> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Four New York City Art Shows to See Right Now - URL: https://hyperallergic.com/four-new-york-city-art-shows-to-see-november-11-2025/ - Published: 2025-11-11T23:00:57.000Z - Updated: 2025-11-24T15:14:04.000Z - Description: From Coco Fusco’s incisive political performance art to Alexander Calder’s whimsical circus, the shows below will grab your attention. - Author: Natalie Haddad - Tags: Guide, New York, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-large, #Import 2025-11-24 09:41 (2025) As the days get shorter and colder, it helps to see art that seems to wrap us in a warm blanket, jolt us out of our winter fog, or bring a little excitement to our lives. The shows below are very different, but all are good antidotes to the oncoming seasonal affective disorder. Start at El Museo del Barrio with multitalented artist Coco Fusco’s first US museum retrospective — a must-see for anyone, whether you know the artist’s work or not. Then make your way to The Met Cloisters to find out about the fascinating nuances of gender and sexuality in the Middle Ages. After that, take a cozy trip to the American Folk Art Museum to take in the history and science of quilts (one of my favorite home accessories as the temperatures drop). Finally, get a burst of energy with *Calder’s Circus* at the Whitney Museum, one of the most joyous shows in town. —*Natalie Haddad, Reviews Editor* --- ### Coco Fusco: Tomorrow, I Will Become an Island [**El Museo del Barrio**](https://elmuseo.org/exhibition/coco-fusco-tomorrow-i-will-become-an-island/?ref=hyperallergic.com), 1230 5th Avenue, East Harlem, Manhattan Through January 11, 2026 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/fusco_a-room-of-ones-own.jpg) Coco Fusco, "A Room of One's Own: Women and Power in the New America" (2006–8), performance documentation (image courtesy the artist and Mendes Wood DM) "Across her career, she has inhabited a succession of roles — museum specimen, interrogator, colonial queen, subaltern laborer — to expose the systems that produce them." —*Clara Maria Apostolatos* [Read the review](https://hyperallergic.com/coco-fusco-turns-back-the-ethnographic-gaze-el-museo-del-barrio/). --- ### An Ecology of Quilts: The Natural History of American Textiles [**American Folk Art Museum**](https://folkartmuseum.org/exhibitions/an-ecology-of-quilts-the-natural-history-of-american-textiles/?ref=hyperallergic.com), 2 Lincoln Square, Upper West Side, Manhattan Through March 1, 2026 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/10/an-ecology-of-quilts-at-afam-06.jpg) Left: “Floral Appliqué Quilt” (1856), cotton; right: Attributed to a Member of the Sinclair Family, “Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden Quilt” (mid-19th century), cotton (photo Julie Schneider/*Hyperallergic*) "The eclectic threads of *An Ecology of Quilts* merge totell a story that starts outdoors, with seeds sprouting, blooming, and reaching toward the sun." —*Julie Schneider* [Read the review](https://hyperallergic.com/celebrating-the-science-of-quilts-american-folk-art-museum/). --- ### High Wire: Calder's Circus at 100 [**Whitney Museum of American Art**](https://whitney.org/exhibitions/calders-circus?ref=hyperallergic.com), 99 Gansevoort Street, West Village, Manhattan Through March 9, 2026 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/img_6756.jpg) Lion and his cage from *Calder’s Circus* (1926–31) (photo Natalie Haddad/*Hyperallergic*) "The figures have specific and detailed garments and gestures, and their simple but expressive faces feel idiosyncratic, partly because many are based on actual circus performers" —*NH* [Read the review](https://hyperallergic.com/calder-circus-is-for-everyone-whitney-museum/). --- #### Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, and Gender in the Middle Ages [**Metropolitan Museum of Art**](https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/spectrum-of-desire-love-sex-and-gender-in-the-middle-ages?ref=hyperallergic.com), 1000 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan Through March 29, 2026 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2025/11/emma9.jpg) Attributed to Master Heinrich of Constance, “The Visitation” (German, c. 1310–20) (photo Emma Cieslik/*Hyperallergic*) "Medieval art tells a far more complicated story: Instead of strict gender roles, people in the Middle Ages performed and identified gender through actions." —*Emma Cieslik* [Read the review](https://hyperallergic.com/met-cloisters-mapping-queer-landscape-medieval-europe/).