Folks, we made it—to spring, past the worst of allergy season, and to the single week when the art world brings the most fairs, gallery openings, museum shows, and events to the public.
Before your day-by-day report on the best art and culture happenings in New York (there are many non-art world gems happening this week), let’s talk about the stars of Spring Art World Week: the art fairs.
Meet the Fairs 🗺️
Spring/Break Art Fair: The Cool, Fun, Flirty Fair
D&N take: Our favorite!! You’ll see small galleries and artist-curated shows in an old office building. If you’re new to art buying, this is a divine place to snag originals at reasonable prices and make friends with artists and dealers from around the city and the world.
Dates/Location: Opening party on Tuesday, runs through Monday, May 12 at 75 Varick (Hudson Square)
NADA: The Major Alt Fair
D&N take: Our second favorite fair of the season with 120 exhibitors. Look out for our San Francisco friends Et Al, London’s brilliant Cob, and too many New York galleries to count (Superhouse, DIMIN, Harper’s, the new Chozick Family Art Gallery….).
Dates/Location: VIP preview on Wednesday (say hi if you’re here this day!), open to the public from Thursday - Sunday at the Starrett-Lehigh Building (Chelsea)
Esther: The New Alt in a Beaux-Arts Building Fair
D&N take: Back for its second year in the gorgeous Estonian House on 34th Street, this free fair is smaller and highly curated (what you’d expect from a fair co-founded by Margot Samel, one of our favorite galleries).
Dates/Location: VIP preview on Tuesday, open to the public Wednesday - Saturday at the Estonian House (Midtown)
Frieze: The Big Fair
D&N take: Expect the regular blue chip galleries plus rising stars. Frieze isn’t as stuffy as the Shed makes it feel, but steer clear of the Ruinart champagne station on the 8th floor otherwise you might truly attempt to eat the rich.
Dates/Location: VIP Preview on Wednesday, Thursday/Friday open to the public with expensive tickets, Saturday/Sunday open to the public with less expensive tickets at The Shed (Hudson Yards)
The Independent: The Less-Big Big Fair
D&N take: Featuring mostly solo-artist presentations, this fair brings 85 of the best non-massive but well-established galleries from around the world with a focus on our favorites from New York, like Broadway, Europa, Fredericks & Freiser, and more.
Dates/Location: VIP Preview on Thursday, open to the public Friday - Sunday at Spring Studios (Tribeca)
TEFAF: The Oysters and Champagne Fair
D&N take: TEFAF is a collector’s fair, offering modern and contemporary art from blue chip galleries (eg, David Zwirner will be here and Frieze, code switching the work for the crowd), PLUS antiques, design objects, jewelry, sometimes even dinosaur bones. Whatever is old and valuable, you can buy it here (while snacking at the Champagne, Oyster, and Salmon bar on the 2nd floor). Assuming you are very wealthy.
Dates/Location: VIP Preview on Thursday, open to the public from Friday - Monday at the Park Avenue Armory (Upper East Side)
Future Fair: The Off-Broadway Fair
D&N take: Made for emerging artists and galleries, this small fair spotlights cool work from around the world. Keep an eye out for London’s Gillian Jason Gallery, San Francisco’s Maybaum Gallery, and New York’s itinerant Loft Projects.
Dates/Location: VIP Preview on Wednesday, open to the public from Thursday - Saturday at Chelsea Industrial (Chelsea)
1-54: The Contemporary African Art Fair
D&N take: This is “the first and only international fair dedicated to contemporary African art” and celebrates its 10th year with more work from incredible contemporary and modern artists from across Africa and its diaspora.
Dates/Location: VIP Preview on Thursday, open to the public from Friday - Sunday at The Halo (Financial District)
🗺️ Hit NADA, Future Fair, and Frieze in one day—they’re in easy walking distance.
🗺️ Do the Independent, 1-54, and Spring/Break in one swoop—they’re all downtown.
🗺️ Esther and TEFAF are both on the East Side, so take a bus or your towncar and catch them in one afternoon.
This Week’s Bests
Itinerary Tip: Prioritize Events With Shorter Shelf Lives
We love and hate that all these glorious happenings are stacked atop each other. It’s exciting, but it’s exhausting. Here’s a tip:
If you’re debating between what to visit, consider its duration: parties run for one night, fairs run less than a week, gallery shows run about a month, and museum shows are on view for multiple weeks.
For example: we’re dying to see Hilma af Klint’s What Stands Behind the Flowers at MoMA (Members Preview starts May 8), but we’ll pencil that in for later this season.
🆓 = costs $0, 🎨 = art, 🎼 = music, 🎬 = film, 📚= books, 🌳 = nature, 🎭 = performance, 🧠 = extra smart people, 🍸 = drinks available, 🦩 = party/friendly vibe, 🗽= extra New Yorky
🔑 Click the venue link under each listing for full event details.
Monday, May 5
Last day to see the ICP’s three winter exhibits at the International Center of Photography (Lower East Side), 10:30a-6:30p 🎨
Opening reception for The Making of Modern Korean Art: The Letters of Kim Tschang-Yeul, Kim Whanki, Lee Ufan, and Park Seo-Bo, 1961–1982 at Tina Kim Gallery (Chelsea), 5-7p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Joeun Kim Aatchim’s Red Ribbon at François Ghebaly (Lower East Side), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
First Mondays (writers read from new work in progress or unpublished material): Historical Avant Gardes with Alicia Grullon, Hugh Ryan, Maaza Mengiste at Performance Space New York (East Village), 6:30p doors, 7p event 🆓 📚 🎭 🎨
Tuesday, May 6
Opening reception for Inflation at the new Locker Room location
The Locker Room just moved from Brooklyn to Tribeca, and they warm their new space with Inflation, a group show of balloon-based work. Which honestly? Perfect curation. It’s a divinely stupid take on something that’s hard to look at straight-on without the generous lens of silliness, and we can’t wait to see the results.
The Locker Room, Tribeca
Tues from 7-9p 🆓 🎨 🎈
Opening of R U STILL PAINTING??? at a big old office building
This show, organized by Falcon NYC, is “an arbitrary, non-national, non-rational, unofficial, and incomplete painting survey” in an old 40,000 square foot office space. There’s a strict 75-person limit, so RSVP for entry and wait at Wakamba Bar across the street for your turn. We love this kind of thing. New York still has it, baby.
520 8th Ave, 15th Floor, Midtown
Tues from 3-11:30p 🆓 🎨🦩 (runs for a while)
Other Tuesday events, briefly noted:
Spring/Break Art Show opening party at at 75 Varick (Hudson Square), 5-8p (fair runs through May 12) 🎨 🦩
Opening reception for Toyin Ojih Odutola’s Ilé Oriaku at Jack Shainman (Tribeca), 6-8p 🆓 🎨🍸 🦩
Opening reception for Barbana Bojadzi, Jake Grewal, Cole Lu at Bortolami’s Upstairs at 39 Walker (Tribeca), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Nick Goss’ Stations at Matthew Brown (Tribeca), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Marina Rheingantz’s Iris at Bortolami (Tribeca), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Moffat Takadiwa’s Second Life at Nicodim (SoHo), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Museum Manu’s Women’s History Museum at Company Gallery (Nolita), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Cajsa von Zeipel’s DASH at Company Gallery (Nolita), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Kiah Celeste’s To Be Held For A Long Time at Swivel Gallery (Hudson Square), 6-9p 🆓 🎨 🍸
Justin Vivian Bond performs Well Well at Joe’s Pub (East Village), 7p and 8:30p 🎭 🎼 🍸 performances run through May 11
Mutual Destruction, a screening of short films addressing social and cultural conditioning in interpersonal relationships, presented in connection with Amant’s exhibition On Education featuring works by Emily Allan, Cristine Brache, David Lynch, Mara Mckevitt, and Amalia Ulman at Amant (East Williamsburg), 7p 🎬 🎨
Wednesday, May 7
Preservation of Record festival kicks off
Like most things, New York’s McNally Jackson Books is turning into a festival. We aren’t mad about this one, which “brings together 40 thinkers across 5 weeks, around one topic: The archive. At the heart of these events are questions of power and subjectivity. Preservation is interdisciplinary, intersectional and endlessly complex.” Say that.
Tonight features writer Rich Benjamin and Call Me By Your Name author André Aciman who talk about “capturing history in personal writing.”
McNally Jackson’s South Street Seaport location, Seaport
Wed at 6:30p 📚 🧠 🍸 (runs for the next five weeks)
Opening reception for K Allado-McDowell: The Known Lost
You can almost smell the future MacArthur Genius grant on K Allado-McDowell, the great writer, artist, and musician whose work with AI is humane, funny, and actually good. (Allado-McDowell and Pierre Huyghe, whose show opens Friday at Marian Goodman, are some of the extremely few artists who often transcend the slop).
Tonight is Allado-McDowell’s first ever exhibition, opening at the Swiss Institute. “Featuring a stage set composed of theatrical backdrops, a platform, and a microphone, the exhibition serves as a rehearsal and performance space for Act I of Allado-McDowell’s opera of the same name. The gallery’s scenography depicts a proposed monument, which will be made to recognize and honor all species that have ever lived and gone extinct on Earth.” Beautiful. We’re already crying.
Swiss Institute, East Village
Wed from 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Other Wednesday events, briefly noted:
2nd edition of the Esther Art Fair opens to the public at the Estonian House (Midtown), runs through May 10 🎨
Spring/Break Art Show opens to the public at 75 Varick (Hudson Square), runs through May 12 🎨🦩🍸
Reopening for the season: Storm King (New Windsor, NY) 🎨 🌳
Devon Zimmerman in conversation with artist Timothy Lai on his show Still. Yet. Still. at Jacket Barrett (Tribeca), 5p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Rosemarie Trockel’s Materials at Sprüth Magers (Upper East Side), 5-7p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Rosemarie Trockel’s The Kiss at Gladstone Gallery (Chelsea), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Louise Bonnet and Elizabeth King: De Anima at Swiss Institute (East Village), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Circa 1995: New Figuration in New York at David Zwirner on 20th St (Chelsea), 6-8p 🆓 🎨 🗽
Opening reception for Theodora Allen’s Oak at Kasmin (Chelesa), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for PART II: the NYU MFA Thesis Group Show at 80WSE (Greenwich Village), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
The great artist Cecily Brown talks with Leanne Shapton about the new book Swimming Studies at 192 Books (Chelsea and online), 7p 🆓 📚🎨
Death of Classical presents Schubert’s Final Sonatas and New Commissions in the Crypt under the Church of the Intercession (Washington Heights), 6-8p and 7:30-9:30p 🎼 🍸
Thursday, May 8
Opening reception for Michael Armitage’s Crucible at David’s Zwirner’s new space
It’s big news, having a new David Zwirner and a new Michael Armitage in one. In Crucible, “Armitage reflects on the theme of migration. Painted on Lubugo bark cloth—a traditional Ugandan textile used in funerary rituals, which the artist has used as a support for more than a decade—these works are marked by a visceral directness that implicates the viewer in the migrant’s journey and the representation of migrants in wider society.”
You’ll want to see these works in person.
David Zwirner (533 West 19th Street), Chelsea
Thurs from 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Ben Nuñez’s Today, Last Year inside a U-Haul
Haul Gallery used to be called U-Haul Gallery and operated inside the Pfizer Building in Brooklyn. For a time, it was the most exciting art scene in New York because it wanted to tear down the art world as it was, and we still adore their iteration as Haul (name changed after U-Haul sued them) in Gowanus.
Last year, another U-Haul Gallery hit the scene, with a similar “fuck the way things are” vibe. The creators drive a U-Haul around outside of art fairs with smart and subversive work in the back.
This time, they present Today, Last Year, which “includes four days from the artist’s Panopticon project that saw [artist Ben Nuñez] record his waking life for a year using an AXON police body camera.” He was, naturally, inspired by one of our absolute heroes Tehching Hsieh, a bonkers durational performance artist.
Tonight, the show is outside the NADA fair on W 26th St. Tomorrow, it’s outside the Independent Fair at Spring Studios. Saturday, back in front of NADA and TBD on Sunday. Follow their Instagram to keep track.
U-Haul Gallery, Chelsea
Thurs from 6-9p 🆓 🎨 (showings throughout the weekend at various locations)
Other Thursday events, briefly noted:
The NADA Fair opens to the public at The Starrett-Lehigh Building (Chelsea), runs through May 11 🎨
Frieze New York opens to the public at The Shed (Hudson Yards), runs through May 11 🎨
Future Fair opens to the public at Chelsea Industrial at 535 W 28th Street (Chelsea), runs through May 10 🎨
The Independent Art Fair opens at Spring Studios (Tribeca), runs through May 11 🎨
The first ever Conductor: Art Fair of the Global Majority opens at Powerhouse Arts (Gowanus), runs through May 11 🎨
Member preview starts for Hilma af Klint’s What Stands Behind the Flowers at the MoMA (Midtown), 🎨 (member preview runs through May 10)
Nina Chanel Abney: Big Butch Energy/Synergy Book Signing at Pace Prints (Chelsea), 5-6p 🆓 🎨 📚
Opening reception for Austyn Weiner’s Half Way Home at Lévy Gorvy Dayan (Upper East Side), 5-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Atsuko Tanaka, Yayoi Kusama at Paula Cooper Gallery (Chelsea), 6-8p 🆓 🎨 (as prophesied by the major New York art fairs, every big gallery has to put on a show like this during this kind of week)
Opening reception for Compulsive Genius: New Work from Fountain House Studio Resident Artists at Fountain House Gallery (Hell’s Kitchen), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Michele Zalopany’s Moʻokūʻauhau: The Past Before Us (with intro text from our hero Hilton Als) at Picture Theory (Chelsea), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Pat McCarthy’s Vessels of Experience feat. landscapes by Louis Somveille at Entrance Gallery (Lower East Side), 6-9p 🆓 🎨
Reception for the Schomburg Center's centennial and exhibition 100: A Century of Collections, Community, and Creativity at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (Harlem), 6-9p 🆓 🎨
Backstage Dreams—book signing with Eric James Guillemain at Bookmarc (West Village), 6p 🆓 📚
Friedrich Nietzsche: Truth and Morality class kicks off through the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research (Online), 6:30-9:30p for 4 weeks 🧠 📚
Odd Salon NYC: Borough at the Museum of the City of New York (Upper East Side), 7p 🎭 🍸 🗽
Death of Classical presents Schubert’s Final Sonatas and New Commissions in the Crypt under the Church of the Intercession (Washington Heights), 6-8p and 7:30-9:30p 🎼 🍸
Friday, May 9
Tribeca Gallery Night
A marathon for the senses and the feet, Tribeca Gallery Night is a great effort across the neighborhood’s galleries. Several debut new shows tonight, others simply open their doors to be part of the fun. We’re most excited for:
Radu Oreian’s That Magic Light at the Days & Nights favorite 1969 Gallery (39 White Street)
Louise Giovanelli’s Still Moving at GRIMM (54 White Street)
Fresh off scaring everybody around last year’s Venice Biennale, the REMARKABLE Pierre Huyghe brings a selection of that work to the US for the first time. In Imaginal opens at Marian Goodman (385 Broadway)
Gottlieb/Rothko: The Realist Years at 125 Newbury (395 Broadway)
We adore an old artist, and 94-year-old Heinz Mack presents light work in a new show, From ZERO until Today at Almine Rech (361 Broadway)
the chair by the window is an old friend group show (featuring Felix Gonzales-Torres, Nan Goldin, and others) at anonymous gallery (136 Baxter St)
May exhibitions open at Canal Projects (351 Canal St)
Everywhere in Tribeca, Tribeca
6-8p 🆓 🎨
Other Friday events, briefly noted:
TEFAF New York opens to the public at the Park Avenue Armory (Upper East Side), runs through May 13 🎨
1-54 art fair (featuring contemporary African art) opens to the public at Halo at 28 Liberty St (Financial District), runs through May 11 🎨
Juilliard Historical Performance Chamber Music Series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Upper East Side), 11a-12p 🎼
Downtown Dealers: Featuring Lucy Mitchell-Innes, Charles Moffett, Kendra Jayne Patrick, and Chris Sharp moderated by Marion Maneker at Sunken Living Room at Spring Place Restaurant (Tribeca), 4p 🆓 🎨
Opening receptions for big shows at Pace (Chelsea), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
Opening reception for Alev Ebüzziya Siesbye’s Vibrations at Salon 94 (Upper East Side), 6-8p 🆓 🎨
A music environment interpretation of Eli Keszler’s new record with some DJ sets at Earth at 49 Orchard St (Lower East Side), 6p 🆓 🎼 🎨
Death of Classical presents Schubert’s Final Sonatas and New Commissions in the Crypt under the Church of the Intercession (Washington Heights), 6-8p and 7:30-9:30p 🎼 🍸
The 35-member NYC Guitar Orchestra present the Guitar in Bloom Spring Concert at the New York Society for Ethical Culture (Upper West Side), 7:30-9p 🎼 🗽
Saturday, May 10
Superfine: Tailoring Black Style opens at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Upper East Side), 🎨
Opening reception for Gordon Hall: Hands and Knees at The Kitchen at Westbeth Gordon Hall (West Village), 4-6p show runs through May 31 with performances at various times on May 9, 10, 17, 24, and 31 🆓 🎨 🎭
You’ll want to see these performances:
Book Launch of Tom Wesselmann: The Great American Nude with the book's author, curator and art historian Susan Davidson; Lauren Mahony, a publications director at Gagosian; and Jeffrey Sturges, director of exhibitions for the Estate of Tom Wesselmann at Rizzoli Bookstore (Nomad), 4:30p doors, 5-7p event 🆓 📚 🎨
Last call for these art shows closing Saturday:
vanessa german’s GUMBALL—there is absolutely no space between body and soul at Kasmin Gallery (Chelsea), 10a-6p 🆓 🎨
Helena Foster's Time Honoured at Kasmin Gallery (Chelsea), 10a-6p 🆓 🎨
The Best Kept Secret: 200 Years of Blooks at the Center for Book Arts (Nomad), 11a-5p 📚 🎨
Kennedy Yanko’s Epithets at James Cohan (Tribeca), 10a-6p 🆓 🎨 (co-presented by Salon 94)
Side Lined group show featuring Keltie Ferris, Brenda Goodman, Marilyn Lerner, Stephen Mueller, Sojourner Truth Parsons, Erika Ranee, and Julia Rommel at PPOW (Tribeca), 10a-6p 🆓 🎨
Chloe West’s Games of Chance at Harper’s Chelsea 512 (Chelsea), 10a-6p 🆓 🎨
LIzbeth Mitty’s Sapphire Pass at Harper’s Chelsea 534 (Chelsea), 10a-6p 🆓 🎨
Sunday, May 11
Hilma af Klint’s What Stands Behind the Flowers opens to the public at the MoMA (Midtown), 🎨
Last day to see The Clock at the MoMA (Midtown), 🎨 🎬
Last day to see Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Upper East Side), 🎨
Last day to see John Zorn: Hermetic Cartography and Ericka Beckman: Power of the Spin at The Drawing Center (SoHo), 12-6p 🆓 🎨
Second Sundays at Pioneer Works (Red Hook), 12-6p 🆓 🎨 🎼 🍸
Last day of Rhizome World at the WSA Building (Financial District), 🎨 🧠
Cabaret night: Ute Lemper with Vana Gierig at the Neue Galerie’s Café Sabarsky (Upper East Side), 7p 🎼 🎭 🍸
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THAT’S ALL, FOLKS
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