Inside Five Must-See New York Gallery Shows This Spring

Find everything from queer intimacy to infinity rooms to domestic Americana on paper this season in New York’s galleries.

 

Jim Shaw
Study for “The Bride Stripped Bare” (2016)
Pencil on paper

 

text by Kim Shveka

Jim Shaw, Drawings
Gagosian
On view through June 14

For over thirty years, American artist Jim Shaw has mined the depths of Americana, popular culture, personal memory, and dream logic to create a body of work as chaotic as it is compelling. Now on view at Gagosian, Drawings is an exhibition of works on paper made between 2012 and 2024, showing Shaw’s intellectual inspirations in his artistic journey. Known for his ability to weave together the threads of America’s subconscious through surreal and symbolic visual language, Shaw here turns to the intimacy of graphite and ink, using sketch-like drawings to offer a direct window into his thinking; raw and unfiltered. These drawings are freely associated with references drawn from the artist’s mind and memory, as he imagines and recalls scenes from his own life and the collective American memory, translating the images in his mind’s eye onto paper. Jim Shaw’s “Drawings” is a deeply personal and evocative exploration of identity, nostalgia, and American culture.

 

Sam Moyer
Boca (2025)
Marble, acrylic on plaster-coated canvas

 

Sam Moyer, Subject to Change
Sean Kelly
On view through June 14

Multidisciplinary artist Sam Moyer is known for her distinctive approach to merging abstraction and materiality, often redefining conventional sculptural forms through her innovative use of natural elements. Her work blurs the lines between painting and sculpture, creating wall-mounted pieces that highlight variations in surface and light.
Now showing at Sean Kelly Gallery, Sam Moyer’s fourth solo exhibition features a dynamic body of new work. The exhibition showcases Moyer's fondness for inconsistency and contradictions across a variety of artworks. Featuring Moyer’s latest stone paintings from 2024, which combine reclaimed stone and painted canvas, alongside oil on panel paintings and handmade paper. In these new works, Moyer meditates on life's inherent dualities; decay and growth, loss and perspective, endings and emergent beginnings; capturing a moment of balance during trying times. The palette draws inspiration from Claude Monet’s late paintings, interpreting his shift towards purity of color and light as an investigation of essential visual language, ultimately reflecting Moyer's continued exploration of color and light as the core building blocks of abstraction.

 

Salman Toor
Cross Street (2025)
Oil on panel
© Salman Toor; Courtesy of the artist, Luhring Augustine, New York. Photo: Farwad Owrang

 

Salman Toor, Wish Maker
Luhring Augustine
On view through June 21

Salman Toor is renowned for his evocative figurative works that explore vulnerability within contemporary public and private life, particularly in the context of queer, diasporic identity. His paintings delve into the opportunities, anxieties, and humor inherent in the search for selfhood and the immigrant experience. Now showing at Luhring Augustine, Wish Maker, Toor’s first major New York presentation since his pivotal 2020 Whitney Museum show, spans both gallery locations, featuring paintings at Luhring Augustine Chelsea and a dedicated presentation of works on paper at Luhring Augustine Tribeca. Toor's new paintings, drawings, and etchings place imaginary yet relatable figures in diverse settings, examining the complexities of our paradoxical times. His work vibrates between heartening and harrowing, often employing a distinctive viridescent palette that illuminates both beauty and violence, liberation and entrapment, reflecting how perception shifts with perspective. Toor skillfully fuses art historical references with contemporary concerns, creating a rich compilation of traditions, popular culture, and lived experience.

Installation view, Atsuko Tanaka, Yayoi Kusama, Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, May 8 - June 14, 2025.
Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, Photo: Steven Probert.

Atsuko Tanaka and Yayoi Kusama
Paula Cooper Gallery
On view through June 14

Atsuko Tanaka, Yayoi Kusama, is an exhibition that brings together the groundbreaking works of two of Japan’s most innovative and influential artists. The exhibition presents a diverse selection of Tanaka’s works on canvas and paper, alongside early pieces by Kusama in various media, highlighting the parallel yet distinct artistic concerns of these pioneering figures.

Both Atsuko Tanaka (1932-2005) and Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929) matured in post-World War II Japan, a period of profound societal transformation that spurred radical shifts in the arts. Tanaka, a key female member of the Gutai movement, is known for vibrant works like her iconic “Electric Dress” (1956), where circles and lines dynamically interact. Kusama, active in 1960s New York, explored hypnotic repetition, creating immersive works evoking hallucination and boundlessness. Both shared a broadened approach to artmaking, incorporating textiles, sensory environments, and performance, developing personal abstract languages with repeated motifs in large, enveloping scales. The exhibition includes Tanaka's early drawings and paintings, Kusama’s pioneering “Infinity Nets,” rare collages, photographs, and historical films.


Dozie Kanu. Chair [ iii ] (Dark), 2022
Poured concrete, steel, rims
35.9 x 16.5 x 20.5 in. 91.4 x 41.9 x 52.1 cm.
Courtesy of anonymous gallery, New York, NY

the chair by the window is an old friend featuring work from Jane Dickson, Kamil Dossar, Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Dozie Kanu, Mike Kelley, Carolyn Lazard, Klara Liden, Elliot Reed, Josef Strau
Anonymous Gallery
On view through June 14

The chair by the window is an old friend explores the emotional layers of domestic space. It focuses on how our homes can feel safe and familiar, but also confining or heavy with memory. The objects we live with become more than decoration, they carry personal meaning, reflecting who we are, who we were, and who we might want to be. Some artworks, such as Nan Goldin’s My Bed, Hotel La Louisiane, seem to capture the trace of a moment that has just passed, preserving an atmosphere of intimacy and lingering presence. Others, like Elliot Reed’s leaning umbrellas, convey a sense of stillness and resistance to functionality, evoking suspension rather than resolution. Across the exhibition, everyday materials such as wires, fabric, and furniture are reimagined as vessels of emotion and meaning. Through these transformations, the works articulate themes of care, closeness, imbalance, and quiet shifts, drawing attention to the subtle psychological states embedded within domestic objects and spaces. In this way, the exhibition invites us to think about what ‘home’ really means. Is it a space where we can rest, or does it sometimes hold us back? As life outside moves faster and becomes more overwhelming, our interiors can become places where comfort and loneliness exist at the same time. They are both a retreat and a mirror of our inner world.

"Art after Stonewall, 1969–1989" @ New York University’s Grey Art Gallery & the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art

Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Uprisings, Art after Stonewall, 1969–1989 is a long-awaited and groundbreaking survey that features over 200 works of art and related visual materials exploring the impact of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) liberation movement on visual culture. Presented in two parts—at New York University’s Grey Art Gallery and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art—the exhibition features artworks by openly LGBTQ artists such as Vaginal Davis, Louise Fishman, Nan Goldin, Lyle Ashton Harris, Barbara Hammer, Holly Hughes, Greer Lankton, Robert Mapplethorpe, Catherine Opie, Joan Snyder, and Andy Warhol. On view at the Grey Art Gallery from April 24 through July 20, 2019 and at the Leslie-Lohman Museum from April 24 through July 21, 2019, the exhibition is organized by the Columbus Museum of Art. Art after Stonewall, 1969–1989 is on view through July 20 at New York University’s Grey Art Gallery and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. photographs

"Real Worlds: Brassaï, Arbus, Goldin" at MOCA

Drawn largely from MOCA’s extraordinary collection of photography, the exhibition provides a remarkable opportunity to explore the ways in which Brassaï (Gyula Halász), Diane Arbus, and Nan Goldin use the camera to reflect and transform the world around them. Real Worlds features an exceptional trove of approximately one hundred works by the three artists, including Brassaï’s unforgettable images of the nocturnal denizens of Paris, Arbus’s most memorable and unsettling portraits, and Goldin’s searingly poignant documentation of herself and her community. "Real Worlds" will be on view at MOCA from March 4th through September 3rd. photographs by Oliver Kupper.

Photography New Works at Galleria Carla Sozzani

Photography_New_Works_at_Galleria_Carla_Sozzan_ryan_mcginley

Photography New Works is on view now at Galleria Carla Sozzani in Milan and  brings together some of the most prominent photographers in fine art and fashion, under a common theme, and provides visitors with an unprecedented opportunity to experience the very latest, cutting-edge photographic expressions. Photography New Works includes new works by William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Nan Goldin, Martin Parr, Terry Richardson and Ryan McGinley. Photography New Works will be on view until November 18, at Galleria Carla Sozzani, Corso Como, 10, 20154 Milan, Italy

PRIVACY Exhibition at Schirn Kunsthalle

PRIVACY_Exhibition_at_Shirn_Kunsthalle_Frankfurt_dash_snow

Private—a word from the past, or so it would seem these days. A word of hardly any relevance in an era when everything—from one’s favorite recipe to one’s current relationship status—is posted on Facebook. Exhibitionism, self-disclosure, the delight in telling stories, showing off, and voyeurism are the social strategies in today’s world—a world that has long since undergone a structural transformation of the public sphere. In contemporary art, domestic scenes and personal secrets are mirrored in photographs, Polaroids, cell phone photos, objects, installations, and films. The familiar and intimate are put in the picture. Through a consideration of numerous contemporary approaches the Schirn investigates the dwindling private sphere and the “publicness of the intimate.” Aiming her camera through a rear courtyard window, Merry Alpern captures blurred scenes of hurried sexual encounters; in his romantic video piece Akram Zaatari explores an online chat between two men; and Fiona Tan combines private snapshots from different countries to create large tableaux. The exhibition undertakes memorable excursions to the fragile borders between the self and the other. Other artists include Dash Snow, Mark Morrisroe, Ai Weiwei and Marilyn Minter. Privacy will be on view from November 1, 2012, to February 3, 2013 at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Romberg, 60311 Frankfurt

Art Meets Rock

Richard_Kern_courtney_Love_live_art_meets_rock
RICHARD KERN, Nirvana, Courtney Love
CWT0008T_02.tif
left: WILLIAM ENGLISH, Vivienne Westwood in Sex, 1975, courtesy of Maggs Brothers, London right: URS LÜTHI, Un'isola dell'aria, 1975, particolare, 28 fotografie, cm60x50 cad, Collezione Fabio e Virginia Gori
Iain_Forsyth_Jane_Pollard_live_art_meets_rock
IAIN FORSYTH & JANE POLLARD, A Rock'N'Roll Suicide, 1998, Live performance, Photo: David Cowlard courtesy Kate MacGarry, London

Museo Pecci di Prato in Florence, Italy presents an exhibition entiled LIVE! Art Meets Rock. The exhibition, curated by Luca Beatrice and Marco Bazzini, adopts a suggestive perspective to show how the history of contemporary art and of rock music have followed parallel paths to contribute to the construction of the cultural universe of the last forty years. Music and the visual arts have crossed and overlapped, over time, engendering a unified and consistent landscape; what draws them together is the performative dimension, articulated according to the specific occasion within an exhibition or a concert. LIVE!offers a parallel and original reading of historic events by exhibiting paintings, sculptures, installations, video clips, artworks, LPs, graphic works, photographs, magazines and films. Artists include Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, William English, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman, David LaChapelle and more. The exhibition will be accompanied by Live!, a book published by Rizzoli with contributions by Luca Beatrice and Marco Bazzini. LIVE! Art Meets Rock view at the Museo Pecci di Prato until September 16.  

(Un) dressed: An Evolution of the Nude

20110405-1369-Halsman - Story for life(Un) dressed

right: Philippe Halsman, Story for life + lover, 1949 left: Bert Stern, Fashion for Prenton Vogue, 1970

Aristocratic, the online gallery of limited edition art photography, presents an exhibition entitled (Un) dressed - an exploration of the nude in photography from 900 until today. The exhibit is an exploration, not so much of the nude itself, but of the evolution of  the nude - "women in their complexity" seen through the eyes of major Italian and international photographers in the last century such as Edward Weston, Helmut Newton, Karl Lagerfeld, Hideki Fujii, Nan Goldin, Araki and Maurizio Galimberti. The 25 works on display offer a fascinating journey through space and time to grasp how the image of the women have changed.  The exhibition can be seen from May 5 to 18 at the Hettabretz, Palazzo Borromeo in Milan or online.  www.aristocratic.com