The Best Art Exhibitions to See in New York This September

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As summer slowly comes to a close and the air cools, September in New York brings, along with Fashion Week, a busy month of art programming. With so much going on, Something Curated has compiled a guide to the shows not to be missed. From Lisa Oppenheim’s speculative portrait of photographer, curator, and horticulturalist Edward Steichen, and Raúl de Nieves’ ecclesiastical takeover of Pioneer Works, to WSA’s inauguration of The Mall, a sprawling new space within the Downtown cultural campus, there’s plenty to look forward to as fall rolls around.


Duet

WSA | 4–8 September 2025

WSA inaugurates The Mall, the newly renovated third and fourth floors at 161 Water Street, with Duet, organised by curators Kyle DeWoody and Zoe Lukov. Featuring presentations from eleven galleries – including Pace, Spinello Projects, and Of the Cloth – alongside a group exhibition with artists Naudline Pierre, Rich Aybar, Brendan Fernandes, and many more, the ambitious takeover explores duality. From the pas de deux to the uncanny doppelgänger, Duet celebrates the transformative power of the dynamic duo – think yin and yang, partnerships, twins, mirrors and reflections.


First conceived for the Musée de la Chasse in Paris, Sophie Calle’s On the Hunt catalogues the qualities desired in women by men, and in men by women, through personal ads spanning 1895 to the age of dating apps. Text panels trace changing attitudes to marriage, equality, love, and casual encounters, paired with photographs of hunting stands and nocturnal animals. With wit and poignancy, Calle reflects on power, intimacy, and the search for connection.


Raúl de Nieves: In Light of Innocence

Pioneer Works | 13 September – 14 December 2025

In his first solo institutional show in New York, Raúl de Nieves transforms the Main Hall of Pioneer Works into an immersive, cathedral-like environment. Fifty faux stained glass panels and a monumental lightbox mural reference Catholic and Mexican folkloric motifs, as well as tarot archetypes, creating shifting fields of kaleidoscopic colour.


For her sixth solo show with the gallery, Lisa Oppenheim embodies the multifaceted career of Edward Steichen. Drawing on his work as a photographer, designer, curator, and horticulturalist, Oppenheim rethinks biography through her own practice. Using AI and dye transfer techniques, she revives the extinct iris “Monsieur Steichen,” while new textiles and photographic studies revisit his archival materials.


Ministry: Reverend Joyce McDonald

The Bronx Museum of the Arts | 5 September 2025 – 4 January 2026

The Bronx Museum and Visual AIDS present the first institutional exhibition of Reverend Joyce McDonald. Bringing together more than 75 artworks and archival materials, it surveys her prolific sculptural output since the 1990s. Through clay and ceramics, McDonald crafts moving testimonies to hope, grace, hardship, and devotion.


Leonora Carrington: Dream Weaver

Katonah Museum of Art | Until 5 October 2025

Spanning fifty years of her career, Dream Weaver presents more than thirty rarely seen artworks by Surrealist pioneer Leonora Carrington. Populated with fantastical creatures inspired by folklore, mysticism, and the occult, her vivid worlds probe the imagination and the unconscious.


New Photography 2025

The Museum of Modern Art | 14 September 2025 – 17 January 2026

Marking the 40th anniversary of New Photography, MoMA presents 13 artists and collectives exploring sites of belonging and forms of interconnectedness. Some weave personal stories within broader political histories, while others reimagine the archive to disrupt the past and imagine future communities. From Kathmandu to New Orleans, Johannesburg to Mexico City, their work offers slowness and care as an antidote to the viral speed of contemporary image culture.



Feature image: Installation view of Elliot & Erick Jiménez’s Red Chapel in Duet at WSA. Photo: Dawn Blackman

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