The fall calendar is full of exciting museum exhibitions despite the climate of political and economic volatility. Some museums, amid increasingly urgent questions about their cultural role, are addressing the political moment head-on, as in an extraordinary show in Los Angeles of recently decommissioned historical monuments, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Brick. Others are hewing to their missions by continuing with exhibitions already in progress, including many that recognize the centenary of the pathbreaking, protean artist Robert Rauschenberg. There are also Sèvres ceramics, punishing performance art, German Expressionism, U.F.O.s and an unexpected take on the American buffalo — not to mention Monet, Manet and Morisot. Below, some highlights of the best in New York City and beyond.
September
THE ARMORY SHOW The season’s first major fair includes sections overseen by young curators like Ebony L. Haynes. (Sept. 5-7; Javits Center)
JUNE LEAF: SHOOTING FROM THE HEART Unique kinetic sculptures, tin-plate cutouts and visionary paintings and drawings from the 75-year career of this Chicago-born New Yorker (1929-2024) who thought of herself as a “dancer making art.” (Sept. 9-Dec. 13; Grey Art Gallery, N.Y.U.)
SÈVRES EXTRAORDINAIRE! SCULPTURE FROM 1740 UNTIL TODAY Nearly 200 objects, including many never before seen outside France, chart the history of the Sèvres Manufactory and its beautiful ceramics. (Sept. 10-Nov. 16; Bard Graduate Center)
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG’S NEW YORK: PICTURES FROM THE REAL WORLD Mixed-media pieces hang alongside grand, black-and-white architectural photographs in an exploration of Rauschenberg’s relationship to photography and the found object. (Sept. 12-April 19, 2026; Museum of the City of New York)
DUANE LINKLATER: 12 + 2 Geological core samples, music, dance and sculptures of the North American buffalo are only a few of the components of the first major U.S. commission for this Omaskeko Ininiwak artist based in North Bay, Ontario. (Sept. 12-Jan. 21, 2026; Dia Chelsea)
MAN RAY: WHEN OBJECTS DREAM The prolific artistic innovator Man Ray made paintings, collages, kinetic sculptures and ready-mades, and published Dada journals. But he is probably best remembered for photographic achievements like his iconic picture of Kiki de Montparnasse as a violin and the Surreal, abstract photograms he called “rayographs.” This significant show will use 100 artworks in various media to put 60 of his rayographs in context. (Sept. 14-Feb. 1, 2026; Metropolitan Museum)
LINES OF BELONGING On the 40th anniversary of MoMA’s original “New Photography” series, the museum presents fresh work by photographers and collectives from Kathmandu, Johannesburg, Mexico City and New Orleans. (Sept. 14-Jan. 17, 2026; MoMA)
A TASTE OF BEAUTY An unusual exhibit of sculpted African spoons. (Sept. 14-Jan. 11, 2026; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, Calif.)
EDMONIA LEWIS: INDELIBLE IMPRESSIONS This 19th-century Neoclassical sculptor, who was of Black and Native American ancestry, was supported by a network of abolitionist patrons in the United States before finding real success in Rome. This small show focuses on works made there, at the peak of her career. (Sept. 17-Jan. 4, 2026; Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.)
COCO FUSCO: TOMORROW, I WILL BECOME AN ISLAND The first U.S. museum survey for an interdisciplinary artist and activist known for incisive, provocative performances like “The Incredible Disappearing Woman” and “Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West.” (Sept. 18-Jan. 11, 2026; El Museo del Barrio)
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG: FABRIC WORKS OF THE 1970s Collaborations with performing artists join free-standing textile series like “Jammers” and “Hoarfrosts” in this study of the artist’s work with the human body. (Sept. 19-March 1, 2026; Menil Collection, Houston)
SIXTIES SURREAL Work by lesser-known figures like the Hopi-Choctaw printmaker Linda Lomahaftewa appears next to pieces by boldface names like Romare Bearden and Yayoi Kusama in a survey that looks for the lingering influence of Surrealism in the 1960s. (Sept. 24-Jan. 19, 2026; Whitney)
WOMEN ARTISTS FROM ANTWERP TO AMSTERDAM, 1600-1750 More than 150 artworks by Gesina ter Borch, Clara Peeters, Maria van Oosterwijck and other women who played significant but overlooked roles in a critical period for Western art. Co-organized with the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent. (Sept. 26-Jan. 11, 2026; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.)
MARTIN PURYEAR: NEXUS Forty-five of Puryear’s impeccably finished sculptures in wood, leather, metal, marble and glass appear in this largest survey in two decades, along with numerous works on paper. (Sept. 27-Feb. 8, 2026; MFA Boston)
LARRY BELL: IMPROVISATIONS IN THE PARK Bell, who lives in Taos, N.M., brings some otherworldly desert light to Madison Square Park by installing brightly colored cubes on six different lawns. (Sept. 30-March 15, 2026; Madison Square Park)
October
TEHCHING HSIEH Known for the severity of his performance art, Hsieh once spent a year locked in a cage, and another full year outdoors; his early work “Jump” involved leaping out a second-story window to break his ankles. This first institutional retrospective follows an important gift to Dia. (Opening Oct. 4; Dia:Beacon, Beacon, N.Y.)
VAGINAL DAVIS: MAGNIFICENT PRODUCT After stops in Stockholm and Berlin, the pioneering performance artist, drag performer and author who once called herself “too gay for the new punk scene but too punk for the gay world” lands in New York with an exhibit of paintings, video, sculpture and major installations. (Oct. 9-March 2, 2026; MoMA PS1)
ERICH HECKEL The 1913 triptych “To the Convalescent Woman,” with its droopy sunflowers and unusual orange tone, is only one of the important loans in this monographic exhibition for a founding member of the German Expressionist artists’ group Die Brücke. (Oct. 9-Jan. 12, 2026; Neue Galerie)
SEYDOU KEITA: A TACTILE LENS Almost 300 prints, textiles and artifacts from this singular 20th-century Malian photographer. (Oct. 10-March 8, 2026; Brooklyn Museum)
COLLECTION IN FOCUS: ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG The artist’s 32-foot-long painting “Barge,” not seen in New York for more than 20 years, is the centerpiece of this show of works from the museum’s collection. (Oct. 10-April 5, 2026; Guggenheim)
KEN OHARA: CONTACTS Over two years in the 1970s, the photographer Ken Ohara sent cameras to 100 strangers all across the United States, who used them to document their lives. (Oct. 10-Feb. 8, 2026; Whitney)
MONET AND VENICE Nineteen of the Impressionist master’s Venetian paintings, together with scores of other artworks and bits of ephemera, make for the largest New York Monet show in more than 25 years. (Oct. 11-Feb. 1, 2026; Brooklyn Museum)
MANET & MORISOT A fresh look, full of trans-Atlantic loans, at the art-historically earthshaking friendship between the Impressionists Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot. (Oct. 11-March 1, 2026; Legion of Honor, San Francisco)
DIVINE EGYPT Golden, silver and blue faience gods of ancient Egypt will lord over an exhibition sure to bring worshipers by the thousands. (Oct. 12-Jan. 19, 2026; Metropolitan Museum)
VOICE OF SPACE: UFOS AND PARANORMAL PHENOMENA Named after René Magritte’s 1931 painting of three enormous iron bells hovering over a country landscape, this exhibition of ancient spirit drawings and visionary works on paper by a diverse group of recent and contemporary artists is a thought-provoking exploration of unexplained aerial phenomena through the ages. (Oct. 17-Feb. 1, 2026; The Drawing Center)
ANSELM KIEFER: BECOMING THE SEA A major retrospective for the German maestro of time and death, including a giant, site-specific installation inspired by the Mississippi River and the Rhine. (Oct. 18-Jan. 25, 2026; Saint Louis Art Museum)
YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND Since 1964, when Yoko Ono sat down on a stage and invited members of the audience to cut off her clothing, she has been making provocative, unforgettable conceptual art. Chicago will be the only American stop for a 200-work retrospective — including performance footage, scores, photography and several participatory pieces — that originated at the Tate Modern in London. (Oct. 18-Feb. 22, 2026; MCA Chicago)
THE STARS WE DO NOT SEE: AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS ART Among the icons in this large international exhibition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, which will travel on to Colorado, Oregon, Massachusetts and Ontario, is “Anwerlarr anganenty (Big Yam Dreaming)” by Emily Kam Kngwarray, a 26-foot-long vision of the universe as an intricate tangle of white lines. (Oct. 18-March 1, 2026; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) A second show of vibrant First Nation works, by more than 20 artists, “The Stars Before Us All,” is at the Michael Reid Sydney + Berlin Art Gallery, a contemporary gallery based in Sydney, from Oct. 15-25 at 1717 K Street, N.W., Washington. D.C.
HENRI ROUSSEAU: A PAINTER’S SECRETS Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation has the world’s largest collection of paintings by the French Post-Impressionist Henri Rousseau, known for his lush, tiger-haunted tropical scenes. But the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris isn’t far behind, and this blockbuster, organized by the two institutions, brings all their curious, extravagant Rousseaus together for the very first time. Traveling to Paris in March. (Oct. 19-Feb. 22, 2026; Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia)
RUTH ASAWA: A RETROSPECTIVE Three hundred artworks — including bronze casts, paintings and prints as well as the otherworldly wire sculptures she is most famous for — make up this first full-scale posthumous survey for the Japanese American sculptor, who died in 2013. (Oct. 19-Feb. 7, 2026; MoMA)
MONUMENTS To examine the intersection of politics, history and visual art this exhibit consists of recently decommissioned outdoor monuments, many of them intended to honor Confederate soldiers, some vandalized, along with works by contemporary artists including Martin Puryear, Kara Walker, Hank Willis Thomas and Karon Davis. (Oct. 23-April 12, 2026; MOCA Los Angeles and the Brick)
DIALOGUES IN CLAY Princeton University opens its new museum building with a show of magisterial clay vessels by Toshiko Takaezu, a longtime professor at the school. (Oct. 31-July 5, 2026; Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, N.J.)
November
GABRIELE MÜNTER: CONTOURS OF A WORLD A first show in decades for this founding member — along with Kandinsky and Franz Marc — of the Blue Rider artists’ group. (Nov. 7-April 26, 2026; Guggenheim)
KOREAN TREASURES: COLLECTED, CHERISHED, SHARED Premiering in Washington and traveling to Chicago and London, this exhibition was organized by the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, the National Museum of Korea and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea. It features the extensive collection of historical art and artifacts donated to South Korea by the family of the former Samsung chairman Lee Kun-Hee. (Nov. 8-Feb. 1, 2026; Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art)
DEEP CUTS: BLOCK PRINTING ACROSS CULTURES From the ninth century Diamond Sutra and Albrecht Dürer to Hokusai and Rufino Tamayo, block printing has transformed our relationship to words and images. (Nov. 9-Sept. 13, 2026; LACMA)
WIFREDO LAM: WHEN I DON’T SLEEP, I DREAM Born in Cuba to a Chinese father and Afro-Cuban mother, Wifredo Lam was educated in Spain, fought in the Spanish Civil War, spent some time in Paris and then returned to Cuba, where he created a body of Modernist painting and sculpture much more forthright in its embrace of African influence than the work of his peers was. This is his most comprehensive retrospective ever in the United States, with more than 150 works. (Nov. 10-April 11, 2026; MoMA)
THE LOST WORLD: THE ART OF MINNIE EVANS A nationally touring survey of more than 100 of this 20th-century American artist’s fantastical drawings, which look like Rorschach blots on an ayahuasca trip. (Nov. 14-April 19, 2026; High Museum of Art, Atlanta)
TOM LLOYD A show of work by this pioneer of electronic light sculpture is only one of several draws as the Studio Museum in Harlem reopens to the public at 144 West 125th Street. Also to be found in its seven new floors of galleries, artist studios, workshops and education centers, along with the reinstalled permanent collection and a day of performances, games and giveaways, will be new work by Camille Norment and Christopher Myers, a look back at the museum’s history and archives and a show of commissioned works-on-paper by more than 100 former artists in residence, including Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Mickalene Thomas, Alison Saar and Jacolby Satterwhite. (Opening Nov. 15; Studio Museum in Harlem).
ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG: REAL TIME An exhibition from the museum’s fine collection of the experimental prints Rauschenberg made with Graphicstudio at the USF Institute for Research in Art in Tampa, Fla. (Nov. 16-April 5, 2026; NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.)
HOW TO BE A GUERRILLA GIRL Formed in 1985, the anonymous feminist collective known as the Guerrilla Girls used provocative posters and other means to combat the marginalization of female artists and artists of color. A new commission joins excerpts from the Guerrilla Girls’ archive in this 40th-anniversary look back. (Nov. 18-April 12, 2026; Getty Center, Los Angeles)
ARTHUR JAFA — LESS IS MORBID The latest edition of MoMA’s “Artist’s Choice” series, in which a contemporary artist curates works from the general collection, shows work chosen by an artist renowned for his mastery of maximalist collage. (Nov. 19-July 5, 2026; MoMA)
MADE IN AMERICA: THE INDUSTRIAL PHOTOGRAPHY OF CHRISTOPHER PAYNE Enormous color images of unfinished pianos, Herman Miller furniture and New Balance sneakers, as well as of the Giant Magellan Telescope, make up the museum’s first large-scale photography show. (Nov. 21 through fall 2026; Cooper Hewitt)
December
ART BASEL MIAMI Autumn ends with a bang as hundreds of galleries from five continents convene in Miami for three days of showing, selling and conversation in the sun. (Dec. 5-Dec. 7; Miami Beach Convention Center)
Will Heinrich writes about new developments in contemporary art, and has previously been a critic for The New Yorker and The New York Observer.
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