Hundreds of Greenpoint artists will throw open their studios this weekend, May 30 and 31, for the 2026 edition of Greenpoint Open Studios, the neighborhood’s annual self-guided art crawl. The organizers, who describe Greenpoint Open Studios as a sponsored project of the nonprofit arts service organization Fractured Atlas, announced the dates and said volunteer and artist-signup details would follow, urging participants to follow the group on Instagram for updates. The free weekend is the most accessible entry point into a spring and early-summer arts season that has filled galleries across Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan with new openings, fair debuts and a marquee museum retrospective.
The weekend also coincides with a new arrival in Bushwick. ALIUME Art Management said Brooklyn-based artist Alex Aliume is opening ALIUME Art Gallery at 41 Porter Ave., near the Morgan Avenue L stop, with a grand-opening weekend running May 28 through 30. According to the management, the space features more than 35 original works that transform under visible light, ultraviolet light and phosphorescent afterglow to create a glow-in-the-dark immersive environment, and it marks Aliume’s first dedicated public gallery after more than eight years of full-time studio practice. The publicist noted that Gothamist published a feature on Aliume’s work, headlined “A one-man psychedelic art empire thrives in Brooklyn,” about two months earlier, and offered Bushwick Daily a private press viewing.
In nearby East Williamsburg, the Bushwick-area gallery Synesthesia, at 43 Porter Ave., ran a compressed run of programming through May. The gallery presented “Regenerated,” a solo exhibition the gallery said gathered a decade of work by New York artist Seungjin Lee across painting, drawing and performance, with an opening reception May 7 and a live performance by the artist; Synesthesia described the show as an exploration of daily life “shaped and disturbed by digital technology,” from AI-generated imagery to algorithmic feeds. The gallery followed it with “Timelines,” a solo show opening May 16 by Robb Kramer, whom the gallery described as an abstract expressionist painter and figurative sculptor of more than 30 years who worked as lead sculptor and set designer on the Oscar-nominated stop-motion film “Coraline.” In his statement, Kramer said his goal is “to create paintings that act as a portal, allowing the viewer to enter into a new world, akin to a psychedelic journey.”
Gowanus and the surrounding industrial blocks of Brooklyn remained a hub for fairs and project spaces. Powerhouse Arts announced the return of the Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair, which it said would take place April 9 through 12 at its fabrication facility in Gowanus, billing the event as the borough’s first and only fair dedicated exclusively to fine-art printmaking. The organizers said the second edition drew an international roster of more than 50 print-focused galleries, self-representing artists and academic print departments, with new exhibitors including 10 Grand Press, Caira Art Editions, Mixit Print Studio, Mullowney Printing Company and Petzel Gallery, and an expanded slate of university print programs. Ann Shafer of Fine Art Baltimore said in the announcement that organizers “were humbled to see the turnout and the energy of the fair’s inaugural edition last spring,” adding that “strong attendance and enthusiastic sales affirmed the demand for a forum that brings together so many voices from across the print community.”
Court Tree Collective, at 51 35th St. in Sunset Park, ran one of the busiest schedules of any single space. The gallery opened “Tough Luck,” a series of paintings by MR KAVES, on February 7, describing the body of work as rooted in a childhood memory of the children’s book “Fortunately” by Remy Charlip and as a deconstruction of moments from the artist’s “A Brooklyn Dream” and “The Brooklyn Pop.” It followed with “Petal To The Metal,” which the gallery called the debut solo exhibition of self-taught New York mixed-media artist Jasper Stieve, opening March 7 and built from found objects and airbrush work that the gallery said often invites physical interaction. Court Tree also unveiled a new gallery mural by Long Beach, California, illustrator Van Eggers; returned to the New York Outsider Art Fair March 19 through 22 in Booth C15 with a roster including Stieve, Yool Kim, Mary Limonade and others; and opened “Time Isn’t After Us,” the debut solo show of abstract painter John Vitale, on May 2, a run the gallery later said would continue through June 6.
Tappeto Volante, which spent five years operating in Brooklyn’s Gowanus area, used the season to announce a major expansion. The gallery, founded by Paola Gallio, said it would open a new Manhattan space at 4 Cortlandt Alley in Tribeca, shared with the West Coast–based Oolong Gallery making its New York debut and situated on the lower level of Shrine Gallery, while continuing to operate in Brooklyn alongside Field of Play Gallery. The Tribeca space inaugurated May 15 with “Luci Spente” (Lights Off), which the gallery called the first New York solo exhibition by Italian-born, Brooklyn-based, self-taught artist Angelo Vasta, whose large-scale works on paper the gallery said explore intimacy, vulnerability and the queer experience through a cinematic sensibility drawn from his background as a dance filmmaker. The run capped a busy stretch for the gallery that included its two-person show “Ice Pops Forever,” pairing the late photographer Meredith Allen with painter Carol Saft, which the gallery said was reviewed by The Brooklyn Rail and extended through February 7; a January 17 artist talk between Saft and painter Katherine Bradford; the fifth edition of its annual group exhibition “La Banda,” opening February 10 with works by 37 artists; a solo booth by Keiko Narahashi at NADA New York, May 13 through 17; Kate Bancroft’s solo show “Crying In The Mirror” in Brooklyn, which closed May 10; and a Bascha Mon solo show, “Mindscapes,” opening May 17 at the Hunterdon Art Museum in New Jersey.
Several Brooklyn institutions tied their shows to the borough’s cultural histories. Haiti Cultural Exchange, at 35 Lafayette Ave., presented “JAKMÈL | The Unveiling of Kanaval,” an exhibition the organization said examines the historical, artistic and cultural significance of Jacmel’s Carnival in Haiti through visual art, mixed media and storytelling, on view February 12 through March 29 and curated by HCX fellow Yvena Despagne and Executive Director Régine M. Roumain. Roumain said in the announcement that she was “excited to welcome Yvena Despagne as our HCX inaugural curatorial fellow” to “shine a bright light on the various aspects of Jacmel Carnival.” The youth public-art organization Groundswell, based at 540 President St., marked its 30th anniversary with a celebration it scheduled for May 7 at Penthouse 45, selling tickets and soliciting donations through its mailing list.
Brooklyn’s civic spaces hosted art as well. Chief Judge Margo K. Brodie announced the opening of “Reflections on Progress — Courting Challenges,” a curated exhibition of work by the New York Society of Women Artists at the Charles P. Sifton Gallery inside the Brooklyn federal courthouse at 225 Cadman Plaza East, with a reception March 25. NYSWA President Lori Horowitz said the show would present 39 contemporary works across painting, sculpture, installation and mixed media addressing human rights, environmental stewardship and social justice, calling it an example of “the enduring capacity of art to confront complexity, inspire dialogue, and envision progress.”
Smaller Brooklyn galleries filled out the calendar with idiosyncratic solo shows. Lisa Levy Industries said the Dog House Gallery at 137 Montrose Ave., inside the Brooklyn Comedy Collective, presented Jennifer Dalton’s “Not Sorry,” a series translating illustrated quotations from celebrity public apologies into “cute artisanal signs,” and that it postponed the opening reception to February 6 “in solidarity with the Nationwide Shutdown.” The Brooklyn nonprofit print space Print Center New York opened “Felipe Baeza: Anima” on February 5, calling it the first monographic institutional exhibition in New York to survey the artist’s practice, with more than 40 works on view through May 23 in its Jordan Schnitzer Gallery and a slate of talks, tours and workshops.
The Williamsburg gallery Transmitter ran back-to-back exhibitions on weekend-only hours. It presented “Softer Than Stone,” paintings by Jillian Verzino on view March 14 through April 19 that the gallery said draw on the pietra dura inlay work of Catholic churches near the artist’s family roots in Benevento, Italy. It followed with “BAD CARE,” a site-specific show of sculpture, installation and video by Anna Ting Möller on view May 2 through May 30, which the gallery said takes its title from the Swedish word for bathtub and centers a hanging sculpture, “In Tandem,” skinned in living SCOBY kombucha culture to probe caregiving, reproduction and the labor of maintaining the self.
Lower Manhattan’s galleries clustered openings through the spring. Marc Straus, with spaces at 299 Grand St. and 57 Walker St., announced that Swivel founder Graham Wilson had joined the gallery and opened his first show there, “Intro,” a group exhibition of new artists, on March 19, alongside a show by Monika Michalko across the building’s four floors. The gallery went on to open new work by Lucia Hierro and Alexander Tinei, with “Moving Day” and “Thirty Pieces of Sun” debuting May 8 at 299 Grand St., and a solo show of new paintings by Paul Pretzer opening May 15 at 57 Walker St. Amos Eno Gallery, the nonprofit artist-run gallery at 191 Henry St. on the Lower East Side, opened Matt Greco’s “More Cave Painting” on February 12; “Nishiki Sugawara-Beda: Scale and Tonality,” large-scale sumi-ink paintings inspired by Palo Duro Canyon, with a March 20 reception and an April 9 evening of Japanese art and music; and a solo show by José-Ricardo Presman, whom the gallery identified as a founding member from its 1974 origins, opening May 1 alongside the group show “In Translation.”
Other downtown spaces leaned into single-artist statements. The Locker Room, at 253 Church St. in Tribeca, hosted NADA Ceramics, a curated showcase of more than 40 artists and studios, March 6 through 8; opened “A Hard & Soft Poem For The Night” by Argentine artist Syd Krochmalny on March 10; and presented “Little Birds and Our Daily Prayers,” a 13-artist group show co-curated with Cameron Barker on view May 7 through June 28 that the gallery said reclaims the Yiddish word “faygeleh” and frames queerness “not merely identity but essence,” with a season of programming including a May 14 artist panel and a June 28 Pride closing. Theta, on the Lower East Side, opened Molly Rose Lieberman’s second solo show with the gallery, “The candle is on the table,” on May 15, timed to the launch of the artist’s first monograph, “A landscape shredded,” co-published by Theta and 5b, Glasgow. FROSCH&CO, at 34 E. Broadway, opened “over, under, sideways, down,” the fifth solo show by Dennis Dawson, on March 12, presenting collage-driven works the gallery said evolved over 15 to 20 years. Ramiken, at 389 Grand St., opened the first New York exhibition of paintings by the late Greek artist Grigoris Semitecolo on March 4, focusing on landscapes made between 1991 and 2003 and curated by Stamatia Dimitrakopoulos. Templon presented Iván Navarro in its New York space from February 5 through March 21.
Uptown and at the museums, the season’s largest draw was at the Museum of Modern Art, which told members it was opening a sweeping retrospective of Marcel Duchamp, with member previews running April 9 through 11. The museum said the show traces a six-decade career in which Duchamp “challenged the very definition of the artwork, ushering in a new era of creative license and reshaping the course of modern art.” On the Upper East Side, Helicline Fine Art exhibited for the second time at The American Art Fair, held May 16 through 19 at Bohemian National Hall at 321 E. 73rd St. The gallery, founded in 2008 by Keith Sherman and Roy Goldberg and focused on American and European modernism of the Works Progress Administration era, said it would show works spanning the 20th century by artists including Thomas Hart Benton, Stuart Davis, Ralph Fasanella and William Zorach, along with pieces from its roughly 1,000-piece collection of art and objects from the 1939 World’s Fair.
