Overwhelmed by all the art to see this fall? Us too. To make it all slightly more manageable, we’ve compiled a list of fun, insightful, and very New York art exhibitions and events in our yearly fall guide. In addition to perusing this online version, you can look out for print copies of our guide in bookstores, coffee shops, galleries, museums, and nonprofit art spaces around the city.

*   *  *

September

Sanford Biggers: Selah

When: September 7–October 21
Where: Boesky East (507 W 24th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan)

Whether working in textile, video, sculpture, or performance, Sanford Biggers unflinchingly tackles issues of race and representation in American culture. The centerpiece of this show, “Seated Warrior,” continues his series of bronze sculptures based on traditional African statues, which he collects and then dips in wax or pierces with gunshots. It will be framed by textile works assembled from fragments of antique quilts.

Fellow Travelers

When: September 7–October 21
Where: apexart (291 Church Street, Tribeca, Manhattan)

Space is the place — where we stage allegories of earthly drama. This exhibition, curated by Katherine Rochester, gathers works by seven artists and collectives that project humans onto sci-fi frontiers in order to imagine solutions for seemingly unsolvable problems. Some of the astronauts are interstellar refugees in search of new home bases; others are defiant occupiers who refuse to leave their beloved planets.

Vaginal Davis & Louise Nevelson: Chimera

When: September 8–October 22
Where: Invisible-Exports (89 Eldridge Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan)

Vaginal Davis met Louise Nevelson at a party in the 1980s; the theme was “come as your favorite dead artist.” “I came as Frida Kahlo with mono brow mustache and instead of a monkey in my hair I used a Cabbage Patch doll,” Davis recalls. “No one, including Andy Warhol, knew who I was except the divine Ms. Nevelson—who raved over me.” This exhibition pairs Davis’s paintings executed with makeup and beauty products with two all-black assemblages by Nevelson.

Magnificent Gems: Medieval Treasure Bindings

When: September 8, 2017–January 7, 2018
Where: Morgan Library & Museum (225 Madison Avenue, Midtown East, Manhattan)

Today, books are a luxury because reading them feels like a rare activity; in the Middle Ages, luxury meant diamonds and sapphires encrusted in your book covers. Some of the glorious few that survive are owned by the Morgan Library, which will display them alongside illuminated manuscripts. The exhibition will connect the treasure bindings to their wealthy patrons and religious contexts, and highlight one of the world’s most impressive examples, the 9th-century Lindau Gospels.

Azikiwe Mohammed: Jimmy’s Thrift of New Davonhaime

When: September 9–October 29
Where: Knockdown Center (52-19 Flushing Avenue, Maspeth, Queens)

Thrift stores offer a glimpse of strangers’ lifestyles, tastes, and pasts. Azikiwe Mohammed portrays the thrift store as a kind of memory bank in Jimmy’s Thrift, which is set in a made-up location, New Davonhaime—a mash-up of the names of the most densely populated black cities in the US. Filled with objects both found and made by the artist, this installation honoring African American lives will grow as visitors contribute to photo albums and record their memories.

McDermott & McGough: The Oscar Wilde Temple

When: September 11–December 2
Where: The Church of the Village (201 W 13th Street, West Village, Manhattan)

Artists Davis McDermott and Peter McGough are building a temple to Oscar Wilde in an unlikely but somehow perfect setting: the Church of the Village. The installation, which includes an altar constructed around a four-foot-tall sculpture of Wilde, will celebrate the writer’s courage in refusing to conceal his homosexuality — and going to prison for it. Two decades in the making, the work will focus on Wilde’s visit to the US in 1882–83, using Catholic iconography as an inspiration.

Arte Povera

When: September 12–October 28
Where: Hauser & Wirth (548 W 22nd Street, Chelsea, Manhattan)

Arte Povera is having a moment. First came Magazzino, a private museum that opened with a show devoted to a champion of the movement; now Hauser & Wirth is giving over its Chelsea space to Ingvild Goetz, a longtime Arte Povera collector. Maybe it’s because the movement, which was anti-commercial and advocated the use of everyday materials in art, emerged during a time of radical political upheaval in Italy — conditions not so unlike our own in the US today.

Ruth Asawa

When: September 13–October 21
Where: David Zwirner (537 W 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan)

Ruth Asawa was one of the 120,000 Japanese Americans interned following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Living in a camp with her family between 1942–43, she turned to art, which she continued to pursue for the rest of her life, including enrolling in Black Mountain College. This exhibition gathers her net-like sculptures, paintings, and drawings, as well as photos of her and her work taken by Imogen Cunningham.

Adrian Piper

When: September 14–October 21
Where: Lévy Gorvy (909 Madison Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan)

In this exhibition, the rigorously inquisitive artist Adrian Piper will show “Here,” first conceived in 2008 but executed for the first time, well, here. It consists of three phrases engraved in three languages as a reminder that words aren’t neutral. Alongside it will be The Mythic Being (1973–75), for which Piper took on the persona of a macho man from a blaxploitation film, and “It’s Just Art” (1980), which questions our anesthetization to human suffering.

Sonic Arcade: Shaping Space with Sound

When: September 14, 2017–February 25, 2018
Where: Museum of Arts and Design (2 Columbus Circle, Columbus Circle, Manhattan)

Sound may be invisible and ephemeral, but it’s also palpable and physical. This exhibition explores sound’s “material” qualities: how it travels via waves, is conducted through wires, and bounces off other objects. Visual artists, performers, and designers, including Studio PSK, Make Noise, and others, have created interactive environments to induce visitors to reflect on how their bodies respond to sound.

Rodin at The Met

When: September 16, 2017–January 15, 2018
Where: Metropolitan Museum of Art (1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan)

So you think you know Auguste Rodin? The French artist was much more versatile than “The Thinker” or his imposing portrait of Balzac. This exhibition of almost 50 works in bronze, marble, terracotta, and plaster — all drawn from the Met’s holdings — brings together some of his greatest hits and some obscure chef d’oeuvres. A selection of paintings by Rodin’s contemporaries, including Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Claude Monet, complements the array.

Never Built New York

When: September 17, 2017–February 18, 2018
Where: Queens Museum (New York City Building, Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Corona, Queens)

We take most of New York’s landmarks for granted, but they weren’t fated to look the way they do; things could have been different. Greg Goldin and Sam Lubell explore the city’s unrealized histories in Never Built New York, which began as a book and continues as an exhibition. Models, prints, drawings, and other objects offer a glimpse of these forgotten visions, like a National American Indian Memorial in New York Harbor or a Buckminster Fuller dome over Manhattan.

Generation Wealth by Lauren Greenfield

When: September 20, 2017–January 7, 2018
Where: ICP Museum (250 Bowery, Lower East Side, Manhattan)

Versace bags, golf clubs, flutes of champagne, and $100 bills — these are some of the accessories you’ll spot in Lauren Greenfield’s photographs of the ultra-rich. Since the late 1990s, Greenfield has documented wealthy (and highly unsustainable) lifestyles, interviewing the people she meets along the way. Nearly 200 of these photographs will be on display at ICP, along with film footage and quotes from her subjects, whose backgrounds range from banking to fashion.

Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair

When: September 22–24
Where: MoMA PS1 (22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens)

Events devoted to independent publishing are a dime a dozen these days, but Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair was one of the first of this new wave. Going strong in its 12th year, the fair will once again pack MoMA PS1 with established indie presses, artists selling stapled zines, galleries hawking limited editions, and much more. The beauty of the fair is that it truly has something for everyone, whether a rare 1950s mag, a monograph on your favorite artist, or a surprise.

Bushwick Open Studios

When: September 22–24
Where: Various locations (Bushwick, Brooklyn)

Last year, New York City’s biggest open studios event shifted from early summer to early fall and felt a lot less like an industrial chic bar hop. This year, it’s happening slightly earlier, which will hopefully mean studio-goers can catch some lingering summer warmth as they traipse from East Williamsburg to north Bed-Stuy, south Ridgewood, and many points in between points. Be sure to pack snacks and plan strategic caffeine stops as you choose between hundreds of studios.

Louise Bourgeois: An Unfolding Portrait

When: September 24, 2017–January 28, 2018
Where: Museum of Modern Art (11 W 53rd Street, Midtown West, Manhattan)

Beloved for her spider sculptures and enigmatic cell installations, Louise Bourgeois also produced a vast body of works on paper. Her prints and books, many of which are in MoMA’s collection, often revolve around the same symbols and images as her sculptural works, from mother figures to the body. With a focus on printed material, this show comprises roughly 220 works, some of which will be displayed in a special installation in the museum’s atrium.

Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon

When: September 27, 2017–January 21, 2018
Where: New Museum (235 Bowery, Lower East Side, Manhattan)

This group show aims to complicate the terms we use to discuss gender, via the work of more than 40 artists who examine at it in concert with issues of sexuality, race, class, and ability. Their tactics take many forms, from artists who rework archival materials, like Mickalene Thomas, to others who embrace media formerly dismissed as craft, like Diamond Stingily—whose commissioned braided sculpture will snake from the lobby all the way up to the fourth floor.

José Leonilson: Empty Man

When: September 27, 2017–February 3, 2018
Where: Americas Society (680 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan)

This is the first US solo exhibition for José Leonilson Bezerra Dias, a Brazilian artist who returned to painting in the 1980s, during the last years of the dictatorship. The show will display around 50 of his bright, figurative paintings and drawings, as well as the embroideries he made toward the end of his life, when he was diagnosed with AIDS. Those works in particular are deeply personal, exploring his gay sexuality, Catholic upbringing, and illness.

October

Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World

When: October 6, 2017–January 7, 2018
Where: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1071 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan)

This major exhibition focuses on two decades — 1989 to 2008 — that the Guggenheim calls “arguably the most transformative period of modern Chinese and recent world history.” That may sound lofty, but the show aims high, seeking to reposition Chinese art as essential to what we consider contemporary (an inevitably Eurocentric premise). Taking over most of the museum, it features some 150 works, including Huang Yong Ping’s cage full of reptiles and insects that will eat each other.

Alberto Savinio

When: October 6, 2017–June 23, 2018
Where: Center for Italian Modern Art (421 Broome Street, 4th floor, Soho, Manhattan)

Alberto Savinio is not a familiar name outside of Italy, but at home he enjoys the reputation of a Renaissance man and painter of surrealist scenes. The younger brother of Giorgio de Chirico, Savinio was greatly influenced by the Parisian avant-garde art scene of the late 1920s, which is the period this exhibition focuses on. Twenty-five of his works will be complemented by sculptures by Louise Bourgeois, who similarly probed childhood and familial memories.

Barbara Hammer: Evidentiary Bodies

When: October 7, 2017–January 28, 2018
Where: Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art (26 Wooster Street, Soho, Manhattan)

Barbara Hammer, an artist who’s been portraying lesbian life and sexuality since the 1970s, has directed more than 80 films. This exhibition will cull both known and previously unseen ones, as well as her works in other media and objects from her archive. From performance art to documentaries on queer women, including Elizabeth Bishop and Hannah Höch, Hammer has a gift for intimate, nuanced, and visually striking storytelling.

Self Storage

When: October 6– 28
Where: Various storage facilities (Long Island City, Queens)

In New York City, having access to storage seems relegated to subway ads rather than lived experience. Flux Factory is drawing attention to this conundrum by accepting the “first month free” promotional offers of various storage facilities in Long Island City and offering them as temporary gallery spaces to artists and organizations. The resulting mini-shows will aptly revolve around “gentrification, consumption, community, resilience, displacement — and storage.”

Modernism on the Ganges: Raghubir Singh Photographs

When: October 11, 2017–January 2, 2018
Where: Met Breuer (945 Madison Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan)

From his beginnings as a photojournalist in the 1960s, Raghubir Singh’s eye was always focused on the streets of India. His photos have the fragmented energy of collages, enhanced by the color slide film he used. This survey will illustrate the artist’s assertion that his work was “on the Ganges side of modernism” and pair his photos with the miniature paintings of the Mughal period that inspired him.

Beyond Suffrage: 100 Years of Women & Politics in New York

When: October 11, 2017–Summer 2018
Where: Museum of the City of New York (1220 Fifth Avenue, East Harlem, Manhattan)

In 1917, women in New York state gained the right to vote—three years before the passage of the 19th Amendment. This exhibition marks the centennial of that victory by spotlighting the women who’ve shaped New York City’s politics. Beginning with the battle for suffrage and moving through 20th- and 21st-century struggles, the show will use artifacts, documents, clothing, and multimedia materials to tell the ongoing story of women’s political activism.

Ai Weiwei: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

When: October 12, 2017–February 11, 2018
Where: Various locations (New York City)

Using a fence as a symbol for division and the migration crisis isn’t the most imaginative choice, but what Ai Weiwei sometimes lacks in creative thinking he makes up for in aesthetic execution and scale. For this project, the artist will install fences in roughly 300 spots around New York City. All will be site-specific variations on the standard metal wire security fence, making them both attuned to their locations and purposefully out of place.

Judith Bernstein: Cabinet of Horrors

When: October 13, 2017–February 4, 2018
Where: Drawing Center (35 Wooster Street, Soho, Manhattan)

If there’s any artist whose tone and aesthetic are perfectly suited to the cycles of political outrage and shame in which we’re currently trapped, it’s Judith Bernstein, the sketcher of suggestive screws and exploding anatomies. This show marries a body of work made in response to the Trump presidency — including four large murals and free campaign pins — with a group of apt allegorical drawings from 1995.

Open House New York

When: October 14–15
Where: Various locations (New York City)

Is there a fascinating but off-limits New York City site you’ve been dying to visit for years? This is your weekend to make it happen, although you should make reservations the second they’re available, as popular destinations reach capacity quickly. From glitzy locales like the abandoned City Hall subway station to grimier facilities like the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant and the East Harlem Trash Museum, there’s something for every taste in every borough.

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Gates of Paradise

When: October 20, 2017–January 7, 2018
Where: Japan Society (333 E 47th Street, Midtown East, Manhattan)

In the late 16th century, four Japanese boys were sent to Europe for eight years to learn about Western Christianity. Considered one of the earliest exchanges between Japan and the West, this story is the inspiration for Hiroshi Sugimoto’s new black-and-white photographs, which document sites the boys visited, from the Tower of Pisa to papal courts. The images will be paired with traditional Japanese artworks to illustrate the convergence of two worlds.

Roots of “The Dinner Party”: History in the Making

When: October 20, 2017–March 4, 2018
Where: Brooklyn Museum (200 Eastern Parkway, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn)

If you’ve ever visited the Brooklyn Museum, chances are you’ve stopped by the Sackler Center for Feminist Art, where a dark gallery houses a triangular table elaborately set for 39 guests: Judy Chicago’s “The Dinner Party” (1974–79), an iconic work of feminist art. This exhibition will delve into the making of it, tracking Chicago’s research and creation process through notebooks, preparatory drawings, test plates, and more. One for the art history nerds.

Gowanus Open Studios

When: October 21–22
Where: Various locations (Gowanus, Brooklyn)

Every fall, Gowanus Open Studios brings droves of adventurous art-lovers to the typically desolate blocks adjacent to the toxic canal to explore hundreds of studios. And whereas Bushwick can feel more like a social scene built around art rather than an area where working artists make a living, the professionalism and eclecticism of the Gowanus community are consistently impressive.

Carolee Schneemann: Kinetic Painting

When: October 22, 2017–March 11, 2018
Where: MoMA PS1 (22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens)

If you were seeking a sign that sexism is alive and well, look no further than the fact that Carolee Schneemann is only now having her first comprehensive retrospective. At 77, Schneemann is still known largely for her landmark performance “Interior Scroll” (1975), but has been making unabashedly feminist work for decades. This show will ground her oeuvre in painting, even as it traces her development in assemblage, performance, and film.

The Sculpture of Gonzalo Fonseca

When: October 25, 2017–February 12, 2018
Where: Noguchi Museum (9-01 33rd Road, Astoria, Queens)

The stone works of Uruguayan sculptor Gonzalo Fonseca look like mini-buildings, archaeological remnants, or toys. Fonseca, who trained under modernist Joaquin Torres-Garcia in the 1940s, saw abstraction as a universal language and was fascinated by Pre-Columbian ruins. This exhibition celebrates his friendship with Noguchi later in life, and includes around 40 objects, from Fonseca’s geometric fountains to his sketchbooks.

November

Françoise Grossen

When: November 2–December 23
Where: Blum & Poe (19 E 66th Street, Upper East Side, Manhattan)

Two years after giving the Swiss-born, New York–based artist her first US survey, Blum & Poe is unspooling more of Françoise Grossen’s startling rope sculptures from the 1960s onward, some of which she recently modified. The abstract but evocative works — formed from thick Manila, cotton, linen, and polyester rope — either hang from the walls or lie on the floor, suggesting human forms at rest or strange animals preparing to pounce.

Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World

When: November 3, 2017–January 28, 2018
Where: Whitney Museum of American Art (99 Gansevoort Street, Meatpacking District, Manhattan)

As it arrives in New York, this retrospective carries with it major controversy over Jimmie Durham’s identity: the artist claims to be Cherokee but is not recognized by any of the Cherokee nations. The questions at the heart of the debate are essential ones: When does appropriation go too far? What are the responsibilities of art institutions? Whose voices are valued? New Yorkers will have the chance to see the show and grapple it in person this fall.

Gordon Matta-Clark: Anarchitect

When: November 8, 2017–April 8, 2018
Where: Bronx Museum (1040 Grand Concourse, Concourse, the Bronx)

In the 1970s, Gordon Matta-Clark ventured into abandoned tenements in the Bronx and made cuts in the floors, creating disorienting spaces. These acts, which were documented in photographs, led him to carve up other deteriorating buildings in the city. It’s only appropriate, then, that this exhibition take place in the borough that greatly informed his political art. Highlights include his hand-painted photos of graffiti and rare materials from his archive.

Nina Chanel Abney

When: November 9–December 20
Where: Jack Shainman Gallery (513 W 20th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan)

Nina Chanel Abney’s paintings are sort of like puzzles: jam-packed with figures, shapes, and symbols and difficult to decipher. Her themes are clear — racism, the frenetic pace of 21st-century life — but Abney’s approach is never didactic. Instead, she organizes her canvases to appear chaotic and often comedic, yet they’re always controlled. Her first solo show at Jack Shainman Gallery will feature new works in her trademark style.

Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound

When: November 10, 2017–January 6, 2019
Where: National Museum of the American Indian (1 Bowling Green, Financial District, Manhattan)

While contemporary Native art practices are often characterized in terms of their traditional antecedents, the 10 artists featured here explore indigenous issues via new media. Through video projections, sound art, digital installations, and more, the artists — including Raven Chacon (Diné), Marcella Ernest (Ojibwe), Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit), and Keli Mashburn (Osage) — offer a view of the plurality of Native American experiences in the 21st century.

Doreen Garner and Kenya (Robinson): White Man On a Pedestal (WMOAP)

When: November 10–December 17
Where: Pioneer Works (159 Pioneer Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn)

In this show, Doreen Garner and Kenya (Robinson) will dissect the dominant figure for much of Western history: the straight, white male. Through her research on Dr. J. Marion Sims, the “father of modern gynecology,” Garner gives form to the exploitation of black women’s bodies in the name of science. (Robinson) will turn a sculpture of a white-collar white dude she’s been carrying in her pocket since 2013 into an army of 10,000 figures she plans to bury at the show’s end.

Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer

When: November 13, 2017–February 12, 2018
Where: Metropolitan Museum of Art (1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan)

Of the four Renaissance masters who went on to become Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, none wields quite as much ass-kicking art-historical might as Michelangelo. Yet at the core of his delicate “David,” complex Sistine Chapel frescoes, and exquisite “Piéta” are the same refined draughtsmanship and sharp design. This exhibition’s 150 drawings, three marble sculptures, wooden architectural model, and very first painting by Michelangelo aim to give a fuller sense of his foundations.

Erwin Redl: Whiteout

When: November 16, 2017–April 15, 2018
Where: Madison Square Park (between Fifth & Madison Avenues, E 23rd & 26th Streets, Flatiron District, Manhattan)

One of the joys of winter in New York is when the parks are blanketed in luminous snow, which often melts away too quickly. Erwin Redl’s installation in Madison Square Park might seemingly prolong this experience. The artist, who generally works on the façades of buildings, will install hundreds of spheres filled with white LED lights over the park’s Oval Lawn so that they float and sway in the wind.

Obdurate Space: Architecture of Donald Judd

When: November 14, 2017–March 5, 2018
Where: Center for Architecture (536 LaGuardia Place, Greenwich Village, Manhattan)

For those who have visited Donald Judd’s home, it’s clear the man had opinions about architecture and space. In addition to designing monumental minimalist sculpture, he also developed architectural projects and proposals, some of which were never published. This exhibition will share five of the designs he created between 1984 and 1994, including his proposal for a downtown lakefront in Cleveland and his concrete structures at Marfa, Texas.

Edvard Munch: Between the Clock and the Bed

When: November 15, 2017–February 4, 2018
Where: Met Breuer (945 Madison Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan)

This ambitious exhibition attempts to reassess Edvard Munch’s oeuvre through the lens of one of his haunting late paintings, “Self-Portrait: Between the Clock and the Bed” (1940–43). The show includes 16 works that haven’t been seen in the US before, alongside dozens of others, all arranged thematically. The goal is to demonstrate that Munch was as essential to art in the 20th century as he was in the 19th, when he first painted “The Scream” (which, notably, is not in the show).

The Estate of General Idea

When: November 30, 2017–January 13, 2018
Where: Mitchell-Innes & Nash (534 W 26th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan)

We’re pretty excited about this one, as it’s General Idea’s first solo show in New York City since an exhibition at MoMA in 1996. Founded by AA Bronson, Felix Partz, and Jorge Zontal in Toronto in 1969, the collective has consistently tackled taboo subjects, especially pertaining to sexuality. This exhibition will focus on the group’s tamer but still visually grabbing Ziggurat Paintings, which were made between 1968–86 and play with the ancient Mesopotamian form.

December

Shinji Murakami

When: December 8, 2017–January 14, 2018
Where: Catinca Tabacaru Gallery (250 Broome Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan)

Chances are you know about the Nintendo Game Boy but not its inventor, Gunpei Yokoi. The artist Shinji Murakami uses Yokoi’s video game designs as inspiration, particularly the latter’s belief that playfulness and fun are more important than sophisticated technology. Be prepared to be enveloped by Murakami’s pixelated, LED world, which has its roots in 1990s game culture.

Endless Editions

When: December 15, 2017–January 28, 2018
Where: Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space (120 Essex Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan)

In his short story “The Library of Babel,” Jorge Luis Borges imagines a universe made entirely of books. Inspired by this image of endless tomes, writer and programmer Jonathan Basile will host a printmaking workshop in the gallery; visitors will be able to create their own books, which will join a library there. Authors will also have the chance to take a computer programming seminar and participate in public readings.

With contributions by Jillian Steinhauer, Benjamin Sutton, and Elisa Wouk Almino.