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New York Art Tours

Merrily Kerr, a professional art critic and licensed NYC tour guide, offers private and scheduled gr So how do you choose what to see?

New York City art galleries are world class, and its museums house some of the finest art collections in the world, from antiquities to contemporary art. Join art critic, college educator and professional tour guide Merrily Kerr for inside access to New York's art scene on a custom designed private tour or a scheduled, small group tour. Please contact [email protected] for more information.

27/01/2025

Mood and atmosphere are the subjects of Na Kim’s serial paintings of an imagined young woman, now on view at Nicola Vassell Gallery Nicola Vassell Gallery in Chelsea. Gazing impassively from a dark interior, standing against an abstracted landscape so that her hair joins with the horizon line, or immersed to the shoulders in a dark pool, a solitary figure conveys subtly different emotions heavily dependent on the color and lighting of her surroundings. Idealized, planar faces sometimes recall Paula Modersohn-Becker’s self-portraits while yellow, green and red tones bring Fauve portraiture to mind, but the focus of Kim’s work is reflected light and surrounding shadow that suggest various psychological states. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 22nd).

Na Kim, Untitled: 8, oil on linen, 30 x 24 inches, 2024.

24/01/2025

At over five feet tall, Simphiwe Mbunyuza’s monumental ceramics at Chelsea’s David Kordansky Gallery David Kordansky Gallery entice with their strong presence, striking color and unusual protrusions. Bumps inspired by traditional Xhosa ritual vessels, house shapes that recall cylindrical South African dwellings and horns pointing to the importance of cattle in Xhosa life signal Mbunyuza’s engagement with aspects of his culture and upbringing including his spiritual identity. The latter manifests in the sizes of the works, the larger pieces connecting to ancestors while smaller pieces are associated with the artist and his living relatives. Arranged specifically in the gallery and characterized by colors representing South African landscapes, Mbunyuza’s ceramics offer access to material and immaterial worlds. (On view through Feb 22nd).

Simphiwe Mbunyuza, MTHIMKHULU, ceramic, 63 x 53 x 51 inches, 2024.

22/01/2025

At the entrance to Pace Gallery’s Pace Gallery exhibition of late work by iconic modern artist Louise Nevelson, the contrast between one all-white sculpture and many black-painted assemblages creates a dynamism that is revisited in the diagonals and curving forms of the artist’s sculpture from the 70s and 80s. Nevelson’s oft quoted intent to “join the shattered world, creating a new harmony” is joined by an attempt to picture the sublime, manifest in works with titles referring to moonlight, reflections, night frost and here, mirrors and shadow. (On view in Chelsea through March 1st).

Louise Nevelson, Mirror-Shadow VI, wood painted black, 1985, 9’ 9” x 11’ 7” x 1’ 9”, 1985.

20/01/2025

Small-scale and monochrome, the works opening the Hill Art Foundation’s Hill Art Foundation group exhibition ‘The Writing’s on the Wall: Language and Silence in the Visual Arts,’ feel calculated to go unnoticed. This is all the more reason to mentally detach from attention-grabbing work in nearby galleries and ponder a few lines from Adrienne Rich’s 1978 poem ‘Cartographies of Silence,’ printed on a nearby wall label: “Silence can be a plan rigorously executed…Do not confuse it with any kind of absence.” Nearby, the solitary word ‘dance’ typed repeatedly across the top of a paper by Christopher Knowles, a washy gray watercolor overlaid with a rigid grid by Agnes Martin and a stonily silent bronze bust of James Baldwin by Larry Wolhandler are alive with feeling unreliant on speech, a key intention of the show’s curator, Hilton Als. Here, Vija Celmin’s giant eraser, crafted from balsa wood and paint, strongly suggests that expression is a process of laying down and removing. (On view in Chelsea through March 29th).

Vija Celmins, Pink Pearl Eraser, acrylic on balsa wood, 6 ¾ x 19 ½ x 3 ¼ inches, 1966-67.

17/01/2025

Though given ample space on Marianne Boesky Gallery’s Marianne Boesky Gallery wall, this painting by Austrian artist Svenja Deininger converses with the paintings around it like individual words work together to make up a sentence. Before the holidays, Deininger’s paintings appeared next door at the gallery’s other location; newly installed in the gallery’s single large space, they can be considered singly, in sequence or all at once. An adjoining mustard yellow monochrome canvas and another small painting featuring fan-like shapes call further attention to color and form in this untitled painting, a standout piece that evokes a large head amid architectural or design elements. Though individual pieces offer enjoyable juxtapositions, the show’s greatest pleasure in in tracking evocative and subtle connections across multiple canvases. (On view through Jan 24th).

Svenja Deininger, Untitled, oil on linen, 74 ¾ x 57 1/8 inches, 2024.

15/01/2025

A giraffe silhouetted against a red sky, white adobe buildings suffused with deep blue light and the brilliant orange of canned peaches stand out amongst the grid of album covers on Bruce Silverstein Gallery’s Bruce Silverstein Gallery foyer wall, a testament to late photographer Pete Turner’s renowned and striking use of color. In an exhibition that focuses on jazz album covers selected from over seventy covers Turner created over fifty years, the gallery positions the photographer at the forefront of the mid-20th century move toward artistic covers that express the identity of the music vs the brand of the record label. Here, Turner’s interpretation of Joe Ferrell’s 1975 jazz album ‘Canned Funk’ suggests (literally) eye-popping surprise amid sweet, curving forms. (On view through Jan 18th).

Pete Turner, Eye to Eye, archival pigment print, printed c. 2000s, 13 x 19 inches, 1968.

13/01/2025

Winner of the 2024 Suzanne Deal Booth / FLAG Art Foundation Prize, Lubaina Himid presents two bodies of related but visually distinct work at Chelsea’s FLAG Art Foundation The FLAG Art Foundation that both offer and challenge the appearance of order and simplicity. Himid’s ‘Strategy Paintings’ picture individuals seated at tables as they negotiate weighty problems hinted at in titles like ‘Pointless Heroism’ or ‘Bitter Battles.’ The figures’ wary eyes and each painting’s palpable tension suggest that solutions might not be found so easily. In a separate exhibition space, Himid lines the walls with sixty-four plank paintings titled ‘Aunties.’ Nearly as tall as the room itself and abundantly decorated with used materials taken from furniture, floorboards, and travel crates, the planks evoke an assembly of benevolent guardians. (On view in Chelsea through Feb 8th).

Lubaina Himid, installation view of Aunties, sixty-four painted wood planks, dimensions variable, 2023.

10/01/2025

Cinematic and uncanny, Jeff Wall’s photos at Gagosian Gallery Gagosian may present banal or fantastical scenarios (or a combination of both) but each arrests our attention with their careful staging and suggestion of hidden messages. Often referred to as ‘near documentary’ and inspired by specific works from art history or events Wall has experienced, his photographs encourage viewers to consider how details cue meaning. The artist has explained that he witnessed the scene in ‘Event,’ pictured here, but he changed the setting and people while still conveying his feelings about what he observed, considering age, class, masculinity, and situational behavior manifest in a single power negotiation. (On view at Gagosian Gallery on 24th Street in Chelsea through Jan 25th).

Jeff Wall, Event, inkjet print, 87 7/8 x 66 5/16 x 2 11/16 inches, 2021.

08/01/2025

South African artist Esther Mahlangu’s designs energize Chelsea gallery Ross + Kramer Ross+Kramer Gallery with their vibrant patterns, sacred geometries for which the 89-year-old is internationally renowned. Inspired by the house painting traditions of the Ndebele people and learned from her mother and grandmother, Mahlangu’s abstractions take the form of murals, ceramics, canvases and even this hand painted car, the star of a show featuring 30 paintings made over ten years. (On view through Jan 25th).

Esther Mahlangu, installation view of ‘Esther Mahlangu: Time in Color’ at Ross + Kramer, Chelsea, Dec ’24.

06/01/2025

Renowned for his involvement in the downtown 80s New York art scene, Kenny Scharf coined the term ‘Pop Surrealism’ to describe his energetic blend of cartoon and pop imagery. Now on view at huge scale, the artist’s 1995 site-specific mural ‘The Heads,’ created in 1995 for the Center of Fine Arts in Miami fills Tribeca’s 60 White in all its dream-like glory. Stretching throughout the vast space, the paintings are accompanied by a quote from Scharf recalling dreams of space travel. (On view through January. Check with the gallery for the exact closing date. Note that gallery hours change during the holiday period).

Installation view of ‘Kenny Scharf: Space Travel,’ Dec 2024 at 60 White. Foreground: Kenny Scharf, Poval, oil and acrylic on canvas, 108.3 x 132 inches, 1995.

03/01/2025

Looking to turn over a new leaf in 2025? Do it literally with jewelry designer Mallory Weston’s Shattered Begonia Brooch #3, a wearable artwork that pushes boundaries by combining jewelry and textile working techniques. Part of her NODES series, which also features a dangerously spiky-looking prickly pear and enormous monstera leaf necklace, the piece grabs the attention by combining natural subject matter with a digital-aesthetic achieved with a tiled titanium construction. It is on view in R & Company’s R & Company sprawling Objects USA, a showcase of 100 objects by 55 makers. (In Tribeca through Jan 10th. Note that gallery hours change during the holiday period).

Mallory Weston, Shattered Begonia Brooch #3, anodized titanium, nickel, leather and cotton, 2022.

01/01/2025

Azerbaijani artist F**g Ahmed’s new textile works at Sapar Contemporary SAPAR Contemporary transform regionally specific carpet styles from his home country into contemporary artwork by radically altering traditional patterns and foregrounding the conceptual aspects of each work. ‘The Knot,’ the title piece for the show, foregrounds and monumentalizes the most basic technique of carpet-making. The gallery explains that this luxuriously dark, central knot, represents the invisible work, stories and histories that go into the making of each piece. (On view in Tribeca through Jan 6th. Note that gallery hours change during the holiday period).

F**g Ahmed, The Knot, handmade wool and silk carpet, variable dimensions, 36 5/8 x 235 inches (open), 2024.

30/12/2024

’18 Women: 50 Years’ at Michael Rosenfeld Gallery Michael Rosenfeld Gallery is a tour de force of painting and sculpture, ceramic, textile and work in a variety of media created between 1918 to 1968 by some of the most influential artists of the mid-20th century. Among the many standout pieces is Ruth Asawa’s S.391/50, a crocheted brass wire sculpture from c. 1958, which the gallery describes as taking the form of ‘six double-sided, trumpet-like shapes that expand outward from the central void’ in a dynamic composition of repeated looping line. (On view in Chelsea through Jan 25th. Note that gallery hours change during the holiday period.)

Ruth Asawa, S.391/50, brass wire, 15 x 13 ½ x 12 ¾ inches, c. 1958.

27/12/2024

With almost no warning save for a humming sound and a sudden gust of air, Mississippi tenant farmer Ed Bush witnessed a meteorite plough into the earth one day in 1922, a terrifying and sudden event which Lorna Simpson recounts in 3-D lettering on the wall of her solo show at Hauser & Wirth Gallery Hauser & Wirth . Nearby, painted and silkscreened fiberglass panels picture a surface pockmarked with bullet holes, another allusion to violence that can descend unexpectedly and without reason. In the main gallery, a series of 12-foot-tall canvases feature huge, meteor-like rocks that appear to hover in space, perhaps arrested in their descent but still exuding destructive potential that has, at least momentarily, been averted. (On view in Chelsea through Jan 11th. Note that gallery hours change during the holiday period).

Lorna Simpson, Time Lapse, acrylic and screenprint on gessoed fiberglass, 144 x 102 x 1 ¾ inches, 2024.

25/12/2024

Lively, colorful, and modern in their geometry, the quilts in Nichelle Beauchene Gallery’s group show of textiles from Gee’s Bend quilters are a standout in the Tribeca galleries. ‘My Way: Gee's Bend Today’ is the third in a three-part series at the gallery featuring work by the legendary makers of Gee’s Bend, a Black community in Boykin, Alabama. The present exhibition showcases work by 14 artists creating ‘My Way’ quilts, pieces that favor free expression over strict adherence to a pattern. (On view through Jan 4th. Note that gallery hours change during the holiday period).

The Hall Sisters, Star Bright (Quilted by Mary Hall, Doris Mooney, and Elaine Spencer), assorted fabrics, 74h x 59w in, 2023.

23/12/2024

Though based in Los Angeles, the mid-century Light and Space movement is well represented in New York galleries, a happy circumstance aided by Pace Gallery’s Pace Gallery long-term relationships with key artists. ‘Irwin/Bell: The ‘60s’ at Pace’s Tribeca offshoot, ‘125 Newbury,’ 125 Newbury presents work by Larry Bell and Robert Irwin that revisits their early shows in New York, including the premier of Irwin’s aluminum disc paintings in 1968. Installed in a back gallery with a bench inviting visitors to sit and contemplate, this untitled piece from 1967 presents a circular aluminum form that exists materially but appears to be composed entirely of light and shadow. (On view in Tribeca through Jan 11th. Check gallery holiday hours before visiting during the holiday season.)

Robert Irwin, Untitled, sprayed lacquer on aluminum disc, 62” diameter, 1967.

20/12/2024

Amid the holiday throngs in the Met Museum’s The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Great Hall, renowned Taipei-based artist Tong Yang-Tze’s monumental calligraphic installation stands out for its stark clarity and gracefully energetic form. Two canvases present phrases that encourage self-reflection and engagement with the new. Here, the saying ‘Stones from other mountains can refine our jade’ derives from a 3,000-year-old classical Chinese text originally intended to encourage an embrace of talent from another country. (On view through April 8th, 2025).

Tong Yang-Tze, installation view of ‘Stones from other mountains can refine our jade,’ ’24 in ‘Dialogue’ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nov 2024.

18/12/2024

It’s always a pleasure to encounter British abstract painter Ian Davenport’s colorful cascades of paint, artworks that result from pouring vividly colored acrylic paint down an aluminum surface. In new work at Chelsea’s Kasmin Gallery Kasmin Gallery vertical lines give way to a looser order toward the bottom of each painting, or here, on a panel placed on the floor below. Intending to evoke natural forces including air currents and tides while pointing to the colors of Renaissance paintings by artists including Fra Angelico and Caravaggio, the paintings offer both formal and optical enjoyment. (On view in Chelsea through Dec 20th).

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