Spring Into Art: Gallery Guide Part I

This late spring and early summer, New York is spoiled with best-in-class exhibitions to see across town.

With a plethora of extraordinary shows opening, here is just part one of Artmuse’s gallery guide this month.

DOWNTOWN

Toyin Ojih Odutola: Ilé Oriaku at Jack Shainman

Toyin Ojih Odutola presents exquisite scenes of richly-adorned figures caught between poses and set in an imagined Mbari house, a sacred space rooted in the traditions of Nigerian Owerri Igbo where community members and protective deities are honored.

These beautifully-composed works build upon Ojih Odutola’s work in the Nigerian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale and her 2024 solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel and offer a means for the artist to process personal grief, connect with her ancestors, and honor personal and collective histories. 

May 6-July 18

46 Lafayette Street

Anyi Di Atọ Ibi (We Become The Third Place), © Toyin Ojih Odutola. Courtesy the artist and Jack Shainman, New York City

Heinz Mack: From ZERO until Today at Alime Rech

A cofounder of the ZERO movement, which was groundbreaking in its explorations of light, space and movement, Heinz Mack has spent his career investigating the idea of brightness through his work. At Almine Rech, Mack’s inspection of light is on full display, with brilliant canvases, kinetic sculptures and enveloping environmental works that activate and touch the viewer with their luminosity.

May 9-June 14

361 Broadway

Iván Argote: Breathings at Perrotin

Breathings offers a picture of Columbian visual artist Iván Argote’s career over the last two decades, connecting the artist’s monumental exhibitions at the Met, Venice Biennale, Centre Pompidou, and other famed institutions with new interventions. Working across media, Argote’s projects are markers for his time, offering critique of and protest to the monuments and happenings that make up our world.

April 23-May 31

130 Orchard Street

Installation image via Perrotin

The Golden Thread at BravinLee programs

The Golden Thread fills a former South Street Seaport warehouse with over 100 fiber artworks by 61 artists, including Ray Materson’s embroidered sporty scenes of Americana, Amy Wilson’s intimate crocheted declarations, David B. Smith’s large-scale soft abstractions, Michael Sylvan Robinson’s beaded and embroidered arms that reach upward, and many more astounding pieces.

April 11-May 16

207 Front Street

CHELSEA

Salman Toor: Wish Maker at Luhring Augustine

One of this season’s most anticipated shows is an exhibition of new works by the fascinating Pakistan-born, Brooklyn-based painter Salman Toor. Toor’s first major presentation since his milestone Whitney exhibition in 2020, Wish Maker fills Luhring Augustine’s Chelsea and Tribeca locations with evocative compositions of figures rendered in Toor’s signature emerald green that examine queer and diasporic identity.

May 1-June 21

531 West 24th Street & 17 White Street

Image courtesy of Luhring Augustine

William Kentridge: A Natural History of the Studio at Hauser & Wirth

An exceptional museum-level exhibition by one of the most renowned contemporary artists working today, the South African artist William Kentridge’s sprawling multi-media show takes over two floors of Hauser & Wirth’s flagship location and continues with a show of prints at the gallery’s 18th street space down the street.

Inviting viewers to delve deep into Kentridge’s practice as if we are visitors to his studio, the show is based on Kentridge’s acclaimed episodic film series, ‘Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot’, with more than seventy works on paper integral to its creation as well as an array of sculptures that range from miniature to colossal.

May 1-August 1

542 West 22nd Street & 443 West 18th Street

Jeppe Hein: Expect A Miracle at 303 Gallery

Berlin-based artist Jeppe Hein invites us to step into a world of hope, wonder, and childhood nostalgia. Known for his inquisitive practice that activates his viewer’s perception, Hein fills 303 Gallery with works resembling balloons, in the shape of delightful animals such monkeys, giraffes, and dolphins as well as his welcome reminder, “EXPECT A MIRACLE”. 

April 26-May 31

555 West 21st Street

Installation image via 303 Gallery

Teresa Lanceta: Tracing the threads, I find you at Sikkema Malloy Jenkins

Teresa Lanceta, a Spanish textile artist who has been active since the 1970s, is currently having a moment in New York. In addition to her inclusion in the major Woven Histories exhibition at MoMA, the exhibition Tracing the threads, I find you is the artist’s first gallery show in the United States. Lanceta creates beautiful weavings as an “open source” language that has the power to share ancestral knowledge and techniques, resulting in beautiful conversations between colors and materials.

April 12-May 17

530 West 22nd Street

Teresa Lanceta, Lluvia en Sevilla, via Sikkema Malloy Jenkins

vanessa german: GUMBALL—there is absolutely no space between body and soul at Kasmin

Now in its final days, the prolific artist vanessa german’s presentation of magnificent, large-scale heads and figures on view at Kasmin are not to be missed. These colossal works—with entrancing surfaces covered with healing crystals, stones, jewels, porcelain, paint, and found objects—draw us in and provide energetic healing as they recall the great weight of ancient Mesoamerican Olmec heads.

April 3-May 10

509 West 27th Street

Ghada Amer: Disobedient Thoughts at Marianne Boesky Gallery

Egyptian artist Ghada Amer has been painting with embroidery for the last 35 years to create works with feminine materials and subjects to challenge the masculine art historical cannon. For instance, Amer often depicts images of women engaged in moments of ecstasy and pleasure and uses the excess thread from these compositions to create abstractions that allude to the work of famous male painters whom she admires.

Amer continues to subvert and celebrate art history with her colorful new embroidered paintings and experimental metal sculptures.

May 1-June 14

507 West 24th Street

UPTOWN

Ilana Savdie: Glottal Stop at White Cube

Drawing on a range of subjects, Ilana Savdie’s electrifying works utilize vibrant acrylics, oil, and beeswax to meditate on themes of ambiguity, identity, power, control, and defiance. Following her acclaimed solo exhibition Radical Contractions at the Whitney in 2023, Savdie presents a new series of surreal compositions composed of undulating colors and fluid forms.

May 2-June 14

1002 Madison Avenue

Ilana Savdie, Revenge Fantasies via White Cube

Poetry as Politics: Seeing Beyond the Object | Noah Purifoy and Kindred Spirits at Tilton Gallery

Filling Tilton Gallery’s historic townhouse is an exhibition of works by the legendary late Los Angeles artist Noah Purifoy, contextualized by that of his friends and contemporaries David Hammons, Timothy Washington, Betye Saar, and more who share philosophies towards art making. This exhibition focuses on Purifoy’s signature assemblages and includes works that have never been shown in New York.

March 20-May 24

8 East 76th Street

Installation image via Tilton Gallery

Kennedy Yanko: Retro Future at Salon 94 & Epithets James Cohan

The rising art star Kennedy Yanko has a must-see exhibition of hard and soft works that sprawl between two major galleries across town. Yanko’s amazing compositions are steeped in art history, referencing everything from Ancient Greece and Rome to Abstract Expression, and feature painted skin over metal industrial surfaces that gracefully push and pull between the masculine and feminine.

April 5-May 10

3 East 89th Street & 48 Walker Street

Installation images via Salon 94 & James Cohan