The editors at artnet News searched New York City high and low for the most exciting, bizarre, and thought-provoking museum exhibitions this fall. From Chelsea to the Lower East Side, we’ve got you covered. 

1. “Proof: Francisco Goya, Sergei Eisenstein, and Robert Longo” at the Brooklyn Museum
September 8, 2017–January 7, 2018

Spanning three continents and four centuries, “Proof,” organized by the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, juxtaposes black-and-white etching, film, and charcoal drawings by Spanish artist Francisco Goya (1746–1828), Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948), and contemporary American artist Robert Longo (1953–). All three men use their work to chronicle their personal perspectives on major events, offering compelling insights into the political, cultural, and social issues of their time.

The Brooklyn Museum is located at 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn. General admission is $16.

2. “Azikiwe Mohammed: Jimmy’s Thrift of New Davonhaime” at the Knockdown Center
September 9–October 29, 2017

Part performance, part installation Azikiwe Mohammed’s Jimmy’s Thrift of New Davohaime is a thrift store set in a fictional city that takes its name from a portmanteau of New Orleans, Detroit, Jackson, Birmingham, and Savannah, the five most crowded black cities in the US. The artist, who will man the exhibition on a daily basis, photographing the public to add to his Black Community Family Albums, conceived of the piece as a safe space for people of color in America. This will be the third and largest iteration of Jimmy’s, following presentations in 2016 at the SPRING/BREAK Art Show and with No Longer Empty, both in New York.

The Knockdown Center is located at 52-19 Flushing Ave, Maspeth, Queens. Admission is free. 

3. “Delirious: Art at the Limits of Reason” at the Met Breuer
September 13, 2017–January 14, 2018

The upheaval of the Post-War years, marked by political unrest, proved rife with inspiration for the world’s artists. The Met Breuer brings together some 100 works by 62 American, Latin American, and European artists, including Eva Hesse, Yayoi Kusama, Ana Mendieta, Peter Saul, and Paul Thek. All express distrust and embrace irrationality. If you already think that most contemporary art is crazy, this will only further convince you.

The Met Breuer is located at 945 Madison Avenue. Suggestion admission is $25.

4. “Modigliani Unmasked” at the Jewish Museum
September 15, 2017–February 4, 2018

See 150-or-so works by Amedeo Modligliani, many of which are drawings from the collection of his friend and first patron, Paul Alexandre. The exhibition focuses on the years after the artist’s move to Paris in 1906, where he faced a great deal of anti-Semitic sentiment. Modigliani’s struggle to forge a new identity for himself is reflected in the work of that period, which include an unsettlingly unfinished portrait of Alexandre, on view in this country for the first time.

The Jewish Museum is located at 1109 5th Ave at East 92nd Street. General admission is $18.

5. “Rodin at the Met” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art 
September 16, 2017–January 15, 2018

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the death of Auguste Rodin (1840–1917), the Met will showcase nearly 50 marble, plaster, bronze, and terracotta sculptures, acquired by the museum over the course of the century. The Met opened a dedicated Rodin gallery in 1912, and has one of the largest holdings of the artist’s work in the US. The exhibition, held in the refurbished C. Gerald Cantor Sculpture Gallery, will include The Thinker and The Hand of God, among Rodin’s most famous works, as well as paintings by some of his friends and contemporaries, such as Claude Monet (1840–1926).

The Met is located at 1000 5th Avenue. Suggestion admission is $25.

6. “Never Built New York” at the Queens Museum
September 17, 2017–February 18, 2018

The New York City skyline is nothing short of iconic, but for every towering skyscraper on the horizon there are buildings that never were, proposed construction projects that could have totally transformed the city as we know it. The Queens Museums takes a close look at this alternate universe, presenting the plans, models, and other preparatory materials for never-realized structures such as the failed West Side Stadium and a futuristic floating airport. Expect a fascinating glimpse of what might have been.

The Queens Museum is located at Flushing Meadows Corona Park, New York City Building, Corona, Queens. General admission is $8.

7. “Nicola L.: Works, 1968 to the Present” at the SculptureCenter
September 18–December 18, 2017

Nicola L.’s first institutional survey begins with her work from the late 1960s, when she was living in Ibiza and Paris, working alongside the likes of Yves Klein and Alberto Greco. Since the late 1970s, she has lived in New York’s Chelsea Hotel, creating interdisciplinary pieces that blur the lines between the human body and inanimate objects such as furniture. The exhibition will include painting, collage, video, and her own personal genre of “functional art.”

The SculptureCenter is located at 44-19 Purves Street, Long Island City, Queens. Suggested donation is $5. 

8. “Max Ernst: Beyond Painting” at the Museum of Modern Art
September 23, 2017–January 1, 2018

Max Ernst, a member of the Dada and Surrealist movements, never stopped experimenting in his bid to create new techniques that moved his art “beyond painting.” MoMA showcases roughly 100 pieces from its collection of works by the artist, including a recent acquisition, 65 Maximiliana, ou l’exercice illégal de l’astronomie (1964), an illustrated book with 35 aquatints and text written in a secret hieroglyphic script invented by Ernst.

The Museum of Modern Art is located at 11 West 53rd Street. General admission is  $25.

9. “Louise Bourgeois: An Unfolding Portrait” at the Museum of Modern Art 
September 24, 2017–January 28, 2018

Despite having created 1,200 of them, Louise Bourgeois is not well known for her prints. MoMA pairs selections from its own, impressive archive of Bourgeois prints with rarely exhibited loans, highlighting the artist’s ever-evolving artistic process by showcasing different states and variations of the same compositions. (In addition to the 220-work show, the museum has just released an online catalogue raisonné, Louise Bourgeois: The Complete Prints & Books.)

The Museum of Modern Art is located at 11 West 53rd Street. General admission is $25.

10. “Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon” at the New Museum
September 27, 2017–January 21, 2018

One of no less than five exhibitions opening at the New Museum that day—the institution is also inaugurating its modest expansion into the building next door with “Petrit Halilaj: Ru” and “Kahlil Joseph: Shadow Play“—“Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon” is inspired by our renewed culture wars and conflicts over the role gender should and does play in society. The over-40 featured artists are an intergenerational group, ranging from emerging figures such as Sable Elyse Smith and Paul Mpagi Sepuya to the ultra-well-known Mickalene Thomas. All explore the concept of gender fluidity, and how gender intersects with race, class, sexuality, and other power structures.

The New Museum is located at 235 Bowery. General admission is $18. 

11. “Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings From the Thaw Collection” at the Morgan Library & Museum
September 29, 2017–January 7, 2018

The Morgan Library is finally showing off the master drawing collection of Eugene V. Thaw and Clare Thaw, a promised gift to the institution since 1975, now received in full. Renaissance greats will share wall space with famed Modern artists, with the likes of Rembrandt, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Peter Paul Rubens, Francisco de Goya, Pablo Picasso, and Canaletto all represented.

The Morgan Library & Museum is located at 225 Madison Avenue. General admission is $20.

12. “The Vietnam War: 1945–1975” at the New-York Historical Society
October 4, 2017–April 22, 2018

The US was involved in Indochina, later known as Vietnam, from 1945 to 1975. That controversial conflict gets covered in depth at the New-York Historical Society, which has amassed a massive collection of artifacts, photographs, and documents that illustrate the causes of the war, its progression, and its impacts both in the US and Asia. Included will be artwork by Vietnam veterans.

The New-York Historical Society is located at 170 Central Park West, at Richard Gilder Way (77th Street). General admission is $21.

13. “Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World” at the Guggenheim Museum
October 6, 2017–January 7, 2018

The Guggenheim examines Chinese contemporary art from the end of the Cold War and the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests until the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It was a period of explosive growth and change for the country that saw the spread of globalization and the rise of China as a world power. The exhibition casts Chinese artists as important figures in the emergence of a global field of contemporary art, and explores the effects of historical events on the work being produced in the country at this time. The title work, by Huan Yong Ping, is a tortoise-shaped cage filled with live reptiles and insects, allowing viewers to watch nature run its course.

The Guggenheim is located at 1071 5th Avenue. General admission is $25.

14. “Barbara Hammer: Evidentiary Bodies” at the Leslie-Lohman Museum
October 7, 2017–January 28, 2018

Queer cinema pioneer Barbara Hammer’s film, video, installation, and works on paper go on view alongside archival materials at the Leslie-Lohman Museum. In addition to some of her best-known works, such as Double Strength, which explores a lesbian relationship, the show will include never-before-seen work.

The Leslie-Lohman Museum is located at 26 Wooster Street. Suggested admission is $8.

15. “Judith Bernstein: Cabinet of Horrors” at the Drawing Center
October 13, 2017–January 21, 2018

Since the election of Donald Trump, Judith Bernstein has created a new body of work criticizing his administration. Never one to shy away from politics—she created anti-Vietnam War drawings in the 1960s—the artist turns the President’s insult-filled rhetoric back on him, channeling her anger and disgust into new, sometimes comically graphic work, including 15 drawings and four large-scale murals.

The Drawing Center is located at 35 Wooster Street. General admission is $5.

16. “Toyin Ojih Odutola” at the Whitney Museum of American Art
October 20, 2017–

In her first New York solo museum show, Toyin Ojih Odutola draws the lives of two fictional wealthy Nigerian families. These new, life-size works diverge from portraiture traditions, using charcoal, pastel, and pencil to render her striking, moody subjects.

The Whitney is located at 99 Gansevoort Street. General admission is $25.

17. “Roots of The Dinner Party: History in the Making” at the Brooklyn Museum
October 20, 2017–March 4, 2018 

As the Brooklyn Museum’s “A Year of Yes: Reimagining Feminism,” celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, draws to a close, it’s only appropriate that the institution turns to Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party (1971–79), the centerpiece of the center. The show reveals the work’s community art-making origins, showcasing test plates, research documents, preparatory drawings, and other materials related to the lengthy creative process behind it. (Down in Washington, DC, “Inside the Dinner Party Studio” takes a similar look at the work’s genesis at the National Museum of Women in the Arts Library, September 17, 2017–January 5, 2018).

The Brooklyn Museum is located at 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn. General admission is $16.

18. “Hiroshi Sugimoto: Gates of Paradise” at Japan Society 
October 20, 2017–January 7, 2018

Through his monumental photographs, Hiroshi Sugimoto is an epic storyteller, following four Japanese boys as they travel the world during the Age of Exploration. The imagined narrative touches on issues of cultural exchange between East and West, and the forces of religion, commerce, and politics as the youths are sent to the courts of Europe.

Japan Society is located at 333 East 47th Street. General admission is $12.

19. “Carolee Schneeman: Kinetic Painting” at MoMA PS1
October 22, 2017–March 11, 2018

Feminist artist Carolee Schneemann gets her first comprehensive retrospective at PS1, beginning with rarely seen paintings from the 1950s and ranging from her body-based performance works of the late ’60s to her more recent multimedia installations.

MoMA PS1 is located at 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Queens. Suggested admission is $10. 

 

20. “Wiener Werkstätte, 1903–1932: The Luxury of Beauty” at the Neue Galerie
October 26, 2017–January 29, 2018

In Vienna, between 1903 and 1932, the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops) craftsmen’s collective turned everyday objects into art. The Neue Galerie has brought together over 400 opulent examples of glass, ceramics, jewelry, furniture, and other design pieces by the group, which counted Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser among its members.

The Neue Galerie is located at 1048 Fifth Avenue at East 86th Street. General admission is $20.

21. “François Morellet” at Dia:Chelsea and Dia:Beacon
October 28, 2017–June 30, 2018

François Morellet (1926–2016), a founding member of French 1960s artist collaborative Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel, gets a rare exhibition outside of Europe, where he is well known. In Chelsea, Dia will present many of Morellet’s early abstract geometric paintings, as well as later paintings and neon works. Don’t miss the Beacon presentation, which will feature No End Neon (1990/2017), a new site-specific installation configured for Dia by the late artist’s estate and studio.

Dia:Beacon is located at 3 Beekman Street, Beacon. General admission is $15. Dia:Chelsea is located at 535, 541 and 545 West 22nd Street. General admission is $8.

22. “Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978–1983” at the Museum of Modern Art
October 31, 2017–April 1, 2018

Alternative 1970s and ’80s East Village alternative arts space Club 57 takes center stage with its first major exhibition, examining the art, performance, fashion, film, photography, and zines that grew out of the seminal counter-cultural venue. Keith Haring was the founding exhibition organizer, part of a curatorial staff that developed a new model for an interdisciplinary arts space.

MoMA is located at 11 West 53rd St, New York, NY 10019, and is open daily 10:30 a.m.–5:30 p.m., Fridays 10:30 a.m.–8 p.m. General admission is $25.

23. “Murillo: The Self Portraits” at the Frick Collection 
November 1, 2017–February 4, 2018

The two only known self-portraits by Spanish master Bartolomé Esteban Murillo are reunited for the first time in over 300 years on the occasion of his 400th birthday. The Frick recently acquired one of the pair; the other is owned by the National Gallery, London, where the show will travel, February 28–May 21, 2018.

The Frick Collection is located at 1 East 70th Street. General admission is $22.

24. “Gordon Matta-Clark: Anarchitect“ at the Bronx Museum
November 8, 2017–April 8, 2018

Gordon Matta-Clark’s radical approach to architecture saw him slice into abandoned homes in the Bronx and other run-down cities both in the US and overseas, carving massive holes and openings in their facades. The Bronx Museum highlights the political nature of Matta-Clark’s work with a selection of more than 100 artworks and rarely exhibited archival materials.

The Bronx Museum is located at 1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx. Admission is free.

25. “Doreen Garner and Kenya (Robinson): White Man On a Pedestal (WMOAP)” at Pioneer Works
November 10–December 17, 2017

This timely exhibition, which questions the primacy of heterosexual white men in Western art history, follows on the heels of renewed outcry against public monuments memorializing Confederate leaders. Also the subject of controversy is a Central Park statue of J. Marion Sims, a 19th-century doctor who made great advances in the field of gynecology—at the expense of the enslaved black women who were his unwilling surgical subjects. Doreen Garner will create and dissect a silicon cast of the objectionable statue.

Pioneer Works is located at 159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn. Admission is free. 

26. “Carrie Mae Weems: Beacon” at the Edward Hopper House
November 10, 2017–February 25, 2018

The 2017 recipient of the Edward Hopper Citation of Merit for Visual Artists, Carrie Mae Weems will show her photograph series “Beacon” (2002), at the Edward Hopper House in Nyack. Weems appears in all the images, her back to the camera, looking at the upstate New York community, which has evolved over the decades from a factory town to a vibrant arts center.

The Edward Hopper House is located at 82 North Broadway, Nyack. General admission is $7. 

27. “Art in the Open: 50 Years of Public Art in New York” at the Museum of the City of New York
November 10–December 31, 2017

Public art in New York City has come a long way from the park war memorials and bland civic murals of yesteryear over the last 50 years. In celebration of the Public Art Fund’s 40th anniversary, the Museum of the City of New York highlights some of the most innovative and influential works, from the likes of Red Grooms, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and Kara Walker.

The Museum of the City of New York is located at 1220 Fifth Avenue at East 103rd Street. General admission is $18.

28. “Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
November 13, 2017–February 12, 2018

A can’t miss exhibition for Old Master lovers, this Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) show features some 150 drawings by the Renaissance great, plus three marble sculptures, a wooden architectural model, and his earliest surviving painting. It will be a rare display of his virtuosic draftsmanship, showcasing delicate works on paper that rarely go on display.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is located at 1000 5th Avenue. Suggestion admission is $25.

29. “Edvard Munch: Between the Clock and the Bed” at the Met Breuer
November 15, 2017–February 4, 2018

This impressive selection of some 45 paintings by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch travels to the Met from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Included are 16 self-portraits, and two precursors to his famous The Scream, featuring the same ominously red sky but with a far less disturbed figure in the foreground. The artist’s mastery of color and form are matched by his painting’s introspective nature, exploring themes of illness, depression, death, and isolation.

The Met Breuer is located at 945 Madison Avenue. Suggestion admission is $25.

30. “David Hockney” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
November 17–February 25

In case you’ve been living under a rock, acclaimed British artist David Hockney turned 80 this year. This massive retrospective, organized by the Met with Tate Britain, London, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris is only making one stop in the US, so don’t miss it. The show will feature Hockney’s work in all media, from painting and drawing to photography, video, and his more recent iPad drawings.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is located at 1000 5th Avenue. Suggested admission is $25.