15 NYC Art Shows to See in October
From Simone Leighs sculptures to a wall of mailboxes, sharing a list of exhibitions to see in NYC and beyond this Fall/Winter.
Simone Leigh Monster (detail) 2023-24 Stoneware 26½ × 26½ × 19¾ inches; 67 × 67 × 50 cm
Simone Leigh - Matthew Marks Gallery New York, NY, November 6th-December 21st more info here
Each of Leigh’s new sculptures presents an image of a partially abstracted female body. By “abstracting the figure,” Leigh explains, “I imagine a kind of experience, a state of being, rather than one person.” Artemis (2022–24) is a life-size sculpture of a headless woman with a skirt comprised of breast-like forms. The surface of the sculpture is covered with intricate lace drapery made from porcelain. Another new sculpture is a larger-than-life-size bust of a woman, also headless, and completely covered in hundreds of miniature, hand-rolled porcelain rosettes. The highly detailed surfaces of these works reference the repetition of handwork and unacknowledged acts of labor and care traditionally associated with women’s work.
exhibition installation image , Monument Eternal, Le'Andra LeSeur at Pioneer Works
Monument Eternal, Le'Andra LeSeur - Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY September 6th-December 15th, learn more here
In Monument Eternal, Le’Andra LeSeur dissects the ways that monuments erected to commemorate racist legacies have altered the mental psyche of Black communities. The artist contemplates how this alteration manifests in the physical body, especially when presented with, and situated in, the sonic rhythms that reverberate across these sites of violence. Comprising a new series of work co-commissioned with the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, the exhibition marks LeSeur’s first institutional solo presentation in New York.
In the artist’s own words: “My work aims for a more intentional and sensitive connection to, participation with, and activation of, sites of violence, sparking continuous dialogue around the impact these sites have had on Black communities. This work is communal, historical, social, political, and environmental. It is, for me, health care. At the core of this project, I introduce new forms of healing and reconciliation within the midst of trauma and violence, through repeated gestures and the transformation of sound into a physical presence. My practice continuously considers ways in which art can transform violence into something beyond. Monument Eternal transforms memories of violence, remnants of violence, and even physical embodiments of violence into transcendences.”
Installation view Artwork © Jadé Fadojutimi. Photo: Owen Conway, Gagosian
DWELVE: A Goosebump in Memory, Jadé Fadojutimi - Gagosian- New York, NY November 7–December 21, 2024 more information here
One question isn’t who am I, but rather where have I been all this time?
—Jadé Fadojutimi
Gagosian is pleased to announce DWELVE: A Goosebump in Memory, Jadé Fadojutimi’s first solo exhibition in New York, at 522 West 21st Street. Featuring new paintings and works on paper, the project bears a title that combines the words dwell and delve, suggesting both domestic familiarity and sites that prompt further discovery.
In her large-scale acrylic and oil canvases, Fadojutimi uses color, space, and line to explore concepts of identity, emotion, and experience. Employing layers and gestural marks, she produces compositions that often suggest plants or landscapes, but which ultimately remain abstract. Each visual “environment” is constructed with strata of paint interrupted by lines of oil pastel and oil bar, the indeterminate contours of which suggest narratives of displacement. Fadojutimi also draws inspiration from animation, clothing, and music.
Lee Mary Manning, I had a camera and wanted to change my life, 2024, Chromogenic prints, mat board, aluminum foil, artist's frame
Kiss of the Sun, Lee Mary Manning - CANADA- New York, NY Nov 22 – Jan 11, 2025, more info here
CANADA is pleased to announce Kiss of the Sun, a one-person exhibition of photographs by Lee Mary Manning in the gallery’s 60 Lispenard Street space. Lee Mary Manning’s photography is an exploration of quiet attentiveness. Their analogue prints are usually gathered into small collections within a single frame, and sometimes montaged alongside fabrics, printed ephemera, or discarded objects. Manning’s images—featuring everything from street scenes to intimate glimpses of nature and people—transform the familiar into something contemplative by focusing on subtle connections and eschewing linear time. The interplay between the pictures and found materials reverberates with tender care for life’s mundane and fleeting moments. This is Manning’s third solo exhibition with the gallery.
Irving Penn, Single Oriental Poppy (A), New York, 1968, platinum palladium print mounted to aluminum
Irving Penn: Kinship, Curated by Hank Willis Thomas- PACE Gallery, New York NY, Nov 15 – Dec 21, 2024 more info here
On view from November 15 to December 21, this show will spotlight works produced by Penn throughout his 70-year career, including selections from his Worlds in a Small Room series, his iconic portraits of artists, actors, and writers, and other genres of his images. These photographs will be exhibited within an installation designed by Thomas to replicate a structure that Penn used to photograph many of his high-profile subjects.
‘Earth & Sky,’ Lorna Simpson- Hauser & Wirth, New York, NY November 2nd – January 11th learn more here
With ‘Earth & Sky,’ Lorna Simpson debuts a new body of work exploring our relationships—physical and metaphysical—to unseen forces that work upon us individually and generationally, alternately challenging and empowering our sense of our own humanity. The exhibition encompasses a series of massive paintings inspired by a 1929 textbook ‘Minerals from Earth and Sky,’ along with a pair of monumental paintings depicting the impact of fired bullets.
Anoushka Mirchandani (Indian, b. 1988) You see, I've forgotten / if they're brown or they're blue, 2024
A House Called Tomorrow, Anoushka Mirchandani - Yossi Milo- New York, NY November 14, 2024 - January 11, 2025 learn more here
You are not fifteen, or twelve, or seventeen— / You are a hundred wild centuries // And fifteen, bringing with you / In every breath and in every step // Everyone who has come before you, / All the yous that you have been, // The mothers of your mother, / The fathers of your father. - Alberto Rios, “A House Called Tomorrow”
A House Called Tomorrow, which shares its title with a poem by Alberto Rios, is presented at a pivotal moment for Mirchandani. The exhibition coincides with the artist’s relocation to New York after more than a decade in California—a move that marks the beginning of a transient chapter in her life and parallels her experiences of immigrating from India as a young adult. Using autobiography as a window, Mirchandani negotiates how architectures of space, self-image, and relationships evolve across shifting socio-political landscapes. The artist manifests this in paintings that depict herself and her loved ones, and draw connections between a deep familial archive and her life in the present.
Photo by Evan Mcknight
Handle With Care, Kitty Ca$h September 25th – November 16th 2024 link here
Hannah Traore Gallery is pleased to present Kitty Ca$h: Handle With Care, the Brooklyn-born multidisciplinary artist, DJ, and producer’s first gallery installation. Featuring an interactive installation that blends sound, visual art, and audience participation, the show aims to create a safe space for human connection and emotional release.
The focal point of the exhibition is a participatory installation inspired by the inside of a mailroom, featuring nearly 200 mailroom collection boxes and postcard podiums. Visitors are invited to privately deposit their “emotional mail”—written accounts of intimate, personal moments they wish to have held with care–as notes, missives, and letters on postcards. The act of putting pen to paper offers a tactile experience, encouraging the audience to reclaim their emotional and physical space, and reconnect with their body. In an era when digital communication supersedes physical mail and letter-writing, this exhibition serves as a sanctuary for marginalized communities.