Featured Events in New York in May 2025 (June Updated)

Matthew Marks is pleased to announce Julien Nguyen, the next exhibition in his gallery at 526 West 22nd Street. The exhibition includes twenty new paintings. Julien Nguyen draws inspiration from disparate historical periods and cultural traditions, collapsing time and distance to create new worlds. Nguyen embodies this approach not only in the content of his work, which references art history, science fiction, contemporary subjects, and the artist’s personal life, but also in his materials, which draw from Medieval, Renaissance, and traditional Japanese painting practices. This exhibition presents the artist’s first paintings made directly on copper panels, a painting technique first developed during the Middle Ages and later popularized by Old Masters such as Rembrandt and Jan Brueghel the Elder.

In the century since its founding as a public institution, the Morgan’s collections have grown dramatically, deepening the core assembled by J. Pierpont Morgan and his librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, who became the first Director of the institution. This growth is made possible through the support of members and donors who expand and enrich the historical, artistic, and literary contexts of the Morgan’s holdings, and this exhibition commemorates a notable selection of purchases, gifts, and promised gifts made in honor of the Morgan’s Centennial. Ranging from the Middle Ages to the present, the Centennial acquisition highlights include two manuscripts related to the publication of Leonardo da Vinci’s Treatise on Painting; Renaissance and modern bookbindings of exceptional craftsmanship; an extraordinary group of manuscripts related to Queen Elizabeth I, Marie de’ Medici, Edgar Allan Poe, and John Coltrane; groups of photographs by Emmet Gowin and Frederick Sommer; and drawings by Parmigianino, Annibale Carracci, Cy Twombly, Helen Frankenthaler, Giuseppe Penone, and Bridget Riley.

The Creativity Workshop is an inspiring, motivational experience. You will explore and transform your own creativity through a series of exercises working with creative writing, memoir, free form drawing, photography, storytelling and mindfulness. The Creativity Workshop in New York The Creativity Workshop is an inspiring, motivational experience. You will explore and transform your own creativity through a series of exercises working with creative writing, memoir, free form drawing, photography, storytelling and mindfulness. You will get over creative blocks, writer’s block and paralyzing self-criticism.You will find new sources of inspiration in everyday life.You will learn a 15-minute practice that will keep you creative for life.The Creativity Workshops are for people from all professions, ages and nations. Educators, scientists, lawyers, writers, artists, engineers, advertising and marketing professionals, therapists, business professionals all attend our workshops. You don't have to be an artist to be creative. What Creativity Workshop participants all have in common is the desire to explore and harness their unique creative process. Our participants meet like-minded and inspiring individuals and make lifelong friends. Experiential Conference Workshop focused on Creativity and Innovation. Professional Development All Disciplines: education, arts, business, creative writing, design, psychology, innovation, advertising, theatre, marketing, law - Graduate Credits/CEUs. Information Source: The Creativity Workshop | eventbrite

Between Latitude and Longitude constitutes the inaugural exhibition in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing’s in-focus gallery, part of the complete major reenvisioning of The Met collection of African art. In celebration of the initiative, an artistic landmark work by Senegalese Modernist Iba Ndiaye (1928–2008), Tabaski, a gift to The Met, is being ushered into the collection. Since the 1982 opening of the Rockefeller Wing, a canon of African Modernist painting has taken shape, and Ndiaye emerges consistently as a foundational figure of international importance, yet his contributions remain largely unknown outside Senegal.

A large art project called Day's End now stands in the Hudson River near Pier 52. Created by David Hammond, it's made of slender steel pipes and pays tribute to artist Gordon Matta-Clark, who transformed an abandoned shed on the same pier in 1975. The sculpture changes with the light, connecting to the history of the waterfront as a shipping hub and a gathering place for the gay community. It took seven years to complete the installation, and it's now open to the public for free. The Whitney Museum collaborated with the Hudson River Park Trust on this project, and they will work together on a maintenance plan. To celebrate its completion, the Whitney offers free admission on May 16, and there will be family workshops throughout the day. You can find Day's End at Hudson River Park, across from the Whitney Museum, on the southern edge of the new Gansevoort Peninsula, where it will remain permanently.

Edra Soto (b. 1971, Puerto Rico) explores the relationship between our private, interior lives and shared public history and culture. Graft is the latest in an ongoing series of installations based on rejas, wrought iron screens frequently seen outside homes in Puerto Rico. Rejas often feature repeating geometric motifs that can be traced to West Africa’s Yoruba symbol systems, in contrast to the Spanish architecture celebrated in official Puerto Rican tourism. Graft investigates how Puerto Rican cultural memory often masks the Black heritage of the island as folklore.

For the 2024 Genesis Facade Commission, South Korean artist Lee Bul (born 1964, Yeongju, based in Seoul) has created four new sculptures that combine figurative and abstract elements. The Genesis Facade Commission: Lee Bul,Long Tail Halois the artist’s first major project in the United States in more than twenty years and the fifth in the series of contemporary commissions for The Met Fifth Avenue’s facade niches. With a career that spans four decades, Lee is widely recognized as the preeminent artist from South Korea. She is known for her sophisticated use of both highly industrial and labor-intensive materials, incorporating artisanal practices as well as technological advancements into her work. Her sculptures, often evoking bodily forms that are at once classical and futuristic, address the aspirations and disillusions that come with progress. The Genesis Facade Commission is part of The Met’s series of contemporary commissions in which the Museum invites artists to create new works of art, establishing a dialogue between the artist’s practice, The Met collection, the physical Museum, and The Met’s audiences.

This groundbreaking exhibition explores the everyday clothing of ordinary women, from worn-out housecoats to psychedelic micro miniskirts and modern suits to the uniforms of fast-food workers. On view in the Joyce B. Cowin Women’s History Gallery and featuring objects from Smith College’s Historical Costume Collection on display for the first time in a museum, the exhibition traces how women’s roles have changed and evolved across race and class over the decades. Each garment holds a rich story about the women who wore it and made it, the materials used, and the context of place and time. Whether homemade or ready-made, many of the garments on display are modest and inexpensive, rarely preserved or displayed in a museum setting. Some are one-of-a-kind pieces; others are examples of clever makeshift pieces, and many were influenced by the popular styles and trends of their day. Visitors to Real Clothes, Real Lives will learn about the "real" women who worked and dressed in America for two centuries.

Featuring 25 site-specific, newly commissioned installations, Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial explores design’s role in shaping the physical and emotional realities of home across the United States, US Territories, and Tribal Nations. The exhibition is the seventh offering in the museum’s Design Triennial series, which was established in 2000 to address the most urgent topics of the time through the lens of design.

Photography has played a key role in structuring systems of power in society, including those related to crime and punishment. This exhibition presents immersive contemporary installations by the artist Jesse Krimes (American, b. 1982) alongside nineteenth-century photographs from The Met collection by the French criminologist Alphonse Bertillon, who developed the first modern system of criminal identification before the adoption of fingerprinting. Krimes’s image-based installations, made over the course of his six-year incarceration, reflect the ingenuity of an artist working without access to traditional materials. Employing prison-issued soap, hair gel, playing cards, and newspaper he created works of art that seek to disrupt and recontextualize the circulation of photographs in the media. Displayed at The Met in dialogue with Bertillon, whose pioneering method paired anthropomorphic measurements with photographs to produce the present-day mug shot, Krimes’s work raises questions about the perceived neutrality of our systems of identification and the hierarchies of social imbalance they create and reinscribe. An artist for whom collaboration and activism are vital, Krimes founded the Center for Art and Advocacy to highlight the talent and creative potential among individuals who have experienced incarceration and to support and improve outcomes for formerly incarcerated artists.

Based on the 1960 film by Roger Corman and featuring a book by Howard Ashman, music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Ashman, Little Shop follows meek plant store attendant Seymour, his co-worker crush Audrey, her sadistic dentist of a boyfriend and the man-eating plant that threatens them and the world as we know it.

How do we make sense, or poetry, out of the system of images we face today? This is one of the questions taken up by CAMP, a collaborative artists’ studio in Mumbai, India, that draws on widely available technologies, including CCTV and cell phone cameras as well as the internet, “to think and to build what is possible, what is equitable, and what is interesting, for the future.” The group’s projects rethink our relationship with the technologies that constantly capture us. Founded in 2007 by Shaina Anand, Ashok Sukumaran, and Sanjay Bhangar, this shapeshifting group runs a rooftop cinema, cohosts online video archives, and uses moving images, radio broadcasts, lecture performances, and interventions in public spaces to examine the political and socioeconomic conditions of contemporary life. This exhibition includes three works that trace the arc of CAMP’s output over nearly two decades. Each redefines relationships between video’s producers, distributors, and spectators: a participatory television network in a dense New Delhi neighborhood; a film made from cell phone footage and music in collaboration with sailors navigating trade routes across the Indian Ocean; and a dramatic, multi-channel video panorama of Mumbai filmed by pushing a single surveillance camera to its limits. CAMP’s practice reorients communication devices, transport infrastructures, and surveillance equipment to transform entrenched systems into new opportunities for hope, longing, desire, and collective action.

From a young age, acclaimed Pop artist David Hockney (British, b. 1937) cemented his reputation as one of the most innovative and experimental artists of his generation. Hockney/Origins: Early Works from the Roy B. and Edith J. Simpson Collection examines the early period of Hockney’s career in depth, from his time as a student at the Royal College of Art in London during the early 1960s to his formative years in the 1970s.

New York’s age of graffiti began on the city streets in the early 1970s. This new movement, often consciously artistic despite its unsanctioned origins, came of age over the next 20 years. Above Ground centers on the many artists who transitioned from illegally writing on subway cars to creating paintings on canvas and exhibiting in galleries and museums. Their works embody an important transitional moment for the movement’s evolution, as it permeated into broader consciousness and significantly influenced global culture. The exhibition provides a window into a vibrant subculture of young creators and highlights previously unseen treasures from the Museum’s major collection of graffiti-based art. The collection, which was donated by the artist Martin Wong 30 years ago, comprises more than 300 canvases and works on paper. Among the highlights on view in this exhibition are works in aerosol, ink, and other mediums by seminal figures in the street art movement, including Rammellzee, Lee Quiñones, Lady Pink, and Futura 2000. Together, they capture the passions and ambitions of artists transitioning from the street to the walls of prominent galleries in New York and around the world.

Design is a fundamental element of life, an enzyme necessary to our evolution. It helps us cope with change and permeates our personal and social lives, embodying both our strengths and weaknesses. Many designers are intent on creating new behaviors, focusing on habits and circumstances most in need of change. Pirouette: Turning Points in Design features objects—from Post-Its to Spanx—that embodied experiments with new materials, technologies, and concepts; offered unconventional solutions to conventional problems; and had a deep impact both on design and the world at large.

Design is a fundamental element of life, an enzyme necessary to our evolution. It helps us cope with change and permeates our personal and social lives, embodying both our strengths and weaknesses. Many designers are intent on creating new behaviors, focusing on habits and circumstances most in need of change. Pirouette: Turning Points in Design features objects—from Post-Its to Spanx—that embodied experiments with new materials, technologies, and concepts; offered unconventional solutions to conventional problems; and had a deep impact both on design and the world at large.

The traditional East Asian lunar calendar consists of a repeating twelve-year cycle, with each year corresponding to one of the twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac. The association of these creatures with the Chinese calendar began in the third century BCE and became firmly established by the first century CE. The twelve animals are, in sequence: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. Each is believed to embody certain traits that are manifested in the personalities of people born in that year. January 29, 2025, marks the beginning of the Year of the Snake, a creature characterized as alert, calm, and smart.

The idea of cutting up a medieval manuscript is almost unthinkable today. Historically, however, this practice was relatively common, and it reached a fever pitch in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. People cut up manuscripts for various reasons: Dealers unwilling to pay weight-based import duties on large choir books opted to remove their decorated initials and dispose of the heavy bindings. Art lovers excised pictures from manuscripts and pasted them into albums; many considered this an act of freeing precious artworks from the text-filled books that held them captive. The dismembering of manuscripts was thus regarded not as vandalism but as a tribute to the otherwise hidden illuminations.

In works full of sharp wit and incisive commentary, Christine Sun Kim (b. 1980, Orange County, California) engages sound and the complexities of communication in its various modes. Using musical notation, infographics, and language—both in her native American Sign Language (ASL) and written English—she has produced drawings, videos, sculptures, and installations that often explore non-auditory, political dimensions of sound. In many works, Kim draws directly on the spatial dynamism of ASL, translating it into graphic form. By emphasizing images, the body, and physical space, she upends the societal assumption that spoken languages are superior to those that are signed.

Operation Mincemeat is the 2024 Olivier Award-winning New Musical. It’s London’s hit with 74 Five-Star reviews, making it the good reviewed show in West End history! It has been hailed by Peter Marks in The Washington Post as “the year’s funny musical.” The year is 1943 and we’re losing the war. Luckily, we’re about to gamble all our futures on a stolen corpse. Singin’ in the Rain meets Strangers on a Train, Operation Mincemeat is the fast-paced, hilarious and unbelievable true story of the twisted secret mission that won us World War II. Lauded by the UK’s Daily Mirror as “part Mel Brooks, part SIX, part Hamilton with a side order of One Man, Two Guvnors.”

Oh, Mary! is a dark comedy starring Cole Escola as a miserable, suffocated Mary Todd Lincoln in the weeks leading up to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Unrequited yearning, alcoholism and suppressed desires abound in this one act play that finally examines the forgotten life and dreams of Mrs. Lincoln through the lens of an idiot (Cole Escola).

Discover a whole new world at Aladdin , the hit Broadway musical. From the producer of The Lion King comes the timeless story of Aladdin , a thrilling new production filled with unforgettable beauty, magic, comedy and breathtaking spectacle. It's an extraordinary theatrical event where one lamp and three wishes make the possibilities infinite. Directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Casey Nicholaw ( The Book of Mormon , Something Rotten! ), this "fabulous" and "extravagant" ( The New York Times ) new musical boasts an incomparable design team, with sets, costumes and lighting from Tony Award winners Bob Crowley ( Mary Poppins ), Gregg Barnes ( Kinky Boots ), and Natasha Katz ( An American in Paris ). See why audiences and critics agree, Aladdin is "Exactly what you wished for!"

Emmy® and Golden Globe Award® winner Darren Criss ( Little Shop of Horrors ) returns to Broadway alongside Helen J Shen in the new romantic musical comedy Maybe Happy Ending . Inside a one-room apartment on the outskirts of Seoul, Oliver lives a happily quiet life, listening to jazz records and caring for his favorite plant. But what else is there to do when you’re a Helperbot 3, a robot that has long been retired and considered obsolete? When his fellow Helperbot neighbor Claire asks to borrow his charger, what starts as an awkward encounter leads to a unique friendship, a surprising adventure, and maybe even…love? Winner of the Richard Rodgers Award, Maybe Happy Ending is the offbeat and captivating story of two outcasts near the end of their warranty who discover that even robots can be swept off their feet. Helmed by visionary director and Tony Award® winner Michael Arden ( Parade , Once on This Island ), with a dazzling scenic design by Dane Laffrey ( A Christmas Carol ) and book, music, and lyrics by the internationally acclaimed duo Will Aronson and Hue Park, Maybe Happy Ending is a fresh, original musical about the small things that make any life worth living. 100 minutes, no intermission

Step into the heart of Cuba, beyond the glitz of the Tropicana, to a place where blazing trumpets and sizzling guitars set the dance floor on fire. Here, the real sound of Havana is born—and one woman discovers the music that will change her life forever. Inspired by true events, the new Broadway musical Buena Vista Social Club™ brings the Grammy® Award-winning album to thrilling life—and tells the story of the legends who lived it. A world-class Afro-Cuban band joins a sensational cast of musicians, actors, and dancers from around the world for an authentic experience unlike any you’ve seen or heard before. Don’t miss this unforgettable tale of big dreams, second chances, and the power of art to help us survive.

From groundbreaking early acquisitions to striking new additions, the Brooklyn Museum’s collection has always championed artists and artworks that catalyze imaginative storytelling and brave conversations. As we ring in our 200th anniversary, Breaking the Mold: Brooklyn Museum at 200 celebrates this unique legacy. Comprising three chapters that boast both longtime favorites and brand-new standouts, the exhibition brings fresh narratives to the fore while exploring the collection’s rich history and future evolution.

Two days before the outbreak of World War II, a scientific paper was published explaining the theoretical process of nuclear fission in which the controlled splitting of an atomic nucleus releases a vast amount of energy. Over the next decade, scientists around the world would perfect the process of harnessing that energy, developing two of the most impactful inventions of the modern era: the nuclear bomb and the nuclear power station. This exhibition chronicles the global development of the nuclear industry, for peaceful and offensive means, examining posters that both promoted and protested its use throughout the second half of the 20th century. It features the entire General Dynamics series, long heralded as one of the finest examples of corporate propaganda ever created, as well as over 60 other posters criticizing the proliferation of nuclear technology. Tim Medland is an independent curator who focuses on the history of visual and material culture. He holds an MA in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester, with a concentration in socially engaged practice. His research interests include environmental activism and sustainability, and the histories of transport, propaganda, colonialism, and migration.

The Last Five Years follows two New Yorkers, rising author Jamie (Grammy Award® and Golden Globe nominee Nick Jonas) and aspiring actress Cathy (Tony Award® winner Adrienne Warren), as they fall in and out of love over the course of five years. With an acclaimed score by Tony Award winner Jason Robert Brown, the musical explores whether a couple, once united by their dreams, can remain connected as their paths diverge. Experience the Broadway production of beloved musicals of all time in a bold, new production, directed by Tony Award nominee Whitney White.

Sadie Sink stars in this bitingly funny new play from Kimberly Belflower that flips the script on the American classic. At a high school in a one-stoplight town in Georgia, an English class is studying The Crucible. The students, however, are more preoccupied with navigating young love, sex ed, and a few school scandals than what’s in their syllabus. But as they delve into this literary classic, the class begins to question the play’s perspective, especially whether John Proctor is the hero they’ve been taught he is. Directed by Tony Award® winner Danya Taymor, John Proctor is the Villain is a new comedy from a major new American voice, capturing a generation in mid-transformation, running on pop music, optimism, and fury - and discovering that their future is not bound by the past.

This artwork is featured on the building facade on Gansevoort Street across from the Whitney and the High Line. Four Ways of Being is a newly commissioned work by Amy Sherald (b. 1973, Columbus, Georgia; lives and works in the New York City area). The artwork is comprised of four portraits by the artist—some never before seen in New York—and explores the intersection of past, present, and future. Each painting captures a distinct way of existing in the world. Here, she reimagines her subjects from diverse backgrounds and generations coexisting in a shared moment, inviting the viewer to contemplate the fluidity of time and the complex ways our histories shape our understanding of ourselves.

This spring, MoMA PS1 presents a retrospective of artist, activist, and musician Alanis Obomsawin (Abenaki, b. 1932), one of Canada’s most renowned filmmakers. Opening March 27, the exhibition spans six decades of her multidisciplinary practice, bringing together a selection of films, sculptures, and sound, as well as rarely seen ephemera that sheds light on their production. Tracing her lasting contributions to social change, The Children Have to Hear Another Story brings Obomsawin’s innovative model of Indigenous cinema into focus.