Art World
35 Stunning Museum Shows to See in New York Over the Holidays, From Renaissance Jewel Boxes to Heart-Thumping Surveys
Catch this fall's New York museum shows before they close.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year… to visit a museum! With central heating, cafes, book stores, and art, you can get a dose of culture while you buy holiday gifts—and keep every visiting family member occupied. Whether you’re traveling to New York for the yuletide season, entertaining visitors from various generations of the family, or taking a break from the crowds (and cold), we’ve scoured the city for the best museum shows to see this holiday season.
“Chagall, Lissitzky, Malevich: The Russian Avant-Garde in Vitebsk, 1918–1922” at the Jewish Museum
Through January 6, 2019
El Lissitzky, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919–1920/1965–1980). Courtesy of the Jewish Museum.
This year marks a century since Marc Chagall held the position of Fine Arts Commissioner of Vitebsk, a city in Belarus, where he created the People’s Art School, a unique institution that opened up arts education to anyone in the region. The school espoused Bolshevik values, and Russian artists including El Lissitzky and Kazimir Malevich were invited as teachers, leading to one of the more dramatic episodes in art history. The show features more than 160 works created during that time that embody the Russian avant-garde movement.
The Jewish Museum is located at 1109 Fifth Avenue at East 92 Street. General admission is $18.
“Delacroix” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Through January 6, 2019
Eugène Delacroix, Lion Hunt (fragment), 1855. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The first-ever North American retrospective of 19th-century French Romantic master Eugène Delacroix showcases his artistic genius through 150 paintings, drawings, prints, and manuscripts that demonstrate his incredible range—from spiritual religious commissions to exoticised images of what was then considered the Orient. When the show appeared at the Louvre in Paris, it smashed attendance records. Don’t miss it here.
The Met Fifth Avenue is located at 1000 Fifth Avenue. General admission is $25.
“Pontormo: Miraculous Encounters” at the Morgan Library & Museum
Through January 6, 2019
Jacopo da Pontormo, Visitation (1528–1529). Photography by Antonio Quattrone.
Italian Mannerist great Jacopo da Pontormo’s masterful altarpiece Visitation has never traveled to the US before. Recently restored, it appears at the Morgan alongside a preparatory drawing for the piece and the Florentine painter’s rediscovered Portrait of a Young Man in a Red Cap (Carlo Neroni?), previously thought to be lost. (The latter work was purchased by American collector J. Tomilson Hill and has been granted a temporary export license despite the UK’s best efforts to bar its leaving the country.) Both works were made during the siege of Florence, which led to the fall of the Florentine Republic.
The Morgan Library & Museum is located at 225 Madison Avenue. General admission is $20.
“Everything Is Connected: Art and Conspiracy” at the Met Breuer
Through January 6, 2019
Peter Saul, Government of California (1969). Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Indulge all of your deepest darkest convictions with the Met’s show about power, intrigue, money, art, and the tangled webs that connect them all. The show includes ruminations on factual events—oftentimes using public documents as the medium—and the fantastical scenarios dreamed up by contemporary artists.
The Met Breuer is located at 945 Madison Avenue. General admission is $25.
“The Charterhouse of Bruges: Jan van Eyck, Petrus Christus, and Jan Vos” at the Frick Collection
Through January 13, 2019
For only the second time in their existence, two works commissioned by the Carthusian monk Jan Vos, and considered emblematic of early Netherlandish painting will come together at the Frick Collection. The Virgin and Child, painted by Jan van Eyck and his workshop, is part of the Frick’s collection, and the other work, known as Exeter Virgin, will be loaned from the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, and accompanied by objects that reinforce their monastic importance.
The Frick Collection is located at 1 East 70th Street. General admission is $22.
“The Progressive Revolution: Modern Art for a New India” at the Asia Society
Through January 20, 2019
M. F. Husain, Peasant Couple (1950). Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum, MA.
This fall the Asia Society in New York is showing works from the Progressive Artists’ Group, a revolutionary cadre of artists whose works reflected the energy of the transformation of Bombay, now Mumbai, in the wake of India’s independence in 1947. The paintings give insight into the ways India became a more modern society amid vast political and cultural upheaval.
The Asia Society is located at 725 Park Avenue
“Celebrating Tintoretto: Portrait Paintings and Studio Drawings” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Through January 27, 2019
Jacopo Tintoretto, Portrait of a Man (Self-Portrait) (1550s). Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
To celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Venetian painter Jacopo Tintoretto’s birth, the Met opens “Celebrating Tintoretto: Portrait Paintings and Studio Drawings,” a show that focuses on his lesser-known portraiture, including informal, surprisingly intimate portrait heads. It’s a great warm up if you’re planning to hit up the Venetian Renaissance master’s first stateside retrospective, heading to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, next year.
The Met Fifth Avenue is located at 1000 Fifth Avenue. General admission is $25.
“Liliana Porter: Other Situations” at El Museo del Barrio
Through January 27, 2019
Liliana Porter, Tejedora (2017). © Liliana Porter, courtesy of the artist.
One of the breakout stars of last year’s “Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985,” which debuted at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles before traveling to the Brooklyn Museum this spring, Liliana Porter (1941–) gets a long-overdue solo show, her first in New York. The Argentinian artist, whose work employs well-known cultural figures and characters such as Mickey Mouse and Elvis Presley to evoke issues of representation and image dissemination, has lived in the city since 1984.
El Museo del Barrio is located at 1230 Fifth Avenue. Suggested general admission is $9.
“Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future” at the Guggenheim Museum
Through February 3, 2019
Hilma af Klint, Group IV, The Ten Largest, No. 7, Adulthood (1907). The Hilma af Klint Foundation, Stockholm. Photo: Albin Dahlstrom, Moderna Museet.
A spiritualist medium as well as a groundbreaking painter, Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) was a woman ahead of her time, creating boldly colored deeply mystical canvases that predated innovations of abstract art by decades. A revelation in their own right, her paintings will also change what you think you know about art history.
The Guggenheim Museum is located at 1071 5th Avenue. General admission is $25.
“R.H. Quaytman: +x, Chapter 34” at the Guggenheim Museum
Through February 3, 2019
R.H. Quaytman, Study for +x, Chapter 34 (2018). Courtesy of the Guggenheim Museum.
In conjunction with the Hilma af Klint exhibition, contemporary artist R.H. Quaytman has created a series of works reflecting on her paintings. (The much hailed Guggenheim retrospection of af Klint is the first exhibition devoted to Klint since Quaytman himself organized a survey of the Swedish painter’s work at MoMA PS1 in 1989.)
The Guggenheim Museum is located at 1071 5th Avenue. General admission is $25.
“Blinky Palermo: To the People of New York City” at Dia:Chelsea
Through February 16, 2019
Blinky Palermo, To the People of New York City (Part XV) (1976). ©Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo: Bill Jacobson Studio, NY.
For the first time in 30 years, artist Blinky Palermo’s series of paintings posthumously titled “To the People of New York City,” will return to Chelsea, where they were originally exhibited in 1987. The works are part of Palermo’s “Metal Pictures,” stratified color field paintings on metal that are abstracted from the German flag, and allude to the early work of Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich.
Dia:Chelsea is located at 535, 541, and 545 West 22nd Street. General admission is $8.
“Charles White: A Retrospective” at the Museum of Modern Art
October 7, 2018–January 13, 2019
Charles White, Sound of Silence (1978). The Art Institute of Chicago, ©1978 The Charles White Archives.
For the first time in more than 30 years, the socially-astute artist Charles White will be the subject of a major museum retrospective. White depicted African Americans the artist described as “images of dignity,” over the course of his decades-long career, and has been cited by contemporary artists including David Hammons and Kerry James Marshall as a singular inspiration.
MoMA is located at 11 West 53 Street. General admission is $25.
“Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done” at the Museum of Modern Art
Through February 3, 2019
Simone Forti, Slant Board (1961). Performed in “Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done” at the Museum of Modern Art, Performers, from left: Laura Pfeffer, Alexis Ruiseco-Lombera, Samuel Hanson. Digital image © 2018 Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: Paula Court.
We owe much of what we consider modern dance to an unlikely source: Judson Memorial Church, the progressive, social justice-minded Protestant congregation in New York’s Greenwich Village that became a hot spot for choreographers, visual artists, and composers in the 1960s. In an exhibition featuring the likes of John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Rosalyn Drexler, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Carolee Schneemann, and Stan VanDerBeek, MoMA explores that brief but remarkably fertile period through sculpture, photography, film, and archival materials as well as live performances.
The Museum of Modern Art is located at 11 West 53rd Street. General admission is $25.
“Bruce Nauman: Disappearing Acts” at the Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1
Through February 25, 2019
Bruce Nauman, Fist in Mouth (1990). The Museum of Modern Art. © 2017 Bruce Nauman/Artist Rights Society (ARS) NY.
Not content to merely take over MoMA’s sixth floor galleries, Bruce Nauman—who previously had a retrospective at the museum in 1995—offers part two of his fall show at the museum’s Long Island City campus in Queens. From his groundbreaking video art to surprisingly pointed flashing neon signs, Nauman, now 50 years into his career, continues to defy categorization.
MoMA is located at 11 West 53 Street. General admission is $25. MoMA PS1 is located at 22-25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City, Queens. General admission is $10 suggested donation.
“Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again” at the Whitney Museum
Through March 31, 2019
Andy Warhol, Green Coca Cola Bottles (1962). © 2018 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
There’s no such thing as too much Andy Warhol, and this sprawling deep dive into the pop artist’s oeuvre reveals new perspectives on the course of his career. Highlights include a full room of Technicolor “Society Portraits” on the first floor and a massive, nearly 15-foot-tall version of the famous Mao Zedong image. If you’ve never made it to the Pop art legend’s hometown museum in Pittsburgh, this is your best chance to catch all the works you know but have never seen in person.
The Whitney is located at 99 Gansevoort Street. General admission is $25.
“Programmed: Rules, Codes, and Choreographies in Art, 1965–2018” at the Whitney Museum
Through April 14, 2019
Nam June Paik, Fin de Siecle II (1989). Courtesy of the Whitney Museum of Art.
Over 50 years of art based on instructions, including conceptual, video, and computational pieces. Although the content of the works varies, each has some sort of organizing principle involving rules, codes, or algorithms.
The Whitney is located at 99 Gansevoort Street. General admission is $25.
“Betye Saar: Keepin’ It Clean” at the New-York Historical Society
Through May 27, 2019
Betye Saar, Extreme Times Call for Extreme Heroines (2017). Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer. Courtesy of the New York Historical Museum & Library.
Now 92, Betye Saar is long overdue for increased recognition of her contributions to the Black Art Movement and feminist art movement of the 1960s and ’70s. The NYHS focuses on Saar’s washboard sculptures, using the tool as a poignant symbol that both suggests strong, unbowed women and work that is typically taken for granted.
The New York Historical Society is located at 170 Central Park West at Richard Gilder Way (West 77th Street). General admission is $21.
“Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow” at the New-York Historical Society
Through March 3, 2019
Maggie L. Walker and her accounting office at the IOSL Headquarters, St. Luke Hall Richmond, Virginia (c. 1917). Photo courtesy of National Park Service, Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site
The New-York Historical Society marks the 150th anniversary of the passage of the 14th Amendment, which granted citizenship to all persons born in the US, including former slaves, with this exhibition recognizing African Americans’ ongoing fight for full equality. Tracing the rise of the age of Jim Crow, with its doctrine of “separate but equal,” the show features artifacts, photographs, and artwork from between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of World War I that illustrate the struggle faced by African Americans looking to claim their legal rights.
The New York Historical Society is located at 170 Central Park West at Richard Gilder Way (West 77th Street). General admission is $21.
“Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” at the Brooklyn Museum
Through February 3, 2019
Barkley Hendricks, Blood (Donald Formey) (1975).
The internationally acclaimed exhibition bringing together more than 150 works by Black Americans, many of whom did not have their work acknowledged until long after they first emerged. The show covers the two decades when political and social debates roiled throughout the country, and the works reflect on that turbulence, while also showing moments of celebration and joy.
The Brooklyn Museum is located at 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn. General admission is $16.
“One: Do Ho Suh” at the Brooklyn Museum
Through May 5, 2019
Installation view, “One: Do Ho Suh” at the Brooklyn Museum.(Photo: Jonathan Dorado)
South Korean artist Do Ho Suh creates stunning full-scale fabric recreations of buildings using translucent nylon. At the Brooklyn Museum, you can walk through a hand-sewn version of the Chelsea apartment that he called home for 19 years, complete with fabric radiators and kitchen appliances.
The Brooklyn Museum is located at 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn. General admission is $16.
“Half the Picture: A Feminist Look at the Collection” at the Brooklyn Museum
Through March 31, 2019
Alaxchiiaahush/Many War Achievements/Plenty Coups (2014) from the series “1880 Crow Peace Delegation.” Artist-manipulated photograph by C.M. Bell, Smithsonian Institution. Photo by Jonathan Dorado, Brooklyn Museum.
In 1989, the Guerrilla Girls released a poster declaring “You’re seeing less than half the picture without the vision of women artists and artists of color.” The Brooklyn Museum looks to rectify that oversight with this selection of 100 works from its collection that engage with political and social issues. Within this intersectional feminist framework, works by artists including Vito Acconci, Renee Cox, Harmony Hammond, Zanele Muholi, Dread Scott, Nancy Spero, Betty Tompkins, and Andy Warhol are spotlighted in ways that are both radical and inspiring.
The Brooklyn Museum is located at 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn. General admission is $16.
“Germ City: Microbes and the Metropolis” at the Museum of the City of New York
Through April 28, 2019
Fleming penicillin medallion, presented to Ruth Draper at St. Mary’s Hospital in London on November 28, 1946. Courtesy of the New York Academy of Medicine Library.
All of the creepy crawlies are coming under the microscope at the Museum of the City of New York this fall. This show is abuzz with facts about how man and microbe coexist in the city, and all the battles waged by one against the other.
The Museum of the City of New York is located at 1220 Fifth Avenue at East 103 Street. General admission is $18.
“Hayley Silverman: Protect Me From What I Am” at the Swiss Institute
Through January 13, 2019
Hayley Silverman, Submission (2018). Courtesy of the artist, Bodega, New York and Veda, Florence.
In Hayley Silverman’s first solo institutional exhibition, the New York-based artist explores the themes of religion, value, and history through the lens of visual art. This is most evident in her diorama-like works, populated by figures of Catholic saints purchased by the artist. The tableaux resemble traditional religious shrines in their devotional intricacy, though all have been subject to some sort of catastrophic accident that allude to a darker side of organized religion.
The Swiss Institute is located at 38 St. Marks Place. Admission is free.
“Sarah Lucas: Au Naturel” at the New Museum
Through January 20, 2019
Sarah Lucas’s Self Portrait with Fried Eggs (1996). Courtesy of Tate Museum.
Less well known in America than some of her fellow Young British Artists such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas gets her first US museum survey, featuring her signature figurative, found-object sculptures, lumpy forms that are at once humorous and erotic.
The New Museum is located at 235 Bowery. General admission is $18.
“Franz Marc and August Macke: 1909–1914” at the Neue Galerie
Through January 21, 2019
August Macke, Four Girls (1913). Photo courtesy of Museum Kunstpalast – Horst Kolberg.
With more than 70 paintings and works on paper, the Neue Galerie tells the story of the relationship between German artists Franz Marc and Auguste Macke. The two men were part of the group Der Blaue Reiter, formed during the height of German Expressionism and informed by spirituality, cubism, and futurism.
The Neue Galerie is located at 1048 Fifth Avenue at East 86th Street. General admission is $22.
“Navigating New York” at the New York Transit Museum
Through September 8, 2019
Courtesy of the New York Transit Museum.
One of the city’s gems is the Transit Museum, located underground and accessible through an actual Subway entrance, nestled in Downtown Brooklyn. With vintage train cars you can explore, papered with advertisements and photographs from each decade in the MTA’s history, this is a very family friendly stop. The current exhibition includes historic maps, artists renderings, guidebooks, and other gems from the museum collection.
The New York Transit Museum is located at 99 Schermerhorn Street. General admission is $10.
“Queens International 2018: Volumes” at the Queens Museum
Through February 24, 2019
Installation view of the Queens International 2018. Photo by Hai Zhang, courtesy of the Queens Museum.
The eighth edition of the biennial Queens International exhibition asks Queens-based artists to reflect on the theme of “Volumes.” Through various mediums across the entire museum, and for the first time, encompassing the Queens Library, the participants draw on their personal experiences, communities, and relationships to make publicly accessible art installations and interventions.
The Queens Museum is located at Flushing Meadows Corona Park, New York City Building, Corona, Queens. Suggested admission is $8.
“Yasumasa Morimura: Ego Obscura” at the Japan Society
Through January 13, 2019
Yasumasa Morimura, Van Gogh/Blue (2016). Photo courtesy of the artist, ©Yasumasa Morimura
In his stunning photographic self-portraits, Yasumasa Morimura is utterly transformed, taking on personas from art history and pop culture. It’s a project he’s been working on for 30 years, at once deeply personal—de-centering the notion of the the “self”—as well as rooted in the history of post-war Japan. In his first institutional solo show in New York, Morimura also presents his first full-length video piece, Egó Sympósion, in which he casts himself as twelve great artists all known for their self portraits.
Japan Society is located at 333 East 47th Street. General admission is $12.
“Jennifer Wynne Reeves: All Right for Now” at the Drawing Center
Through February 3, 2019
Jennifer Wynne Reeves, Bittersweet (2005). Courtesy of BravinLee Programs.
Four years after her untimely death from brain cancer, Jennifer Wynne Reeves, a master of line and color, gets her first New York museum show. Her surprisingly humorous and emotional compositions on paper, Masonite, and wood, are accompanied by excerpts from her notebooks and other text pieces.
The Drawing Center is located at 35 Wooster Street. General admission is $5.
“A City for Corduroy: Don Freeman’s New York” at the Museum of the City of New York
Through June 23, 1968
Don Freeman’s Courduroy. Courtesy of Kerlan Collection, Childrens Literature Research.
Author and illustrator Don Freeman’s beloved children’s book Corduroy, about a teddy bear in a department store, was published in 1968. The Museum of the City of New York celebrates the tale’s 50th birthday with an extended look at Freeman’s New York-related artistic output, from other picture books such as Pet of the Met to drawings of everyday New Yorkers from the 1930s to his behind-the-scenes illustrations of Broadway.
The Museum of the City of New York is located at 1220 Fifth Avenue at East 103 Street. General admission is $18.
“Sterling Ruby” at the Museum of Arts and Design
Through October 3, 2019
Sterling Ruby, Basin Theology/STYX BOAT (2017). Photo by Robert Wedemeyer. Courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio
Sterling Ruby may be best known as the artist who brought Calvin Klein’s flagship store into the contemporary art canon, but the American artist has been at it long before Raf Simons tapped him to design retail spaces. In this show of his ceramics, Ruby makes inventive use of clay, and the process of firing ceramics, often incorporating cast-off pieces from the kiln into his work.
MAD is located at 2 Columbus Circle. General admission is $16.
“Fake News and True Love: Fourteen Stories by Robert Baines” at the Museum of Arts and Design
Through March 3, 2019
Robert Baines. Photo courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design.
The Australian-born contemporary artist and craftsman Robert Baines is taking on the culture of fake news through the lens of jewelry. The artist has created vignettes that revolve around a jewelry piece, accompanied by “evidence” that tells the story of each unique piece of art.
The Museum of Arts and Design is located at Jerome and Simona Chazen Building, 2 Columbus Circle. General admission is $16.
“Metaphysical Masterpieces 1916–1920” at the Center for Italian Modern Art
Through June 15, 2019
Giorgio Morandi, Fiori (Flowers) (1918). From the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, courtesy of MiBAC ©2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS)/SIAE, Rome.
The “metaphysical” painting on display in this rare exhibition refers to the Italian art movement that flowered during World War I, and reflects the pervasive sense of discomfort and mystery at what the future would be. In this show, the work of lesser-known practitioners of this proto-surreal style include Giorgio Morandi, Carlo Carra, and Mario Sironi, many of which come from a single Milan-based collection.
The Center for Italian Modern Art is located at 421 Broome Street, 4th Floor. General admission is $10, students get in free.
“Billie Jean King: The Road to 75” at the New-York Historical Society
Through January 27, 2019
Billie Jean King serves as grand marshal of the annual Pride Parade on June 24, 2018 in New York City. Photo by Kena Betancur/Getty Images.
The activist and legendary tennis player Billie Jean King is getting an exhibition devoted to her this fall at the New-York Historical Society, just in time for her 75th birthday. From testifying in the Senate on behalf of Women’s educational rights to winning 39 Grand Slams, the museum will show her colorful life in more than 75 photographs.
The New York Historical Society is located at 170 Central Park West at Richard Gilder Way (West 77th Street). General admission is $21.
“Eddie Martinez: White Outs” at the Bronx Museum
Through February 17, 2019
Eddie Martinez, Whitewash Fine Ants (2018). Courtesy of the Bronx Museum.
Equally inspired by the New York School and street culture, Eddie Martinez has added a new element to his large-scale paintings by intentionally erasing parts of his compositions. This “white out” technique is informed by art history, as X-ray analysis of the work of the Old Masters often shows erased images hidden beneath the surface of the painting.
The Bronx Museum is located at 1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx. Admission is free.
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