The Must-See Art Shows and Exhibitions of 2026

Twenty-twenty-six is shaping up to be a big year for those who like their art with a side of pop culture. Many of the world’s major museums and galleries are banking on big names for their first shows. Take David Zwirner New York, which invites you to drive away the winter blues with the help of Dan Flavin’s fluorescent grid sculptures lighting up the gallery for the first few weeks of 2026. In London, Tate Modern showcases stunning Tracey Emin work that And Just Like That... fans might recognize, while the V&A is going all in on Schiaparelli. Finally, the National Gallery of Iceland is celebrating Björk’s upcoming album with a three-work installation from the artist (plus an accompanying show from her frequent collaborator). Whether you’re fashion, music, or TV-minded, there’s something for you this winter—but that’s just the beginning of the ever-growing art calendar. More will come both in the U.S. and abroad, so if you’re planning some cultural stops for your next trip or just looking to see what’s on view in your neighborhood, consider this your all-encompassing guide to the can’t-miss art shows of the year.

Beginnings: The Story of Creation in the Middle Ages at The Getty Center

The Biblical narrative of creation is explored in a modern context in Beginnings: The Story of Creation in the Middle Ages. Paintings by American artist Harmonia Rosales are shown in dialogue with transcripts from the Getty’s collection, situating her work within the world of visual storytelling and placing her paintings in direct conversation with medieval representations of creation. Rosales has long been known to draw on artistic methods from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, combining them with African diasporic histories. She continues this practice with Beginnings by contributing a contemporary perspective shaped by West African spiritual traditions, adding to the ongoing conversation around creation. In addition to previous work, including Portrait of Eve (2021), Beginnings will feature a new piece, created in response to the significant illuminated manuscript, Stammheim Missal.

Beginnings: The Story of Creation in the Middle Ages is on view at the Getty Center in Los Angeles from January 27 to April 19.

Leonard Baby at Half Gallery

Leonard Baby’s new show may have a quirky title, but don’t be fooled. Resting Babyface features work from the New York-based artist, which he created during a period of profound sadness. As a result, the paintings on display encapsulate the essence of vulnerability and the complexities of personal experience. This is nothing new for Baby, who often draws on his past and emotions in his work, transforming trauma into acts of resilience and self-acceptance. In Resting Babyface, Baby turns the focus to two very vulnerable settings: the bedroom and a therapist’s office. With this new set of work, Baby explores themes of aftermath and introspection, using the paintings as personal confessionals meant to leave viewers in a state of discomfort and ambiguity.

Resting Babyface is on view at Villa Carlotta in Los Angeles from February 26 to March 11.

Say It Loud: AAMARP, 1977 to Now at ICA Boston

This February, the ICA Boston turns its attention to an artist-led institution that has shaped the fabric of New England’s art community since 1977. Founded by Dana C. Chandler Jr., the African American Master Artists-in-Residence Program (AAMARP) is one of the longest-running Black artist residency programs. Therefore, its story resonates not just on a local level but a national and international one. AAMARP’s influence can be felt far beyond Boston through its alumni network of artists, educators, and organizers. Conceived originally as a Black artist-led exhibition space, AAMARP evolved into a living ecosystem: part studio collective, part political area, and part cultural refuge, where new modes of working could take root even as institutional support shifted around it.

As the first exhibition devoted to AAMARP’s far-reaching legacy, it was essential for Mannion Family Curator Jeffrey De Blois to spend lots of time with members past and present. Developed in close dialogue with the founder Chandler before his passing in 2025, the show arrives less like a retrospective and more as a constellation of practices whose collective energy points outward. At the exhibition, the story of AAMARP’s community-driven approach is told through the work of five decades of participants. There are some folks you know. The rest are discoveries. Rather than closing a chapter, the exhibition feels like an opening gesture. —Kat Herriman

Ming Smith: Jazz Requiem–Notations in Blue at the Portland Museum of Art

This new exhibition from photographer Ming Smith traces an artistic journey shaped by movement, experimentation, and freedom. The Detroit-born artist came of age at a time when Europe offered Black artists greater opportunity and receptivity. Smith’s travels abroad, specifically in the 1970s in Paris, proved formative; there, she encountered the evocative work of photographers like Brassaï and Henri Cartier-Bresson while developing a visual language of her own. This exhibition reflects on how those early experiences continue to inform Smith’s practice, highlighting photographs—many of which have been printed for the first time—that capture fleeting moments infused with rhythm, intuition, and motion. Smith’s work resists photography’s long-standing impulse to define, document, or objectify Black subjects. Rooted in the core principles of the Black Arts Movement, her photographs expand the medium beyond realism, often confronting and subverting the gaze itself. Her signature use of blur and abstraction is both poetic and political, mimicking the improvisational spirit of jazz while responding to the ways Black Americans are rendered simultaneously invisible and hypervisible. A pioneer for Black women in photography, Smith’s legacy lies in her innovation, her fearless experimentation, and her unwavering commitment to capturing the depth and richness of Black life. —Che Baez

Ming Smith: Jazz Requiem–Notations in Blue is on view at the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine from February 6th to June 7th 2026.

Max Jahn at Gratin

For the German artist Max Jahn, frames are just as important as the imagery inside of them. As part of his practice, Jahn painstakingly chooses each border for his painted works from his father’s antique shop. They are personal to him—as personal as the colorful portraits he creates, which will be on view in the new show, Time Spent Looking. The exhibition features both portraiture (like Self With Fan, a painting in which Jahn is depicted coyly holding a floral accordion fan to his face) and still life. Jahn paints what he knows; his subjects often come from within his social circle. His relationships with them—and by extension, his depictions of them—are shaped by time and prolonged observation. He paints his sitters for an hour at a time over the course of a week, in varying lights for each session. But his work in self-portraiture arguably features his most familiar subject of all.

Hailing from Berlin and growing up in the aftermath of German reunification in the ’90s, Jahn was raised with the ghosts of a different era. He spent time at his father’s antique store on Motzstrasse, in the heart of the Schöneberg neighborhood, where painters and poets ruled before the Second World War. Otto Dix, the Dutch Masters he studied at school, Balthus, and more combine to create Jahn’s own signature style, now on display in his first solo show in New York.

Time Spent Looking runs from January 29 to Match 2026 at Gratin New York.

Samora Pinderhughes at MoMA

Multidisciplinary artist and composer Samora Pinderhughes centers his work on one urgent question: “What if we built a world around healing rather than punishment?” In Call and Response, a new exhibition at MoMA on view through February 15, 2026, Pinderhughes beckons audiences to ponder this inquiry alongside him. The show comprises two core components including a two-channel film created with Christian Padron, REAL TALK, which examines the impact of absence on families whose loved ones are incarcerated. It also features a series of performances and programming developed in collaboration with community organizations in New York City.

With Call and Response, Pinderhughes considers how narratives of criminalization are applied to groups of people to justify violence against them. “As a country, we’re willing to allow basically anything to happen if there’s this illusion that it will protect us from [who]ever is deemed criminal,” the artist said. The show is part of his stint as the 2025 Adobe Creative Resident at MoMA, and builds upon his work as a creator of The Healing Project, a community arts organization founded in the spirit of prison abolition. It also underscores Pinderhughes’s commitment to unearthing how art, particularly collective sonic practices, might contribute to collective healing and liberation. —Daria S. Harper

Sterling Ruby at Sprüth Magers New York

Sterling Ruby is an artist who, over the years, has become larger than life, a boldfaced name in both the art and fashion worlds. His work, moving across sculpture, textile, ceramics and video, explores themes of violence and the impacts of social norms while remaining autobiographical. His fashion line, S.R. Studio L.A.C.A., echoes his love of craft and feels very much due after years of lending inspiration for designers like his close friend Raf Simons. On January 30, the Los Angeles-based multihyphenate will present his first solo show in several years, running until March 28. Ruby’s new work, titled Atropa for the nightshade herb known for its deadly quality, is inspired by the duality of the deeply poisonous yet medicinal plant and the mythology that surrounds it. The Greeks associated the genus with the cutter of the thread of life. Ruby uses it as a launch pad for stirring watercolor collages, bronze flowers, and graphite pen-and-ink studies that switch between decay and vibrant bloom. As in all of Ruby’s work, material exploration is at the heart of the show. So are themes of mortality. An as usual, the exhibition is not to be missed. —Ashley Simpson

Catherine Opie at the National Portrait Gallery London

The American photographer Catherine Opie broke into art-world fame with portraiture of her early ’90s queer family, often friends from the Los Angeles S/M scene captured in the style of Baroque paintings. Early self-portraits, Self-Portrait/Cutting and Self-Potrait/Pervert display incredible tenderness, giving viewers the opportunity to lay down assumptions and connect with Opie’s community with equal depth. Over three decades later, the seminal artist will present the first major museum exhibition of her work in the U.K. at The National Portrait Gallery, from March 5 to May 31. Catherine Opie: To Be Seen will explore intimacy, home, and family—the personal and the political—through the photographer’s images of these communities, surfers, high school footballers, and more. Opie is directly involved in the curation of the show, which will speak in dialogue with the permanent collection of the museum. —A.S.

Marguerite Humeau at White Cube Gallery

The French multidisciplinary artist Marguerite Humeau is known for reimagining and creating extinct worlds. One extensive land art project saw mystics and scientists lending expertise as Humeau brought to life 84 sculptures that could survive the climate apocalypse on land deemed unfarmable. Another gave Cleopatra a reborn voice as she sang in the nine extinct languages she was recorded to know. Now, Humeau will open a solo show for the first time at White Cube’s New York gallery. Open from January 16 to February 21, the exhibition blends stalactite-like and bat-shaped sculptures with works on paper, all inspired by a trip to a bat cave in West Papua. As in the case of previous work, the cave is not just a cave, but rather a metaphor for the unknown and the unnamable. Pastel drawings mimic prehistoric cave drawings. Stalagmite and stalactite sculptures help us navigate our precarious environment. The pieces reference John Koenig’s The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows (2021): can Humeau’s sculptures give emotion to words we have yet to invent? Her new work certainly makes us feel. —A.S.

Björk at the National Gallery of Iceland

The public will experience a different side of the perennial musical enigma Björk when she returns to her native Iceland to stage a new art exhibition at the country’s National Gallery. Echolalia, as the show is called, is comprised of three immersive installations, the first of which will provide the public with a peek into the artist’s upcoming album. The two other works, Ancestress and Sorrowful Soil, both honor Björk’s mother, environmental activist Hildur Rúna Hauksdóttir, who passed away in 2018. While these pieces were originally released with Björk’s 2022 album, Fossora, their presentation at the museum will allow for a more theatrical experience. Ancestress, specifically, features a film set in a remote valley in Iceland where a ritualistic procession is taking place. Björk and her son, Sindri Eldon, star—with contributions from filmmaker Andrew Thomas Huang and James Merry, Björk’s co–creative director and the designer of the masks and ritual objects worn in the video.

Those especially interested in Merry’s work will have the opportunity to stop by his show, Metamorphlings, running simultaneously with Echolalia at the National Gallery. The first museum retrospective of Merry’s work, Metamorphlings features 80 pieces offering a look into his artistic output over the last decade. Heavily focused on the mask, the exhibition showcases Merry’s craftsmanship while exploring the piece as a catalyst for performance and transformation. Using embroidery, metalwork, 3-D printing, and jewelry, Merry has created masks for Tilda Swinton and Iris Van Herpen; they will be on display together for the first time.

Echolalia runs from May 30 to September 19, 2026, while Metamorphlings runs from May 30 to October 3, 2026.

Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum

The V&A is staging a century-spanning exhibition on Schiaparelli, marking the first time the fashion house will be the sole subject of a museum show in the U.K. Opening March 28, Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art will trace the brand from its birth in the 1920s to the present day, exploring Elsa Schiaparelli, the woman, as well as her role as an innovator and key figure in interwar fashion. The exhibition will follow Schiaparelli around the world, from Paris to New York and London, with a focus on the latter—specifically, Schiaparelli’s British clients and the founder’s relationship with the city.

Over 200 objects will make up the exhibition, including archival garments, accessories, jewelry, paintings, photographs, sculpture, furniture, and perfumes. Some of Schiaparelli’s most unique designs—including the “Tears” dress and the famous upside-down shoe hat—will be on display, placed alongside art by her contemporaries like Pablo Picasso and Man Ray. The V&A worked with Schiaparelli and the fashion house’s current creative director, Daniel Roseberry, whose designs will also be featured.

Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art will run through November 8, 2026.

Tracey Emin at Tate Modern

Those who sit in small Venn diagram of And Just Like That... viewers and fine art lovers were likely horrified to see Tracey Emin’s seminal work imitated, and then tossed aside in the Sex and the City reboot’s final season. Luckily, Tate Modern is stepping in to provide Dame Emin with deserved credit, by mounting an expansive exhibition tracing four decades of the artist’s work—showcasing her most influential pieces alongside those that have never been exhibited until now. Through painting, video, textiles, neons, writing, sculpture, and installation, Emin has long challenged society’s view of the female body, as well as the line between public and personal. She did this most notably with her 1998 piece, My Bed, using the conversation that sparked around this controversial piece to further challenge the definition of art at the turn of the 21st century. At Tate Modern, My Bed and more work will be on display in a celebration of Emin’s raw and personal approach to artistic expression.

Tracey Emin runs at Tate Modern from February 27 to August 31, 2026.

Dan Flavin at David Zwirner

Dan Flavin’s grids take center stage for the first time at David Zwirner New York, in a new exhibition that explores the matrix-like vertical artist’s body of work, which first gained prominence in the mid 1970s. Like much of Flavin’s fluorescent lamp-based pieces, the grids simultaneously highlight and redefine every space in which they’re installed. This latest exhibition features Flavin’s first two grids: untitled (for Mary Ann and Hal with fondest regards) 1 and 2. Both created in 1976, they will be installed at Zwirner identically to their debut at the Otis Art Institute Gallery, Los Angeles, where they sat kitty-corner to one another in a single room. Other pieces, including four-foot creations like untitled (for you, Leo, in long respect and affection) 3 and 4, illustrate Flavin’s exploration of scale within the format. They are contrasted by untitled (in honor of Leo at the 30th anniversary of his gallery), which spans 24 feet. Flavin’s dedications within the work provide a second narrative to the exhibition, one that follows the many people who helped support the artist’s career. Former gallery director of the Otis Art Institute Gallery, Hal Glicksman (and his wife Mary Ann), plus his longtime New York dealer Leo Castelli are just some of the figures represented through this set of work.

Dan Flavin’s Grids will run from January 15 to February 21, 2026, at David Zwirner New York.

Gloria Klein at Anat Ebgi

Gloria Klein, a contemporary artist known for her bold, expressive work, is championed in a new lively exhibition of paintings, and her first solo show, at Anat Ebgi in New York. Featuring works from the late 1980s and early ’90s, the exhibition immerses viewers in Klein’s hypnotic, repeated diagonal hatch marks that stack and shimmer across the canvas. While her work nods to Minimalism and Conceptual art, it is joyfully rooted in the Pattern & Decoration movement and the feminist embrace of so-called “women’s work,” transforming repetition, ornament, and labor into something bold and eye-catching. Klein’s stitch-like marks echo the crowded streets of New York, visual noise, and the early digital pulses of the 1980s. Visually addictive and intellectually playful, Crisis Management is an irresistible invitation to step into Klein’s radiant world, and the feminist spirit that animates it, up close.

Gloria Klein: Crisis Management is on view at Anat Ebgi through February 28, 2026.