Museums and other cultural institutions, facing federal and donor pressures, are more cautious than they used to be, a shift reflected in the fall offerings. But the range and depth of art that will be on display across the country is still well worth celebrating, from Brancusi at MoMA to an innovative pairing of Beverly Buchanan and Dionne Lee at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.
September
JOHN CONSTABLE: THE LANDSCAPE REIMAGINED America’s semiquincentennial is also Constable’s: The very English landscape painter was born in June 1776. This broad selection of moody skies and curly clouds includes several works never before seen in the United States. (Through July 25, 2027; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Conn.)
DIVINATION: BEVERLY BUCHANAN & DIONNE LEE Video, photographic and sculptural work by Dionne Lee, born in 1988, is paired with journals and other ephemera of Beverly Buchanan’s (1940-2015) in this intriguing show that considers the relationship of Blackness to the American landscape. (Sept. 4—Feb. 14, 2027; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston)
NAOKO MATSUBARA’S WOODBLOCK WORLDS Born in Shikoku in 1937 and currently based in Canada, Naoko Matsubara works in the storied tradition of Japanese woodblock prints — colorful, delicate and precise. (Sept. 5—May 16, 2027; MFA Boston)
MARY CASSATT: AFTER IMPRESSIONISM Though she was the only American painter to exhibit with the Impressionists, Cassatt (1844-1926) took her work in directions of her own after returning from Paris, particularly in complex color prints. (Sept. 6—Jan. 3, 2027; Art Institute of Chicago)
A KING’S CARPET: LOUIS XIV AND THE SAVONNERIE The stupendously expensive, quarter-mile-long carpet woven for France’s Sun King by “an expendable work force of orphans and adolescents” is introduced via four complete sections and an in-gallery conservation studio. (Sept. 8—March 5, 2028; Metropolitan Museum of Art)
BY ALISON KNOWLES: A RETROSPECTIVE The first major museum show of Knowles, a Fluxus founder, has been touring Europe since 2022 — but there’s something special about its landing so close to the Chelsea diner where she wrote her tuna-fish-centered performance-art piece “Identical Lunch.” (Sept. 9—Jan. 30, 2027; Grey Art Museum, New York University)
JUANITA MCNEELY This first-ever hometown solo show for McNeely (1936-2023), who was born in Ferguson, Mo., and studied at Washington University, will include landscapes, drawings and ceramics as well as the uncompromising treatments of fleshly female experience for which she’s most celebrated. Co-curated by Counterpublic and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, which will also host her room-spanning tour de force “Triskaidekaptych.” (Sept. 9—Feb. 28, 2027; St. Louis Art Museum)
GRANDMA MOSES: A GOOD DAY’S WORK Eighty charming, intricate paintings of country life by Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860-1961), the artist better known as Grandma Moses, who took up painting in her 70s, had her first solo show at 80, and made the cover of Time magazine at 93. (Sept. 12—March 29, 2027; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Ark.)
BRICE MARDEN: I AM PLANE IMAGE As museums retrench and money dries up, private mega-galleries have rushed into the gap. In this case, an institutional-loan-filled retrospective for the maestro of sinuous lines accompanies a new catalogue raisonné edited by Tiffany Bell. (Sept. 15—Dec. 12; Gagosian Gallery, New York)
SOLID PICTURES: PHOTOSCULPTURE AND THE MAKING OF MODERN LIKENESS A rare and fascinating exploration of a 19th-century forerunner of 3-D scanning invented by a young French artist named François Willème. (Sept. 17—Jan. 18, 2027; Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.)
The Museums Special Section
GODDESSES IN THE MACHINE: FASHION IN AMERICAN SILENT FILM Film stills, posters and rare surviving garments show how silent films “created the blueprint for modern movie glamour.” (Sept. 18—Jan. 3, 2027; Bard Graduate Center)
ROUTED WEST: TWENTIETH-CENTURY AFRICAN AMERICAN QUILTS IN CALIFORNIA As millions of African Americans left the South in the years between 1940 and 1970, many brought with them the complex artistry of quilts like the 80 featured in this show. (Sept. 18—Jan. 17, 2027; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.)
TARYN SIMON: FATHER COUNTRY I DO LOVE YOU An elaborate exploration of an unnamed federal agent’s life becomes the first photography show ever to fill the whole Guggenheim rotunda. (Sept. 18—March 14, 2027; Guggenheim)
COUMBA SAMBA: STARS AND STRIPES The apparently cheerful group of sculptural forms in this Senegalese American artist’s installation are inspired by American and central African flags and depleted Uranium shells. (Sept. 19—Jan. 18, 2027; Whitney Museum of American Art)
ERIC CARLE’S MODERNIST INSPIRATIONS Millions of children have been introduced to the graphic power of simplified shapes and colors by Eric Carle’s hungry, hungry caterpillar, but Carle himself grew up with the art of the Bauhaus and Blue Rider group. This intriguing exhibition puts Carle’s colorful paper collages in dialogue with works by Chagall, Franz Marc, Sonia Delaunay, and others. (Sept. 19—Sept. 5, 2027; Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, Mass.)
LUCAS MUSEUM OF NARRATIVE ART Opening day for the spaceship-shaped new home of George Lucas and Mellody Hobson’s extensive collection of comic, cinematic and fine art. (Opening Sept. 22; Lucas Museum, Los Angeles)
THE ARMORY SHOW Typically including more than 200 exhibitors from around the world, this enormous art fair is the quickest way to sample the state of the field — and of the market. (Sept. 24-27; Javits Center, New York)
TERESA MARGOLLES The conceptual artist Teresa Margolles, who was born in Sinaloa, Mexico, and trained as a photographer and forensic pathologist, inaugurates her first American survey with a 22-ton wall constructed with rubble from a demolished house in Ciudad Juárez. A concurrent show opens at the Museum of Modern Art on Sept. 17. (Opening Sept. 24; MoMA PS1)
ARTHUR JAFA: I AM TONY The largest ever retrospective, spanning 40 years and multiple mediums, for the artist Arthur Jafa, whose meticulously edited films document with astonishing depth and fidelity the emotional core of Black American life. (Sep. 24—Jan. 4, 2027; New Museum)
TERRY WINTERS Several dozen intricate, mathematically-tinged abstract prints expand the boundaries of what can be done in two dimensions. (Sept. 25—April 4, 2027; Menil Collection, Houston)
HALUMII KTAPIHNA: LENAPE LEGACIES AND FUTURES A wide spread of archival materials and contemporary works by more than 30 artists paint an up-to-date picture of Indigenous life in Lenapehoking, the ancient territory that covers New York City and parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and New York State. (Opening Sep. 25; Museum of the City of New York)
SUZANNE JACKSON: WHAT IS LOVE Though she’s been a dancer, a poet, a set designer and a gallerist, the West Coast artist is currently best known for the kind of gauzy, light-filled paintings that fill this first major retrospective. (Sept. 26—Jan. 18, 2027; MFA Boston)
ARAKAWA AND MADELINE GINS: THE POETIC JUMP The married conceptual artists Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins made drawings, sculptures and jungle-gym-like houses that were all intended to keep viewers (or inhabitants) off-balance — and, therefore, alive. (Sept. 26—Feb. 8, 2027; American Academy of Arts and Letters, Los Angeles)
THE GAME A yearlong relay race of exhibits inspired by Exquisite Corpse, the classic Surrealist game of accidental non sequiturs, with Christopher Williams leading off, to be followed by Monika Baer, Aria Dean and Abraham Cruzvillegas. (Sept. 26—July 3, 2027; American Academy of Arts and Letters, Upper Manhattan)
HUGUETTE CALAND: A LIFE IN A FEW LINES A huge show of exuberant, crisp, whimsically erotic works by the Lebanese-born painter and designer Caland (1931-2019) makes its American debut in Los Angeles, where she spent her last few decades; it follows earlier stops in Madrid and Hamburg. (Sept. 27—Feb. 28, 2027; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles)
RM x SFMOMA: BETWEEN YOU AND ME San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art leverages the private collection, and global name recognition, of Kim Namjoon, better known as the BTS member and rapper RM, to put a broad selection of modern and contemporary Korean art works in conversation with the museum’s own reservoir of works by Rothko, Matisse, Agnes Martin and others. (Oct. 3—Feb. 7, 2027; SFMOMA, San Francisco)
KRASNER AND POLLOCK: PAST CONTINUOUS Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock were both at the center of the midcentury American art explosion that became Abstract Expressionism, but while Krasner’s experimental, color-driven approach evolved over time, Pollock is indelibly remembered for his action-packed “drip” paintings. This historically and art-historically-grounded show considers Krasner’s and Pollock’s parallel tracks as painters, Americans and, for 11 years, husband and wife. (Oct. 4—Jan. 31, 2027; Metropolitan Museum of Art)
LOCATING GIRLHOOD: PLACE AND IDENTITY IN EARLY AMERICAN “SCHOOLGIRL” ART Loans from 35 institutions combine in this unusual investigation of the needlework, watercolors and other works of so-called schoolgirl art that American women and girls were making long before the Hudson River School. (Oct. 9—Feb. 28, 2027; American Folk Art Museum)
HAEGUE YANG: THROUGH Yang, the installation artist raised in South Korea and currently living in Berlin, takes on the midcentury Minimalism of Dia’s collection and architecture with venetian blinds, ancient Chinese Five Elements theory and the music of the composer Isang Yun. (Opening Oct. 10; Dia Beacon)
ROY LICHTENSTEIN: LIKE NEW A large-scale survey for the renowned Pop artist positions him, with his appropriation and remixing of comic strips and other mass media, as the real ancestor of today’s artistic landscape. More than 130 pieces by Lichtenstein, including everything in his epochal 1962 show with Leo Castelli, are accompanied by works of related artists like Louise Lawler and Sturtevant; they follow a smaller aperitif of a show, opening Sept. 5, centered on the last year of Lichtenstein’s life. (Oct. 11—May 10, 2027; Whitney Museum)
WALKER DESIGN TRIENNIAL: BEYOND MATERIALISM The first edition of this brand-new triennial, curated by a team of designers and architects, brings together work by 26 designers from around the world. (Oct. 17—Feb. 14, 2027; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis)
DESIGNING THE GILDED AGE: DRAWINGS FROM THE STUDIO OF LOUIS C. TIFFANY Turning out stained glass, textiles, enamel and complete interior designs, Tiffany and his designers set the standard for American luxury. This expansive exhibit of sketches, presentation drawings and, in some cases, the windows or design objects themselves, unveils their working process. (Oct. 22—Feb. 7, 2027; Metropolitan Museum of Art)
BENEATH THE SURFACE: MINING AND AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY For nearly two centuries, as evidenced in this show organized with the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas, photographers have documented both the mechanical grandeur and the environmental consequences of mining in the United States. (Oct. 23—Jan. 18, 2027; Milwaukee Art Museum)
BRANCUSI: THE ARTIST AND HIS STUDIO While the Atelier Brancusi in Paris is under renovation, many of its contents will travel to New York for an unprecedented exhibition of mind-bending columns, iconic birds and other bronze objects kidnapped directly from the divine unconscious. (Oct. 25—Feb. 27, 2027; MoMA)
WOVEN MONUMENTS: TAPESTRY AND IDENTITY FROM SENEGAL Twelve monumental tapestries, including two new museum acquisitions by Théodore Diouf, demonstrate the graphic ferment that followed Senegal’s 1960 independence; tapestries by the contemporary American Diedrick Brackens go on display in an adjoining show in November. (Oct. 25—March 7, 2027; Baltimore Museum of Art)
FANTASY AND REALITY: THE ART OF JOHAN TOBIAS SERGEL A first American show for the richly detailed drawings and intensely dramatic neoclassical sculpture of this 18th-century Swedish artist. (Oct. 30—Jan. 31, 2027; Morgan Library)
November
HARD ART Raymond Saunders, Frank Bowling, Nikita Gale and Carolyn Lazard feature among 40 Black artists who have used abstraction in their painting, sculpture and conceptual work from the 1970s to today. (Opening Nov. 5; MoMA PS1)
THE THREE WATCHMEN Jim Hart’s magisterial bronze “Three Watchmen,” which combines the graphic style of his Haida community in the Pacific Northwest with the self-contained presence of Modernist sculpture, is erected in Manhattan among assorted other art works and jewelry. (Opening Nov. 13; American Museum of Natural History)
December
ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH The pre-eminent art fair that’s also a party, and vice versa, returns to South Florida with hundreds of exhibitors from five continents. (Dec. 4-6; Miami Beach Convention Center)
ÉLIANE RADIGUE: STATES OF LISTENING A restaging of 1970s-era works by Radigue (1932-2026), who made subtle alterations of found audio material, presented alongside a live performance program of synthesizer pieces. (Opening Dec. 4; Dia Chelsea)
JOURNEY THROUGH POMPEII: MASTERPIECES FROM THE NATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF NAPLES Frescoes, mosaics, marbles, bronzes and various artifacts of daily Roman life circa A.D. 79 — land in Texas, beginning a rare American tour (other venues to be announced). (December—May 2027; Dallas Museum of Art)
REOPENING OF THE MEMPHIS ART MUSEUM The Memphis Art Museum, formerly the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, opens its new Herzog & de Meuron-designed cultural campus with a major exhibition of 20th-century photographs of Black Tennesseeans from Hooks Brothers Studio as well as 19 other, smaller shows exploring geometric abstraction, Medieval bodies, and jazz’s influence on visual art. (Dec. 6; Memphis Art Museum)
