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NYC Art Exhibits Worth Seeing This Season

A selective guide to the strongest shows across Manhattan and Brooklyn, from MoMA's current exhibitions to Chelsea gallery openings you should not miss.

By Daniel Asher · July 2026

Editor's Note

New York is a city that has always understood the power of seeing. In every borough, on every block, someone is making something, and someone else is trying to understand it. Artes exists for that second person. We write for museum-goers and gallery-hoppers, for the curious tourist standing before a painting they cannot look away from, and for the lifelong New Yorker who has walked past the Museum of Modern Art a thousand times and still finds something new inside.

In this issue, Clara Monteiro traces the century-long pull of MoMA's Starry Night, Daniel Asher maps the NYC art exhibits worth seeing right now, and Yuki Tanabe takes on the impossible but irresistible question: MoMA or the Met? We hope these essays are useful, and more than useful, that they send you somewhere to look at something extraordinary.

— Clara Monteiro, Editor

More to Read

01

The Painting That Won't Let Go: Van Gogh at MoMA

How a painting made in a French asylum became the emotional center of the world's most influential modern art museum. Clara Monteiro on MoMA's Van Gogh and the crowds that come for it.

02

Gallery by Gallery: This Season's Strongest Shows

From MoMA exhibitions to small artist-run spaces in Bushwick, Daniel Asher walks through the art galleries in NYC you should prioritize before summer ends.

03

The Great Debate: Modern or Metropolitan?

Yuki Tanabe weighs the best museums in New York against each other. Two institutions, two centuries of collecting, one afternoon. Which deserves it?