Artistic expression continues to carry us through turbulence with hope, especially during the bountiful fall season. As happy pumpkins return to the scene, a host of exhibitions beckon you to take a day trip — or even a weekend getaway? — from the city and experience the harvest of art for yourself. In Upstate New York, there are two remaining weekends to catch the Trees Never End and Houses Never End Biennial Exhibition at Sky High Farm in Germantown (a must see!), and make your way to nearby Art Omi in Ghent to see Kiyan Williams’s installations and other outdoor sculptures. Two exhibitions at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse celebrate organic floral abundance through large-scale ink works. Meanwhile, in Connecticut, Human Marks: Tattooing in Contemporary Art at the Joseloff Gallery at the University of Hartford in West Hartford presents work by artists who tattoo. If you are traveling through Massachusetts, be sure to visit MASS MoCA in North Adams to see Jeffrey Gibson’s all-out exhibition, while further north, the Bell at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island presents the powerful monochrome work of Native sculptor Eric-Paul Riege. This fall season, let us pursue the sacred in art around New York and beyond!
Trees Never End and Houses Never End Biennial Exhibition
Sky High Farm, 11 Main Street, Germantown, New York
Through September 20
Installation view of Marco Saavedra, “Allée tree series” (2024), size variable (photo courtesy The Campus)
Among the weirdest-slash-coolest-slash-most-unusual shows to catch in Upstate New York this season — before it closes in 2 weeks! — is the Sky High Farm biennial Trees Never End and Houses Never End. Installed in a former cold storage warehouse and featuring a maze of industrial water containers on the first floor and an immersive mirror reflective floor on the second, this diverse show highlights issues concerning agriculture, climate, and art. The powerhouse roster of over 50 leading artists includes Tschabalala Self, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Anne Imhof, and Carroll Dunham, among other international stars.
Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez: Dream Map and Cornucopia
Everson Museum of Art, 401 Harrison Street, Syracuse, New York
Through October 19
Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez, “Dream Map and Cornucopia with Helicopters” (2022), ink on Tyvek, 135 x 90 inches (~343 x 229 cm) (courtesy the artist)
The title Dream Map and Cornucopia reminds me of the fall season itself — and it also describes Colombian-American arist Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez’s work. Overflowing with organic energy and the promise of growth, her large-scale ink works and delightful clay sculptures fill the Everson Museum of Art with a mythical-magical energy. Painted vases are laden with imaginative and magnificent flowers — “Dream Mao and Cornucopia with Totumo” (2018), with its beautiful wrangling limbs against a black background, is a stunning example.
All Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group
Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College | Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
Through October 19
Amar Dawod, “Repercussions” (2011) (courtesy the artist and Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College)
The Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College has built a reputation for hosting some of the strongest exhibitions in the region. The group show All Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group, curated by Nada Shabout, scholar of modern Iraqi art, with assistance from Tiffany Floyd and Lauren Cornell, is no exception. Featuring over 140 objects — including paintings, sculptures, drawings, and archival material — this rich exhibition focuses on a generative period in the history of Arab art. Spanning works from 1946 to 2023 and with a special focus on the Baghdad Modern Art Group (established in 1951 and active through the early 1970s), All Manner of Experiments presents a powerful vision of Iraqi modernism.
2025 Annual Exhibition
The Campus, 341 NY-217, Hudson, New York
Through October 26
Marta Minujín, “Rombo A” (2016), hand-painted mattress fabric, cut and glued, 55 1/8 x 55 1/8 inches (140 x 140 cm)
If you have not visited The Campus yet, make this a top priority in your Upstate vagabonding this season. With their 2025 Annual Exhibition, the institution once again presents a compelling installation of top-notch artists in and around the funky environs of this former high school, including the gymnasium and other nooks around the building. Single classrooms are host to “solo shows” by celebrated international artists such as Richard Tuttle, Huma Bhabha, Kiki Smith, Mark Dion, Oscar Murillo, and Ming Fay, among others. My favorite moment was encountering a fabulously decadent red-hued sculpture by Vanessa German in one of the hallway entrances.
At Play | Artists & Entertainment
Nassau County Museum of Art, One Museum Drive, Roslyn Harbor, New York
Through November 9
Glen Hansen, “Modern Snack Bar” (2025), oil on panel (courtesy the artist)
Take a drive or train ride out to sunny Long Island to catch At Play | Artists & Entertainment at the Nassau County Museum of Art. With a focus on the diversity and excitement of entertainment, the show features mixed-media works by legendary artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Raoul Dufy. The exhibition also includes play-themed artworks by modern and contemporary artists, including Max Beckmann and John Grande, as well as specially designed costumes by Marc Chagall and vintage fashion items by designer Alfred Shaheen.
Kevin Beasley | PROSCENIUM| Rebirth/Growth: The Watch/Harvest/Dormancy: On Reflection
Storm King Art Center, 20 Old Peasant Hill Road, New Windsor, New York
Through November 10
Installation view of Kevin Beasley, PROSCENIUM| Rebirth / Growth: The Watch / Harvest / Dormancy: On Reflection (2024–25) (photo by Jeffrey Jenkins; courtesy the artist, Casey Kaplan, New York, and Regen Projects, Los Angeles)
Set against the sensational landscape of New Windsor, Kevin Beasley’s exhibition at Storm King Art Center is a magnificent vision of art about nature, presented in nature. The museum re-opened this past spring season with new welcome pavilions and an outdoor lobby; Beasley is one of three artists — along with Sonia Gomes and Dionne Lee — included in a suite of site-specific temporary large-scale commissions. His outdoor installation in the Tippet’s Field area, “PROSCENIUM,” features a 100-foot-long series of resin slabs embedded with clothing, fabric, plants, and other materials, resulting in a three-dimensional composition that appears like a landscape of its own.
Stay: The Black Women of 19th-Century Newark
Newark Museum of Art, 49 Washington Street, Newark, NJ
Through November 30
Noelle Lorraine Williams, “Ellen King” (2023), archival photo, lace, and other materials (© Noelle Lorraine Williams; photo by Richard Goodbody, courtesy Noelle Lorraine Williams)
With a focus on three Newark women descended from community activists and abolitionists — Sara O’Fake Evans, Ellen King, and Hannah Mandeville — Noelle Lorraine Williams’s exhibition Stay at the Newark Museum of Art celebrates the tireless work of Black women in America. With mixed-media works, including the daring “Neon Light of Man Whipping Woman” (2023), which features a woman in a defiant dance-like pose against a man who cracks a whip in her direction, the show illuminates the continued struggle for equality in the face of racism and misogyny.
Jean Shin: Bodies of Knowledge
The Dorsky at the State University of New York New Paltz, 1 Hawk Drive, New Paltz, New York
Through December 7
Jean Shin, “E-Bundle (Black AAM)” (2020), laptops, hard drives, electrical cords, and ethernet cables (photo by Kevin Candland; courtesy the artist and Praise Shadows Art Gallery)
Jean Shin is a creative rebel at heart. This season, the Dorsky at SUNY New Paltz presents Jean Shin: Bodies of Knowledge, including videos, sculptures, and site-specific installations. With defunct computer parts and cell phones as her primary material, she highlights the overload of information in the digital era with stoic sculptures that reflect the messiness of technology. Works such as “E-Bundle (Black AAM)” (2020), consisting of discarded laptops, hard drives, electrical cords, and ethernet cables, bluntly embody the over-consumption and over-use of these objects of communication.
Eric-Paul Riege: ojo|-|ólǫ́
The Bell, List Art Building, Brown University | 64 College Street, Providence, RI
September 3–December 7
Installation view of Eric-Paul Riege: ojo|-|ólǫ́ (photo by Sarah Meftah; photo courtesy the Bell)
The Bell Gallery at Brown University in collaboration with the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington in Seattle presents ojo|-|ólǫ́, an exhibition by Diné sculptor Eric-Paul Riege that engages with select artworks from both institutions’ Navajo art collections. Combining combs, textiles, jewelry, dolls, and more, Riege creates large weavings and sculptures that invoke Diné myths and histories. His largest solo show to date, Riege’s charged artworks command your attention as much as they welcome it with their lush materiality.
Human Marks: Tattooing in Contemporary Art
University of Hartford, Joseloff Gallery, 200 Bloomfield Avenue, West Hartford, CT
September 11–December 13
Lyric Shen, “Secret Grotto” (2023), ink on ceramic (photo courtesy the artist and Silke Lindner, New York)
I have been obsessed with tattoos since my first tatting experience as a teenager (I am now almost 50 and covered in ink). Thus, it is an utter thrill to learn that tattoo artists — and artists who tattoo — are finally being recognized for their brilliance. Human Marks: Tattooing in Contemporary Art at the University of Hartford’s Joseloff Gallery is a group show of international artists who also practice the art of tattooing, including six commissioned works and other mixed-media pieces that employ diverse materials such as silicone and perfume. The show includes beloved artists such as Don Ed Hardy, Duke Riley, and Tamara Santibañez, among other legends.
Kiyan Williams: Vertigo
Art Omi, 1405 County Route 22, Ghent, New York
Through Fall 2025
Installation view of Kiyan Williams, “Ruins of Empire ” (2022) (left) and “Vertigo” (2024) (right) (photo by Bryan Zimmerman, courtesy Art Omi)
It is a joy to visit Art Omi any time of the year, but that goes double for the fall season, during which the landscape serves as a blazing backdrop for outdoor sculpture. There, you will encounter commanding works installed throughout the grounds, including Kiyan Williams’s “Vertigo” (2024) and “Ruins of Empire” (2022), both made of earth and moss. (You may be familiar with Williams’s art from last year’s Whitney Biennale.) If you visit after October 11, you’ll get an added treat in the chance to see a new sculptural commission by Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio — a glass enclosure that medidates on colonialism, which marks the artist’s first outdoor installation on the East Coast.
For Liberation and For Life: The Legacy of Black Dimensions in Art
Albany Institute of History and Art, 125 Washington Avenue, Albany, New York
Through December 31
Roy DeCarava, “Catsup bottles, tables and coat” (1952–1953), silver gelatin print (© Estate of Roy DeCarava; courtesy NYS Office of General Services, Harlem Art Collection)
Honoring the 50th anniversary of Black Dimensions in Art, Inc. (BDA), founded in 1975 by creatives in Schenectady, New York, For Liberation and For Life: The Legacy of Black Dimensions in Art at the Albany Institute of History and Art is a robust and celebratory show — and kudos to Albany Institute for hosting the first BDA museum show in 1976! The exhibition features diverse mixed-media artworks by over 60 internationally recognized artists, including Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, and Roy DeCarava, as well as contemporary artists working in the New York region. Concurrent with For Liberation and For Life is a special presentation of monographic silkscreen prints by Jacob Lawrence.
Sheila Goloborotko: If Not Now, When?
Hunterdon Art Museum, 7 Lower Center Street, Clinton, New Jersey
September 21–January 11, 2026
Detail of Sheila Goloborotko, “Sistema” (2018–ongoing), hand-cut screenprint on Mylar, dimensions variable (image courtesy Hunterdon Art Museum)
As concerns about sustainability and the health of our planet become ever more pressing, artists such as Sheila Goloborotko are responding through art. Her solo exhibition If Not Now, When? at the Hunterdon Art Museum presents her prints, digital works, and installations in a sensitive, serious, and dynamic installation. Goloborotko’s screenprints on plastic, such as “Flora Regium I” (2024), engage with sacred geometries, suggesting that mother nature is the supreme mathematician. Meanwhile, “Flora Ingrata” (2024), an installation of hanging screenprints with frail silhouettes of humans and large, tropical-looking leaves, inspires a sense of much-needed tranquility.
Zak Prekop: Durations
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 258 Main Street, Ridgefield, Connecticut
Through January 11, 2026
Zak Prekop, “Reidy” (2025), oil on muslin (courtesy the artist and Maxwell Graham, New York)
Exploding with vibrant energy, Zak Prekop’s graphic and abstract style is pure elation. Duration at the Aldrich is the artist’s first solo museum show, and brings together 13 recent paintings that embody his fascination with “paintings as measures of time,” as the artist puts it in the press release. To me, they embody the collapse of time into the dimension of painting. Prekop’s orchestration of organic shapes and his use of raw, bright colors result in wildly jubilant works that are slightly reminiscent of Kandinsky, but with a denser intensity and a contemporary flair.
Time Exposed: Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Seascapes
The Parrish Art Museum, 279 Montauk Highway, Water Mill, New York
September 13–February 8, 2026
Hiroshi Sugimoto, “Mediterranean Sea, La Ciotat” (1989), photolithograph (© Hiroshi Sugimoto; courtesy the Parrish Art Museum)
Hiroshi Sugimoto’s obsession with photographing the sea is a singular effort in the field of international contemporary art, and each of his photos is a meditative experience. Time Exposed: Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Seascapes at the Parrish Art Museum presents a series of his indomitable yet calming black and white photographs. I was utterly transfixed by this work from the very first time I saw it during my undergraduate art school years, and his patient photos of oceans around the world never fail to reach into my soul.
Piero Manzoni: Total Space
Magazzino Italian Art, 2700 Route 9, Cold Spring, New York
Through March 23, 2026
Piero Manzoni, “Achrome” (1958), kaolin on canvas in artist’s original wood frame (photo courtesy Magazzino Italian Art Foundation)
This exhibition features two visionary installations that self-taught Italian sculptor Piero Manzoni conceived in 1961, which remained unrealized at the time of his death in 1963 at age 29. The two room-sized immersive environments demonstrate just how ahead of his time he was. Total Space includes additional Manzoni works on loan from private collections, enhancing this special presentation that embodies Arte Povera at its boldest.
Noel W Anderson: Black Excellence
University Art Museum at State University of New York at Albany, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, New York
Through April 3, 2026
Noel W Anderson, “But Where?” (2022–23), picked and distressed stretched cotton tapestry (photo courtesy the artist)
Noel W Anderson’s largest solo museum show to date, spanning 15 years of his practice, packs a visual punch. Featuring over 35 artworks, including mural-size suspended tapestries, video, works on paper, archival materials, and newly commissioned pieces, the exhibition is unabashed in its celebration of Black power and identity. Through his creative process of research, appropriation, erasure, and abstraction, as well as digital manipulations, Anderson explores complex themes that relate to Black male exceptionalism and American history.
Jeffrey Gibson: POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT
MASS MoCA, Building 5, 1040 Mass MoCA Way, North Adams, New York
Through September 7, 2026
Installation view of Jeffrey Gibson: POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENT
A visit to MASS MoCA is always an uplifting experience, and ever more so with this immersive and newly commissioned installation. The first Indigenous artist to represent the United States with a solo presentation at the Venice Biennale in 2024, Gibson honors Native traditions via a bold visual language that vibrates throughout this site-specific installation. Featuring hanging garments that hover over disco-like floor panels and windows infused with vigorous colors, it is a stunning vision of contemporary art.
Jamea Richmond-Edwards: Another World and Yet the Same
The Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, 198 College Hill Road, Clinton, New York
September 13–June 14, 2026
Jamea Richmond-Edwards, “Terra Sancta, Terra Sancta” (2025), acrylic, glitter, graphite, ink, marker, oil pastel, and mixed media collage on canvas. 96 x 144 x 5 inches (243.8 x 365.7 x 12.7 cm) (photo by John Bentham, courtesy the artist)
Jamea Richmond-Edwards’s lively style welcomes us into her vivid paintings. Another World and Yet the Same, curated by Alexander Jarman at the Wellin Museum of Art, presents a series of colorful mixed-media paintings exploring race and beauty. In “The Great Return” (2022), two outstretched women face each other holding hands amid gloriously chaotic environs (snakes and ancient temples and all). “Terra Sancta, Terra Sancta” (2025) features glamorous people who shimmer with imaginative rhythm, infusing the exhibition with both fabulousness and a sense of freedom.
Tehching Hsieh: Lifeworks 1978 – 1999
Dia Beacon, 3 Beekman Street, Beacon, New York
Opens Oct. 4
Tehching Hsieh and Linda Montano, “Art/Life One Year Performance 1983–1984” (Rope Piece made in collaboration with Linda Montano, 1983–84) (© Tehching Hsieh and Linda Montano; photo: Tehching Hsieh and Linda Montano, Life Images; courtesy Dia Art Foundation)
I have been a devoted fangirl of the endurance-based performance works of Tehching Hsieh for more than a quarter century. His year-long performances are utter legend, and Dia Beacon’s Tehching Hsieh: Lifeworks 1978 – 1999 surveys this badass artist in all his glory. A personal favorite work is his “Art/Life One Year Performance 1983–1984 (Rope Piece made in collaboration with Linda Montano),” in which the two remained connected by a rope for 365 days, a fantastic feat of patience and fortitude.
