8 Art Exhibitions to See in NYC This September
From Marcel Duchamp’s famous Fountain to Anthony McCall’s light installations, these are the New York shows to catch this September.
Source: Gagosian | Artwork © Association Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 2026 | Photo: Owen Conway
After a few days in Provincetown, where there seems to be a gallery around every corner. You can wander into one between lunch, the beach, and whatever else you planned to do that afternoon. I returned to New York with art still on my mind and started looking through the exhibitions opening in September.
Most of these shows have not opened yet, so consider this a preview rather than a review. The list brings together eight exhibitions based on what galleries have shared so far. Some feature familiar names, while others made the list because of one painting, an unusual material, or an exhibition idea we wanted to know more about.
1. Marcel Duchamp
Source: Gagosian
Where: Gagosian | 980 Madison Avenue at 76th Street, New York
When: April 25–September 26, 2026
Even if Marcel Duchamp’s name is not familiar, you have probably seen Fountain, the urinal, in an art history textbook or somewhere else along the way. Gagosian is showing it with several of his other famous readymades, including Bicycle Wheel, Bottle Rack, Hat Rack, and L.H.O.O.Q., along with Boîte-en-valise, a suitcase filled with miniature versions of his work. These are editions Duchamp made with Italian gallerist Arturo Schwarz in 1964 after many of the originals had been lost or destroyed. They were first shown in America in this same Madison Avenue building in 1965, so their return more than 60 years later brings the story back to where it started.
About the Artist: Duchamp was born in France in 1887 and eventually settled in New York. He was a painter, chess player, writer, and endlessly curious thinker. His readymades changed how artists approached originality and authorship, and his ideas continue to run through Conceptual art and much of what came after it.
2. Yvonne Jacquette: From the Air
Source: Karma
Where: Karma | 549 West 26th Street, New York
When: September 3–October 31, 2026
Yvonne Jacquette is one of the artists on this list whose work I already love. I am drawn to her oil and acrylic paintings, as well as her earlier works made with acrylic on Masonite. From the Air, Karma’s first solo exhibition of her work, brings together paintings and works on paper made between 1971 and 2019. Jacquette painted Manhattan, Maine, fields, highways, clouds, and housing developments from above. She chartered planes, flew in helicopters over Manhattan at night, and drew from the upper floors of the World Trade Center. In her paintings, roads, buildings, and lights become colorful patterns while still looking like places we might recognize.
About the Artist: Jacquette, who lived from 1934 to 2023, spent more than five decades painting elevated views of New York and landscapes across the United States and abroad. Her work is held by MoMA, the Whitney, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Karma will also publish a newly discovered second volume of Aerial, the literary journal she created with poet Edwin Denby.
3. Angelus Novus
Source: GRIMM
Where: GRIMM | 54 White Street, New York
When: September 9–October 31, 2026
What first pulled me into Volker Hüller’s work was the way he builds a picture from fragments. The scenes can feel dreamy and almost mellow, even when something unusual is happening, and I like the balance of color across each painting. Angelus Novus is his first exhibition devoted entirely to figurative work. A fallen stone torso appears across several canvases, surrounded by pilgrims, crowds, and other figures. In another painting, the torso becomes a merman washed up on a beach. There is clearly a story in each picture, but Hüller gives us enough space to imagine parts of it ourselves.
About the Artist: HĂĽller was born in Forchheim, Germany, in 1976 and now lives in Brooklyn. He works across painting, drawing, etching, collage, and sculpture. His work is held by MoMA, the Dallas Museum of Art, Saatchi Gallery, and the Israel Museum.
4. Tauba Auerbach: Zephyr, Zephyr
Source: Paula Cooper Gallery
Where: Paula Cooper Gallery | 521 West 21st Street, New York
When: September 10–October 24, 2026
Paula Cooper’s preview for Zephyr, Zephyr is brief: new Foam paintings, moving sculptures, and sound. But looking through Tauba Auerbach’s previous work gives us some idea of how interesting that combination could be. They have worked with paint, glass, woven beads, books, video, and musical instruments. For Non-Invasive Procedure in 2018, Auerbach used a medical table, light box, lenses, and polarized film to create something that looks part sculpture and part science experiment. I do not know exactly what the new exhibition will look like yet, but that is part of why it is on my list.
About the Artist: Auerbach’s work looks at connections across scales, from microscopic structures to cosmic systems, and often involves tools or processes they developed themselves. They founded Diagonal Press in 2013, and SFMOMA presented a 17-year survey of their practice in 2021.
5. Arlene Shechet: She Said She Said
Source: Pace Gallery | Arlene Shechet with Flo, 2026 | Photography by Cole Wilson
Where: Pace Gallery | 508 and 510 West 25th Street, New York
When: September 11–October 24, 2026
I love Arlene Shechet’s sculptures, especially the way she brings several materials into a single piece. Two earlier works I keep returning to are Summer Crush from 2025, made with glazed ceramic, painted and dyed wood, and steel, and Turn Turn Turn, which adds gold leaf to ceramic, wood, and steel. Her work is expressive and full of details, and it is the kind of thing I look at when I need a fresh idea. For She Said She Said, Shechet is bringing new large-scale aluminum and Cor-Ten steel sculptures to Pace, along with a group of smaller ceramics made using terra sigillata, an ancient method that gives clay a polished surface without glaze.
About the Artist: Shechet lives and works in New York City and the Hudson Valley. She is best known for sculptures that bring ceramic, metal, wood, and other materials together in unstable-looking arrangements. Her work can be found in the collections of the Met, the Whitney, Centre Pompidou, and more than 50 other public institutions.
6. Anthony McCall: Solid Light
Source: Sean Kelly Gallery
Where: Sean Kelly Gallery | 475 Tenth Avenue, New York
When: September 11–October 31, 2026
Anthony McCall is considered one of the most influential artists working with light and moving images, and this exhibition makes it easy to understand why. His 1973 work Line Describing a Cone begins with a projected line that slowly completes a circle over 30 minutes. In a room filled with haze, the beam looks almost solid, and visitors can walk around and through it. Sean Kelly will show it with Skylight from 2020, which pairs light with the sound of an approaching thunderstorm, and Swarm, a new work made from two rotating cones with a soundtrack inspired by drones. The three installations cover more than 50 years of McCall’s work.
About the Artist: Born in Britain in 1946 and based in New York, McCall came out of the avant-garde film scenes of London and New York. His solid-light works sit somewhere between film, sculpture, drawing, and performance. They have been exhibited internationally, and examples belong to MoMA, the Whitney, Tate, and Museo Reina SofĂa.
7. Joseph Yaeger: Agita
Source: Gladstone
Where: Gladstone Gallery | 515 West 24th Street, New York
When: September 16–October 31, 2026
If you like watercolor, Joseph Yaeger’s work offers a very different way of seeing it. His paintings made an immediate impression on me. He works on gessoed linen or cotton and sometimes paints at a very large scale, using photographs and film stills as starting points. The images can look like scenes from a movie you recognize but cannot quite name. Gladstone’s preview of Agita includes Be that as it may, a nearly six-foot-tall watercolor with cloudy layers that make the image seem as if it is coming in and out of focus.
About the Artist: Born in Helena, Montana, in 1986, Yaeger studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Royal College of Art in London. He has had solo exhibitions in London and Shanghai, and his work is held by Kistefos Museum in Norway.
8. Emma McIntyre: This body holds / swamp stuff
Source: David Zwirner | Emma McIntyre, work in progress, 2026 (detail)
Where: David Zwirner | 52 Walker Street, New York
When: September 18–October 24, 2026
What I like about Emma McIntyre’s vivid abstract paintings is that they do not seem too controlled. She pours and combines pigments, then responds to the stains, lines, and other marks that appear. For This body holds / swamp stuff, her third solo exhibition with David Zwirner, she is showing new paintings and works on paper made with oil and unconventional materials such as oxidized iron. The surfaces look as if they are still changing, with colors that seep, float, gather, and dissolve. I also want to see how the smaller works on paper sit next to the paintings.
About the Artist: McIntyre was born in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1990 and studied there before completing a second MFA at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena. She received a Fulbright Graduate Award in 2019 and is a founding board member of the Auckland cooperative gallery Coastal Signs. She lives in Los Angeles.
Gallery dates and hours can change, so check each exhibition page before visiting. For a straightforward Chelsea route, start at Paula Cooper on West 21st Street and work north toward Karma on West 26th.
