A Stormy Week of Art in NYC
Reviews on major exhibitions at the New Museum, Guggenheim, and MoMA PS1, what it takes to get a fair union contract, and finding joy in the history of concrete.
The actual nor’easter that punctuated last week’s whirlwind was bittersweet, for lack of a better word. Sweet in that I thought it might afford me the perfect excuse to go full cozy-mode after the intense socializing and aggressive pizzazz of Armory Week, but bitter in that, on top of the fact that the soles of my sneakers are still damp after mandatory ventures (see: things I RSVP’d yes to), I genuinely hate the rain.
On the flip side, I credit the lingering storm with flushing out the opaque remnants of last week for me. While I embrace the amnesia, plenty of others were strong enough to keep their eyes wide open all seven days and actually process what they saw. Bless them.
Stephanie Wambugu, author of Lonely Crowds (2025), writes about the limits and achievements of Arthur Jafa’s retrospective at the New Museum, identifying a trail of prescriptive esotericism between the art, its curation, and its title, I Am Tony. Along Museum Mile, veteran critic Aruna D’Souza takes her magnifying glass to Taryn Simon’s spiral of connective curiosity around the Guggenheim’s rotunda in Father Country I Do Love You. And across the river, contributor Alex Santana questions the aesthetic power of distilled violence, as presented in Teresa Margolles’s solo exhibition at MoMA PS1.
Those who prefer more tangible experiences might turn their attention to the Museum of the City of New York, which just inaugurated its new permanent exhibition devoted to the anatomy of activism through 250 years of history and ephemera of organizing in the Big Apple. And to those who want to lean into the esoteric — well, there are only five days left of the Morgan Library & Museum’s massive tarot exhibition!
Amid the buzz of art fairs (you can find our extensive coverage further down) and exhibition openings, NYC’s cultural labor force is seizing the opportunity to advocate for fair contracts at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the American Folk Art Museum. Unionized staff at the latter two institutions are deliberating on tentative agreements proposed in the last few days, while the Whitney union set October 5 as its strike deadline.
In my perpetual quest for a proper laugh, I had the pleasure of watching John Wilson’s debut feature documentary, The History of Concrete (2026), with a friend yesterday night. Despite my mistake in committing to a 9:15 pm screening, I was delighted by Wilson’s radical exploration of lateral thinking, as well as a humor profile I would argue rivals that of the first three seasons of SpongeBob.
Stay curious, and don’t be too serious.
Arthur Jafa, King of Pop
Arthur Jafa’s survey I Am Tony at the New Museum in New York is full of the artist’s characteristic gallows humor that ironizes even the most morbid images and brings to the surface the solemnity of low culture.
Occupying two levels of the Lower Manhattan institution, the exhibition is densely packed with work that ventures beyond the video art that has made Jafa one of America’s most important living artists. The largest exhibition of his work to date, its ambitions — which it achieves with mixed results — seem to be to engage in the same themes Jafa has continually mined, this time in even more idiosyncratic and brash ways. These include the history of Black music, religion and secularity, American cinema, political violence, popular culture, and the Internet. | Stephanie Wambugu
Read More
Irene Christensen: Releasing Anchors from the Past
Now on view at the National Arts Club, Irene Christensen exhibits her oil paintings and accordion books, including the new book Dread and Splendor: Paintings and Poems for a New Earth, which features poetry by Eileen P. Kennedy.
Art Fair Coverage
The Armory Show in One Sentence
This year’s edition seemed awfully quiet and downcast, making the financial sector trade show on the floor below seem like a riot in comparison. | Hakim Bishara
Read MoreSpring Break Art Show Tackles Life’s Crushing Burdens
Fair participants touch on politics and current events through their own lens and invite others to do the same. | Rhea Nayyar
Read MoreIndependent 20th Century, the Mise en Abyme of Art Fairs
Despite the mind-boggling amount of spectacular works on view, I was reminded at each turn that the Breuer Building has been turned into an art mall. | Valentina Di Liscia
Read MoreHere’s What (Dealers Said) Sold at the Armory Show
If collectors had any concerns about the wars or inflation, they did not seem to share them at the New York fair, where the mood was almost too serene. | Aaron Short
Read MoreNo One Is Reading, Except at the New York Art Book Fair
The overlooked, subversive, and playful currents of politics and queer culture flow freely at the fair’s 20th anniversary edition, held at MoMA PS1. | Lakshmi Rivera Amin
Read More
New Show at Pratt Manhattan Gallery Explores How Human Bodies Exist with Non-Human Objects
The internationally traveling exhibition shows the complexities and interconnectedness of these relationships. On view September 25 - December 19, 2026.
From Our Critics
Aruna D'Souza
Father Country I Do Love You at the Guggenheim Museum
"..The sheer accumulation of material for the viewer to sort out itself becomes the spectacle — we ooh and aah over the artist’s unflagging curiosity and her ingenuity in making links and tracking down documents and evidence and witnesses, but what, exactly, do we come away with? Some really good anecdotes, stories that seem too crazy to be true, perhaps a sense of how the tentacles of power extend into our lives in unexpected ways. But we also come away, or at least I did, with a sense of helplessness."
Alex Santana
En el lugar de los hechos (At the Scene) at MoMA PS1
"Minimalism’s potential lies in compressing a complex idea or feeling into a visually “simple” gesture — distilling its essence into an experience that cuts away the excess. In Teresa Margolles’s work, this unsparing trim attempts to show us something about ourselves: a system of violence so destructive that it reinforces and codifies notions of “us” and “them” across artificial borders, all in the name of capital."
Features
Art in Odd Places Participants Seek Utopia Under Dark Clouds
The public art festival’s 21st edition unfolded across 14th Street throughout the nor’easter this past weekend. | Rhea Nayyar
Read MoreSarah Michelson’s Delicate Fetish Play
Her 25-day dance at MoMA is meta, but it’s not about dance itself so much as a lifetime of collaborating with dancers. | Amit Noy
Read MoreThe Titillating Tale of Damien Hirst’s Gay Hole
An infectious play by Sleth explores infatuation and fame through an imagined relationship between Hirst and his gay lover, a younger artist whose paintings consist of holes on the ground. | Hrag Vartanian
Read MoreNYC’s Shelter Population Speaks Out in Public Art Project
Alex Strada’s “Public Address” brings handwritten testimonies from over 400 unhoused New Yorkers and shelter staff to a dozen locations across the Bronx. | Anna Lee
Read MoreMuseum of the City of New York Inaugurates New Activism Center
Two exhibitions at the Puffin Foundation Center chronicle 250 years of organizing, social movements, and civic engagement in the city. | Rhea Nayyar
Read MoreJean Shin Creates Her Own Anti-War Camouflage
Highlighting patterns of war and migration, her installation “Tidal Crossing” is the latest artist intervention at the Brooklyn Army Terminal. | Anna Lee
Read MoreNews
- A herd of 40 life-sized buffalo puppets migrated through parts of NYC for Return of the Buffalo: Tatanka Owe Akupi (Lakota for “buffalo trail home”).
- Disgraced financier and MoMA board member Leon Black plans to convert an iconic Manhattan property into a foundation to display his estimated $5 billion art collection.
- Beijing-based artist Liu Wei returns to New York with brand-new works for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Genesis Facade Commission.
- Christie’s launches a new pop culture division, with items for auction including music memorabilia, treasured instruments, and revered film props.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present the first major exhibition on Felix Gonzalez-Torres in New York in over 30 years.
- The El Museo del Barrio in New York expresses regret at providing rental space for a conspiracy-filled conference on the 25th anniversary of 9/11.
- Unionized staff at the Brooklyn Museum and the American Folk Art Museum are preparing to vote on ratifying tentative agreements with their respective institutions.
What Else is Happening?
- Hyperallergic Member-only Event! Join your fellow members, contributors, and staff for this exclusive studio event with ISCP’s NYC-based Ground Floor residents. Meet with the seven participating artists in their studios as they discuss their practice and work. (Wed., Sept 30) [Sign up here]
- AGI Fine Art presents the return of New York, I Love You, an exhibition at the Agora Gallery, brings together contemporary artists inspired by the rhythm, energy, and ever-changing character of New York City. Together, these works illustrate the many ways New York can be experienced, remembered, and imagined. (Wed., Sept 30 - Tues., Oct 6) [agifineart.com]
- Japanese Craft, Evolved at the Vanderplas Gallery brings together five artists working in centuries-old Japanese craft traditions including cloisonné enamel, urushi lacquerwork, Kamakura-bori woodcarving, ceramics, and hammered aluminium. (Fri., Oct 2 - Tues., Oct 6) [vanderplasgallery.com]
- The Poetry Society of New York’s will host their Fourth Annual Masquerade Ball at Pen + Brush Gallery. There will be typewriter poest, tarot & astrology readings, palmists & dream interpreters, performances by drag artists & burlesque dances, interactive installations, and a silent auction. (Sat., 10/30 [poetrysocietyny.org]
- Multidisciplinary artist Christopher Kulendran Thomas presents a screening of his recent work at the MoMA. Kulendran Thomas’s videos combine archival footage, found online videos, and AI-generated deepfakes resembling such cultural figures as Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian, to create multifaceted narratives on these entangled topics. (Mon., 10/5 at 7:00pm) [moma.org]
- The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library presents FEMINIST CANARIES, a conversation between Roxane Gay, Jenn M. Jackson, author of Black Women Taught Us; Mikki Kendall, author of Hood Feminism; and Loretta Ross, cofounder of the Reproductive Justice Movement. (Tues, Oct 6) [nypl.org]
