As Frieze New York 2026 returns to The Shed from May 13-17 for its 14th edition, the city’s art world is once again gearing up for a week of exhibitions, events, and conversations that extend far beyond the fair itself. To help navigate it all, we asked industry insiders to share the exhibitions, events, and standout moments they’re most excited about this year—and what deserves a spot on your itinerary.
Dan Tanzilli, Co-Founder, Third Eye
Frieze New York
I'm of course thrilled to see Frieze New York return to The Shed for its 14th edition with over 65 galleries. Now marking its sixth consecutive year at the cultural center, the fair will continue to anchor the city’s arts calendar, bringing together a world-class community of artists, galleries, collectors, institutions, and art audiences. Frieze New York remains a vital platform connecting the global art community and shaping contemporary culture.
I highly suggest venturing beyond Chelsea and heading to the Upper East Side. Some highlights on view uptown include a two-person show pairing David Hammons and Jannis Kounellis on view at White Cube New York through June 13 that explores their shared material intelligence and poetics of resistance. We're also in the final weeks of Acquavella Galleries' Matisse: The Pursuit of Harmony, which closes May 22. It features over fifty works on loan from museums and private collections, tracing five decades of his career. It's the gallery's first Matisse exhibition since 1973.
The Brant Foundation
At the Brant Foundation in the East Village, a landmark Keith Haring exhibition focusing on his electric early years from 1980 to 1983 runs through May 31. Haring's iconic subway chalk drawings, the downtown subculture, and the emergence of one of the most consequential figures in American art history—all staged right in the streets where the artist lived and worked—make for an incredible homecoming of this prolific artist.
And as a proud board member of the Art Production Fund, I think everyone needs to check out Art in Focus: Kelly Wall at Rockefeller Center, which runs through June 18. Kelly's use of these iconic public spaces through lightbox sculptures embedded in newspaper stands, photography spread across five buildings, and even a functioning penny press, is exactly the kind of work that meets people where they are. It's joyful and thought-provoking all at once.
Danielle Bias, Chief Communications Officer, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles
If you've ever stood in front of a contemporary artwork and thought, "Why is this art?", you have Marcel Duchamp to thank for that question. Born in France in 1887, Duchamp began his career as a painter, but in his 30s, he shunned traditional art-making and began selecting ordinary, mass-produced objects–a bottle rack, a snow shovel, a urinal–declaring them works of art. He called these pieces "readymades," and in doing so, he shifted the center of gravity in art from the hand of the maker to the idea or concept behind the work.
This spring, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), a sweeping retrospective re-introduces audiences to Duchamp. Artists from Andy Warhol to Ai Weiwei to Jasper Johns to David Hammons have cited him as an influence, and Duchamp’s MoMA survey brings together nearly 300 works spanning six decades, including his mysterious final installation, Étant donnés, completed in secret over twenty years (1946-66). It has been more than fifty years since a U.S. museum has presented such a comprehensive assessment of Duchamp’s work and it may be another half century before it happens again. This show is not to be missed.
Juliet Sorce, Executive Vice President, Resnicow and Associates
Eugène Delacroix, Études de lions couchés, 1841. Courtesy Pace Di Donna Schrader Galleries.
One of the highlights of the week is always the chance to see historically significant works at TEFAF. This year, Pace Di Donna Schrader, the newly formed secondary-market gallery, will have a presentation studded with important works, including a stunning Delacroix from 1841, a de Kooning, and an iconic Calder mobile.
I am also looking forward to Gladstone’s presentation of pastel works on paper by Anna Zemánková, a self-taught Czech artist for whom they've just announced representation. Zemánková came to her practice later in life, with her family's encouragement, and pursued abstraction with a singular, visionary focus. There's something so exciting about seeing a body of work like this together. The gallery is also showing an exhibition of new paintings by Celia Paul, at its 24th Street location. Her portraiture has incredible emotional depth and stillness, which is the perfect way to exhale from the chaos of the week.
Installation view, Celia Paul: Innervisions, Gladstone, New York, 2026.
And, if you have not been there yet, a final must-see of the week is Julie Mehretu’s powerful solo presentation at the Marian Goodman Gallery in Tribeca, which will be complemented with special live performances choreographed in response to her work by John Jasperse in the evenings of May 20 through 23.
Hallie Freer, Media Relations Associate Director, Gagosian
This spring, we look forward to hosting a spectrum of exhibitions throughout New York. One highlight is the opening of our new ground-floor 980 Madison Avenue gallery, which has been inaugurated with a double-header of historical heavyweights. A presentation of Marcel Duchamp, coinciding with MoMA’s retrospective, features all of the artist’s iconic readymades. Complementing the survey is an exhibition of six important early works by Robert Rauschenberg from Cy Twombly’s collection, organized during the centennial of Rauschenberg’s birth.
Rachel Cole, Founder, Rachel Cole Art Advisory
Endless Studio (portal) by Lisa Yuskavage, 2025. Oil on linen, triptych. Overall: 62 x 186 inches (157.5 x 472.4 cm), courtesy of David Zwirner Gallery.
If you’re spending the day in Chelsea, there’s an especially strong run of painting exhibitions right now. Highlights include Danielle McKinney at Marianne Boesky Gallery, Emma Webster at Petzel Gallery, Lisa Yuskavage at David Zwirner, Gerhard Richter at David Zwirner, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye at Jack Shainman Gallery. Chelsea feels particularly strong this season for contemporary painting and institutional-caliber presentations.
On the Upper East Side, there are several historical and blue-chip presentations worth making time for, including Domenico Gnoli at Lévy Gorvy Dayan. It’s an incredibly thoughtful and beautiful presentation.
If you’re heading Downtown Manhattan, don’t miss Keith Haring at The Brant Foundation Art Study Center, Julie Mehretu at Marian Goodman Gallery, Rae Klein at Nicodim Gallery, Jo Messer at 56 Henry, Francesca Mollett at GRIMM, and the second half of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s show at Jack Shainman Gallery. Downtown continues to have some of the city’s most exciting younger and mid-career programming.
For fairs, the city is packed this week. Key stops include Frieze New York, NADA New York, Independent Art Fair, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, TEFAF New York, Future Fair, and Esther — each offering a very different perspective on the market, from emerging spaces to major international galleries and historical material.
After two years closed, the New Museum has reopened on the Bowery with a striking OMA-designed second building that doubles its size to 120,000 square feet. The space is inaugurated with a new exhibition, New Humans: Memories of the Future, featuring more than 200 international artists, writers, scientists, architects, and filmmakers, the exhibition charts a century of shifting visions of identity, progress, and possible futures.
The Museum of Modern Art hosts Arthur Jafa, one of the most vital voices in contemporary art today. Known for his powerful use of film, sound, and archival imagery, Jafa’s work confronts race, memory, and visual culture with extraordinary emotional force. For this exhibition—the latest in MoMA’s Artist Choice series—Jafa has selected over 80 objects from the Museum’s collection. A fitting final stop on any Art Week itinerary.
Sara Fitzmaurice, Founder & CEO, FITZ & CO
New York’s Art Fair Week is fast approaching, a time when the city’s art community operates at full intensity. A few of the exhibitions I’m looking forward to this year anchor an expansive global and contemporary dialogue across experimental platforms.
Woody De Othello Reverence, 2026; Awareness, 2026; Listening, 2026 Redwood Photo: Nicholas Knight, courtesy of Public Art Fund, NY.
Guardian Spirit, Woody De Othello, Public Art Fund
A must-see this week is a new Public Art Fund installation of Guardian Spirit, Woody De Othello’s first solo outdoor exhibition in New York City, installed at Brooklyn Bridge Park and on view through March 8, 2027. It’s worth taking the walk to experience the work in situ; the scale of the bronzes and new totemic redwood sculptures recalibrates entirely when experienced along the waterfront. The works extend Othello’s ongoing exploration of nkisi, ritual objects from Central and Western Africa understood as vessels of spiritual presence, protection, and healing force. His sculptural language turns everyday objects into emotionally charged extensions of the body and psyche, an effect that becomes especially powerful in the open air.
Fade (installation view), 2026.Courtesy Studio Museumin Harlem. Photo:Kris Graves
Fade, Studio Museum in Harlem
Head uptown to experience the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Fade exhibition, which opened on May 1 and is on view throughout the summer. Organized as the sixth edition of the long-running “F” series of group exhibitions, Fade features emerging artists of African descent, including interdisciplinary Michael Kohn Gallery artist Chiffon Thomas.
Across generations and geographies, the artists use spirituality, surrealism, and nonlinear ideas of time to open alternative ways of seeing and remembering. The idea of “fade” becomes a framework through which artists revisit separate histories through abstracted forms, continuing a lineage of exhibitions that have shaped discourse around contemporary Black art over the past two decades.
Kite, Wíhaŋyablapi (of St. Louis) in progress, 2026. Courtesy: the artist
Kite, The Shed
With Frieze New York returning to The Shed this year, its programming expands beyond the traditional booth into performance, moving-image, AI-adjacent, and site-responsive installations.
One of the highlights of the curated projects will take part in The Shed itself and includes a new commission and performance by Oglála Lakȟóta artist Kite. Partnering with Counterpublic, Kite presents Wíhaŋyablapi (of St. Louis) (2026), a work that previews the third edition of Counterpublic 2026: Coyote Time, opening in September 2026. Developed through participatory workshops translating dreams into a geometric system derived from linguist Sadie Red Wing’s Lakȟóta shape language, the work unfolds across The Shed’s interior architecture, activating shifting sightlines and embodied navigation as structural components of the piece itself.
magic hour–golden time C. [Heights](2026). 11 x 8.5. Chromogenic Print. Jonathan González
Jonathan González, The Whitney Museum of American Art
Another programming highlight taking place across The Shed and The Whitney Museum of American Art is Frieze’s collaboration with the Whitney, presenting durational and moving-image works by choreographer, artist, and writer Jonathan González.
Commissioned for the 2026 Whitney Biennial, Body Configurations (2023–2025) takes the form of a photographic installation on Level 6 of The Shed, rooted in the principles of Authentic Movement—foregrounding intuition, somatic awareness, and expanded modes of viewing. For the Biennial, González will also present magic hour–golden time (2026), a three-day durational performance (May 15–17) unfolding across the Whitney’s terraces and the surrounding urban environment, extending the exhibition into a shared spatial and temporal field.
SUBMERGE, BEYONDTHE RENDER, at ARTECHOUSE. Photocourtesy of ARTECHOUSE
SUBMERGE: Beyond the Render, ARTECHOUSE NYC
For a more immersive digital experience, ARTECHOUSE NYC presents SUBMERGE: Beyond the Render, a generative, projection-based work that transforms its Chelsea Market space into a cinematic environment. Produced in collaboration with the Render Network Foundation, the exhibition brings together leading 3D artists, including Maciej Kuciara, Emily Yang, FVCKRENDER, and Gavin Shapiro, alongside a soundtrack by Zedd. Using high-speed rendering and decentralized GPU systems, the works construct visual worlds that sit at the intersection of image-making, computation, and scale.
