In spite of a very difficult year, New Yorkers prepare to celebrate the Holidays. Our trees will go up, our lights will go on, our candles will be lit, our wreaths will adorn our doors, and our caroling will be virtual. Here are a few art installations, events and exhibits to add to your holiday season this December.
Holiday Sculpture Trove of Treasures on Fifth Avenue
In addition to the wonder of Fifth Avenue Shop Holiday Windows, the famed street has a Holiday Sculpture Trove of Treasures taking viewers from 51st Street to 59th Street. Find the larger-than-life toys along Fifth Avenue using the handy online map.
Celebrating Beloved Pets on a Memorial Tree in Central Park
Luminaries at Brookfield Place
SCNY Thumb Box Exhibition & Sale (The Biggest-Little Show in Town)
A cornucopia of “small” works priced to sell, this extraordinary pageant of small and original art works in two galleries is one of the most anticipated fine art shopping opportunities in New York City. Over 300 works of art in all media will be presented this year in both galleries.
38th Annual Wreath Interpretations Exhibition at Arsenal Gallery ~ December 1
NYC Parks is pleased to announce the 38th annual Wreath Interpretations exhibition, bringing in the holiday season with an array of imaginative and unusual wreaths. This year, the exhibition will take place virtually, with nearly 40 wreaths displayed on the agency’s website.
Met Live Arts Presents Seasons: A Song Cycle for Guitar Quartet ~ December 1
Join four of today’s finest jazz guitarists for the digital premiere of Seasons: A Song Cycle for Guitar Quartet, created by guitarist, composer, and arranger Anthony Wilson specifically for master luthier John Monteleone’s “The Four Seasons” guitars. Conceived as a complete musical ensemble and decorated with precious stones, gold, and silver, each guitar visually and sonically reflects the mood of one of the four seasons. This Free event will be on Facebook and YouTube from 7:00-7:30pm.
Four Now: New Works by Bisa Butler, Adebunmi Gbadebo, Leonardo Benzant and Gioncarolo Swaby at Claire Oliver Gallery ~ December 1
Claire Oliver Gallery is pleased to announce a group exhibition Four Now: New Works by Bisa Butler, Adebunmi Gbadebo, Leonardo Benzant and Gio Swaby. The exhibition and a dynamic virtual program of talks and events is designed to telegraph the excitement and energy of Miami Art Week to the gallery’s Harlem headquarters.
Silent Snow Ball at Zuccotti Park ~ December 1, 8 & 15
Kick off the holiday season with a socially distant outdoor silent dance party, featuring a different DJ each week on Tuesdays during lunchtime. Take a break from your daily routine, join us via Mixlr (an app that broadcasts live audio) on your own device and headphones, and dance your heart out! Socially distanced ground markers will provide a place for you to dance safely in Zuccotti Park. Grab a holiday treat after you enjoy the music.
Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting ~ December 2
Watch the lighting of the Rock Center Christmas Tree from the comfort of your living room, broadcast live Wednesday, December 2nd from 7-10pm on NBC.
Stay tuned on NBC for a Christmas Spectacular starring the Radio City Rockettes at 10pm!
Light Up Metrotech ~ December 2 & 3
Celebrate the start of the holiday season safely and get in a festive spirit with Light Up MetroTech, presented by Brookfield Properties. Taking place during varied hours over two days, visitors can walk amongst an exhibition of beautifully carved ice sculptures celebrating “nature emerges” by the talented NY-based Okamoto Studio. Share your experience on social media with a specially designed Instagram filter that will allow visitors to become one of three “ice animals.” And don’t forget to visit the MetroTech Commons Christmas tree, on display lit up with holiday cheer.
Yinka Shonibare CBE: Earth Kids at James Cohan Gallery ~ December 4
Fibreglass mannequin, Dutch wax printed cotton textile, globe, brass, steel baseplate, artificial tree, detachable branch, detachable hands with book. 55 7/8 x 39 3/4 x 37 3/8 in 142 x 101 x 95 cm
James Cohan is pleased to present Earth Kids, an exhibition of new sculptures by Yinka Shonibare CBE, on view from December 4 through January 23 at the gallery’s Lower East Side location at 291 Grand Street. This is the artist’s seventh solo exhibition at James Cohan.
34th Annual Miracle on Madison Avenue ~ December 5
New York Botanical Garden ‘Glow’ ~ Beginning December 5
This holiday season, let it GLOW at The New York Botanical Garden in an all-new outdoor experience illuminating NYBG’s landmark landscape and Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. NYBG Glow will take place on December 5, 12, 18, 19, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 and January 1, 2 & 9.
Washington Square Park Virtual Tree Lighting ~ December 9
Celebrate your favorite winter holiday December in Washington Square online. The Washington Square Association offers two chances to celebrate and sing yuletide carols virtually online to keep the crowds minimal. Save the date, December 24th, for Christmas Eve Virtual Caroling.
The Annual Times Square Ball Drop ~ December 31
Can’t be there? Enjoy the #BallDrop from anywhere including a live cam.
FUTURA2000 at Eric Firestone Gallery on view through December 5, 2020
Eric Firestone Gallery opens its doors to FUTURA2000 | FUTURA 2020, the renowned American artists first solo exhibition in New York City in over thirty-years. Beginning artistic life in the world of illegal street art in the early 1970s, some of these very talented artists continued forward into legal public spaces ~ parks and commercial buildings, galleries, streetwear, and even museums. Leonard Hilton McGurr (c.1955) aka FUTURA2000, was among this elite group that moved from illegal to highly sought-after ~ creating artwork with a contemporary message ~ political, social, personal. Many of these artists are familiar to all of us and include the likes of Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Kenny Scharf to name just a few.
Isolation to Revolution/Rebirth to Dissent at Pen + Brush on view through December 11, 2020
Pen + Brush will reopen its doors to the timely exhibition entitled, Isolation to Revolution/Rebirth to Dissent, bringing together the work of seven artists with a range of perspectives on reflection in this moment in time.
Bound Up Together: On the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment at Smack Mellon on view through December 13, 2020
The world has never faced such uncertainty: everything from our understanding of public health and racial injustice to our geopolitical order and our social and environmental responsibilities is being challenged and rethought. 2020 may go down as the watershed year when the deck was reshuffled; and while we don’t know the future, our minds are busy speculating, anxiously rethinking and looking for a vision beyond.
Art of the Century with Marc Kehoe: The Thrill of Chaos and Keisha Prioleau-Martin: Head Over Handlebars on view to December 20, 2020
Two exhibitions on view at Art of Our Century ~ Marc Kehoe: The Thrill of Chaos and Keisha Prioleau-Martin-Martin: Head Over Handlebars ~ both exhibitions on view to December 20,, 2020.
Art of Our Century is located at 137 West 14th Street, NYC by appointment.
Ki Smith Gallery Presents A Celebratory Exhibition of Art and Film Honoring the Spirit of Jonas Mekas on view to December 20, 2020
Featuring works by DAVID BELISLE, GORDON BALL, JEM COHEN, MIKE FIGGIS, DOUGLAS GORDON, KEN JACOBS, JERRY JOFEN, JIM JOE, JEAN-JACQUES LEBEL, ARI MARCOPOULOS, JONAS MEKAS, BENN NORTHOVER, SHANNON PLUMB, REY PARLA, SYLVIA PLACHY, LEE RANALDO, RAHA RAISSNIA, BARBARA RUBIN, LEAH SINGER, ACCRA SHEPP, STEPHEN SHORE, MICHAEL STIPE, CHUCK SMITH, ED SANDERS, STEVEN SEBRING, AUGUSTE VARKALIS, and ANDY WARHOL.
To Jonas with Love will include a traditional gallery installation of photography, painting, drawing, and sculpture at the new Ki Smith Gallery East Village (197 East 4th Street) as well as a film and video installation with projections and monitors at the Gallery’s annex (181 Mott Street).
Alina Grasmann: Sculpting in Times at Fridman Gallery on view through December 20, 2020
Fridman Gallery has opened its doors to Alina Grasmann: Sculpting in Time, the artists second exhibition with the gallery. This exhibition will feature two new series of large-scale paintings combining imaginary, real, and emotional places. The paintings reflect the artist’s fascination with American architecture, landscape, mythology, cinema, literature, and illusion.
DAZZLED at GR Gallery on view through December 23, 2020
GR Gallery will open its doors to DAZZLED, a group exhibition featuring new works by artists Gao Hang, Kenz, Adam Lister and Kentaro Okawara. The show puts together 20 pieces, including paintings, works on papers and sculptures. The title is inspired by the unique style and visual approach that defines the four artists, able to forge, in four exclusive ways, a dreamy esthetic that misleads our visual realm.
Form, Paper, Scissors on view at Living with Art Salon
Living with Art Salon opened its doors to its third exhibition ~ Form, Paper Scissors ~ a group show featuring four female artists, each with a unique way of celebrating the art of paper. The four artists, Elan Cadiz, Jaynie Crimmins, Vivianne Rombaldi Seppey and Gina Fuentes Walker, use paper is a plethora of ways with an equally varied focus. Repurposing to highlight consumerism and waste (shades of Rev Billy); taking pen to paper, creating portraits of those we hold dear; through maps, books & photos, exploring the world and our place in it; and delicate cut-outs made from images of home and place.
Point of Action at Flatiron Public Plaza on view to January 1, 2021
The Flatiron/23rd Street Partnership and Van Alen Institute today announced their selection for the seventh annual Flatiron Public Plaza Design Installation: Point of Action by Studio Cooke John. Point of Action will be on view November 23, 2020–January 1, 2021 in the Flatiron Public Plazas on Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and 23rd Street in Manhattan, creating a highly visible landmark throughout the holidays.
Michelangelo Pistoletto at Lévy Gorvy on view through January 9, 2021
Lévy Gorvy is pleased to announce a major exhibition of works by the renowned Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto. The first US presentation in a decade to feature multiple installations by Pistoletto, it will take visitors on a journey through one of the most influential and enduring artistic practices to unfold from the postwar period to the present. Lévy Gorvy’s exhibition will resonate with the themes that have animated Pistoletto’s body of work for over six decades: perception, time, history, tradition, and the relationship between art, artist, and viewer.
LuminoCity Festival 2020 on Randall’s Island will be on view until January 10, 2021
The fun and family-friendly LuminoCity Festival will be returning to Randall’s Island from November 27, 2020 to January 10, 2021. LuminoCity is one of the few large-scale events happening this holiday season ~ all outdoors and easy to socially distance.
Taller Boricua: A Political Printshop at El Museo on view through January 17, 2021
The Museum’s physical reopening will be celebrated with Taller Boricua: A Political Print Shop in New York, the first monograph exhibition in three decades about the East Harlem-based Nuyorican collective workshop and alternative space. Curated by Rodrigo Moura, Chief Curator of El Museo del Barrio, the exhibition had been postponed due to the temporary closure, and is now on view as of September 12, 2020 through January 17, 2021.
Ariana Papademetropoulos: Unweave a Rainbow at Vito Schnabel Projects through January 16, 2021.
Vito Schnabel Projects will present Ariana Papademetropoulos: Unweave a Rainbow, the first New York City solo exhibition for the Los Angeles-based artist. Unweave a Rainbow will debut a new series of large-scale works by the artist, in which she mingles images of natural phenomena with her meditations on interiors as analogs. The exhibition will also feature new small-scale additions to her ongoing series of ‘symbolist’ paintings.
Jack Whitten. I AM THE OBJECT at Hauser & Wirth on view through January 23, 2021
Beginning 5 November 2020, Hauser & Wirth New York will present rarely seen works made by American artist Jack Whitten (1939 – 2018). The exhibition focuses on his practice from 1991 through 2000, a period of intense experimentation during which, deeply affected by tumultuous world events, he strove to incorporate them into his work. Blurring the boundaries between sculpture and painting, and between the studio and the world, the multidimensional works on view combine geometric abstraction and found objects to mine spiritual and metaphysical thematic veins.
George Condo. Internal Riot at Hauser & Wirth will be on view through January 23, 2021
Hauser & Wirth will open its doors to ‘Internal Riot,’ an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by American artist George Condo. Made during the quarantine period, these works reflect the unsettling experience of physical distance and the absence of human contact during this prolonged time of so- cial isolation. The pandemic has forced Condo to take his portraiture practice to a new level, with invented cha- racters captured in an abstract web that reveals the humanity inherent in their fractured psychological states.
We Fight to Build a Free World: An Exhibition by Jonathan Horowitz on view to January 24, 2021
We Fight to Build a Free World: An Exhibition by Jonathan Horowitz looks at how artists have historically responded to the rise of both xenophobia — including anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry — and authoritarianism. The exhibition also addresses issues surrounding immigration, assimilation, and cultural identity.
José Parlá: It’s Yours on View through January 10, 2021 + Sanford Biggers: Codeswitch on View through January 24, 2021 at The Bronx Museum of the Arts
The Bronx Museum of the Arts reopened its doors to exhibitions of Sanford Biggers and José Parlá.
José Parlá: It’s Yours on View through January 10, 2021 + Sanford Biggers: Codeswitch on View through January 24, 2021 at The Bronx Museum of the Arts
The Bronx Museum of the Arts is reopening on Wednesday, September 9th with Sanford Biggers: Codeswitch, a solo show featuring more than 50 quilt-based works by the artist, and José Parlá: It’s Yours, evoking the artist’s personal connection to the Bronx. Reserve your visit.
Abigail DeVille ‘Light of Freedom’ in Madison Square Park on view through January 31, 2021
For Madison Square Park Conservancy’s public art commissioning program, artist Abigail DeVille has installed Light of Freedom, a new work that reflects the despair and exultation of this turbulent period. The project is a thirteen-foot high reference to the Statue of Liberty’s torch, and to the scaffolding that encased it during construction. DeVille has filled her torch with a well-worn bell, a herald of freedom, and the arms of mannequins, beseeching viewers.
About Time: Fashion and Duration at The Met on view through February 7, 2021
The Costume Institute’s upcoming exhibition About Time: Fashion and Duration (on view October 29, 2020 to February 7, 2021) will trace 150 years of fashion, from 1870 to the present, along a disrupted timeline, in honor of the Museum’s 150th anniversary. Employing philosopher Henri Bergson’s concept of la durée—the continuity of time—the exhibition will explore how clothes generate temporal associations that conflate the past, present, and future. The concept will also be examined through the writings of Virginia Woolf, who will serve as the exhibition’s “ghost narrator.”
PSArt2020 on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through February 14, 2021
Returning to The Met for the 13th consecutive year, the exhibition P.S. Art: Celebrating the Creative Spirit of NYC Kids will feature works of art in a variety of media created by public school students in New York City. The exhibition will be on view from October 8, 2020, through February 14, 2021, at The Met Fifth Avenue in the Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education. On the evening of October 8, there will be a private virtual opening ceremony with remarks at 5 p.m. by Max Hollein, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Richard A. Carranza, Schools Chancellor; and Alison Scott-Williams, President of Studio in a School NYC. P.S. Art 2020: Celebrating the Creative Spirit of NYC Kids is a project of the New York City Department of Education and Studio in a School NYC.
Brian Clarke: The Art of Light at MAD on view through February 21, 2021
The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) will reopen on September 17, 2020 with a major exhibition of works by celebrated architectural artist and painter Brian Clarke (b. 1953, United Kingdom). The first museum exhibition in the U.S. of Clarke’s stained-glass screens, compositions in lead, and related drawings on paper, Brian Clarke: The Art of Light showcases the most considerable artistic and technical breakthrough in the thousand-year history of stained glass.
3 Points of View by Kamoinge Photographers at Keith de Lellis Gallery on view to February 26, 2021
3 Points of View by Kamoinge Photographers Anthony Barboza, Before Smith and Shawn Walker will be on view at Keith de Lellis Gallery beginning November 19, 2020. Please wear a face mask when visiting the gallery.
Working Together: The Photographers of the Kamoinge Workshop at The Whitney Museum on view to March 28, 2021
In 1963 a group of Black photographers based in New York came together in the spirit of friendship and exchange and chose the name Kamoinge—meaning “a group of people acting together” in Gikuyu, the language of the Kikuyu people of Kenya—to reflect the essential ideal of the collective. Focusing on the first two decades of the collective (1963–1983), Working Together celebrates the Kamoinge Workshop’s important place in the history of photography and foregrounds the collective’s deep commitment to photography’s power and status as an independent art form.
All The Stars In The Sky Have the Same Face is still on view on the facade of The Jewish Museum
The Jewish Museum has been approved by NYC Landmarks to display a multi-story mural installed at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 92nd Street with the neon-blue message, ‘All the Stars in the Sky have the Same Face‘. It was originally designed in 2011 by American conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner, with lettering in Hebrew, Arabic and English. We aren’t yet sure when the mural will come down, but feel fairly certain it will be on view at least until April 2021.
Beth Lipman: Collective Elegy at Museum of Art & Design on view to April 4, 2021
The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) presents Beth Lipman: Collective Elegy, from September 25, 2020 to April 4, 2021, a major midcareer survey that is the first to assess the remarkable achievements of the renowned contemporary artist. From sumptuous displays of excess, including provocative installations comprising hundreds of individual glass elements, to poetic and contemplative works in glass, metal, clay, video, and photography, the works on view are ethereal meditations on time and mortality and simultaneously sobering indictments of our contemporary consumer culture and its impact on the planet.
Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration at MoMA PS1 on view through April 4, 2021
MoMA PS1 will open its doors to the timely exhibition, Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, highlighting more than thirty-five artists reflecting on the growing COVID-19 crises in U.S. prisons. The exhibition features work by people in prisons and work by non incarcerated artists, with a creative eye towards state repression, erasure, and imprisonment, and is on display across PS1’s first floor galleries.
Salman Toor: How Will I Know at The Whitney Museum on view through April 4, 2021
Salman Toor’s first solo museum exhibition—originally scheduled to open in March 2020 but postponed due to the pandemic—will be presented by the Whitney Museum of American Art from November 13, 2020 to April 4, 2021. Primarily making intimate oil-on-panel works, Toor expands the tradition of figurative painting by melding sketch-like immediacy with disarming detail to create affecting views of young, queer Brown men living in New York City and South Asia. Salman Toor: How Will I Know is part of the Whitney’s emerging artists program, which most recently included solo shows by Kevin Beasley and Eckhaus Latta, and will be on view in the first-floor John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation Gallery, which is accessible to the public free-of-charge.
Howardena Pindell: Rope/Fire/Water at The Shed on view through April 11, 2021
For her solo exhibition at The Shed, Howardena Pindell will present Rope/Fire/Water, her first video in 25 years and a project unrealized by the artist since the 1970s that The Shed commissioned. In this powerful work, Pindell recounts personal anecdotes and anthropological and historical data related to lynchings and racist attacks in the United States. She accompanies this voice-over with archival photos of lynchings and the historic Birmingham, Alabama, Children’s Crusade, a series of nonviolent protests carried out by young people in May 1963.
Luciano Garbati: Medusa with the Head of Perseus at Collect Pond Park on view to April 18, 2021
Medusa With The Head of Perseus is a seven-foot bronze sculpture that inverts the narrative of Medusa, portraying her in a moment of somberly empowered self-defense. In Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Medusa was a maiden in the temple of Athena, who was stalked and raped by Poseidon. Athena, in a rage, banishes and curses Medusa with a monstrous head of snakes and a gaze which turns men to stone. Medusa is herself blamed and punished for the crime of which she was the victim; she is cast away as a monster and then with the cruel assistance of Athena and Poseidon, eventually is hunted-down and beheaded by the epic hero Perseus, who displays her head as a trophy on his shield. Garbati’s sculpture speaks directly to the 16th Century Florentine bronze masterpiece Perseus with the Head of Medusa by Benvenuto Cellini (1545-1554). Through this work, Garbati asks “how can a triumph be possible if you are defeating a victim? Collect Pond Park is located at 130 Leonard Street, NYC.
Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away on view at Museum of Jewish Heritage to May, 2021
The Museum of Jewish Heritage reopened its doors to the largest and most extensive exhibition on Auschwitz ever presented in the United States, featuring more than 700 original objects and 400 photographs ~ Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. The exhibition has been extended to May, 2021.
Art for the Community: The Met’s Circulating Textile Exhibition, 1933-1942 will be on view through June 13, 2021
Between 1933 and 1942, The Metropolitan Museum of Art organized one of its especially noteworthy landmark educational initiatives to bring the Museum’s collection to as many New Yorkers as possible. Called the Neighborhood Circulating Exhibitions, the series consisted of small, thematic displays of select artworks presented in New York Public Library branches, high schools, city universities, and settlement houses. The effort, which was developed in response to an inquiry from a high school teacher, reached more than two million visitors and will be the focus of the exhibition Art for the Community: The Met’s Circulating Textile Exhibitions, 1933–1942, on view October 31, 2020, through June 13, 2021, in honor of The Met’s 150th anniversary.
Gillie and Marc’s ‘King Nyani’ on view through July, 2021
To raise awareness and funds for the critically endangered gorilla species, public artists Gillie and Marc have created a massive sculpture of the animal that will be unveiled later this month in Hudson Yards’ Bella Abzug Park. Titled King Nyani, Swahili for gorilla, it’s the world’s largest bronze gorilla sculpture.
Kenseth Armstead: Boulevard of African Monarchs on View Through August, 2021
NYC DOT Art Community Commission and The Marcus Garvey Park Alliance partnered to install a timely and pertinent new art installation in Harlem. Kenseth Armstead: Boulevard of African Monarchs arrived on 116th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard on August 13, 2020.
Laura Lappi, 7 x 7 (HOPE) on view to September 5, 2021
Finnish-born, Queens-based artist Laura Lappi’s 7 x 7 (Hope) explores issues of space in New York City and the cost of living and housing, and how that impacts many communities. With this sculpture, Lappi draws attention especially to immigrant communities and their living conditions in Queens. While Queens is the New York City’s most culturally diverse borough welcoming immigrants from different backgrounds, its housing affordability is often out of a reach for many people. The sculpture consists of a black wooden house structure that measures seven feet long, five feet wide and seven feet high, referring to the size of the average illegal basement room. Each wall has an embedded letter, creating a word H-O-P-E. Inside the structure a light is making the sculpture visible and glowing during the night. This exhibition is made possible by the Art in the Parks: Alliance for Flushing Meadows Corona Park Grant, which supports the creation of site-specific public artworks by Queens-based artists for two sites within Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
Jack Howard-Potter: Torso II, Swinging II, Messenger of the Gods (medium) on view to September 12, 2021
Long Island City based sculptor, Jack Howard-Potter, makes large, often kinetic, figurative steel sculptures that can be seen in city governments, sculpture parks and public art shows around the country. The outdoor public arena is the perfect setting for the academic roots to be easily recognizable and accessible, bridging the gap between the fine art institution and the public. It all comes together in an effort to brighten the landscape and shift someone’s gaze to break the daily routine with something beautiful. Court Square Park is located at Court Square and Jackson Avenue in Long Island City, NY.
Doors for Doris by Sam Moyer through Public Art Fund on view through September 12, 2021
Artist, Sam Moyer created a new site specific installation for the Public Art Fund at the entrance to Central Park on the Doris C. Freedman Plaza. The enormous three-part sculpture creates a gateway that poetically bridges the architecture of the city and the natural landscape of the park.
Still not ready to step out yet? Here are some fabulous live stream and virtual exhibits and tours. You can visit more than 2,500 museums and galleries online.
See you in January 2021!