2025/26 Fine Art Museum Schedule NYC

Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) — New York City

• **Sasha Stiles: A LIVING POEM**
  September 10, 2025 – Spring 2026
  A multimedia poetic installation that intertwines visual art and text to create an immersive lyrical journey. The Museum of Modern Art+2Ocula+2
  
  

• **Stephen Prina: A Lick and a Promise**
  September 12 – December 13, 2025
  A retrospective exploring Prina's interdisciplinary practice across painting, film, and conceptual art, demonstrating his intricate engagement with language and culture. Financial Times+4The Museum of Modern Art+4Whitney Museum+4
  
  

• **New Photography 2025: Lines of Belonging**
  Member Previews: September 10–13; Public Viewing: September 14, 2025 – January 17, 2026
  A group exhibition of contemporary photographic works that probe identity, home, and the quest for belonging. Wikipedia+8The Museum of Modern Art+8The Guardian+8
  
  

• **Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective**
  Member Previews: October 16–18; Public Viewing: October 19, 2025 – February 7, 2026
  A landmark survey of Asawa’s sculptural oeuvre, emphasizing her mastery of wire forms and her innovative contributions to Modernist abstraction. Wikipedia+5The Museum of Modern Art+5Hyperallergic+5
  
  

• **Helen Frankenthaler: A Grand Sweep**
  October 25, 2025 – February 8, 2026
  A definitive retrospective showcasing the vibrant, emotive works that cemented Frankenthaler’s legacy as a leader of Color Field painting. The Metropolitan Museum of Art+13The Museum of Modern Art+13Wikipedia+13
  
  

• **Time Travelers: Photographs from the Gayle Greenhill Collection**
  October 31, 2025 – February 16, 2026
  A storied collection of photography spanning decades, offering a visual time capsule that charts technological evolution and personal memory. The Guardian+5The Museum of Modern Art+5Wallpaper*+5
  
  

• **Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination**
  December 14, 2025 – April 4, 2026
  A compelling exhibition illuminating how African portraiture engages with history, identity, and political narratives across diverse contexts. Ocula
  
  

• **Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream**
  November 10, 2025 – March 28, 2026
  A retrospective that delves into Lam’s fusion of Afro-Cuban symbolism and Surrealist aesthetics to explore dreams, identity, and healing. Ocula+2Hyperallergic+2
  
  

• **Rosa Barba: The Ocean of One’s Pause**
  May 3, 2025 – July 6, 2026
  A durational installation employing film, light, and architecture to meditate on perception, time, and the inertia of memory. The Metropolitan Museum of Art+6Ocula+6The Museum of Modern Art+6
  
  

Whitney Museum of American Art — New York City

• Sixties Surreal
  Opens September 24, 2025 – January 19, 2026
  A provocative survey of psychedelic, psychological, and bold works of surrealism from the 1960s, offering a vibrant counter-narrative to Minimalism and Conceptualism. Whitney Museum+1
  
  

• **Ken Ohara: CONTACTS**
  Opens October 10, 2025
  A solo exhibition showcasing Ohara’s photographic explorations of identity and human connection, through portraits that are both intimate and enigmatic. The New Yorker+3Whitney Museum+3Ocula+3
  
  

• **Grace Rosario Perkins: Circles, Spokes, Zigzags, Rivers**
  Opens October 18, 2025
  An immersive presentation of Perkins’s multidisciplinary work, mapping patterns of cultural memory and ancestral connectivity through intricate forms. Whitney Museum
  
  

• **High Wire: Calder’s Circus at 100**
  October 18, 2025 – March 2026
  A centennial exhibition celebrating Alexander Calder’s Circus, featuring original miniature figures and studies that capture the whimsy and daring of his kinetic vision. Wikipedia+6Whitney Museum+6Wikipedia+6
  
  

• **Roy Lichtenstein Retrospective**
  Opening 2026 (exact dates TBC)
  A comprehensive look at Lichtenstein’s influential journey through Pop Art, from comic-strip aesthetics to bold critiques of consumer culture. Whitney Museum
  
  

• **Whitney Biennial 2026**
  Opens March 2026
  The flagship survey of contemporary American art, spotlighting an evolving array of voices and practices shaping today’s artistic landscape. Whitney MuseumWhitney Museum+1
  
  

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) — New York City

• **Allegory and Abstraction: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints**
  September 4 – December 9, 2025
  A curated display of works on paper that bridge allegorical motifs and abstract form, charting the expressive potential of draughtsmanship. The Metropolitan Museum of Art+1
  
  

• **The Genesis Facade Commission: Jeffrey Gibson, The Animal That Therefore I Am**
  September 12, 2025 – June 9, 2026
  A vibrant architectural installation that animates the museum’s facade with themes of belonging, animal-human relations, and Indigenous identity. The Metropolitan Museum of Art+1Hyperallergic
  
  

• **Man Ray: When Objects Dream**
  September 14, 2025 – February 1, 2026
  A surrealistic exhibition exploring Man Ray’s visionary photographs that give inanimate objects a dreamlike, animated presence. Wallpaper*+3Christie's+3The Metropolitan Museum of Art+3
  
  

• Sargent and Paris (Partially overlapping earlier)
  Through August 3, 2025 (mentioned for context; outside this period) Wikipedia+2Wikipedia+2
  
  

• **Emily Sargent: Portrait of a Family**
  July 1, 2025 – March 8, 2026
  A familial companion exhibition focusing on watercolors by John Singer Sargent’s sister and mother, offering intimate insight into artistic lineage and domestic portraiture. Wikipedia
  
  

**The Magical City: George Morrison’s New York**

July 17, 2025 – May 31, 2026