The city spent last week drowning in openings, fairs, and retrospectives, and the weather finally did everyone a favor by forcing a pause. A nor’easter hit New York, and the resulting deluge washed away the fog of Armory Week, leaving behind a clearer picture of what actually mattered. The irony is that the storm itself was miserable — wet sneakers and all — but it gave critics a chance to process what they’d seen. Now the dust has settled, and the week’s best exhibitions, documentaries, and labor news are worth revisiting.
Jafa’s Retrospective at the New Museum
Arthur Jafa’s survey I Am Tony at the New Museum is the largest exhibition of his work to date. It occupies two levels of the Lower Manhattan institution, and it’s densely packed with work that goes beyond video art, which is what made Jafa one of America’s most important living artists in the first place.
Stephanie Wambugu, author of Lonely Crowds (2025), reviewed the show and identified a trail of prescriptive esotericism running between the art, its curation, and its title. She sees the retrospective as a continuation of the themes Jafa has mined throughout his career, but pushed into even more idiosyncratic and brash territory. The show covers the history of Black music, religion and secularity, American cinema, political violence, popular culture, and the Internet.
Wambugu notes that the ambitions are achieved with mixed results. The show is full of the artist’s characteristic gallows humor, which irons even the most morbid images into something that brings out the solemnity of low culture. It’s a dense, ambitious exhibition, and it doesn’t always land.
Simon’s Spiral at the Guggenheim
Over on Museum Mile, Aruna D’Souza took her magnifying glass to Taryn Simon’s spiral of connective curiosity around the Guggenheim’s rotunda in Father Country I Do Love You. D’Souza’s review focuses on the sheer accumulation of material for viewers to sort out themselves. The spectacle is the accumulation itself — we ooh and aah over the artist’s unflagging curiosity, her ingenuity in making links and tracking down documents and evidence and witnesses.
But D’Souza raises a question that hangs over the entire exhibition: what exactly do we come away with? The show offers some really good anecdotes, stories that seem too crazy to be true, and a sense of how the tentacles of power extend into our lives in unexpected ways. But she also admits coming away with a sense of helplessness.
Margolles at MoMA PS1
Across the river, Alex Santana questioned the aesthetic power of distilled violence in Teresa Margolles’s solo exhibition at MoMA PS1. Santana’s review explores how Margolles presents violence as a formal concern, and he asks whether that presentation holds up as an aesthetic achievement.
The show is a critical examination of how violence is rendered visually, and Santana’s review considers whether the distillation of violence into aesthetic objects actually works.
Activism at the Museum of the City of New York
For those who prefer tangible experiences, the Museum of the City of New York has a new permanent exhibition devoted to the anatomy of activism through 250 years of history and ephemera of organizing in the Big Apple. The exhibition is a deep dive into the mechanics of social change, and it’s a reminder that activism has a long, rich history in the city.
Tarot at the Morgan Library
The esoterically minded have one more chance to see the Morgan Library & Museum’s massive tarot exhibition. There are only five days left of the show, and it’s worth catching before it closes.
Whitney and Brooklyn Staff Push for Fair Contracts
Amid the buzz of art fairs and exhibition openings, NYC’s cultural labor force is seizing the opportunity to advocate for fair contracts. Unionized staff at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the American Folk Art Museum are pushing for better terms.
Unionized staff at the latter two institutions are deliberating on tentative agreements proposed in the last few days. The Whitney union set October 5 as its strike deadline. The push comes at a moment when the industry is grappling with the cost of living, the value of creative work, and the conditions under which cultural workers operate.
The negotiations are ongoing, and the deadline looms. The strike could happen, but the details of what a fair contract would look like remain unclear.
John Wilson’s Documentary
In a lighter note, the writer had the pleasure of watching John Wilson’s debut feature documentary, The History of Concrete (2026), with a friend. The screening was at 9:15 pm, which was a mistake, but the film delivered anyway.
Wilson’s exploration of lateral thinking is radical, and the writer argues that his humor profile rivals that of the first three seasons of SpongeBob. It’s a funny comparison, and it suggests that Wilson’s approach to concrete is playful rather than dry.
The documentary is a debut feature, and it’s being released as part of a wave of new work that’s exploring the built environment. It’s a fresh take on a familiar subject, and it seems to be doing something interesting with it.
The Week’s Buzz
The Armory Show seemed quiet and downcast this year, according to Hakim Bishara. The financial sector trade show on the floor below seemed like a riot in comparison. That’s a telling contrast — the art fair was subdued, while the business show was bustling.
Rhea Nayyar covered the Spring Break Art Show, which tackles life’s crushing burdens through politics and current events. Valentina Di Liscia wrote about Independent 20th Century, noting that the Breuer Building has been turned into an art mall. Aaron Short reported that collectors at the Armory Show seemed unconcerned about wars or inflation, with the mood almost too serene. Lakshmi Rivera Amin covered the New York Art Book Fair, where overlooked, subversive, and playful currents of politics and queer culture flowed freely.
The coverage spans galleries, fairs, and museums, and it captures the range of activity that defines a week in New York’s cultural calendar. The city moves fast, and the coverage tries to keep up.
Key Facts Box
- Jafa’s survey: I Am Tony at the New Museum
- Simon’s show: Father Country I Do Love You at the Guggenheim
- Margolles’s exhibition: At MoMA PS1
- Whitney strike deadline: October 5
- Tarot exhibition: Only five days left at the Morgan Library
- Concrete documentary: The History of Concrete (2026)
The week was a whirlwind, and the storm gave everyone a chance to catch their breath.
Source material: “A Stormy Week of Art in NYC,” Hyperallergic.
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