The best days in downtown NYC start with art.

Every week, we walk the neighborhoods to see what just opened. This is our take on the most exciting shows now.

1/28

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Jean Luc Moulene

SEP10

NOV10

Moulène’s menagerie of objects embodies the universe's beautiful mysteries. They are poems. They are riddles. And they are gorgeous.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Tommaso Spazzini Villa: The Time That’s Left

MAY14

JUL31

TOTAH

Ancient manuscripts, tangled roots, and miraculous shadows reveal hidden threads of faith, nature, and imagination.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Artists on the Bowery, Part 6: Reframing the Edge

MAY28

AUG01

Westwood Gallery

Triangles, circles, prisms. These artists wanted to change the shape of painting. So they did. Literally.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Sue Tompkins: Wanna

MAY16

JUL31

King's Leap

Looping rhythms and syncopations collide with words and color that bubble across painting, poetry, and pop.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLittle Italy

Alex Bierk: A Thin Place

MAY08

JUN28

Nathalie Karg Gallery

Cars, stars, fog, and fading light. Moments most people would pass by without noticing. The reward comes from staying with them long enough to see beyond their surfaces.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Nick Doyle: Collective Hallucinations

APR24

MAY30

Perrotin

Manifest Destiny, Y2K Levi's nostalgia, and an AI psychic with attitude. It’s the myth of the American West unraveling, one stitched-denim cloud at a time.

Read Review

Best of ShowsChinatown

Adelisa Selimbašić: Where we become each other

APR25

JUN21

Lubov

A nocturnal choreography of painted bodies and columns turn the gallery into 3 am at the club.

Read Review

Best of ShowsChinatown

Greg Parma Smith: Things in the Air

APR11

MAY23

Hoffman Donahue

Experimental sound, mysticism, and painting tune to a hypnotic frequency at this transportive show. Greg Parma Smith has created an exhibition that plays like an album — each painting its own track. If paint had a sound, it might be this.

Read Review

Best of ShowsChinatown

Jo Messer: Speed Stick

MAR19

MAY17

56 HENRY

Feverish, indulgent, and so very alive. Jo Messer’s painted flesh, fish, tangled chains, and art history collide in one of downtown’s most sensual shows. Everything’s lush, messy, and impossible to look away from.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

New Humans: Memories of the Future

MAR21

JUL26

New Museum

Drop into a sprawling, brain-expanding fever dream about humanity’s future, with 150 artists across four floors. Think robots, cyborgs, surrealism, sci-fi, horror. If you only see one show this spring, make it this one.

Read Review

Best of ShowsEast Village

Keith Haring

MAR11

MAY31

The Brant Foundation

A time capsule of UFOs, subway drawings, dancing dogs, Reagan-era dread, and downtown ecstasy. Downtown New York comes back to life in Keith Haring’s universe. A trip to the 80s, anyone?

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Maya Man: StarPower

MAR19

MAY02

Bitforms

Glitter, AI dancers, Dance Moms energy, and unsettling perfection. The sharpest, eeriest, most painfully accurate show about life in the age of reality tv, social media, and algorithms we've seen in a long time.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Noel de Lesseps: Twilight Chymical Conjunction

MAR12

APR18

Entrance

A medieval world where no heroes ride out, no quests begin, just a slow fever dream of life unmoored.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Quinha Faria: Receptors

MAR03

APR18

Kiang Malingue

A former critical care nurse maps the body through art made from bandages, carved door panels, and hanging tubes.

Read Review

Best of ShowsEast Village

Saodat Ismailova: Amanat

JAN21

APR12

Swiss Institute

A dreamlike double feature pairing a 1,000-year-old walnut forest with Perestroika-era propaganda.

Read Review

Best of ShowsNoHo

Kate Hargrave: MILK TEETH

FEB20

MAR28

Karma Gallery

Girls taking care of children, in a world that belongs only to them.

Read Review

Best of ShowsChinatown

Mira Schor: Figures of Speech

FEB21

MAR28

Lyles & King

What would humans be like if we were forbidden to use words to say what we need to say?

Read Review

Best of ShowsNoHo

Lee Gihun: Prometheus and Pietà

JAN24

MAR28

The Hole

Masked boys march through flood and fire in monumental paintings that ask: who saves us now?

Read Review

Best of ShowsLittle Italy

[minna|منا]of us

FEB01

MAR15

PARTICIPANT INC

Eight Palestinian and queer artists. Each held in their own circle of light.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Frisco Pete: The Schizo Life

OCT12

NOV11

Elliott Templeton Fine Arts

Cowboy clichés are turned charmingly on their Stetson-topped heads. The artist’s hidden identity only adds to the allure.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Max Jahn: Time Spent Looking

JAN29

MAR07

gratin

Decadent 1920s Berlin mingles with the modern in sensual portraits and still lifes.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Paul Pagk: Inscriptions in a Shade of Color

JAN16

MAR07

Miguel Abreu Gallery

Color that finds you before you find it. Lines your eyes will want to follow.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

John Duff

JAN18

FEB28

Reena Spaulings Fine Art

Duff has spent a lifetime making sculpture from what the city throws away.

Read Review

Best of ShowsNoHo

Jane Hilton: Lightfall

JAN10

FEB14

PALO Gallery

Myths are lit by truth in Jane Hilton’s exploration of the American West

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

ob: Phantom Tales

JAN16

FEB21

Perrotin

ob paints the internet age as a lilac-hued dreamworld. The real-world beauty her characters are missing is the point.

Read Review

Best of ShowsEast Village

Mona Filleul: Sissy Institute

SEP30

JAN04

Swiss Institute

The message of this “sanctuary for sissies”? Darling, you belong here.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Isaiah Harris: Confessions of Fire

NOV06

DEC20

King's Leap

Harris turns the hard-wrought journey from bondage to self-rule into a blacksmith’s language of fire, steel, and swagger.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Richard Long: Full Moon

NOV09

DEC13

Sperone Westwater

Time stops beneath Richard Long’s radiating, trance-inducing two-storey high moon that you can reach out and touch.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Jean Luc Moulene

SEP10

NOV10

Miguel Abreu Gallery

Moulène’s menagerie of objects embodies the universe's beautiful mysteries. They are poems. They are riddles. And they are gorgeous.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Tommaso Spazzini Villa: The Time That’s Left

MAY14

JUL31

TOTAH

Ancient manuscripts, tangled roots, and miraculous shadows reveal hidden threads of faith, nature, and imagination.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Tommaso Spazzini Villa: The Time That’s Left

MAY14

JUL31

TOTAH

Ancient manuscripts, tangled roots, and miraculous shadows reveal hidden threads of faith, nature, and imagination.

Read Review

The art spaces that have earned, and kept, cult status

ArtEast Village

Swiss Institute

Our go-to when we want contemporary art that's deeply thoughtful, beautifully installed, and quietly ahead of the curve. Part intellectual laboratory, part downtown sanctuary, it's one of the best places to spend an afternoon in the city.

ArtLittle Italy

PARTICIPANT INC

One of downtown's most beloved alternative art spaces. Politics, performance, community, and experimentation collide here. Black walls and raw, deeply human shows that cling to your mind long after you leave.

ArtLower East Side

Reena Spaulings Fine Art

One of the Lower East Side’s most influential and unruly galleries. Run by artists, two decades in, and the reason a lot of other galleries are here. Art here breaks the rules with intelligence and lashings of style. Essential viewing.

ArtChinatown

56 HENRY

56 Henry is the emotionally charged anchor of Henry Street’s art community. Openings are like a block party. The exhibitions, sharp, funny, and sometimes devastating, capture the messy, confessional texture of creative life right now.

ArtLower East Side

Miguel Abreu Gallery

When we want to see and think differently, this is where we come. Exhibitions unfold across an enfilade of sunlit rooms, cinematic in pacing, structurally precise. The artists are obsessed with how images make meaning. By the time we leave, we are, too.

ArtEast Village

Wilmer Jennings Gallery

A living archive of Black art and memory, part of the Kenkeleba House project since 1974. This sunlit, intimate space has been shaped by generations of artists into one of Losaida's most important cultural anchors.

ArtEast Village

Karma Gallery

Karma is the kind of gallery that resets your nervous system. Its thoughtful, intimate exhibitions reward you for slowing down and really looking. Walk in, breathe deep, look closely, drift out.

ArtNoHo

Grey Art Museum

Come for thoughtful, richly researched exhibitions that transport you across cities, histories, and art movements. Stay for quiet galleries and work that makes you smarter. This is exactly what a university museum should feel like.

ArtLower East Side

Perrotin

Blockbuster contemporary art and global talent inside the old Beckenstein Fabrics building on Orchard Street, original painted signs and all. Expect spectacle with substance from artists who have reshaped contemporary culture.

ArtEast Village

The Brant Foundation

Downtown legends, ambitious shows, and giant industrial architecture combine in one of the East Village's most unexpectedly great art spaces. Warhol, Haring, Basquiat, Kelley — the Brant Foundation feels like walking through the last forty years of contemporary art history.

ArtLower East Side

New Museum

The most contemporary of New York’s contemporary museums. It’s where we go to get to know the artists, ideas, and conversations shaping what’s new, what's now, and what's coming next, and feel slightly ahead of it.

ArtLittle Italy

Peter Blum Gallery

Riding the waves of minimalist and conceptual art since their beginnings, with each new generation picking up the thread.

ArtChinatown

Hoffman Donahue

Playful, boundary-merging art reflecting on the rituals of everyday life, set against the backdrop of an old-school loft space on the Bowery.

ArtLower East Side

Bitforms

Where technology stops being a problem to solve and starts being a story to tell.

ArtLittle Italy

Company Gallery

Feminist, queer, theatrical art in a graffiti-covered gallery with a basement speakeasy.

ArtLower East Side

Tibor De Nagy Gallery

A haven for poetic painting where every flick of paint holds worlds of intention in one of America’s first modern art galleries.

ArtLower East Side

International Center of Photography (ICP)

A gorgeous (and relatively) new space for this historic institution. Visit for the best of NY’s socially and politically-minded photography, past and present.

See where the future of art is heading next.

ArtLower East Side

Blade Study

Where artists ask the same questions humans have always asked, just asked through memes, code, and group chats.

ArtLittle Italy

Derosia

Self-aware, socially-motivated painting about culture, media, and the moment we’re living in.

ArtLower East Side

Entrance

The spirit of the zine and maker culture collide in this DIY gallery on Ludlow Street.

ArtLower East Side

Foreign & Domestic

Process is worshipped in this basement gallery, which champions younger local and international artists.

ArtLower East Side

gratin

Walking into gratin is like entering a party lit up by the promise of the night.

ArtEast Village

Half Gallery

This glass-walled gallery shows realist work in which desire and fantasy simmer on the surface.

ArtLower East Side

King's Leap

A rising generation of artists whose shared Tumblr and techno experiences splinter into dystopian visions, futuristic dreams, and meta commentaries on 21st-century life.

ArtChinatown

Long Story Short

A big-hearted, storefront gallery where locals linger on the benches outside and rising artists explore imagined realms inside.

ArtChinatown

Management

Otherworldly, metaphysical works blur the boundaries between mysticism and philosophy on the fourth floor of a Chinatown office building.

ArtChinatown

Ulrik

Take the pulse of the new New York scene at this spacious, sunny second-floor gallery overlooking Canal Street, where artistic careers are launched and revitalized.

ArtNoHo

PALO Gallery

Art’s romantic past and topical present merge emphatically in art that is at once socially relevant and inextricably tied to art's history.

ArtLower East Side

www.willshott

Downtown artists, hip-hop gleam, and a jewelry studio in the back equals www.willshott.

ArtChinatown

Lubov

On the edge of Chinatown, a true inheritor of the scrappy Downtown ethos has zero interest in behaving.

Where distinct ideas, subcultures, and communities are championed

ArtLower East Side

Bitforms

Where technology stops being a problem to solve and starts being a story to tell.

ArtLower East Side

Fridman Gallery

Socially conscious art upstairs and an experimental sound studio downstairs converge at this gallery with spiritually attuned leanings.

ArtLower East Side

Heft

Where artists stare into the dreams of generative code, AI, and emerging technologies.

ArtLower East Side

Howl! Arts Howl! Archive!

The spirit of the bohemian East Village screams in this living shrine to its artist icons, past and present.

ArtLower East Side

LAAMS

Art, books, streetwear, and records are floor to ceiling at this Orchard Street gallery, made by the neighborhood for the neighborhood.

ArtChinatown

Museum at Eldridge Street

Be immersed in the Jewish history of the Lower East Side in this tenderly restored synagogue, where downtown artists weave the neighborhood’s past into shows and the building itself.

ArtLower East Side

Steven Harvey Fine Arts

Explore the rigors and elegance of decades of New York painting at this tiny storefront off the Sara D. Roosevelt Park.

ArtLower East Side

Westwood Gallery

Want to understand the cultural DNA of the downtown NYC art? Spend an afternoon at Westwood Gallery. The old-school scene is alive and well here, with shows that spotlight artists who kept making work long after trends moved on.

ArtEast Village

Wilmer Jennings Gallery

Meet the first-timers, transplants, and artist-run collectives that already feel like downtown's future.

ArtNoHo

Amanita

Be drenched in old-world European elegance with art by rarely-seen contemporary Italian artists, shown at the former CBGBs punk bar turned gallery.

ArtLower East Side

ABRI MARS

A refuge for art that is quietly optimistic about the future, from a designer who lost everything in a fire.

ArtLower East Side

Heft

Where artists stare into the dreams of generative code, AI, and emerging technologies.

ArtLower East Side

gratin

Walking into gratin is like entering a party lit up by the promise of the night.

ArtLower East Side

Kiang Malingue

Hong Kong cool collides with Chinatown edge in a sunlit loft where artists across Asia and its diaspora race toward what’s next.

ArtLower East Side

Elliott Templeton Fine Arts

The highly aesthetic art in this gallery, named after a fictional post-WWI art dealer, can be summed up in one word: romantic.

ArtChinatown

Ulrik

Take the pulse of the new New York scene at this spacious, sunny second-floor gallery overlooking Canal Street, where artistic careers are launched and revitalized.

Every week, we walk the neighborhoods to see what just opened. This is our take on the most exciting shows now.

1/28

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Jean Luc Moulene

SEP10

NOV10

Miguel Abreu Gallery

Moulène’s menagerie of objects embodies the universe's beautiful mysteries. They are poems. They are riddles. And they are gorgeous.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Tommaso Spazzini Villa: The Time That’s Left

MAY14

JUL31

TOTAH

Ancient manuscripts, tangled roots, and miraculous shadows reveal hidden threads of faith, nature, and imagination.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Artists on the Bowery, Part 6: Reframing the Edge

MAY28

AUG01

Westwood Gallery

Triangles, circles, prisms. These artists wanted to change the shape of painting. So they did. Literally.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Sue Tompkins: Wanna

MAY16

JUL31

King's Leap

Looping rhythms and syncopations collide with words and color that bubble across painting, poetry, and pop.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLittle Italy

Alex Bierk: A Thin Place

MAY08

JUN28

Nathalie Karg Gallery

Cars, stars, fog, and fading light. Moments most people would pass by without noticing. The reward comes from staying with them long enough to see beyond their surfaces.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Nick Doyle: Collective Hallucinations

APR24

MAY30

Perrotin

Manifest Destiny, Y2K Levi's nostalgia, and an AI psychic with attitude. It’s the myth of the American West unraveling, one stitched-denim cloud at a time.

Read Review

Best of ShowsChinatown

Adelisa Selimbašić: Where we become each other

APR25

JUN21

Lubov

A nocturnal choreography of painted bodies and columns turn the gallery into 3 am at the club.

Read Review

Best of ShowsChinatown

Greg Parma Smith: Things in the Air

APR11

MAY23

Hoffman Donahue

Read Review

Best of ShowsChinatown

Jo Messer: Speed Stick

MAR19

MAY17

56 HENRY

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

New Humans: Memories of the Future

MAR21

JUL26

New Museum

Read Review

Best of ShowsEast Village

Keith Haring

MAR11

MAY31

The Brant Foundation

A time capsule of UFOs, subway drawings, dancing dogs, Reagan-era dread, and downtown ecstasy. Downtown New York comes back to life in Keith Haring’s universe. A trip to the 80s, anyone?

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Maya Man: StarPower

MAR19

MAY02

Bitforms

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Noel de Lesseps: Twilight Chymical Conjunction

MAR12

APR18

Entrance

A medieval world where no heroes ride out, no quests begin, just a slow fever dream of life unmoored.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Quinha Faria: Receptors

MAR03

APR18

Kiang Malingue

A former critical care nurse maps the body through art made from bandages, carved door panels, and hanging tubes.

Read Review

Best of ShowsEast Village

Saodat Ismailova: Amanat

JAN21

APR12

Swiss Institute

A dreamlike double feature pairing a 1,000-year-old walnut forest with Perestroika-era propaganda.

Read Review

Best of ShowsNoHo

Kate Hargrave: MILK TEETH

FEB20

MAR28

Karma Gallery

Girls taking care of children, in a world that belongs only to them.

Read Review

Best of ShowsChinatown

Mira Schor: Figures of Speech

FEB21

MAR28

Lyles & King

What would humans be like if we were forbidden to use words to say what we need to say?

Read Review

Best of ShowsNoHo

Lee Gihun: Prometheus and Pietà

JAN24

MAR28

The Hole

Masked boys march through flood and fire in monumental paintings that ask: who saves us now?

Read Review

Best of ShowsLittle Italy

[minna|منا]of us

FEB01

MAR15

PARTICIPANT INC

Eight Palestinian and queer artists. Each held in their own circle of light.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Frisco Pete: The Schizo Life

OCT12

NOV11

Elliott Templeton Fine Arts

Cowboy clichés are turned charmingly on their Stetson-topped heads. The artist’s hidden identity only adds to the allure.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Max Jahn: Time Spent Looking

JAN29

MAR07

gratin

Decadent 1920s Berlin mingles with the modern in sensual portraits and still lifes.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Paul Pagk: Inscriptions in a Shade of Color

JAN16

MAR07

Miguel Abreu Gallery

Color that finds you before you find it. Lines your eyes will want to follow.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

John Duff

JAN18

FEB28

Reena Spaulings Fine Art

Duff has spent a lifetime making sculpture from what the city throws away.

Read Review

Best of ShowsNoHo

Jane Hilton: Lightfall

JAN10

FEB14

PALO Gallery

Myths are lit by truth in Jane Hilton’s exploration of the American West

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

ob: Phantom Tales

JAN16

FEB21

Perrotin

ob paints the internet age as a lilac-hued dreamworld. The real-world beauty her characters are missing is the point.

Read Review

Best of ShowsEast Village

Mona Filleul: Sissy Institute

SEP30

JAN04

Swiss Institute

The message of this “sanctuary for sissies”? Darling, you belong here.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Isaiah Harris: Confessions of Fire

NOV06

DEC20

King's Leap

Harris turns the hard-wrought journey from bondage to self-rule into a blacksmith’s language of fire, steel, and swagger.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Richard Long: Full Moon

NOV09

DEC13

Sperone Westwater

Time stops beneath Richard Long’s radiating, trance-inducing two-storey high moon that you can reach out and touch.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Jean Luc Moulene

SEP10

NOV10

Miguel Abreu Gallery

Moulène’s menagerie of objects embodies the universe's beautiful mysteries. They are poems. They are riddles. And they are gorgeous.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Tommaso Spazzini Villa: The Time That’s Left

MAY14

JUL31

TOTAH

Ancient manuscripts, tangled roots, and miraculous shadows reveal hidden threads of faith, nature, and imagination.

Read Review

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Tommaso Spazzini Villa: The Time That’s Left

MAY14

JUL31

TOTAH

Ancient manuscripts, tangled roots, and miraculous shadows reveal hidden threads of faith, nature, and imagination.

Read Review

The best days in downtown NYC start with art.

Find your next exhibition. And the locally-loved coffee shops, bookstores, and bars worth building your day around.

Best of Shows

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Jean Luc Moulene

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Tommaso Spazzini Villa: The Time That’s Left

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Artists on the Bowery, Part 6: Reframing the Edge

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Sue Tompkins: Wanna

Best of ShowsLittle Italy

Alex Bierk: A Thin Place

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Nick Doyle: Collective Hallucinations

Best of ShowsChinatown

Adelisa Selimbašić: Where we become each other

Best of ShowsChinatown

Greg Parma Smith: Things in the Air

Best of ShowsChinatown

Jo Messer: Speed Stick

Best of ShowsLower East Side

New Humans: Memories of the Future

Best of ShowsEast Village

Keith Haring

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Maya Man: StarPower

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Noel de Lesseps: Twilight Chymical Conjunction

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Quinha Faria: Receptors

Best of ShowsEast Village

Saodat Ismailova: Amanat

Best of ShowsNoHo

Kate Hargrave: MILK TEETH

Best of ShowsChinatown

Mira Schor: Figures of Speech

Best of ShowsNoHo

Lee Gihun: Prometheus and Pietà

Best of ShowsLittle Italy

[minna|منا]of us

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Frisco Pete: The Schizo Life

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Max Jahn: Time Spent Looking

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Paul Pagk: Inscriptions in a Shade of Color

Best of ShowsLower East Side

John Duff

Best of ShowsNoHo

Jane Hilton: Lightfall

Best of ShowsLower East Side

ob: Phantom Tales

Best of ShowsEast Village

Mona Filleul: Sissy Institute

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Isaiah Harris: Confessions of Fire

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Richard Long: Full Moon

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Jean Luc Moulene

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Tommaso Spazzini Villa: The Time That’s Left

Best of ShowsLower East Side

Tommaso Spazzini Villa: The Time That’s Left

Local Legends

ArtEast Village

Swiss Institute

ArtLittle Italy

PARTICIPANT INC

ArtLower East Side

Reena Spaulings Fine Art

ArtChinatown

56 HENRY

ArtLower East Side

Miguel Abreu Gallery

ArtEast Village

Wilmer Jennings Gallery

ArtEast Village

Karma Gallery