The Best Art Exhibits in New York City Right Now Celebrate Dolls, Dancing, and Downtown Characters

The days are shorter, the weather colder, but the art exhibits currently on show in New York City are as exciting as ever. From Surrealist books to comics and 100-year-old dolls on display across Museum Mile and the boroughs, plenty of exhibits are widening the scope of what art can be in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and beyond. Whether you're wandering through the Guggenheim's main rotunda or traversing the quiet gallery spaces at contemporary Amant in East Williamsburg, read on for the best art exhibits to keep on your radar.Read our complete New York City travel guide here, including our roundup of the best museums in New York City. This article has been updated with new information since its original publish date.New MuseumNew Museum’s first exhibit since reopening looked at where technology’s taken and is taking us, and its current ones hone in on a single person and place through time. Spanning two floors, Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony is the first solo exhibit of the American artist and cinematographer’s work through four decades. Most notably, his eight-minute videomontage Love is the Message, the Message is Death chronicles the tapestry of the Black experience across the 20th century—its grief, joys, and pain through sampled clips from music videos, newscasts, and sporting events. Head to the second floor for Bowery: Devil’s Mile, which courses through four centuries of the mythic lower Manhattan street’s history and many identities, from a pre-colonial Lenape footpath; to a fin de siècle strip of saloons and dance halls; to a gathering space for Beatniks, punk-, and post-rockers; to the museum’s very own place of residence. Though the so-called Skid Row of New York City has made way for a much tamer crowd, its many lives are displayed through 19th-century sideshow flyers, Jacob Riis’s seminal photographs of the working class, and more.Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony runs through January 3, 2027. Bowery: Devil’s Mile runs through January 31, 2027.Taryn Simon's Father Country I Do Love You at the Guggenheim David HealdSolomon R. Guggenheim MuseumTaryn Simon’s Father Country I Do Love You begins with a story of a story her father had shared of an intelligence officer he met long ago, then introduces the artist’s own account of meeting an anonymous ex-FBI agent. Through some thousand images, text, video, and sculpture, Simons charts more stories within stories of the many characters, places, and historical events the agent had crossed paths with. All set in the museum’s spiraling—in every sense—rotunda, it’s the largest body of work to debut at the Guggenheim; it may sound absurd, but so is real life.On view through March 14, 2027.Admission to Amant for Sentient Earth is free and open to the public. AmantAmantAn artist’s haven among warehouses in East Williamsburg, Amant was thrust into the summer spotlight when its restaurant Zoli opened. Before you get too full off of chocolate cake and distracted by that fish tank centerpiece, though, do spend an afternoon with Sentient Earth, a campus-wide installation that invites 28 artists to interpret what the planet might say to us if it were sentient. Larger-than-life blister pill packs laid out as artifacts, objects more closely resembling industrious mining tools and refuse: The exhibit offers a sobering look at our very real impacts, with bits of humor and undeniable urgency.On view through February 14, 2027.Museum of Modern ArtNot books with art, but books as art are on display in The Surrealist Book: Tomorrow Lives in Mirrors, looking at the Surrealists’ medium of choice for ideological and formal experimentation; highlights include rare work from André Breton, Max Ernst, and especially exciting photomontages from queer artist Claude Cahun, who toyed with gender through portraiture and poetry and is at last getting due diligence after being largely forgotten throughout the 20th century. On the second floor, Teresa Margolles: Aproximación al lugar de los hechos (Approaching the Scene) uses forensic precision to trace femicide and systemic violence across the States, specifically in Minnesota, California, and Texas. Through fragments like shattered glass and soil, Margolles, herself a former forensic pathologist, creates an overwhelming sense of loss, both for victims and those in their orbit. Afterwards, ride two stops on the F Train to MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens, where you’ll find part two of the exhibit, Teresa Margolles: En el lugar de los hechos (At the Scene), on view through February.The Surrealist Book: Tomorrow Lives in Mirrors runs through January 23, 2027. Teresa Margolles: Aproximación al lugar de los hechos (Approaching the Scene) runs through summer 2027.Clothes for dolls and clothes inspired by dolls at Doll Dressing Eileen CostaMuseum at Fashion Institute of TechnologyWhether as a child’s toy or designer’s muse, dolls have long been a fixture of youth and a site for all our aspirations, fantasies, and inclination to play. In an exhibit spanning three centuries, the Museum at Fashion Institute of Technology’s Doll Dressing examines the many ways our miniature muses have influenced and dictated the way we dress up. See how brands and designers such as Margiela, Loewe, and Marc Jacobs toy with scale and illusion; or explore the archetype of the living doll by way of 1960s it-girl Twiggy and modern lolita subculture. Of course, there are plenty of itty bitty models on display, too: Barbie, boudoir dolls, lesser-known Takara, and Bratz, to name a few.On view through January 3, 2027.Art of Manga at Brooklyn Museum examines the genre as an art form. Brooklyn MuseumBrooklyn MuseumThe first major exhibit in the Americas on the genre, Art of Manga looks at the now-global phenomenon of Japanese graphic novels and their indelible influence on art and storytelling. 600-plus drawings include original works from Hirohiko Araki of cult-loved JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Eiichiro Oda of best-selling One Piece (which became a Netflix adaptation in 2023), and horror artist Junji Ito. If you’re still on a doll kick after FIT, head to the fourth floor for Hopi Kachina Dolls: Blessings for a Balanced World, which wonderfully highlight 53 of the painted and carved wooden figures given to Hopi girls and women as they come of age.Art of Manga runs through January 31, 2027. Hopi Kachina Dolls: Blessings for a Balanced World runs through June 27, 2027.Founded in 1804, The New York Historical Society is the city's oldest museum. Bridgit BeyerThe New York Historical SocietyIn times of strife, dance it out. The last of The New York Historical's six installments celebrating America at 250, You Should Be Dancing: New York, 1976 and Beyond looks at the distinct but overlapping disco, punk, and hip hop scenes that materialized across the boroughs and the clubs of a bankrupt New York. Still all about Bowery? An original awning from CBGB’s on display, accompanied by ephemera like Patti Smith’s and Richard Hell’s handwritten lyrics, a Studio 54 party invitation, an early screenplay for Saturday Night Fever, and many more artifacts of the city’s past.On view through April 2, 2027.