As the days grow shorter and the autumn chill settles over the streets, New York City’s cultural calendar is offering a vibrant antidote to the winter weather. Across Museum Mile, the historic avenues of Manhattan, and the creative hubs of the outer boroughs, a sweeping array of exhibitions is currently redefining the boundaries of what art can encompass. From surrealist literature and graphic novels to century-old dolls and the pulsating nightlife of a bankrupt 1970s metropolis, institutions citywide are presenting some of their most ambitious programming to date.
Whether visitors choose to wander the iconic, spiraling rotunda of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Upper Manhattan or traverse the quiet, contemporary gallery spaces of Amant tucked away among the warehouses of East Williamsburg, the city’s diverse art spaces invite deep exploration. These collections challenge conventional formats, urging audiences to reflect on historical memory, environmental consciousness, systemic violence, and the enduring power of popular culture.
New Museum
At the New Museum on the Bowery, current exhibitions focus intensely on the convergence of individual identity and specific places over extended spans of time. Spanning two floors, Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony marks the first comprehensive solo exhibition of the acclaimed American artist and cinematographer’s work across four decades. The centerpiece of the presentation is his searing eight-minute video montage, Love is the Message, the Message is Death. The powerful work chronicles the complex tapestry of the Black experience throughout the twentieth century, capturing its profound grief, enduring joys, and immense pain by weaving together sampled clips from music videos, historic newscasts, and iconic sporting events.
Moving to the museum’s second floor, visitors encounter Bowery: Devil’s Mile, an immersive look that traces four centuries of the mythic lower Manhattan street’s evolution and shifting identities. The thoroughfare has transformed over generations from a pre-colonial Lenape footpath into a nineteenth-century strip dominated by saloons and dance halls, later serving as a vital gathering space for Beatniks, punk rockers, and post-rock musicians, before eventually becoming the modern home of the museum itself. Although the area once universally known as New York City’s Skid Row has gradually given way to a much tamer and more heavily gentrified crowd, its varied past is brought back to life through nineteenth-century sideshow flyers, Jacob Riis’s seminal documentary photographs of the working class, and an extensive collection of historical ephemera. Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony is scheduled to run through January 3, 2027, while Bowery: Devil’s Mile remains on view through January 31, 2027.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Uptown at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, artist Taryn Simon presents her most expansive body of work to date with Father Country I Do Love You. The ambitious exhibition begins with a recollection of a story shared by Simon’s father regarding an intelligence officer he had encountered long ago, before segueing into the artist’s own account of meeting an anonymous, retired FBI agent. Utilizing approximately one thousand images, extensive text, video installations, and sculpture, Simon charts intricate, nested narratives concerning the myriad characters, remote locations, and pivotal historical events with which the former agent crossed paths. Displayed along the museum’s famous spiraling rotunda—a structural layout that mirrors the twisting nature of the stories within—the installation represents the largest single body of work ever to debut at the Guggenheim, capturing the absurdity and complexity of real life. The exhibition is on view through March 14, 2027.
Amant
Across the East River in Brooklyn, Amant has cemented its status as a vital artistic haven among the industrial warehouses of East Williamsburg. Following a summer in the spotlight generated by the opening of its campus restaurant, Zoli, the institution is currently drawing crowds with Sentient Earth, a campus-wide group exhibition that brings together twenty-eight contemporary artists. The participating creators were invited to interpret what the planet might communicate to humanity if it possessed direct sentience. Featuring larger-than-life blister pill packs presented as archaeological artifacts alongside objects closely resembling industrial mining tools and refuse, the exhibition offers a sobering yet urgent look at humanity’s very real environmental impacts, punctuated by moments of dark humor. Admission to Amant is free and open to the public, with Sentient Earth running through February 14, 2027.
Museum of Modern Art
In Manhattan, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is exploring the intersection of literature and visual culture with The Surrealist Book: Tomorrow Lives in Mirrors. Rather than simply displaying books containing art, the exhibition presents the books themselves as primary works of art, highlighting them as the Surrealists’ chosen medium for ideological and formal experimentation. The presentation features rare works by André Breton, Max Ernst, and especially notable photomontages by the queer artist Claude Cahun. Cahun toyed extensively with gender conventions through portraiture and poetry, receiving overdue art-historical recognition after being largely overlooked throughout much of the twentieth century.
On MoMA’s second floor, Teresa Margolles: Aproximación al lugar de los hechos (Approaching the Scene) utilizes forensic precision to trace femicide and systemic violence across the United States, with a particular focus on Minnesota, California, and Texas. Utilizing raw fragments such as shattered glass and contaminated soil, Margolles—drawing upon her professional background as a forensic pathologist—creates an overwhelming sense of loss that resonates deeply for both victims and those left in their wake. Visitors can continue exploring the project by riding the F train two stops to MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens, where the second installment, Teresa Margolles: En el lugar de los hechos (At the Scene), is on view through February. The Surrealist Book runs through January 23, 2027, while the Manhattan iteration of Margolles’s exhibition continues through the summer of 2027.
Museum at Fashion Institute of Technology
Exploring the cultural resonance of childhood playthings, the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) presents Doll Dressing. Spanning three centuries, the exhibition examines the myriad ways in which miniature muses have influenced and dictated human fashion. Visitors can examine how high-fashion houses and contemporary designers such as Martin Margiela, Loewe, and Marc Jacobs manipulate scale and optical illusion. The exhibition also explores the archetype of the living doll, referencing 1960s cultural icons like Twiggy alongside the aesthetics of modern Japanese Lolita subculture. Naturally, the galleries also feature an extensive array of physical models, including classic Barbie dolls, antique boudoir dolls, lesser-known Takara figures, and Bratz dolls. The exhibition is scheduled to remain on view through January 3, 2027.
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is currently hosting the first major exhibition in the Americas dedicated entirely to the global phenomenon of Japanese graphic novels. Titled Art of Manga, the expansive showcase explores the medium’s profound and enduring influence on contemporary art and narrative storytelling. The exhibition features more than 600 original drawings, including rare works by Hirohiko Araki, creator of the cult-favorite series JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure; Eiichiro Oda, creator of the bestselling epic One Piece; and master horror manga artist Junji Ito.
Visitors extending their stay at the Brooklyn Museum can also visit the fourth floor for Hopi Kachina Dolls: Blessings for a Balanced World, an intimate exhibition highlighting fifty-three intricately painted and carved wooden figures traditionally gifted to Hopi girls and women as they transition into adulthood. Art of Manga runs through January 31, 2027, while the Hopi Kachina dolls exhibition continues through June 27, 2027.
The New York Historical Society
Concluding its series of six major installments celebrating America at 250, The New York Historical Society presents You Should Be Dancing: New York, 1976 and Beyond. The exhibition examines the distinct yet overlapping disco, punk, and hip-hop scenes that simultaneously emerged across the boroughs within the crucible of a financially bankrupt New York City. Central to the display is an original awning salvaged from the legendary East Village club CBGB, surrounded by historical ephemera that includes handwritten lyrics by Patti Smith and Richard Hell, an original Studio 54 VIP party invitation, an early screenplay draft for Saturday Night Fever, and numerous other artifacts preserving the gritty, creative energy of the city’s past. The exhibition remains on view through April 2, 2027.
