15 Perspective-Altering Shows to See in New York City in 2020, From the Met Breuer’s Final Bow to a Muslim-Fashion Tribute

It’s the start of a new year, which means new exhibitions are
opening at museums across the five boroughs of New York City. As
always, expect something for everyone, whether you prefer blue chip
art stars like Gerhard Richter or thought-provoking examinations of
our rapid changing world from architect Rem Koolhaas.

Here are some of the exhibitions we’re looking forward to most
this winter.

“Jacques-Louis David Meets Kehinde
Wiley” at the Brooklyn Museum
January 24–May 10,
2020

The contemporary twist on equestrian portraiture painted by
Kehinde Wiley is being shown alongside the work that inspired it,
on view in New York for the first time. Jacques Louis David’s
traditional depiction of a triumphant general astride a horse is
contrasted with Wiley’s update, which switches out a drab mountain
scene for a vibrant fleur-de-lis pattern and the uniform of
contemporary battle—camouflaged pants and Timberland boots.

The Brooklyn Museum is located at 200 Eastern Parkway,
Brooklyn, New York; general admission is $16.

“James Coupe: Warriors” at the
International Center for Photography
January 25—May 18, 2020

The International Center of Photography is unveiling its new
home at Essex Crossing on the Lower East Side, with a slate of
inaugural exhibitions that includes James Coupe’s unsettling
reimagining of Walter Hill’s cult film The Warriors
(1979). Agree to let the artist scan your face, and deep fake
technology will insert your likeness into the movie in real time,
artificial analysis having studied your features and determined
which gang you would most likely belong to. It’s a creepy reminder
of the growing power of data harvesting and the potentially
problematic applications of new technologies, particularly when it
comes to your own image.

ICP is located at 79 Essex Street, New York; general
admission is $16.

“Sahel: Art and Empire on
the Shores of the Sahara” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
January 30–May 10, 2020

The Met is looking back—way back, to the first
millennium—for this show tracing the establishment of flourishing
trade routes and societies in the southern region of the Sahara
Desert. Some 150 works on loan from Mali, Senegal, and Niger,
display the rich visual culture that emerged from those communities
in the form of terracotta figures, bronze, illuminated manuscripts,
and more, and explore the convergence of religions and political
dynasties.

The Met is located at 1000 5th Avenue; general admission is
$25.

“Measure Your Existence”
at Rubin Museum of Art
February 7, 2020–August 20, 2020

This six-artist show at the Rubin Museum, featuring Felix
Gonzalez-Torres, Shilpa Gupta, Tehching Hsieh, Meiro Koizumi, Lee
Mingwei, and Taryn Simon, takes as its theme the Buddhist concept
of impermanence, reminding viewers that the only thing that is
inevitable is the passage of time. Featuring film, sculpture,
photography, and durational installations, the exhibition is at
times participatory, offering a fleeting moment of reflection. (The
museum will celebrate the opening with a free reception on
Friday, February 7, 6 p.m.–10 p.m.)

The Rubin Museum is located at 150 West 17th Street, New
York; general admission is $19.

“Ballerina: Fashion’s Modern
Muse” at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of
Technology
February 11–April 18, 2020

Ballerinas often seem like otherworldly creatures, able to bend
and fly across a stage like tulle-covered fairies, but their impact
extends far beyond the stage. For the first time, an exhibition is
examining the impact of ballet from its rise as a cultural force in
Britain and America in the 20th century to its influence on
contemporary fashion.

The Museum at FIT is located at 227 West 27th Street, New
York; admission is free.

“Peter Saul: Crime and Punishment” at the New
Museum
February 11–May 31, 2020

A great satirist of contemporary culture and politics, Peter
Saul is finally getting his due with the first New York museum
survey in his decades-long career. Saul’s acid-trip canvases are
like the fever dreams of a conspiracy-theorist, depicting icons of
popular culture ranging from Donald Duck to Donald Trump.

The New Museum is located at
235 Bowery, New York; general admission is
$18. 

“Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution” at
the New-York Historical Society Museum & Library
February
14–August 23, 2020

The legendary rock-and-roll impresario Bill Graham (1931–1991),
who worked with such stars as Jimi Hendrix, Santana, and the
Rolling Stones, gets the museum treatment. The show, which comes to
the New-York Historical Society by way of the Skirball Cultural
Center in Los Angeles, features over 300 objects including concert
posters, archival photographs, and other memorabilia linked to the
great concert promoter. Don’t miss the site-specific installation
recreating the psychedelic liquid light show concert backdrops that
Graham staged in New York with multimedia artist Joshua White
beginning in 1967.

The New-York Historical Society is located at 170 Central
Park West at Richard Gilder Way (77th Street); general admission is
$22.

“Countryside, The Future” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum
February 20–August 14, 2020

This might be hard to process for New Yorkers, but only two
percent of the year’s surface is occupied by cities. Rem Koolhaas
and Samir Bantal, the director of AMO, the architect’s think tank,
have teamed up with students at universities around the world to
present global case studies that consider the so-called countryside
that makes up the vast majority of the earth, and how humans are
rapidly and radically modifying it. The exhibition will illustrate
the effects of global warming, mass migration, and artificial
intelligence, to name just a few of the factors that are physically
altering landscapes the world over, sometimes almost beyond
recognition.

The Guggenheim is located at 1071 5th Avenue at East 88th
Street, New York; general admission is $25.

“Contemporary Muslim Fashions” at the Cooper
Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum
February 28–August
23, 2020

This buzzy show, with more than 80 ensembles and 40 photographs,
was widely praised when it debuted at the Fine Arts Museums of San
Francisco for its exploration of the wide range of Muslim dress and
how it has influenced the wider fashion world.

Cooper Hewitt is located at 2 East 91st Street; general
admission is $16. 

“The Drawings of Al Taylor” at the
Morgan Library & Museum
February 21–May 24, 2020

Although Al Taylor (1948–1999) died young, he produced no
less than 5,000 drawings over the course of his prolific career.
The Morgan highlights these witty artworks, and how the artist’s
technical skill lends a gravitas to every day objects such as tin
cans.

The Morgan Library & Museum is located at 225 Madison Avenue
at East 36th Street, New York; general admission is $20.

“José Parlá: It’s Yours”
at the Bronx Museum 
February 26–August 16, 2020

In his first institutional solo show in New York, José Parlá
presents paintings inspired by the Bronx, particularly by the way
the borough has suffered due to redlining policies, structural
racism, and displacement due to gentrification. Curated by Manon
Slome, chief curator of nomadic art nonprofit No Longer Empty, the
exhibition features Parlá’s childhood sketchbooks as well as
recent large-scale paintings.

The Bronx Museum is located at 1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx,
New York; admission is free.

“Judd” at the Museum of Modern Art
March
1–July 11, 2020

Even if you don’t know his name, you definitely know his legacy.
Donald Judd, the man who essentially created the high ceiling-ed,
streamlined furniture aesthetic of brands like Calvin Klein and
turned Marfa into an art-girl thirst trap is being feted at MoMA
with a career-long survey for the first time in over 30 years.
Expect a whole lot of boxes, one right after another, plus
wall-mounted “stacks” and “progressions” that trace Judd’s
career.

The Museum of Modern Art is
located at 11 West 53rd Street, New York; general admission is
$25.

“Gerhard Richter: Painting
After All” at the Met Breuer
March 4–July 5, 2020

The Met may be pulling the plug on its
contemporary art experiment with the old Whitney flagship,
subletting the Breuer Building to the nearby Frick Collection—which
is closing for renovations—for the last three years of its lease,
but Gerhard Richter should be a hell of a swan song. The show will
span the German’s artist over six-decade career, while spotlighting
two recent series, “Birkenau” (2014) and “Cage” (2006), which are
making their US debut.

The Met Breuer is located at 945 Madison Avenue; general
admission is $25.

“Carl Craig” at
Dia:Beacon, Beacon, New York
March 6–September 7, 2020

Dia pushes the boundaries of the fine arts with this sound art
commission with Detroit-based techno DJ Carl Craig that marks the
culmination of a five-year engagement between the music producer
and art foundation. The site-specific sound installation draws on
the techno tradition of transforming industrial spaces into raging
night clubs, inspired by the architecture of Dia’s lower level, a
massive room filled with monumental columns that was once part of a
Nabisco packaging factory.

The Dia Art Foundation, New York Dia:Beacon is located at 3
Beekman Street, Beacon; general admission is $15.

“Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist” at
the Whitney Museum of American Art
March 13–June 28, 2020

This survey of spiritually infused paintings by Agnes Pelton
(1881–1961), who retreated to the deserts of Cathedral City,
California, to make her luminous, criminally under-known
abstractions, could be this year’s Hilma af Klint. Organized by the
Phoenix Art Museum, the show includes 45 paintings, two of which
are from the Whitney’s own collection.

The Whitney is located at 99 Gansevoort Street, New York;
general admission is $25.

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