If you’re in New York and don’t have plans for the first week of May: Don’t worry, you do now.

May is always a major moment for art in New York—typically stretched over multiple weeks of fairs, gallery openings, museum shows, and marquee auctions. For 2025, though, everything is condensed into one mega-week starting Monday, May 5th. Brace yourself: This might be the liveliest New York Art Week yet.

Feeling overwhelmed already? You’re not alone. This guide is here to help you cut through the chaos and actually enjoy the week. Whether you’re curious about the best openings or just dipping your toe into art fairs, I’ve got you covered. At the center of it all is Frieze New York, one of the city’s biggest art fairs, where major international galleries present some of the most important artists to collect right now. Alongside Frieze, you’ll find several more art fairs—like Independent, NADA, and TEFAF—plus dozens of gallery openings, auction previews, and blockbuster museum shows. This guide is designed to help you navigate the best of the week—whether you’re devoting a full day or just want to catch a highlight or two.

Below, you’ll find: a primer on the major art fairs, a day-by-day guide for where to go and what to see, and friendly tips for making the most of it. Everything I’m recommending is either ticketed (booking ahead online is always a safe bet) or free to attend—no invitations or VIP passes required. And before you head out, don’t forget to download the Artsy app (Apple, Android) to save artworks, follow artists, and keep tabs on everything you discover before, during, and after this art week.

Keep in mind: You can’t see it all—and you don’t have to. If you find yourself exhausted or overwhelmed, I recommend a coffee, a cocktail, or the nearest exit. This should be fun!

May New York Art Fairs 101

Beyond Frieze New York, there are at least six other art fairs I’d recommend visiting this May, but that’s not to say you should go to them all. It’s unlikely they’re all your cup of tea—yet, between the blue-chip booths, museum-worthy gems, and fresh emerging discoveries, there’s something here for everyone.

I’ve done my best to list key info below, but be sure to check fair websites for the most current details. Also: Several fairs have discounted rates for students, seniors, and artists, which can be accessed by purchasing onsite.

Frieze New York

• Location: The Shed, Hudson Yards
• Dates: May 8–11
• What to expect: This is the big one—but it’s actually not that big, with around 70 exhibiting galleries (typically, major fairs have more than double that). Expect blue-chip art from mega-galleries like Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth, David Zwirner, and Pace, plus many mid-size tastemakers and exciting emerging voices. Fun fact: the staff will be dressed by Italian luxury techwear brand Stone Island.
• Tickets: $90–$200. Buy tickets.

Independent

• Location: Spring Studios, Tribeca
• Dates: May 8–11
• What to expect: Set in the lofty, bright-white environs of Spring Studios, this fair feels highly curated, with thoughtful booths of collector-loved galleries and artists. There tend to be lots of booths devoted to a single artist, so it’s a good place for an in-depth look at works from promising emerging and midcareer artists. A plus: There’s a roof deck where you can sit for a bit and catch some sun. Tickets: Starting at $45–$120. Buy tickets.

TEFAF New York

• Location: Park Avenue Armory, Upper East Side
• Dates: May 9–13
• What to expect: TEFAF prides itself on providing a museum-level experience—and for good reason. Exhibitors will be presenting everything from Alberto Giacometti sculptures and Alexander Calder drawings to rare wooden masks from the Côte d’Ivoire, Tiffany lamps, and Zaha Hadid furniture. The Upper East Side crowd—often celebrities among them—show up for the art and the lush, tulip-filled ambiance.
• Tickets: $25–60. Buy tickets.

NADA New York

• Location: Starrett-Lehigh Building, Chelsea
• Dates: May 7–11
• What to expect: NADA is the place to discover new artists before they’re everywhere. With over 120 exhibitors, the vibe is chill but ambitious; there are lots of cool galleries that are known for building up emerging artists’ careers. This year features a curated spotlight on Texas- and Mexico-based galleries. Bonus: it’s an easy walk from other Chelsea galleries and Frieze.
• Tickets: $35–$150. Buy tickets.

1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair

• Location: Halo, 28 Liberty Street, Financial District
• Dates: May 8–11
• What to expect: For this New York edition—the fair also takes place in London and Marrakech—1-54 is presenting as a focused, high-caliber showcase of 30 galleries showing contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora. With over 70 artists, the booths range from tightly curated solo booths to powerful, expansive installations. Though it’s intimate in scale, with art from five continents and 17 countries, it’s an ideal place for meaningful discovery.
• Tickets: $38–$100. Buy tickets.

Future Fair

• Location: Chelsea Industrial
• Dates: May 7–10
• What to expect: Conveniently located in Chelsea, this thoughtful emerging gallery fair always has a warm and welcoming vibe. Now in its fifth year, Future Fair emphasizes collaboration and sustainability, with nearly 70 galleries from across the U.S. and abroad. Expect creative, meaningful curation, opportunities to discover new artists, and more accessible price points.
• Tickets: $35–$100. Buy tickets.

Esther II

• Location: Estonian House, Midtown East
• Dates: May 7–10
• What to expect: This quieter, alternative fair takes a non-traditional format and venue—a landmark Beaux-Arts building in Midtown. The small, highly curated showcase, now in its second year, positions cool, savvy galleries side by side, presenting fresh, innovative work in a charming, grand setting. Plus, it’s free to attend!
• Tickets: Free. Reserve here.

Quick tip: Still not sure which fair is right for you? Browse the fairs on Artsy ahead of time to get a feel for each. Save your favorite works and follow artists and galleries that catch your eye—it’s a great way to keep track of what you love and revisit it later.

Your Curated Day-by-Day Guide to New York Art Week in May 2025

Before we jump in, a few suggestions (if I may): Most fairs and openings run into the evening, so there’s no need to skip work. And when in doubt, pick a neighborhood, wear real shoes, and don’t try to do it all.

Monday, May 5: The soft launch

The first Monday in May is your chance to ease into the week—or not. If you want to spend your free time glued to Met Gala coverage, I don’t blame you. Most galleries are closed on Mondays anyway, so it’s a perfectly respectable plan. But if you want to get an early start, here’s where to go:

• Amy Sherald at The Whitney Museum: This highly anticipated solo show (which was previously on view at SFMOMA) traces Sherald’s trajectory from well before her celebrated portrait of Michelle Obama to her luminous depictions of Black individuals today.
• Jack Whitten at MoMA: This is a major retrospective of Whitten’s innovative abstractions, experiments with acrylic, and spiritual explorations. Sprawling and moving, it’s an undeniable must-see. To be honest, this is probably my favorite show I’ve seen this year.
• “The Making of Modern Korean Art” at Tina Kim Gallery (Chelsea, 6–8 p.m.): This is a rare Monday night gallery opening—and it’s where I’ll be this evening. The deeply researched show connects four pivotal postwar Korean artists—Kim Whanki, Kim Tschang-Yeul, Park Seo-Bo, and Lee Ufan—through decades of artworks, letters, and archival materials. It promises to be rife with poetic storytelling and masterful paintings.

Tuesday, May 6: Downtown gallery hopping

Most fairs and big gallery openings kick off later in the week. Tuesday’s the perfect day to slow down and explore downtown art neighborhoods. And, if you’re up for it, plan your evening around a stellar Tribeca opening.

Start in the Lower East Side:

• Jose Duran at Hannah Traore: This moving, personal show from the Dominican painter reflects on memory, migration, and cultural storytelling.
• Nancy Graves at Perrotin: This is a dynamic survey of the late American artist’s practice. Abstract works inspired by science, archaeology, and dance all collide here.
• Rowan Renee at island: Photography-based works exploring queer histories, memory, and trauma.

Move north to NoHo:

• Elizabeth Colomba at Venus Over Manhattan: Lush figurative paintings by the Martiniquan reimagine Black historical figures and mythologies.
• Charlie Roberts at Palo Gallery: Roberts’s color-soaked, surrealistic paintings are full of humorous stories and absurdist scenarios.

Swing through Soho:

• Thomas J Price at Hauser & Wirth: Price has become acclaimed for his monumental, supremely elegant figurative sculptures of Black people. Known for showing at museums and in public spaces, the British artist examines representation and power.
• Lexia Hachtmann at YveYANG Gallery: This cool Soho gallery presents the rising German artist’s striking paintings that explore ideas of waiting and suspended time.
• Ludmilla Balkis at Guild Gallery: The gallery of beloved architecture and design studio Roman and Williams, Guild is increasingly known for its ceramics shows, and this presentation of Balkis’s spare, expressive vessels—meditations on mountains and impermanence—is a prime example.

For the evening, I recommend you keep heading downtown for this very exciting opening:

• Toyin Ojih Odutola at Jack Shainman Gallery (Tribeca, Opening 6–8 p.m.): This major solo show features one of today’s leading artists portraying people—in paint, colored pencil, and pastel—to explore personal and historical narratives. The gallery itself, in a former bank building, is stunning to see, and the show brings together works from Odutola’s recent museum shows.

Wednesday, May 7: An Upper East Side moment

Wednesday is a great day to head uptown. If you happen to have the afternoon open, it’s prime time to go to a museum or two. In the evening, you can catch some great Upper East Side gallery openings. One alternative: If you’re staying downtown, NADA opens to the public at 4–7 p.m.

Spend your afternoon at the museums:

• Rashid Johnson at the Guggenheim: Johnson is one of the most talked-about artists of the moment. This major Guggenheim show is an expansive, emotionally charged overview of his career to date, spanning themes of race, class, and identity. Dynamic paintings and sculptures line the museum’s ramps—plus a full-fledged garden hangs from the ceiling.
• The Frick Collection: After five years of renovations, this major collection of Old Master paintings is back in its historic home—refreshed, reinstalled, and more beautiful than ever. On Wednesdays, the museum offers pay-what-you-wish admission from 2 to 6 p.m.

Then hit a couple Upper East Side gallery openings:

• Rosemarie Trockel at Sprüth Magers (Opening 5–7 p.m.): The German artist’s new show features vibrant textile works made with wool and yarn, merging digital and analog processes. (The second part of the show is taking place at Gladstone Gallery in Chelsea.)
• Sanya Kantarovsky at Michael Werner Gallery (Opening 6–8 p.m.): Kantarovsky’s works showcase figures caught mid-drama in lush, painterly scenes that oscillate between humor, intimacy, and emotional unease—part portrait, part theater.

Other Uptown shows to see:

• Ilana Savdie at White Cube: The rising painter’s large-scale works are filled with vibrant, shifting bodies and bold colors, exploring transformation, performance, and the boundaries of identity.
• Yu Nishimura at David Zwirner: The Japanese artist creates dreamy, poetic paintings that portray people, quiet landscapes, and city scenes through soft, meditative brushwork.
• “Picasso: Tête-à-Tête” at Gagosian: This show pairs more than 50 Picasso paintings, sculptures, and works on paper with pieces by contemporary artists, tracing his influence across generations. With many works from Picasso’s estate, and presented in partnership with his daughter Paloma, it’s a rare opportunity to see some rare Picassos.
• “Picasso: Still Life” at Almine Rech: This focused exhibition of Picasso’s still lifes features works created over 60 years, revealing how the artist continuously reinvented the traditional genre.

• Louise Fishman at Van Doren Waxter: Bringing together Fishman’s final body of paintings (she died in 2021), this show is a lovely tribute to the artist’s masterful approach to abstraction.
• “Eduardo’s Birthday Party on Ave. Gabriel” at Fleiss Vallois: Curated by the Colombian, socially engaged painter Oscar Murillo, this group show features works by major artists like Arshile Gorky and Roberto Matta.

Tip: If you have a lot of time, start at the Guggenheim or The Frick, take a coffee break, and then gallery-hop along Madison Avenue. Most of the galleries are clustered within a few blocks.

Thursday, May 8: Chelsea galleries galore

Today’s the real kickoff of fair season—and one of the best gallery opening nights in Chelsea.

Start your day with a fair:

Pick your vibe—maybe NADA, Future Fair, or Frieze (though it’s still a VIP day at Frieze, so tickets will be less pricey on Saturday and Sunday)—then spend a few hours strolling the fair at your pace.

Plot out a gallery crawl through Chelsea in the afternoon:

• Carmen Herrera and Leiko Ikemura at Lisson Gallery: The Herrera show features rare early abstractions from her Paris years (1948–1953), showing her progression into abstraction. Meanwhile, Ikemura’s dreamlike paintings and mythical sculptures next door explore abstraction, myth, and form.
• Thaddeus Mosley at Karma: Thaddeus Mosley is 99, and he’s the visionary behind these towering wood sculptures. Hand-carved from fallen trees, they possess a sense of rhythm that the artist channels from both nature and jazz.
• Willem de Kooning at Gagosian: A rare treat, this show offers a focused look at the lush late paintings from the legendary Abstract Expressionist. Landscape, abstraction, and figures collide in bold color.
• Jaune Quick-to-See Smith at Garth Greenan Gallery: This sharp, layered survey of the recently deceased artist blends Native identity, environmental activism, and pop cultural critique across vibrant, textured canvases.

• Sam Moyer at Sean Kelly Gallery: Stone, concrete, and canvas come together in Sam Moyer’s abstract, architectural sculptures. Sleek and elegant, the works are inspired by memory and place.
• Alicja Kwade at Pace Gallery: Kwade’s new sculptures and mixed-media works play with mirrors, stone, and perception to question the systems—scientific, social, and otherwise—that shape how we see the world.
• Will Cotton at Templon: In these new paintings, Cotton’s candy dream world gets a new protagonist: the mermaid. The artist’s glossy, seductive paintings blend Americana and myth, while examining power dynamics and beauty.
• Theodora Allen and vanessa german at Kasmin: Allen presents pale, luminous paintings rich in symbols, astrology, and mythic landscapes, rendered in soft, restrained palettes. Meanwhile, next door, Kasmin presents german’s dazzling assemblages built from gemstones, glass, and spiritual objects, which offer deeply personal visions of transformation and belief.
• Catherine Opie at Lehmann Maupin: This show presents the pioneering queer photographer’s latest body of work, “Norwegian Mountain” (2023–2024). The series explores the history of blue in art, and the color’s associations with mourning—specifically, mourning amid the climate crisis.

End the night with Chelsea openings (6–8 p.m.) including these stellar shows:

• Michael Armitage at David Zwirner: The Kenyan British artist paints on Lubugo, a traditional Ugandan funerary textile, using it as a backdrop for scenes of migration that feel both deeply personal and globally resonant. This show inaugurates the gallery’s new space on 19th street.
• “Atsuko Tanaka, Yayoi Kusama” at Paula Cooper Gallery: A rare dialogue between two pioneering Japanese artists, this show charts their distinctive, yet parallel, paths. Tanaka’s colorful drawings and watercolors speak to Kusama’s acclaimed “Infinity Nets” paintings. The show charts the distinctive avenue each artist took to push abstraction in radical new directions.
• Igshaan Adams at Casey Kaplan: The South African artist’s lush textile works channel weaving, beading, and embroidery into tapestries of movement, identity, and spirituality.

Tip: If you’re making a full day of it, start with a leisurely fair visit in the morning; have a good lunch; catch some Chelsea galleries midafternoon; then take a break before openings at 6:00 p.m. Make sure your shoes are ready to cover a lot of ground.

Friday, May 9: A Tribeca takeover

Today’s a good day for a fair or two and then an evening of openings. If you want to keep it simple, stick to Tribeca.

5L, 2024
Antonia Showering

Timothy Taylor

Consider starting your art-seeing at a fair:

Independent at Spring Studios offers a calm but focused experience, with over 130 artists in thoughtfully curated booths. You may instead choose to head farther downtown for 1-54; uptown for TEFAF, or to midtown for Esther II.

In the evening, head to Tribeca for Gallery Night (6–8 p.m.):

Head over to the area around Broadway and Walker Street for Tribeca Gallery Night. Nearly every gallery in the neighborhood will be open from 6 to 8 p.m. There’s no shortage of strong shows, but here are a few highlights worth prioritizing:

• Antonia Showering at Timothy Taylor: These lush, emotional figurative paintings are awash in gauzy color fields—sage greens, peachy oranges—exploring family, care, and interior worlds. This marks the Showering’s U.S. debut. If you’re in the area on Thursday evening instead, the gallery is hosting a talk between the artist and art historian Katy Hessel.
• Louise Giovanelli at GRIMM: One of my favorite painters, and a member of The Artsy Vanguard 2021, Giovanelli is a much-loved British artist known for glowing, cinematic paintings that play with light, repetition, and mystery.
• Renée Stout at Marc Straus: The American artist presents mixed-media works that weave together personal mythologies, spirituality, and Black cultural memory.
• Lotus L. Kang at 52 Walker: Kang’s atmospheric, large-scale installations often employ unfixed photographic film and glass. The show is haunting and enigmatic.

• Silvia Heyden at Charles Moffett: The late Swiss-born weaver’s first show in the city brings together vibrant tapestries and drawings that embrace rhythm, color, and lived experience—expanding the expressive possibilities of fiber art.
• Rosana Paulino at Mendes Wood DM: Paulino presents paintings of women and botanicals that merge Black Brazilian narratives with ecological and spiritual symbolism. The show pairs with her striking new mural on the High Line.
• Elena Redmond at DIMIN: A new voice in figurative painting, Redmond creates jewel-toned portraits of women that explore intimacy and voyeurism. At once unsettling and seductive, the works dig into how femininity is performed and perceived.
• Pierre Huyghe at Marian Goodman Gallery: The French conceptual artist presents a mind-bending immersive environment with algorithm-driven images and AI-generated beings.

Tribeca gallery-hopping is easy tonight: no bookings, no RSVPs, just art. Grab a friend, get a drink nearby, and take in the scene.

Saturday & Sunday, May 10–11: Final fairs and a few more shows

The weekend is a good time to catch up on the fairs and any gallery shows mentioned up to this point. To be honest, openings are not the best time to see the art, so a Saturday gallery hop is a good idea. Keep in mind: most galleries aren’t open on Sundays, but several of the fairs are. Here are a few final must-see shows to add to your itinerary—if you’re up for it:

• “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The inspiration behind the Met Gala show, this major new exhibition presented by the Met’s Costume Institute traces 400 years of Black style and representation through fashion, tailoring, and portraiture. The show opens on Saturday and I’d wager that, while crowded, it will be a high note to end the week on.
• Élise Peroi at Carvalho Park: If you’re going to be in Brooklyn on Saturday, I highly recommend a pit stop in East Williamsburg to see this show. Peroi’s ethereal, textile-based works are gorgeous.
• “R U STILL PAINTING???” by FALCON Collective (Midtown): If you’re looking for something a little off the beaten path, this is for you. More than 40 artists have taken over 40,000 square feet of Midtown real estate for a painting survey with a DIY feel. Located at 520 8th Ave, 15th Floor. Book your visit here.

Attention, artists, designers, and creatives! These opportunities offer $500,000+ in funding to support your work.

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