What You Can’t Miss at Upstate Art Weekend
The art extravaganza in New York’s Hudson Valley and Catskills is back with a retrospective of Betty Parsons, a tailgate-style exhibition, living sculptures, and more.
It is a historic summer for New York. Not only because of the Knicks' electric NBA championship win, but also a recent primary victory for three Mamdani-backed candidates — including a painter — that has infused New York City and its environs with a sense of hope for a better future. This optimistic sentiment coincides with the start of Upstate Art Weekend, where regional artists reflect their own visions for the world.
This year's lineup of 160 artists and organizations includes something for everyone, whether that's art hanging out of cars (college tailgate-style), a rejuvenated abandoned storefront, living sculptures, or more traditional works displayed on gallery walls. For the 2026 edition of Upstate Art Weekend, an annual art festival born in 2020 to highlight the cultural contributions of the Hudson Valley and Catskills, Bloomberg Connects will offer a digital guide that lets visitors create customizable itineraries.
Here's our selection of unmissable art, exhibitions, and events.
Betty Parsons: An Expanded World
CCS Bard Galleries at Bard College, 33 Garden Rd, Annandale-On-Hudson, New YorkJune 27, 2–5pm and through October 18
Curated by two Bard alumnae, Deputy Director of Artists Space Kelly Taxter and painter Amy Sillman, this exhibition is the first major retrospective dedicated to artist and gallerist Betty Parsons. Across around 80 pieces spanning painting, works on paper, and sculpture, the show plumbs Parsons's momentous contributions to the history of 20th-century art in the United States, from launching the careers of major artists across avant-garde movements to creating unique works that expanded the possibilities of those genres.
Loading... Art Invitational Edition No.2
The Caboose, 60 South Front Street, Hudson, New York
June 25–29
After hopping off the train at the Hudson station, art trekkers can head to the nearby Caboose, where Loading… presents works curated by seven New York City galleries, including Post Times and Dutton. Among the works foregrounding the event are Bronx-born painter Glenn Goldberg's small-scale, intricate acrylic-and-pencil pieces. In addition to free public hours throughout the weekend, expect a panel discussion on the Hudson Valley's presence in the global art world, with guests including Jessica Brier, curator of Photography at Vassar College's Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. (There will also be Vermont-style ice cream on site, but you didn't hear that from me.)
DON'T SIT ON ME
Available Items, 64 Broadway, Tivoli, New York
June 26–29
One should probably not sit down on any of the objects included in DON'T SIT ON ME, though it may be tempting to do so in a room full of chairs (including one made of whoopee cushions). Humor aside, the show's 13 ingenious chair designs respond to the 250th anniversary of the United States, coinciding with creeping authoritarianism and one-sided nationalistic fervor. Selected from an open call, the chair designs satirize or comment on aspects of unfolding American history, including by reappropriating conservative slogans, critiquing patriotic hubris, and making private struggles public.
Anne Hall and Mark Delmont at OSMOS Station
OSMOS Station, 20 Railroad Avenue, Stamford, New York
June 25– 29
In the Catskills, OSMOS, a publishing and curatorial project based in Stamford and New York City, will present solo exhibitions by Mark Delmont, whose tender paintings capture "often overlooked lives." The space will also feature a show of translucent sculptural works by local multi-media photographer Anne Hall.
The Inaugural Upstate Photography Biennial
The Center for Photography Woodstock, 25 Dederick St, Kingston, New York
June 25–29 and through September 6
This year's Upstate Art Weekend coincides with the Center for Photography Woodstock's (CPW) first-ever biennial, which traces the titular art form's regional history through the lenses of 39 artists. The works included, such as Meryl Meisler's black-and-white image of disembodied legs atop a Manhattan bar counter, interrogate the human body, challenge the use of space, and amplify aspects of everyday life in New York. Timed with this weekend's festivities, CPW will host a conversation about queer image-making in Upstate New York.
The Mall
Hudson Valley Mall Food Court, 1300 Ulster Ave, Kingston, New York
June 26–28
For those who feel nostalgic for the classic, enclosed American mall as a space of congregation (me, I'm nostalgic), The Mall at the Hudson Valley Mall offers art-filled "reimagined" storefronts in a creative resurrection of the dying commercial space. Converting vacant stores into displays of regional expression, The Mall will host a series of pop-up exhibitions that subvert the logic of consumption while honoring the sense of congregation that these spaces once instilled in public life.
Replica of a Chip: The Weaving Technology of Marilou Schultz
Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, 33 Garden Rd, Annandale-On-Hudson, New York
June 27, 2–5pm and through November 29
Opening on Saturday, Replica of a Chip: the Weaving Technology of Marilou Schultz will present the Diné weaver and mathematics educator's first-ever career survey. The exhibition traces the acclaimed artist's 65-year-long weaving practice, during which she crafted micro-chip patterned textiles that shed light on a contingent of Navajo women workers who manufactured semiconductors in the 1960s and ’70s.
Stay Frosty Kingston
Artport Kingston, 80 Smith Avenue, Kingston, New York
June 27, 2–5pm
More than 50 artists will fill Kingston's ArtPort parking lot this weekend with pop-up installations reminiscent of a chaotic college tailgate Stay Frosty, organized by ArtPort Kingston and BravinLee Programs, began in Harlem last year as a site-responsive public art event featuring exhibitions popping out of trunks and decorating asphalt. This year's programming will also include live portrait drawing and performance.
Unison Arts Triennial: Art, Land and Future
Unison Arts, 9 Paradies Lane, New Paltz, New York
June 26–29
Unison Arts invited 20 regional artists to interpret the link between ecology and humanity for the organization's triennial, which will unfold over three years beginning this Saturday. On Sunday afternoon, Agustin Diocares will present “Es Difícil Ser Un Santo” (2026), a performance that incorporates oranges in a commentary on the United States's dependence on undocumented labor. In the first stage of the exhibition, Unison Arts will unveil a sculpture garden, including eco-futurist living installations by Jordan Rosenow and Mike Medeiros.
Entung Liu: Broken Breath, Through Our Shiny Skin
N/A Project Space, 137 Martin Sweedish Rd, New Paltz, New York
June 27, 2–5pm
In N/A Project Space's wooded outdoor space on Saturday, Taipei-born artist Entung Liu will facilitate a three-hour participatory durational performance billed as the "soft launch" of the upcoming Immigrant Artist Biennial. During the performance, Liu will offer attendees the opportunity to connect their phones to an app that transmits shared light and sound in a controlled exploration of the relationship between endless digital consumption and bodily presence.
Upstate Art Weekend at Woodstock School of Art
Woodstock School of Art, 2470 Route 212, Woodstock, New York
June 25–29
At Woodstock School of Art, a nonprofit dedicated to fine arts instruction for artists of all skill levels, vendors will sell their own creations in a campus art fair this Saturday and Sunday as part of a free event series. Local teaching artists Tricia Cline and Keith Gunderson will hold live demonstrations, and additional instructors will showcase their works in the ongoing Instructors Exhibition. Woodstock School of Art will also present a conversation with Nigerian-born artist Layo Bright as part of its ongoing series This is America, which explores artists' cultural lineages.
