely from Picasso’s estate, Picasso: Tête-à-tête is the final exhibition to be held at Gagosian’s flagship 980 Madison Avenue gallery.

This spring, the Guggenheim Museum’s iconic rotunda will fill Rashid Johnson’s Anxious Men, spray-painted text works, large-scale sculptures, films, and more in a highly anticipated mid-career exhibition. Rashid Johnson: Poems for a Deep Thinker will bring together nearly 90 works that showcase the Chicago-born, New York-based artist’s wide-ranging practice, exploring themes ranging from history and literature to black pop culture and music.

This spring, the Guggenheim Museum’s iconic rotunda will fill Rashid Johnson’s Anxious Men, spray-painted text works, large-scale sculptures, films, and more in a highly anticipated mid-career exhibition. Rashid Johnson: Poems for a Deep Thinker will bring together nearly 90 works that showcase the Chicago-born, New York-based artist’s wide-ranging practice, exploring themes ranging from history and literature to black pop culture and music.

Gagosian presents Picasso: Tête-à-tête, in partnership with the artist’s daughter Paloma Picasso. Offering a unique opportunity to view over fifty rarely seen paintings, sculptures, and drawings from the full span of the artist’s career—1896 to 1972—the exhibition includes nearly a dozen works that are being exhibited publicly for the very first time and others that have not been shown for decades. Drawn largely from Picasso’s estate, Picasso: Tête-à-tête is the final exhibition to be held at Gagosian’s flagship 980 Madison Avenue gallery.

Before the world turned upside down... Hawkins, 1959: a regular town with regular worries. Young Jim Hopper’s car won’t start, Bob Newby’s sister won’t take his radio show seriously and Joyce Maldonado just wants to graduate and get the hell out of town. When new student Henry Creel arrives, his family finds that a fresh start isn’t so easy…and the shadows of the past have a very long reach. From Netflix and the multi-award-winning Broadway producer Sonia Friedman Productions comes Stranger Things: The First Shadow . Winner of two Olivier Awards including Best Entertainment, this landmark production is brought to life by an award-winning creative team including director Stephen Daldry ( The Crown , Billy Elliot , The Inheritance , The Hours , The Reader ) and co-director Justin Martin ( Prima Facie , The Inheritance ). With stunning special effects, extraordinary performances, and a storyline that will keep you on the edge of your seat, this gripping, stand-alone adventure will take you right back to the beginnings of the Stranger Things story.

Mike King is America’s most prolific gig poster artist. What began as a means of promoting his own bands’ shows in the late 1970s gradually morphed into a full-time specialty in the art of the eye-catching concert poster. Today, there are few major venues or bands that have not worked with him—his imagery has saturated into the tapestry of American music culture, appearing on album covers, t-shirts, and, most importantly, posters. The posters in this exhibition are a mere slice of a much larger visual pie—a taste of some of Mike’s rarest posters from a thirty-year spread within his ongoing career. They highlight shifts in both the available technology for making posters, from fully analog to digital, as well as how the function of gig posters has evolved from advertisements to collectible merchandise. Rather than being presented strictly chronologically, each section focuses on Mike’s process for creating the paste-up or digital file necessary to produce each type of poster.

Mike King is America’s most prolific gig poster artist. What began as a means of promoting his own bands’ shows in the late 1970s gradually morphed into a full-time specialty in the art of the eye-catching concert poster. Today, there are few major venues or bands that have not worked with him—his imagery has saturated into the tapestry of American music culture, appearing on album covers, t-shirts, and, most importantly, posters. The posters in this exhibition are a mere slice of a much larger visual pie—a taste of some of Mike’s rarest posters from a thirty-year spread within his ongoing career. They highlight shifts in both the available technology for making posters, from fully analog to digital, as well as how the function of gig posters has evolved from advertisements to collectible merchandise. Rather than being presented strictly chronologically, each section focuses on Mike’s process for creating the paste-up or digital file necessary to produce each type of poster.

Mike King is America’s most prolific gig poster artist. What began as a means of promoting his own bands’ shows in the late 1970s gradually morphed into a full-time specialty in the art of the eye-catching concert poster. Today, there are few major venues or bands that have not worked with him—his imagery has saturated into the tapestry of American music culture, appearing on album covers, t-shirts, and, most importantly, posters. The posters in this exhibition are a mere slice of a much larger visual pie—a taste of some of Mike’s rarest posters from a thirty-year spread within his ongoing career. They highlight shifts in both the available technology for making posters, from fully analog to digital, as well as how the function of gig posters has evolved from advertisements to collectible merchandise. Rather than being presented strictly chronologically, each section focuses on Mike’s process for creating the paste-up or digital file necessary to produce each type of poster.

For his first major solo exhibition with Hauser & Wirth in New York, British artist Thomas J Price presents five towering figurative bronze sculptures alongside a large-scale photographic work comprising 18 separate framed images.

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.

For his first major solo exhibition with Hauser & Wirth in New York, British artist Thomas J Price presents five towering figurative bronze sculptures alongside a large-scale photographic work comprising 18 separate framed images.

For his first major solo exhibition with Hauser & Wirth in New York, British artist Thomas J Price presents five towering figurative bronze sculptures alongside a large-scale photographic work comprising 18 separate framed images.

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.

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.

Di Donna Galleries presents The Surrealist Collage: Where Dreams and Reality Meet. Organized in collaboration with Timothy Baum-a renowned poet, essayist, collector, and expert in Dada and Surrealism-the exhibition showcases a significant collection of collages by leading Surrealist artists.The Surrealist Collage celebrates the evocative power of collage as a unique medium and explores how it embodied both the imagination and ingenuity of the Surrealists. By assembling fragments of printed images, photographs, and other ephemera, they created dreamlike compositions that merged the boundaries between reality and the imagination.

Di Donna Galleries presents The Surrealist Collage: Where Dreams and Reality Meet. Organized in collaboration with Timothy Baum-a renowned poet, essayist, collector, and expert in Dada and Surrealism-the exhibition showcases a significant collection of collages by leading Surrealist artists.The Surrealist Collage celebrates the evocative power of collage as a unique medium and explores how it embodied both the imagination and ingenuity of the Surrealists. By assembling fragments of printed images, photographs, and other ephemera, they created dreamlike compositions that merged the boundaries between reality and the imagination.

Sargent is one of the greatest painters of the early 20th century, on par with Whistler. This exhibition, co-hosted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musee d'Orsay, brings together more than 90 works by Sargent, focusing on his time in France. In 1874, the 18-year-old Sargent arrived in Paris as a student. In the mid-1880s, his portrait "Madame X" was a great success at the Paris Salon. This was the peak of Sargent's creation in Paris and also the highlight of the exhibition.

Sargent is one of the greatest painters of the early 20th century, on par with Whistler. This exhibition, co-hosted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musee d'Orsay, brings together more than 90 works by Sargent, focusing on his time in France. In 1874, the 18-year-old Sargent arrived in Paris as a student. In the mid-1880s, his portrait "Madame X" was a great success at the Paris Salon. This was the peak of Sargent's creation in Paris and also the highlight of the exhibition.

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.

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.