March's Must-See Art Shows in NYC and Beyond

March's Must-See Art Shows in NYC and Beyond

By Harry Tafoya
Mar 04, 2025

Ask anyone involved in the art world and they’ll tell you honestly: it’s a mess. There’s a clear demand for change on every level — from how art’s shown, to how it’s discussed, to how it’s sold. Even as artists have been made to bend over backward and emphasize again and again how Serious, Necessary, and Urgent their responses to recent disasters have been, there’s a clear feeling that they’re speaking to rapidly emptying rooms. The whole world is on fire and — literally and figuratively — no one seems to be buying it anymore.

This turbulence has an indirect effect on the art-going public. Small- and medium-size galleries that show remarkable work have been steadily going out of business, while the ones that remain are reaching blindly for the next best thing. A weird experience lately has been making my rounds of museums and galleries, and seeing them in accidental sync with one another. Last month all of SoHo started showing photography for some reason and this month everywhere in Chelsea has found a way to feature big, flashy colors. In tough moments, this herd mentality is understandable, but since there’s no correct answer for what to do, you really might as well strike out on your own and start throwing spaghetti at the wall.

For every tasteful exhibition showcasing a proven cash cow or safely dead genius, there’s multiple exhibitions of DIY absurdist boldness (Marc Kokopeli, Philip Hinge) and money-on-fire maximalism (Laura Owens, Anne Imhof) that defies conventional thinking. Far from doom and gloom, it’s actually a pretty interesting time to see new shows. There’s little left to lose in the face of so much loss and a number of artists are really making the most of it.

Chelsea

  • Camille Henrot —A Number of Things — Hauser & Wirth
    • The French artist takes on social conditioning by being as far-out maximalist as possible. It might be imposed on a grid, but you’d struggle to fit the warped metal-work, glitched-out painting and distorted dog sculptures into any easy box.
  • Laura Owens — Matthew Marks
    • Probably the most-talked about exhibition in New York: the Los Angeles painter ditches refined ugliness for an all-encompassing show about the possibilities of layering color. Her muted paintings on linen are deceptively complex, while the wall-to-wall explosions of pigment must be seen to be believed.
  • Léon Spilliaert — David Zwirner
    • The underrated Belgian artist was one of the ghastliest painters of all time: using muted colors, haunting figures and a questionable hold on the real to depict the world as a waking goth nightmare. I actually screamed when I saw the announcement.
  • Tyler Mitchell —Ghost Images — Gagosian
    • The young photographer’s first outing with the world’s biggest gallery is a psycho-journey through the American South. By turns sun-blanched and spectral, it’s a spooky and auspicious beginning at the top.

Downtown/SoHo

  • Hannah Taurins —God, Let Me Be Your Instrument — Theta
    • The painter’s fascination with prayer led her into a deeper appreciation of the muses of rock music. She uses their self-invented cool as a conduit for her own imagination: paying back their inspiration with glossy, spellbound attention.
  • Julius Eastman & Glenn Ligon -Evil N***** — 52 Walker
    • The avant-garde composer Julius Eastman was almost lost to history, but thanks to the efforts of friends and followers. he’s increasingly become recognized as a genius of minimalism. His love of in-your-face titles and passages of eerie and poetic silence syncs nicely with Glenn Ligon’s charged text art.
  • Lionel Maunz —Obedience — Bureau
    • As awesome and terrible as Spilliaert, Maunz specializes in assaulting his viewer’s senses with wave after wave of brutal imagery. His latest exhibition is an early contender for feel-bad show of the year and explores “the failure of art, psychiatry, and religion to heal or transcend,” offering monumental sculptures that confront the cruelty in care.
  • Marc Kokopeli — MY TV SHOW I ❤️ TV — Reena Spaulings
    • Marc Kokopeli’s show runs until the end of this week, but IS NOT ONE TO MISS! Ric Burns’ 18-hour-documentary on New York, The Simple Life, and educational programs directed by his mother are played out onto novelty television screens in the shape of apples, lockers and microwaves. It’s unbelievably stupid and unbelievably considered, and one of the best exhibitions I’ve seen in a while.
  • Sylvia Sleigh —Every Leaf Is Precious — Ortuzar
    • The Welsh-American painter was an unrivaled practitioner of the male nude. She had a forensic “female gaze," capable of depicting all of the vanity and vulnerability of her subjects and this is her most total posthumous survey of her greatness yet.
  • Xin Liu —The Permanent and the Insatiable — Management
    • Xin Liu makes the most of her training as an engineer by engaging with organic and synthetic matter and fusing them into freaky and inspired new forms. For her latest project, the Chinese artist recreates a skyscraper out of plastic accompanied by a bioreactor that will steadily break it down into digested mush.

Uptown/Brooklyn/Queens

  • Anne Imhof —DOOM: House of Hope — Park Avenue Armory
    • Anne Imhof is one of the most celebrated artists working today and is known for staging epic spectacles fusing S&M, fashion and club culture. Her forthcoming series of performances at the Park Avenue Armory is slated to be her most massive yet.
  • Julien Ceccaldi —Adult Theater — MoMA PS1
    • Julien Ceccaldi is an incredibly funny and eccentric artist with a wide-range of literary and historical influences; he just happens to filter them all through anime. His forthcoming show at MoMA PS1 unpacks modern feelings of social media atomization and contemporary romance through his distinctive mix of fine painting and shōjo style manga.
  • Nancy Elizabeth Prophet —I Will Not Bend an Inch — Brooklyn Museum
    • The title of Nancy Elizabeth Prophet’s retrospective works says everything about her character. This was a woman who made classically beautiful work — wood and stone chiseled into smooth human features — against a climate of racism that she refused to be diminished by. Her legacy as an artist is not fully appreciated, but this exhibition will make for a comprehensive correction.
  • Philip Hinge — Crack-Up — Swanson Kuball
    • Philip Hinge loves cats. The painter’s appreciation is up there with figures like Louis Wain and Balthus, and like them, he uses kitties as a way of revealing aspects of his inner life. His latest at Swanson Kuball is a full-blown feline freakout, combining garish colors and deviously cute sculpture to portray a deeply unsettled mind.

Everywhere Else

Photo courtesy of Reena Spaulings Fine Art

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