Top New York Exhibitions: Chase Hall, Ed Ruscha, and More

While visiting the vibrant Armory Show in New York this September, be sure to explore concurrent exhibitions at iconic venues throughout the city, such as The Whitney, Brooklyn Museum, and more.

September 5 — October 14, 2023
Following a dynamic solo show at the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia this year, titled “The Close of Day,” multi-disciplinary artist Chase Hall presents a new series of paintings at David Kordansky Gallery this September. “The Bathers” is a sumptuous exhibition which marries Hall’s renowned use of provocative materials—cotton and coffee—with an equally meaningful narrative of Black empowerment and inclusion. Placing Black and Brown bathers beside the renewing ocean, in both warm and tense moments of connection with friends and precious aquatic life, Hall juxtaposes personal experiences accessing nature throughout America with powerful interrogations of race, class, and art history.

September 10, 2023 — January 13, 2024
Presented in partnership with MoMa and LACMA, “ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN” is the largest career retrospective of the pioneering artist Ed Ruscha to date, as well as his monumental first solo show at MoMa. In the dynamic style of the artist himself, and with his visionary leadership, the exhibition displays over 200 pieces created from 1958 to the present. A myriad of media—from drawings, to paintings, to photography—immerse visitors in the artist’s perceptive interpretations of post-war America with riveting attention to color, design, and our evolving cultural complexities. Running alongside the exhibition, an engrossing lineup of public programs, including conversations with industry figureheads, and restored films by Ruscha from the 1970s, pay homage to the mesmerizing oeuvre of a contemporary legend.

July 14 — October 29, 2023
Brooklyn-based artist Ilana Savdie’s latest series of black-and-white drawings and paintings was created chiefly for her sweeping exhibition at The Whitney Museum. In swirling, abstract forms, colors, and textures, the artist journeys through pop culture, folklore, and the human body with deft use of wit and imagination. In Savdie’s hypnotic paintings, neon hues ebb and flow in profound allusion to the fluidity of identity and power structures. Inspired by the metamorphic scenes of Francisco de Goya, with a crystallized focus on the predatory biological world, the artist skillfully utilizes acrylic, oil, and beeswax to illuminate the depths of our desires, impulses, and paradoxical realities.

June 23 — October 23, 2023
Treasures from Brooklyn Museum’s Arts of Africa collection are united with masterful garments, visual artworks, and photography in the comprehensive “Africa Fashion” exhibition, currently on view through October 23. The first of its kind in subject and scale, the themed show is an immersive presentation of over 300 works, including sketches, textiles, films, and catwalk footage, celebrating the monumental influence of fashion in Africa’s independence era through today. Spearheaded by Ernestine White-Mifetu, Sills Foundation Curator of African Art, and Annissa Malvoisin, Bard Graduate Center / Brooklyn Museum Postdoctoral Fellow in the Arts of Africa, categories such as Cultural Renaissance, Politics and Poetics of Cloth, Vanguard, and Cutting Edge invite visitors to witness historical moments of protest and radical transformation marked by fashion. Through the Photographer’s Lens reveals the dynamism of photography and film for unseen artists and subjects, and Global Africa celebrates the international imprint of African talent and ingenuity. ALÁRA, the Lagos-based luxury concept boutique, joins the exhibition at the Museum to offer a stunning array of evolving trunk shows by designers based in Africa and the diaspora.

September 8 — October 14, 2023
On September 8, Gagosian presents a riveting show of paintings, sculptures, and newly unveiled Blur paintings by the late artist Ashley Bickerton, on view through October 14 at 522 West 21st Street. In an exhibition orchestrated by Bickerton in Spring of 2022, abstract works entrance and transport audiences, layering questions of contemporary value and familial memory. From a starting point of Neo-conceptualism, through an avant-garde period influenced by the artist’s relocation to Bali, Bickerton’s final works culminate in a sweeping and emotional artistic vision; the unforgettable painting Sena, Cherry and Kinez (2022) is a soft-focus meditation on love, family, and legacy.