15 Art Shows to See in Upstate New York This Summer

As the United States approaches the dubious milestone of 250 years, we look to art as an exemplar for independence of expression. This summer, artistic freedom reigns in Upstate New York. At the Hudson River Museum, photographs of Black cowboys and cowgirls by Ron Tarver offer poignant visions of American power. The inaugural Upstate Photography Biennial at the Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) is an exciting group exhibition that highlights regional talent, while a solo show of photos by Linda McCartney takes center stage at Fenimore Art Museum. Wassaic Project presents an incredible summer exhibition — my favorite this season — installed throughout seven floors, and Jack Shainman Gallery’s The School kicks off its season with a dynamic group show with a roster of leading contemporary artists.

A visit to Storm King offers art lovers a chance to see new temporary installations by Anicka Yi, Liz Glynn, and Saif Azzuz (plus all the other incredible permanent sculptures on their lush grounds) while Art Omi presents works by Tschabalala Self and Nayland Blake. The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors offers thrills for fans of visionary art with their current group show. Farther east on the map, an early light work by James Turrell is on long-term view at Catskill Art Space, and vibrant portrait paintings by Deborah Roberts can be found at the Everson Museum of Art. As we approach July 4th and everything that it represents, cheers to art as a beacon of true freedom for all!

Black Cowboys in America: Photographs by Ron Tarver

Hudson River Museum, 511 Warburton Avenue, Yonkers, New York
Through August 30

As the US approaches its 250th anniversary, Ron Tarver’s visions of Black American cowboy culture offer a proud, dynamic representation. At the Hudson River Museum, Black Cowboys in America: Photographs by Ron Tarver brings together colorful photographs from this Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, including images of Black men and women riding horses on farms and at rodeos and pageants. Among the most compelling of these photos from the early 1990s is Tarver’s “Texas Trail Ride (Multicultural Western Heritage Trail, Brackettville to San Antonio, TX)” (1994), featuring a group of confident riders in a field of dense sunflowers set against a twilit sky, a compelling vision of independence.

Upstate Photography Biennial

Center for Photography at Woodstock, 25 Dederick Street, Kingston, New York
Through September 6

The first-ever Upstate Photography Biennial at the Center for Photography at Woodstock highlights the diversity and strength of regional photographers. Co-curated by Marina Chao and Adam Gile, the exhibition brings together 39 artists working with photography in a range of styles and methods, including tintypes, cyanotypes, collages, and pinhole cameras. The mood of this show shifts compellingly from political to personal and back again, as demonstrated by black and white images of lesbian separatists learning to handle firearms in the woods by Morgan Gwenwald; a vision of a man alone on his bed below a wall cluttered with family photos by Luis Manuel Diaz; and Robert Kalman’s stoic portraits of people commenting on what it means to be American, with a poignant hand-written response by each sitter accompanying each image. 

The Linda McCartney Retrospective: From the Light

Fenimore Art Museum, 5798 State Highway 80, Cooperstown, New York
Through September 7 

The Beatles’ fame is so extraordinarily enduring that any peek into their world is still thrilling. This exhibition at the Fenimore Art Museum welcomes us into Linda McCartney’s loving private life with famed songwriter and vocalist Paul McCartney. During her career as a photographer, she not only regularly documented her husband and his band, but also created iconic images of other celebrated musicians, including Aretha Franklin and Jimi Hendrix — becoming the first woman to shoot a cover of Rolling Stone with her depiction of Eric Clapton in 1968. Among the most precious photos are images of Paul and their young children in Scotland, and a particularly sultry photo of Paul’s eyes in the rearview mirror of a car, titled “My Love. London” (1978). 

Because, now is the time of monsters

Wassaic Project, 37 Furnace Bank Road, Wassaic, New York
Through September 12

If you only have time to visit one show in Upstate NY this summer, then plan on this one. Installed throughout the seven floors of the storied Maxon Mills building, this exhibition is weird, wild, and absolutely wonderful. Featuring 39 artists working across a range of media including site-specific installation, video, recycled fabrics, and stained glass, the adventure begins with Dennis Gordon’s “At Odds” (2026) and other meticulous mini-dioramas of abandoned buildings and derelict industrial landscapes. Each successive floor is its own compelling chapter in a wacky story of monsters, including vibrant works by Saul Chernick, Lisa Alonzo, Davina Hsu, Tim Olson, and others. The show culminates with Clarissa Pezone’s “A Room of My Own” (2026) — a fantastical finale that could easily be the backdrop for a horror movie. It’s worth every step to the top floor.

 Rock, Paper, Sister

Women’s Studio Workshop, 722 Binnewater Lane, Kingston, New York
Through September 18

The two-person exhibition Rock, Paper, Sister, curated by Faythe Levine at Women’s Studio Workshop, brings together acrylic-on-rock sculptures by Elizabeth Saloka and a site-specific installation by Kate Bingaman-Burt. Both artists playfully and critically explore ideas about contemporary consumerism through distinct creative methods. Bingaman-Burt’s long-running practice of drawing daily purchases is a delightful visual record of her consumption habits, on full display in “Proof of Purchase Risograph Wallpaper” (2026), which features comical sketches of everything from “bloody Mary” ($12) to “top wisdom teeth removed” ($260). Meanwhile, Saloka humorously depicts prosaic objects on lumpy stones in works such as “Wham Spam Thank You Ma’ma” (2026) and “Butthead 1-7” (2025).

Deborah Roberts: Consequences of Being

Everson Museum of Art, 401 Harrison Street, Syracuse, New York
Through September 27

A graduate of Syracuse University, Deborah Roberts makes a triumphant return to the city with her solo exhibition Consequences of Being at the Everson Museum of Art. It features recent works on paper, her first ceramic sculpture, and mixed-media paintings — hybrid portraits that reflect both the sensitivity and fierceness of her characters. In “I come as one but stand as ten-thousand” (2025), a young woman in a patterned dress earnestly holds our gaze with hands folded gracefully, while “Pig Feet” (2025) features two boys wearing t-shirts — the word “American” turned upside down on one of them — glancing askance at us. With a focus on identity as fragmented, reconfigured, and thus transformed, Roberts brings our attention to the body as our primary mode of understanding. 

Frederic Church, Global Artist 

Olana State Historic Site, 5720 State Route 9G, Hudson, New York
Through October 25

Frederic Edwin Church, a central figure of the Hudson River School of American artists, is one of the most famous landscape painters of the 19th century. This exhibition at Olana State Historic Site celebrates the 200th anniversary of his birth and brings together several exquisite paintings, drawings, and oil sketches by the artist along with photographs that document his travels around the globe, to the West Indies, South America, Europe, and West Asia. Church’s affinity for the raw power of the natural world is well reflected in works such as “In the Blue Mountains, Jamaica” (1865), a vision of a glorious sunrise above a hazy mountain range, and “The Iceberg” (1875), a dramatic image of a classy schooner with billowing sails set against a jagged icy form that rises up from the sea.

Anicka Yi: Message From the Mud 

Storm King Art Center, 20 Old Pleasant Hill Road, New Windsor, New York
Through November 9

I’ll say it: Storm King is one of the best art destinations on the East Coast, and it's stepping it up even further with a recent campus expansion and new pavilion additions. This season, temporary installations include sculptures by Anicka Yi, Liz Glynn, and Saif Azzuz. Yi’s first large-scale outdoor project, a series of clear acrylic columns filled with organic matter and water sourced from the Storm King grounds, is nestled into the bucolic landscape, rising from a shallow artist-designed pool. Looking like a sci-fi archeological dig site, her “Message from the Mud” (2026) allows us to observe the robust communities of microorganisms that thrive within the columns. Over time, their exposure to sunlight transforms these organic colonies into layers of vibrant color, offering a compressed microbiological vision of the local landscape.

Modus Operandi

The School at Jack Shainman Gallery, 25 Broad Street, Kinderhook, New York
Through November 28 

Several annual celebratory events inaugurate the start of summer in Upstate NY, and chief among them are the consistently strong blockbuster-level shows at Jack Shainman Gallery’s The School. This year, their Modus Operandi group exhibition features mixed-media works by nearly 20 artists, including Faith Ringgold, Bruce Nauman, Mark Dion, and El Anatsui, among others. Several awe-inspiring monumental pieces in the show include “Constellation” (2006) by Nick Cave, an oversized tondo that shimmers with layers of silver, gold, and black sequined materials, and a series of sculptures by Rose B. Simpson include “Cairn: bronze” (2023), a stoic white female figure whose body is bisected by a round red shape and who carries on her shoulders a small child who clutches her forehead from behind. 

Uman: In Between

Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
June 27–November 29

Uman’s art is a bountiful festival of organic shapes, wild colors, and explosive energy that elicits joy with every gesture. Curated by Lauren Cornell, Uman: In Between at Hessel Museum of Art brings together more than 100 mixed-media artworks made over two decades, including paintings, sculptures, and found objects. Uman’s affinity for East African geometries and abstract patterns is reflected in works such as “Malaria Tripping” (2021), a painting done in darker tones and accented with yellow, while her vibrant expressionist style is fully realized in “Gasoline for my People” (2021), a work that pulses in a jumble of bright color, complete with abstracted animal shapes, a gasoline tank, and a mystical third eye. 

Supernal Light

Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, 46 Deer Hill Road, Wappingers Falls, New York
Through March 7, 2027

Founded by visionary artists (and power couple) Alex and Allyson Grey and tucked into the wooded landscape of Wappingers Falls, the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors (COSM) is a magnificent treasure one ought to experience again and again. The group exhibition Supernal Light in the All One Gallery at COSM brings together nine artists whose creative practices illuminate art’s spiritual and mystical dimensions. The vibrant, transcendent visions on view include Aleah Chapin’s “A Breath on Dandelion Seeds” (2024), a monumental painting of bodies that morph into a luminous energy field above them, and Vibrata Chromadoris’s pulsing geometric Op-art works, including “Sanctum” (2025) and “Cohesion” (2025). A. Andrew Gonzalez contributes breathtaking esoteric visions, including “The Moon Priestess” (2021), a stunning portrayal of a goddess with a vibrating winged spirit between her hands, and MC Escher also makes an appearance with a series of classic woodcut prints.

Tschabalala Self: Pioneer 

Art Omi, 1405 County Route 22, Ghent, New York
Long-term view

Tschabalala Self is kind, curious, and fierce, as I found out through our lively conversation in 2024, a highlight of my life in the art world. Best known for fabric-heavy collage paintings featuring Black women, Self explores figuration, form, identity, and sexuality through buoyant works. Opening for long-term view on June 27 in time for Upstate Art Weekend, her monumental crimson-hued bronze sculpture “Pioneer” (2023) features a naked headless and armless woman balanced on a kneeling horse, her legs akimbo and her fragmented hands atop her thighs. Originally commissioned by Desert X, this bold vision furthers Self’s ongoing recognition of women as resilient figures within our global society.

James Turrell, Avaar

Catskill Art Space, 48 Main Street, Livingston Manor, New York
Through 2027

As a lifelong student of art, encountering the work of James Turrell was life-changing for me. Working with luminosity as his primary medium, Turrell has been creating extraordinary site-specific installations at diverse locations all around the world for over 50 years. On long-term view at Catskill Art Space, “Avaar” (1982) is a glorious example of his quasi-spiritual practice, and one of his rare early wall-based “aperture” artworks composed solely of white light. This meditative installation is experienced between two separate areas (a “viewing space” and a “sensing space”) of a pitch-black room. Only once their eyes adjust will a viewer be able to distinguish the aperture before them — a quintessential Turrell experience. 

Agnes Martin: Painting is not making paintings

Dia Beacon, 3 Beekman Street, Beacon, New York
Long-term view

Agnes Martin was a non-conformist heroine of minimalist abstraction. Agnes Martin: Painting is not making paintings at Dia Beacon is a stunning presentation that spans 50 years of her practice, bringing together several early paintings, including “Window” (1957), which consists of four even gray and muted tan squares against a white background, and “Earth” (1959), in which rows of black dots are perfectly positioned in a brown square with black and white stripes at the top and bottom. The paintings glow with Martin’s signature blend of balanced geometric shapes and stoic monochromatic color schemes, offering the viewer a sense of private meditation. 

Tutto Boetti, 1966-1993 

Magazzino Italian Art, 2700 Route 9, Cold Spring, New York
Through April 2028

Magazzino Italian Art continues its focus on key figures from the 1960s Italian movement Arte Povera with its exhibition on Alighiero Boetti. Featuring 30 artworks, including a core selected from Magazzino’s permanent collection, the exhibition provides a faithful vision of Boetti’s explorations in diverse materials including found objects, paper, and embroidery. “Autoritratto” (1993), for instance, is a cast-bronze sculpture of the artist in a declarative pose with one hand pointing down and the other holding a hose up high, water cascading toward his head. “Mappa” (1983) is a world map with each country depicted by its own flag, created with embroidered fabrics crafted by Afghan women. Part of a map series the artist started after his first visit to Afghanistan in 1971, it’s a strong vision of Boetti’s conceptual rigor, collaborative spirit, and masterful technique. 

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