Art

Five New York City Shows to See Right Now

Catherine Murphy, Dorothy Hood, and David Kennedy Cutler are among the artists who are taking us off the path of the everyday and into the inexplicable this week.

Natalie Haddad, Lakshmi Rivera Amin, Lisa Yin Zhang, John Yau, Tim Keane

March 24, 2025 — 3 min read

Yang Fudong, "Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest, Part I" (2003), single-channel video with sound; 35mm black and white film transferred to DVD (image courtesy Asia Society, New York)

Making the ordinary inexplicable, painting landscapes of the psyche, and creating layers that shouldn’t exist. Those descriptions correspond to Catherine Murphy, Dorothy Hood, and David Kennedy Cutler, three of the artists we’re looking at this week. We’re also pretty enthusiastic about the Asia Society’s pairing of collection items with works by invited contemporary artists. And personally, I could spend hours going down the rabbit hole of Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme’s online exhibition for the Dia Art Foundation. —Natalie Haddad, Reviews Editor

David Kennedy Cutler: Second Nature

Derek Eller Gallery, 38 Walker Street, Tribeca Manhattan
Through April 12

David Kennedy Cutler, “Stoppage” (2025), inkjet transfer, acrylic and clear coat on canvas, armature wire (photo by Adam Reich, courtesy the artist and Derek Eller Gallery, New York)

"Cutler’s inkjet transfer and acrylic works, poised mid-transformation from painting into sculpture, capture everyday objects from this disorientingly kaleidoscopic perspective." —Lisa Yin Zhang

Read the full review here.

Dorothy Hood: Remember Something Out of Time

Hollis Taggart, 521 West 26th Street, Chelsea, Manhattan
Through April 12

Dorothy Hood, “The Face in the Sea” (c. 1970s), oil on canvas (image courtesy Hollis Taggart gallery)

"Chilean poet Pablo Neruda describes [Dorothy Hood's] art as driven by inbuilt contradictions, tracing in it both a 'savage silence' and a 'desperate interrogation.'” —Tim Keane

Read the full review here.

Catherine Murphy: Recent Work

Peter Freeman, Inc., 140 Grand Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan
Through April 19

Catherine Murphy, “Under the Table” (2022), oil on canvas (image courtesy Peter Freeman, Inc.)

"[Murphy's] formal mastery is devoted to making the ordinary inexplicable, causing us to look inward and reflect upon what we are seeing." —John Yau

Read the full review here.

(Re)Generations: Rina Banerjee, Byron Kim, and Howardena Pindell amid the Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection

Asia Society and Museum, 725 Park Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan
Through August 10

Detail of Rina Banerjee, “Not like Superman, a superwoman, unlike kryptonite, like a Native of your country’s forrest, it’s soil is what you are and you trust, coined as home is, a currency weighted down in stones” (2018), ink and acrylic on two wooden panels (photo Lakshmi Rivera Amin/*Hyperallergic*)

"How do you claim your place in an artistic lineage without distorting or romanticizing it? Is that even possible?" —Lakshmi Rivera Amin

Read the full review here.

May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth

Dia Art Foundation, online
Ongoing

"As questions and opposition are quelled in the United States by strategic governmental efforts to expunge words, names, and archives, May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth proposes that holding onto these moments is a powerful political act." —NH

Read the full review here.