The Art Story: Modern Art Exhibitions in New York City

Current Modern Art Exhibitions in New York

Below are the major modern art exhibitions and shows in and around New York City.

For upcoming modern art history lectures in New York City, please visit this page:

Art History Lectures

EVENT	DESCRIPTION	LOCATION & WEBSITE	DATES
Roman Vishniac Rediscovered	This exhibition brings together four decades of work by photographer Roman Vishniac from the early 1920s through the 1950s. The show introduces recently discovered and radically diverse new bodies of work, while repositioning his iconic photographs of Eastern Europe within the broader tradition of 1930s commissioned social documentary photography.	The International Center of Photography 1133 Avenue of the Americas	Open until May 5th, 2013
We Went Back: Photographs from Europe 1933–1956 by Chim	This retrospective exhibition traces the development of Polish photographer Chim's career as an intellectually engaged photojournalist, placing his life and work in the broader context of photographic practices and European politics from the 1930s through the 1950s. The show will include over 120 mainly vintage black-and white and color prints, publications, contact sheets, and personal material that document the artist's career.	The International Center of Photography 1133 Avenue of the Americas	Open until May 5th, 2013
Charting Fluxus: George Maciunas's Ambitious Art History	Fluxus was an international network of artists active in the 1960s and 1970s. Through the tireless efforts of its founder George Maciunas, the movement sought to bridge the gaps between different artistic mediums and between art and life. In 1973, Maciunas announced his intention to design a grand art history chart: an exhaustive chronicle of Fluxus that would also narrate the movement’s origins since the beginning of performance-based art. This exhibition of objects from the Museum of Modern Art’s Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection Archives presents the “final” 1973 version of Maciunas’s chart alongside archival documentation that illustrates its genesis and its significance in the very history of art it maps.	The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53rd Street	Open until May 6th, 2013
Degas, Miss La La, and the Cirque Fernando	For several successive evenings in January 1879, Impressionist painter Edgar Degas attended performances at the Cirque Fernando by one of the most famous circus performers of his time, an aerialist known as Miss La La. Degas produced a number of studies of the performer and the circus building — drawings, pastels, and an oil sketch — before creating his celebrated painting, Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando. The exhibition brings together for the first time Degas's remarkable painting, on loan from the National Gallery, London, and nearly all of the related preparatory works. Also on view will be images of the Cirque Fernando by Degas's contemporaries, photographs of Miss La La and her troupe, posters, and other printed material. Edgar Degas	The Morgan Library and Museum 29 East 36th Street	Open until May 12th, 2013
Hammer, Chisel, Drill: Noguchi's Studio Practice	This exhibition explores Noguchi’s working process through a handful of studios that he kept beginning in the 1940s and continuing through the Long Island City and Mure Japan studios that he split his time between until his death. In particular, the show illuminates the artist's practice over five studio periods of his career. Isamu Noguchi	The Noguchi Museum 9-01 33rd Rd	Open until May 12th, 2013
The Irascibles and the New York School	This exhibition presents painting and sculpture by the central figures of the New York School, with work by James Brooks, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Richard Pousette-Dart, Jack Tworkov, and others. Willem De Kooning, Lee Krasner, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Hans Hofmann	Leonard Hutton Galleries 790 Madison Avenue	Open until May 15th, 2013
Superreal: Alternative Realities in Photography and Video	This exhibition explores the layered meanings and interpretations of the real as it is represented in photography and video art. Drawing on the presentation of the landscape, the human figure, the world of architecture, various objects and natural phenomena, these images explore alternative realities despite their use of the photographic or video image, traditionally understood as a reflection of actuality. The show includes over 70 works by artists including Tania Bruguera, Andres Serrano, Vik Muniz, Miguel Rio Branco, Tolanda Andrade, and others.	El Museo del Barrio 1230 Fifth Avenue	Open until May 19th, 2013
The Pop Object: The Still Life Tradition in Pop Art	Curated by John Wilmerding, this exhibition includes over 75 important works by Robert Arneson, Vija Celmins, Jim Dine, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Alex Katz, Edward Kienholz, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Marisol, Claes Oldenburg, Ed Ruscha, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, James Rosenquist, George Segal, Marjorie Strider, Wayne Thiebaud, Andy Warhol, John Wesley, Tom Wesselmann, and H.C. Westermann. The show focuses on the development of Pop art in the United States and the role of the still life in representing post-war consumerist society throughout the movement.	Acquavella Galleries 18 East 79th Street	Open until May 24th, 2013
Chuck Close Photo Maquettes	This exhibition presents a unique showcase of photo maquettes by Chuck Close. Spanning the artist’s career to date, this is the first exhibition to focus solely on his maquettes and their relationship to his large-scale painted portraits. As curator Kristy Bryce notes, “this show will allow a deeper understanding of the technical process behind Close’s work while also opening an important line of enquiry into the relationship between the distinct practices of painting and photography.” Chuck Close	Eykyn Maclean East 67th Street	Open until May 24th, 2013
Body Double: Jasper Johns / Bruce Nauman	Curated by Jeffrey Weiss, this exhibition presents work by Jasper Johns and Bruce Nauman. The show examines the role of the body as both image and implement in the two artists' work, focusing on a selection of painting, drawing, and sculpture created during the 1960s and 1970s. Jasper Johns, Bruce Nauman	Craig F. Starr Gallery 5 East 73rd Street	Open until May 24th, 2013
Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity	This exhibition presents a revealing look at the role of fashion in the works of the Impressionists and their contemporaries. Some eighty major figure paintings, seen in concert with period costumes, accessories, fashion plates, photographs, and popular prints, highlight the vital relationship between fashion and art during the pivotal years, from the mid-1860s to the mid-1880s, when Paris emerged as the style capital of the world.	The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1000 Fifth Avenue	Open until May 27th, 2013
Richard Serra: Early Work	This exhibition presents early work by Minimalist and Post-Minimalist artist Richard Serra. Dating from 1966 to 1971, the works on view, drawn from museum and private collections, represent the beginning of the artist’s innovative, process-oriented experiments with nontraditional materials, such as vulcanized rubber, neon, and lead, in addition to key early examples of his work in steel. The exhibition also includes a program of the artist’s films from this period. Richard Serra	David Zwirner 537 West 20th Street	Open until June 15th, 2013
The Impressionist Line from Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec: Drawings and Prints from the Clark	This exhibition presents approximately 60 drawings and prints from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, renowned for its rich holdings in nineteenth-century French art. Important examples of the Realist and Impressionist schools dominate the show, with work by édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Paul Gauguin, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.	The Frick Collection	Open until June 16th, 2013
Fred Wilson: Local Color	This exhibition presents the installation Local Color by conceptual artist Fred Wilson, known for his installation and projects in museums and cultural institutions throughout the world. This piece incorporates traditional African and Caribbean artifacts from the Studio Museum’s permanent collection and an assortment of objects the artist purchased along Harlem’s 125th Street. Interested in the intersections between art and popular culture, Wilson asks viewers to consider what museums choose to collect and which histories are preserved.	The Studio Museum in Harlem 144 West 125th Street	Open until June 30th, 2013
At War with the Obvious: Photographs by William Eggleston	William Eggleston (American, born 1939) emerged in the early 1960s as a pioneer of modern color photography. Now, fifty years later, he is its most prolific and influential exemplar. This exhibition celebrates the artist's iconic photographs of commonplace subjects that have become touchstones for generations of artists, musicians, and filmmakers from Nan Goldin to David Byrne, the Coen Brothers, and David Lynch.	The Metropolitan Museum of Art 1000 Fifth Avenue	Open until July 28th, 2013
Claes Oldenburg: The Street and The Store	Claes Oldenburg’s audacious, witty, and profound depictions of everyday objects have earned him a reputation as one of the most important artists of the 20th century. This exhibition examines the beginnings of Oldenburg’s extraordinary career with an in-depth look at his first two major bodies of work: The Street (1960) and The Store (1961–64). Claes Oldenburg	The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53rd Street	Open until August 5th, 2013
Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light	Bill Brandt is a founding figure in photography’s modernist traditions, and this exhibition represents a major critical reevaluation of his heralded career. Brandt’s distinctive vision — his ability to present the mundane world as fresh and strange — emerged in London in the 1930s, and drew from his time in the Paris studio of Man Ray. His visual explorations of the society, landscape, and literature of England are indispensable to any understanding of photographic history.	The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53rd Street	Open until August 12th, 2013
Abstract Generation: Now in Print	This exhibition focuses on the print medium, highlighting ways in which abstraction has played a generative role in works of the past decade. Featuring prints, artists’ books, and multiples from the Museum’s collection—by artists such as Cory Arcangel, Tauba Auerbach, Philippe Decrauzat, Liam Gillick, Wade Guyton, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, R. H. Quaytman, and Charline von Heyl—Abstract Generation examines contemporary notions of abstraction through a range of contemporary practices.	The Museum of Modern Art 11 West 53rd Street	Open until September 2nd, 2013
Käthe Kollwitz: Prints from the War and Death Portfolios	This selection of thirteen rarely displayed prints by German Expressionist artist Käthe Kollwitz, from the Brooklyn Museum’s collection, focuses on works relating to the impact of war. The exhibition features the artist’s most famous print cycles, War (Krieg) and Death (Tod), created between World War I, when her son was killed in Flanders, and World War II. The Death cycle of lithographs includes Woman Entrusts Herself to Death and Death Seizes the Children. These images of familial tenderness, highlighting the daily struggles of the poor and working classes, and the degree to which they bear the burden of war, are the primary focus of Kollwitz’s canon.	The Brooklyn Museum 200 Eastern Parkway	Open until November 10th, 2013
American Legends: From Calder to O'Keeffe	This exhibition showcases the Whitney’s deep holdings of artwork from the first half of the twentieth century by eighteen leading artists: Oscar Bluemner, Charles Burchfield, Paul Cadmus, Alexander Calder, Joseph Cornell, Ralston Crawford, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, Edward Hopper, Gaston Lachaise, Jacob Lawrence, John Marin, Reginald Marsh, Elie Nadelman, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Joseph Stella. Organized as one-artist and two-artist presentations, this selection provides a survey of each artist’s work across a range of mediums. Alexander Calder, Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Hopper, Stuart Davis, Joseph Cornell	The Whitney Museum of American Art 945 Madison Avenue	Open until December 31st, 2013
Rodin: The Cantor Gift to the Brooklyn Museum	Due to installations in the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery, twelve bronze sculptures by Auguste Rodin have been installed in the Rubin Entrance Pavilion. This newly excerpted presentation of the Museum's large holdings by Rodin includes The Age of Bronze, a signature conception from the early years of the sculptor's career, as well as other works from his most significant commissions, including The Burghers of Calais, The Gates of Hell, and the Monument to Balzac. Auguste Rodin	The Brooklyn Museum 200 Eastern Parkway	Open until December 31st, 2013

We need your donation to maintain and grow The Art Story. Click here to help us.

Sitemap

Terms and Conditions

info@theartstory.org