Art & Exhibitions

Chelsea is rich with blue-chip shows right now, jewel-box wonders fill Upper East Side townhouses, and Downtown Manhattan teems with emergent names. But if you are seeking truly heady and bizarre art experiences in New York at the moment, and if you have limited time, head to Midtown. On a brief stroll, without spending a dime, and without setting foot in a single museum or commercial gallery, you can savor (1) a formidable corporate curatorial effort, (2) a tantalizing marketing spectacular, and (3) a slow-burning delight that is hidden in a luxury emporium and on offer for just a couple weeks. All three of these displays are thrillingly, brutally of the moment. Let’s take a tour.
JPMorgan Chase’s new home at 270 Park, which was designed by Foster + Partners. Courtesy JPMorgan Chase
1. JPMorgan Chase’s Headquarters at 270 Park Avenue
Start on Park Avenue, between East 47th and 48th Streets. Over the past four years, JPMorgan Chase’s beast of a new headquarters has been rising here, a sleek, impressive, and faintly evil addition to the skyline. Last week, the nation’s largest bank officially moved into the tower, which was designed by Foster + Partners. It cost more than $3 billion to make, has 2.5 million square feet across 60 floors, can hold 10,000 employees, and soars a breathtaking 1,388 feet, making it the sixth-tallest building in the city.
But we are here for the art at street level. The biggest-ticket attraction is a pair of absolutely enormous abstractions by the German grandmaster Gerhard Richter, who is 93 and the subject of an expansive retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. Titled Color Chase One and Color Chase Two, they are “painted works made with interlocking, hard-angled aluminum shapes,” according to press materials. With their peculiarly angled planes of flat color, these hard-edged pieces could be chopped-and-screwed versions of Richter’s redoubtable, rectilinear “Color Charts.” They’re punchy, pleasantly awkward, and ultimately forgettable: perfect corporate-lobby art. The unfathomable cost of these things is at least part of their pleasure. The bank did not reply to a question about what they paid, but to offer a point of comparison: back in 2007, Goldman Sachs forked over $5 million for a Julie Mehretu mural.
Wind Dance by Norman Foster on the mezzanine of the lobby at 270 Park Avenue. Courtesy JPMorgan Chase
There’s also a charming Maya Lin installation that clads one side of the building’s base with stone and a Leo Villareal light show on the building’s crown at night, but the work that steals the show is by Norman Foster himself. Centrally positioned in the capacious lobby, it’s a 3-D–printed bronze flagpole that shoots air from its top, keeping its flag fluttering. This invention is designed to replicate wind conditions outside (very cool), though it’s apparently also configured to never let the flag go limp. The Stars and Stripes hangs on it now now, waving surreally. (It recalls, for me, Pope.L’s massive indoor American flag).
A flag with an endless supply of artificial wind, forever aloft: The metaphors write themselves. Take it as a symbol of an institution too big too fail, a troubled republic pretending that everything is normal, or a company that is proud to know which way the wind is blowing. Either way, it’s deranged, and I love it.
Is that augmented reality or an A.I. creation? Neither. It’s Louis Vuitton’s flagship store on East 57th Street, which is currently undergoing a major renovation. Photo by Andrew Russeth
2. Louis Vuitton’s Under-Renovation Flagship Store
Ten blocks north and one avenue west, another impressive feat awaits. Louis Vuitton’s flagship store at the corner of East 57th Street and Fifth Avenue is undergoing a multi-year renovation, but you will see few indications of construction, save for scaffolding above the sidewalk. The whole structure has been done up to resemble a stack of gargantuan LV trunks, and the verisimilitude astonishes. Even up close, the exterior suggests monogrammed leather. To amplify the illusion, the company’s in-house design team installed 840 large rivets, as well as gleaming clasps and handles that weigh up to 5,000 pounds. It shimmers in the sun, and glows at night, thanks to lights secreted along various edges of the trunks.
An artist acquaintance compared it, admiringly, to the basket-shaped building that was built in 1997 for the now-defunct basket-making Longaberger Company in Newark, Ohio, by NBBJ and Korda Nemeth Engineering, a classic of postmodern architecture. It also vaguely harkens to Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s projects that involved wrapping architecture, turning them temporarily into artworks and obscuring their decorative elements. LV has instead forged a building that is pure decoration, a canny advertisement that demands to be photographed. It’s easy to imagine super-fans of the brand replicating the display on their own homes. Silent and impassive, it’s an irresistible monument to luxury.
Espace Louis Vuitton’s display of two works by Gustave Caillebotte on the fifth floor of Louis Vuitton’s temporary store on East 57th Street. Courtesy Espace Louis Vuitton
3. Gustave Caillebotte at Espace Louis Vuitton
For now, LV’s main shop is a temporary, but still quite impressive, space across the street, designed by the serial museum architect Shohei Shigematsu of OMA (who, like Foster, has gotten into the sculpture game by stacking Louis Vuitton trunks into zigzagging columns that stand more than 50 feet tall). Up on the fifth floor, the luxury giant is, for the first time in New York, staging an exhibition under its Espace Louis Vuitton platform, which regularly does ambitious shows at dedicated venues in Tokyo, Munich, Venice, Beijing, Seoul, and Osaka. This display consists of just two paintings, but what paintings! They are prime pieces by Gustave Caillebotte (1848–94) that, earlier this month, were hanging in a touring Caillebotte survey at the Art Institute of Chicago. They will be here until November 16, and an appointment is required to visit them.
Gustave Caillebotte, Young Man at His Window (1876) at the Espace Louis Vuitton in New York. Courtesy Louis Vuitton
Both pictures focus on solitary men. The Impressionist was only 27 when he painted the earlier one, Young Man at His Window (1876), which is owned by the Getty, and it shows a besuited figure from behind. It’s the artist’s younger brother, René, who died a year later, only 26. He’s high up in an apartment that belonged to the wealthy family, hands in his pockets, gazing down onto a street in the 8th arrondissement that is cloaked in shadow. Dapper and still, he’s a man in control of his destiny, but there is a hint of melancholy, even discomfort, about him. He’s isolated, perhaps yearning for something. That woman walking below? An escape, via that horse-drawn carriage in the distance? He can’t bring himself to move.
Gustave Caillebotte, Boating Party (1877–78) at the Escape Louis Vuitton in New York. Courtesy Louis Vuitton
In contrast, the man in the second picture, Boating Party (1877–78), is pure action. A black top hat is perched atop his head, and he is rowing a small boat down the Yerres River in northern France, where the Caillebottes had a summer home. He’s taken off his jacket and put it on the seat next to him so that he can really go at it. We are sitting across from him, almost uncomfortably close, and can see a pair of boaters that we are about to pass. Tall trees recede into the background. It looks relaxing out there on the water. Until last year, the work was still owned by Caillebotte’s heirs, but the Musée d’Orsay was able to pry it loose thanks to a donation of about $50.5 million from LVMH, Louis Vuitton’s owner. For the next two weeks, though, it belongs to New York.
Seeking more Midtown art action? Here’s another roundup, from 2019. Most of the entries remain on view. More

At your typical fashion show, stone-faced models walk the runway before expressionless designers, buyers, and editors. The night before Halloween, at the SoHo studio of New York designer Stella Ishii, it was a very different scene indeed. As models of varying ages walked a narrow path between rows of seats packed with admirers, there was applause the entire time, and plentiful hooting and hollering. 
This fashion show was different in another way, too: the hip clothing—$50,000 worth of donated designs by Ishii—was decorated by artists from Oakland, California’s venerable Creative Growth Art Center, which has supported artists with disabilities since 1974. (There are now many such studios nationwide, but Creative Growth was the first.) Stylish, one-of-a-kind looks by studio artists such as Casey Byrnes, Maureen Clay, Zina Hall, Dan Miller, Lynn Pisco, Nicole Storm, and many others included paintings of smiling faces and landscapes as well as abstract decorations and patterning, which the models exhibited on the catwalk. Some went with the typical pouty look, but many grinned from ear to ear.
Matilda wears a cardigan by Emma Holbrook and jumpsuit by Brian Nakahara.
Japan-born Ishii heads up fashion agency the News, at whose 3,000-square-foot studio the event took place, and founded the label 6397 (the alphanumeric rendering of the word “news”) after working for Comme des Garçons and introducing brands like Martin Margiela and Vivienne Westwood to U.S. audiences. “The work that comes out of the Creative Growth studio gives me so much joy,” said Ishii in press materials.
“I loved it so much,” said New York designer Colleen Allen, who’s been profiled by W Magazine and Vogue and is a 2025 Forbes 30 Under 30 for art and style, after the runway show. She was positioned, naturally, in the front row. “There was so much energy, and the concept is amazing. I was very impressed.” 
When I told her this was the first runway show I’ve attended, she issued a warning: “This is a high bar.”
A rack of Stella Ishii designs modified by Creative Growth Art Center artists, on view at a fashion show. Photo: Otto Harris.
The crowd also included outsider art devotees like Matthew Higgs, director of New York’s White Columns; Elizabeth Denny, ex-New York dealer and incoming director of the Outsider Art Fair; New York dealer David Fierman, co-founder of the Open Invitational fair, which represents disability studios exclusively, and of the similarly focused gallery Open Studio; and artist and MacArthur “genius” Josiah McElheny. The host committee included Paper magazine co-founder Kim Hastreiter and editors from Purple, Vogue, T: the New York Times Style Magazine, and New York Magazine’s The Cut, all in attendance.
The rousing pop-and-rock soundtrack, meanwhile, was provided by Hop Peternell of Beauty Music, a music studio practice, collaborative recording project, and record label centering the musical practices of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It’s housed at Studio Route 29 in New Jersey.
A visitor checks out the lewks by Creative Growth artists on Stella Ishii’s clothing. Photo: Otto Harris.
The fashion show began 12 years ago, as Creative Growth executive director Sunny A. Smith (tapped for the post in August) told me before things got underway. The studio’s artists were already making clothes, he said, and have great style to begin with. What started as a little runway show at the studio, with the artists modeling their own creations, has become Creative Growth’s largest fundraising event, dependably drawing 1,000 to its annual gala. Currently on view in Oakland is the show “Fashion Is the Sunshine That Spotlights Everyone.” This was the second New York edition of the event.
“When we asked the artist Emma Holbrook how she felt” in the garment she created, Smith told me, “she looked in the mirror and said, ‘I just love myself.’ That goes to the heart of what we do.” The “neuro-expansive” artists the studio supports, he said in remarks before the runway show, offer new ways of seeing and imagining the world.
Kola wears a blazer by Christine Szeto, t-shirt by Isaiah Jackson and jeans by Casey Byrnes. Photo: Otto Harris.
Browsing the racks, I was struck by many inspiring looks, including a pair of jeans decorated with Pokémon characters by Lynn Pisco ($350); a poncho painted with abstract patterns by Maureen Clay ($1,400); an earth-toned necklace by Avery Babon ($125); jeans painted with abstract designs by Barry Reagan ($350) and Stephanie Hill ($650); and an abstract painted blazer and shorts ($1,250) by Isabel Gallegos.
A visitor checks out the styles at the Creative Growth fashion show. Photo: Otto Harris.
Mickey Boardman, Paper’s editorial director and host committee member, served as auctioneer for three of the night’s outfits, all of which sold at prices under $1,000. 
“Those artists are living their best life,” he said of the artists modeling their looks at the Oakland runway shows. “I cry every time.” More

On paper, a description of Nick Cave’s bronze sculpture Amalgam (Origin) (2024) might be interpreted as Lovecraftian horror. A humanoid figure looming 26 feet tall, with skin wrapped in organic patterns and, in place of a head, a spray of logs and branches on which all manner of birds sit perched, preternaturally still. But, standing in its presence, the effect is quite the opposite.
Amalgam (Origin) marks the artist’s first public outdoor sculpture, recently installed at the sweeping 158-acre main campus of the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park and joining the institution’s permanent collection of over 300 sculptures as its largest figurative work. A creative evolution of his iconic “Soundsuits,” the towering bronze figure conveys a powerful sense of calm and solemn composure—an otherworldly sentinel that, through compositional and material weightiness, evokes themes of protection and sanctuary.
“There’s an aura around the piece, a stillness,” said Cave at the unveiling of the sculpture, which is located along the North Path. “You come here, and you just want to be with that stillness. That’s an important moment to me, that it’s relatable and majestic at the same time.”
Nick Cave, Amalgam (Origin) (2024). Photo: Jason Whalen, Fauna Creative. Gift of Fred and Lena Meijer © Nick Cave. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
Soundsuits
The artist’s “Soundsuits” were first made in 1992 in response to the beating of Rodney King by the Los Angeles Police Department; since then, Cave has created more than 500 of the sculptures—elaborate, wearable works of art composed from all manner of materials that, contrary to their dazzling, eye-catching compositions, are ultimately forms of disguise as they obscure the wearer’s identity.
“I was thinking: how do I think about roles of protection?” said Cave. “This idea of pushback, of resistance, and finding ways to be empowered by societal wrongs—how do I stand in that and stand up to that?”
Unlike the “Soundsuits,” which are sewn and constructed with materials like fabric and synthetic hair, Amalgam (Origin) is cast bronze, making it a viable work to show within the context of an outdoor sculpture park. But he said there is a key connection between the series.
“[With Amalgam (Origin)] and with the ‘Soundsuits,’ it’s always been about ways of adorning the body, which for me was about ideas of protection and shielding my identity to some degree, but at the same time being very vulnerable and sensitive.”
Using his own body as well as casts of flowers, birds, and trees, the works suggest a new type of monument—one that isn’t explicitly tied to a specific event or person but is adaptable and can engage with broader thematic issues tied to social issues, responsibility, and resilience.
Amalgam (Origin) debuted earlier this year at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York, in Cave’s solo show “Amalgams and Graphts.” Three of the large-scale bronzes were on view alongside “Graphts,” mixed-media assemblages that feature needlepoint portraits of Cave immersed in arrangements of colorful florals drawn from vintage serving trays. Diverging from the “Soundsuits” and “Amalgams,” both of which obscure the figure’s face and identity, here the artist for the first time reveals himself in the work.
Installation view of “Amalgams and Graphts” (2025). Photo: Dan Bradica Studio. © Nick Cave. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
From Thread to Bronze
While the inspirational and thematic underpinnings of the “Soundsuits” and “Amalgams” in many ways run parallel, their construction reflects material polarities. Sewing is an intimate, often solo method done by hand, but creating bronze sculptures—especially ones at the scale of Cave’s—requires teams.
Early experiments with bronze saw the artist casting various parts of his own body, but for Amalgam (Origin) more advanced tech was called in. Working with outfits in both Chicago and on the East Coast, scans of his body were taken and rendered digitally. For hours a week, Cave worked with team members to refine the final design. From conception to execution, the project took roughly two years.
The ornate floral pattern adorning the figure’s skin was drawn from decorative low wall reliefs like Anaglypta, popular both during the Victorian Era and the 1960s, which were scanned and then arranged on the sculpture’s torso, arms, and legs. The figure’s hands and feet, however, remain realistic and are replicas of the artist’s own body.
Nick Cave, detail of Amalgam (Origin) (2024). Photo: Jason Whalen, Fauna Creative. Gift of Fred and Lena Meijer © Nick Cave. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
The sticks and branches protruding up from the figure’s shoulders were gathered from the area around the foundry where the piece was manufactured, in addition to a few significant logs that were taken from a tree cut down at the School, a Jack Shainman Gallery exhibition space in Kinderhook, New York.
Colloquially referred to by Cave as the “migration hub,” between 40 and 50 birds situated amongst the various branches conspicuously eschew total realism: each has some form of base, indicating they are bird figurines like the kind now frequently found in vintage shops.
“As a kid, these were what was in the china cabinet, and I could only look at and admire them from a distance,” said Cave. “It allows me to go to a place of memory.” The choice also presents a good-natured interplay between high and low art, and hierarchies of value—while these types of porcelain figurines were once prized, today they are often overlooked as the epitome of kitsch. Playful and perhaps even a bit confounding, the birds lend a sense of playfulness and visual accessibility to the work’s overarching themes.
Nick Cave, Amalgam (Origin) (2024). Photo: Jason Whalen, Fauna Creative. Gift of Fred and Lena Meijer © Nick Cave. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
“I think about birds of a feather flock together,” said Cave, “and about ideas of unity and how we can collectively come together as one.”
Outside the White Cube
Unlike traditional indoor gallery spaces, exhibiting work outdoors presents a whole new set of opportunities and considerations, such as the landscaping around the work and the climate of the region.
Vice President of Collections and Curatorial Affairs Suzanne Ramljak noted that while the team had long followed Cave’s work, it wasn’t until they’d learned of his experiments in bronze that the possibility of acquiring his work for the collection became a feasible idea. “[Amalgam (Origin)] is an amalgamation of art, nature, and culture, the three primary foci here at Meijer Gardens, making it the perfect embodiment of what we do here,” said Ramljak. “It really couldn’t be a stronger statement of what we believe in.”
While it will take some time to grow in, Cave worked with a team of Meijer Gardens horticulturists to plan the immediate surroundings of the sculpture. Tall grasses will rise and obscure the plinth on which the figure stands and, woven within a winding path—part paved, part earthen.
“Everything is going to just look wild,” Cave explained. “When you’re coming to the piece from a distance, the figure is going to look as if it’s floating.” And as the seasons change in Michigan, so will the backdrop of the work. “The environment, the setting around the piece is so dynamic. I’m interested to see once all the leaves fall off the trees behind it, how will it step back within the landscape?”
Nick Cave, detail of Amalgam (Origin) (2024). Photo: Jason Whalen, Fauna Creative. Gift of Fred and Lena Meijer © Nick Cave. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.
There is also the possibility of actual birds making their homes in the construction of the sculpture, and only time will tell how the bronze will patina over the years to come.
As his first outdoor work in a sculpture park, Amalgam (Origin) has opened a new horizon of tantalizing exhibition opportunities for the artist. “There are a lot of sculpture parks, and that just opens up this whole other space in terms of presentation.”
Already, Cave is gearing up for his next outdoor public sculpture project, this time at the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden, where he will show a new series of bronze works in 2027 with a whole new set of contextual and environmental concerns.
“I’m just trying to get it out in the world,” he said. “Hopefully it will be not only in sculpture gardens, but also within city halls, campuses, where it becomes more accessible in a different way.” More

The Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown is developing an immersive exhibition with Van Gogh Immersive creator Massimiliano Siccardi, debuting in 2026.
The experience will let visitors explore Leonardo da Vinci’s inventions and artworks through large-scale projections and interactive environments.
Produced by Brett Kerr and Andrea Bari, the project aims to merge art, technology, and storytelling, expanding the possibilities of immersive entertainment.

Dan Brown’s religious thriller The Da Vinci Code is getting the immersive exhibition treatment.
As first reported by the entertainment publication Deadline, Brown has teamed up with Massimiliano Siccardi, the mind behind the wildly successful Van Gogh Immersive experience, which has been staged in cities across Europe, Asia, and the U.S.
“The visceral power of immersive experiences has always fascinated and moved me,” Brown said in a statement. “I’m beyond excited to be developing this project with the legendary artist Massimiliano Siccardi.”
Brown’s bestselling book from 2003 follows Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu who become entangled in a murder investigation at the Louvre that brings them into contact with secret religious societies. The main conspiracy is that the early kings of France were descended from the bloodline of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. In 2008, a film adaptation of the book was released starring Tom Hanks, Audrey Tatou, and Ian McKellen. It grossed $800 million.
Exterior of Immersive Van Gogh at Pier 26. Photo by Ben Davis.
Although details of the venture’s creative partners and opening venues won’t be announced until early 2026, Siccardi has described the scope and intention of the project, calling it “a journey through the mind of Leonardo—his inventions, his obsessions, his brilliance—and the unveiling of Da Vinci works the world has never seen.” Expect to soar above the Tuscan hills in an ornithopter, roll through Paris in an armored tank, and come face-to-face with Leonardo’s mechanical lion, all while solving the greatest of ecclesiastical mysteries.
The Da Vinci Code immersive experience is being backed by U.S. film producers Brett Kerr and Andrea Bari. Kerr’s most recent feature was Waltzing with Brando, a drama starring Billy Zane as Marlon Brando who is trying to build an eco-retreat on an uninhabited island of Tahiti.
“We’re thrilled to help build a bridge between the genius of Da Vinci and the limitless possibilities of immersive art,” Bari and Kerr said in a statement. “This is about expanding how audiences experience wonder — and rewriting the boundaries between art, technology, and emotion.”
It’s not the first time the Renaissance master’s work has fueled an immersive experience. Last year, the Lume, in Melbourne, Australia, staged “Leonardo da Vinci – 500 Years of Genius.” The exhibition, created by the Australia-based entertainment company Grande Experiences, projected some of the artist’s most celebrated paintings, offered the world’s only exact 360-degree replica of Mona Lisa, and presented pages from the Codex Atlanticus, the 12-volume set of drawings and writings by Leonardo that is housed in Milan.
“Leonardo da Vinci – 500 Years of Genius” Installation View. Image courtesy of The Lume.
Fully immersive, multi-sensory experiences have rapidly grown in popularity in recent years, with some citing the appearance of the Immersive Van Gogh in the hit Netflix show Emily in Paris as a breakthrough moment. Investor money has poured in and today artists including David Hockney, Gustav Klimt, and Claude Monet have all seen their work turned into immersive experiences. More

People have believed in ghosts since time immemorial. Our enduring fascination with these spooky spectres has seen them haunt all manner of popular media, from folklore to film, and art. But, trapped between our earthly realm and whatever awaits, ghosts are often felt as an intangible presence. Only sometimes are sightings reported, so how best to represent the supernatural?
Ever inventive, artists have come up with different answers to this conceptual challenge over the centuries. “Ghosts: Visualizing the Supernatural,” a new survey at Kunstmuseum Basel, takes visitors on a 250-year journey from the 19th-century obsession with spiritualism, seance, and the occult, to modern-day apparitions. Among the 160 works and objects on display are conjurings by contemporary artists like Urs Fischer, Ryan Gander, Rachel Whiteread, Erwin Wurm, and Nicole Eisenman.
Erwin Wurm, Yikes (Substitutes) (2024). Photo: Markus Gradwohl. Courtesy of the artist and König Galerie. © 2025 ProLitteris, Zurich.
“Art and new forms of media share an interest in rendering things visible that are on the edges of our perception,” the exhibition’s curator Eva Reifert said. “Dealing with ghosts is an immensely creative undertaking, the imagination is liberated and the what ifs and how take it beyond the limits of materialistic reality.”
Depicting the Imperceptible
One reason for the rich variety of ghosts in art is the tantalizing impossibility of defining these entities. Are they benevolent or malevolent? “The idea that the past lives on is very powerful,” said Reifert, and “the idea that we can’t control [ghosts] appearances is, in turn, a very scary thought.” Their existence may resist and confound scientific rationality, but we can’t look away. After all, ghosts might be “figures of memory, of a person we loved, or, more probably, of violent and wrongful happenings in the past that have come to haunt the present.”
William Blair Bruce, The Phantom Hunter (1888). © Art Gallery of Hamilton.
Inevitably, we are left to wonder whether what we sense is real or a phantom of the imagination. Or, as goes the Emily Dickinson poem quoted in the show’s catalogue: “One need not be a chamber–to be haunted, One need not be a House–, The Brain has Corridors–, surpassing, Material Place–.”
The mystery of in-between beings is well captured by Canadian painter William Blair Bruce’s The Phantom Hunter (1888). A man cowers on a desolate, snowy plain, reaching out towards a strange, semi-translucent figure. “Is it the soul that leaves the body of the dying hunter?” Reifert asked. “Is it the phantom that leaves no traces in the snow but induces a ‘fear-chill like a shroud’?”
Meret Oppenheim, Ghost with Sheet (Spectre au drap), 1962. Courtesy of Kunstmuseum Lichtenstein, Vaduz. © 2025, ProLitteris, Zurich.
A filmy, loosely-rendered form is one way of evoking the “shift in atmosphere” associated with an invisible being. Another option is the loose white sheet, suggestive of a presence, or absence, beneath. The origins of this method can be traced back to the simple burial practice of wrapping the dead in a sheet in place of a coffin. “Many other aspects of ghostly appearances seem to be tied to the emergence of new media, like projection technologies or photography,” said Reifert. These can be used to “play with the theme of transparency, of blurred outlines, double or long exposure to indicate that the ghost is not fully of this world.”
Gillian Wearing, Me as a Ghost (2015). Courtesy of the Royal Academy of Arts, London © The artist and the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Limited.
Spiritualism and Spectacle
In challenging religion, the Enlightenment of the 18th century had promised a rational, controllable world, but one that paranormal activity threatened to upend. After all, novel uses of electricity began to power seemingly magical technologies, like the telegraph or the telephone, such that invisible forces suddenly felt real. In the late 19th century, many became fixated on the possibility of transcendence, whether by seeking channels of communication with new realms or probing inwards, toward previously unexplored layers of the psyche. No doubt, the spectacle and illusion of popular seances helped feed this appetite.
The medium Eva C. (aka Marthe Béraud) with a slipper-like teleplastic form on her head and a luminous apparition between her hands. © Institute for Border Areas of Psychology and Mental Hygiene, Freiburg im Breisgau.
Several mediums with a special “gift” were also artists, including Madge Gill, Augustin Lesage, and Georgiana Houghton, whose works are included in the Basel show. They saw themselves not as authors in the traditional sense but as being conducted by a higher power. Therefore, an intuitive “automatic” process was used by Houghton to produce her intricate, semi-abstracted spirit drawings. Though her aims were distinct from the modernists that would come later, many of her achievements appear to pre-empt their work.
Georgiana Houghton, The Spiritual Crown of Annie Mary Howitt Watts (1867). Photo: © Collection of Vivienne Roberts, London.
By the 20th-century, however, the avant-garde had inevitably put their own spin on the spiritual. Ghosts became “free-ranging agents of the irrational” and “metaphors for psychological extremes like trauma, anxiety or grief,” Reifert said. For the Surrealists, they were an avenue into the unconscious, appearing in the work of artists like Max Ernst, a pioneer of automatic painting techniques, and René Magritte.
René Magritte, The Comical Spirit (1928). Photo: Jochen Littkemann, Berlin, courtesy Sammlung Ulla und Heiner Pietzsch, Berlin © 2025, ProLitteris, Zurich.
“Ghosts: Visualizing the Supernatural” is on view through March 8, 2026 at Kunstmuseum Basel. More

Even though art world sensation Matthew Wong tragically took his own life six years ago, the young painter evidently still has surprises in store. The Matthew Wong Foundation, based in Edmonton, Canada, is organizing an exhibition of Wong’s lesser-known physical and psychological interiors at the Palazzo Tiepolo Passi in Venice, next May through November, concurrent with the 61st Venice Biennale.
“Matthew Wong: Interiors” will feature 35 previously unseen or rarely seen paintings and works on paper created from 2015 to 2019, during the height of Wong’s painting career. The show is curated by John Cheim, the co-founder of New York gallery Cheim and Read who mentored Wong early in his meteoric rise. Art historian and curator Nancy Spector will write the catalog.
“Deepening the public’s understanding of Matthew’s history and artistic output is one of the overarching goals of this exhibition,” Cheim told me over email. “There is still much to learn and discover about Matthew’s work and this important presentation will provide a more meaningful exploration of his life, his struggles, his influences, and ultimately, his contribution to the art-historical canon.”
Matthew Wong, Untitled (2016) Photo courtesy of the Matthew Wong Foundation © 2025 Matthew Wong Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photography by Alex Yudzon.
Wong’s entrance into that canon was rather unconventional. He was born in Toronto in 1984, but his family moved to Hong Kong when he was seven. They returned to Toronto eight years later, partially to secure better treatment for Wong’s Tourette’s syndrome, autism, and depression. After studying anthropology at the University of Michigan and photography at the City University of Hong Kong School of Creative Media, Wong famously started teaching himself how to paint in libraries and online in 2012.
In 2016, renowned curator Matthew Higgs gave Wong his big break, including him in a group show that Karma opened in Amagansett over Labor Day weekend. The following year, Karma sold one of his canvases to the Dallas Museum of Art during the Dallas Art Fair. In 2018, Wong’s debut New York solo show with Karma elicited rave reviews. The museum shows that have transpired since his death have earned similar acclaim.
“Many of Wong’s interiors have been exhibited in the past but they have never been isolated as a subject,” Cheim noted over email. “Wong has largely been associated with lush imaginary landscapes.” Meanwhile, the works slated to appear in “Matthew Wong: Interiors”, he said, “present a more isolated psychological view suggesting social struggle and sexual longing.”
Matthew Wong, Untitled (2016) Photo courtesy of the Matthew Wong Foundation © 2025 Matthew Wong Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photography by Alex Yudzon.
Indeed, Untitled (2016) depicts hands viscerally grasping towards a portal (seemingly a window, evoking Rothko’s color fields) that is otherwise shrouded in unyielding black. These interiors aren’t totally claustrophobic—many have escape hatches, whether windows out on the world, or doorways leaking promising light. A silhouetted figure stares over another such threshold in a different untitled work from 2016, perhaps watching someone wash up, or trying to remember why they walked over to that room in the first place. These works are ripe for sparking further contemplation of Wong’s inner landscape.
“Matthew Wong: Interiors” is the first exhibition organized by the Matthew Wong Foundation, which just christened its headquarters this Fall. In addition to housing the artist’s archive, fostering scholarship, and hosting an artist residency, the Foundation primarily aims to spark new awareness and appreciation for Wong’s work. Venice proves a fitting first venue. According to Wong’s mother, who chairs the Foundation’s board, Wong served as docent in the Hong Kong Pavilion at the 54th Biennale, in 2011, just before trying to paint for himself.
“Matthew Wong: Interiors” is on view at Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, San Polo 2774, Venice, Italy, May 9–November 1, 2026. More

From rediscovered Old Masters to living legends, Europe’s cultural capitals are bursting with blockbuster exhibitions this fall. Florence is celebrating its native son Fra Angelico while the Flemish Baroque painter Michaelina Wautier receives an overdue survey in Vienna. Milan is mounting the first major show to consider Nan Goldin as a filmmaker and, in Paris, the chameleonic Gerhard Richter is the subject of a sweeping survey just in time for Art Basel Paris.
Plus, it wouldn’t be spooky season without a touch of the supernatural, which the Kunstmuseum Basel serves in spades with a haunting show about ghosts. Here are our top picks of museum shows to see across the continent.
“Fra Angelico” at Palazzo Strozzi and Museo di San Marco, FlorenceThrough January 25, 2026
Fra Angelico, The Annunciation (c. 1440–1445). Image courtesy Museo di San Marco, Florence.
Where better to pay homage to the Dominican friar-turned-early Renaissance marvel Fra Angelico than in the city where he made his name? The devout painter’s serene, elegantly proportioned frescoes that depict classic religious scenes were originally intended for the contemplation of his fellow monks or wealthy patrons. Nearly six centuries later, they are world-famous masterpieces, celebrated for ushering in a new, transformative era of art-making in Western Europe.
Palazzo Strozzi’s once-in-a-lifetime blockbuster, the first major exhibition in Florence dedicated to Fra Angelico, contains more than 140 artworks. Many of these paintings, sculptures, drawings, and illuminated manuscripts have been loaned from 70 of the top institutions across the world. The exhibition is something of a citywide event, being jointly organized by the nearby Museo di San Marco, formerly the medieval Dominican convent where Fra Angelico lived. There, he painted frescoes to decorate the friars’ tiny cells as well as one of his best-known works, The Annunciation (c. 1440–1445). Other treats on a special trail that runs in and around the city include a recently restored Crucifixion fresco in a remote church in the hilltop town of Fiesole.
—Jo Lawson-Tancred

“Ghosts. Visualizing the Supernatural” at Kunstmuseum BaselThrough March 8, 2026
Gillian Wearing, Me as a Ghost (2015). Courtesy of the Royal Academy of Arts, London. © The artist and the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Limited.
Trick or treat? Just in time for Halloween, this spooky show brings together 160 works spanning 250 years to trace how spirits and the supernatural have inspired generations of artists, from historical figures like Eugène Delacroix, Marcel Duchamp, and Max Ernst to contemporary makers such as Glenn Ligon, Gillian Wearing, and Rosemarie Trockel. Blending science, spiritualism, and popular culture, the exhibition explores how ghosts have served as eerie mediators between life and death, the visible and the invisible, while constantly haunting the edges of our collective imagination.
Not going to make it to Basel? At least take a moment to appreciate the website for the exhibition, which turns your mouse cursor into a ghoul floating around your screen.
—Margaret Carrigan

“Radical Harmony: Neo-Impressionists” at the National Gallery, LondonThrough February 8, 2026
Georges Seurat, Le Chahut (1888–89). Photo: © Collection Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands.
In the late 19th century, a cohort of artists took the once-radical ideas of the Impressionists and innovated upon them, departing from their easy spontaneity to think more deeply about how the viewer perceives paint on canvas. The discoveries of the so-called Neo-Impressionists would become a vital reference for many leading modernists, including Henri Matisse, Wassily Kandinsky, and Piet Mondrian. A trove of their placid, pleasing masterpieces—predominantly made by Pointillist painters like Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, among lesser-known but important figures—is currently on display at the National Gallery in London. The standout is no doubt Seurat‘s notorious and, to this day, still surprising Le Chahut, an ambiguous but lively image of Parisian nightlife that has never previously been shown in the U.K.
The collection was amassed by one of the most notable women art patrons in history, Hélène Kröller-Müller, whose collection usually resides in an eponymous museum built on her former estate in the Netherlands. Widely credited as one of the first art collectors to seriously appreciate the talents of Vincent van Gogh, Radical Harmony also celebrates her discerning eye and lasting legacy.
—J.L-T.

Gerhard Richter at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, ParisOctober 17, 2025–March 2, 2026
Gerhard Richter, Gudrun (1987). Courtesy of Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris. © Gerhard Richter 2025.
One of the most influential painters alive, Gerhard Richter has spent six decades defying categorization—and this sweeping retrospective aims to capture that restless spirit. Curated by former director of Kunst Museum Winterthur, Dieter Schwarz, and Sir Nicholas Serota, previously the director of Tate, the show brings together 270 works spanning Richter’s vast range of styles, from photo-based realism to luminous abstraction. Key loans from major institutions, alongside highlights from the Fondation’s own collection, offer an unprecedented look at the artist’s chameleonic career, era by era. It’s a must-see survey of a master who’s always refused to stand still.
—M.C.

“Michaelina Wautier” at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, ViennaThrough February 22, 2026
Michaelina Wautier, Self-portrait (ca. 1650). Photo: © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
As the craze for rediscovering long-overlooked women artists who found widespread acclaim in their day shows no signs of slowing, the Kunsthistorisches Museum has planned a tribute to the Flemish Baroque painter Michaelina Wautier. Active in Belgium in the 17th century, Wautier was largely forgotten because many of her paintings were wrongly attributed to male artists, including her brother Charles. Even her self-portrait was once attributed to the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. These errors have only been corrected in recent decades, and Wautier only got her first major museum show at Rubens House in Antwerp in 2017.
The few historical women painters who made it in a deeply patriarchal art world often were pushed towards softer subjects, like still life or genre painting, but Wautier confidently produced sizeable history paintings. Many of these ambitious, masterful canvases were collected by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, who bequeathed them to the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Experts tend to agree that Wautier‘s greatest masterpiece is the magnificent The Triumph of Bacchus (1650–56), which she painted in her mid-forties. It will take pride of place in this triumphant exhibition, which will tour to the Royal Academy in London in 2026.
—J.L-T.

Nan Goldin, “This Will Not End Well” at Pirelli HangarBicocca, MilanOctober 11, 2025–February 15, 2026
Nan Goldin, The paw, eclipse from You Never Did Anything Wrong (2024). © Nan Goldin.Courtesy of Gagosian.
This is Nan Goldin’s first major exhibition devoted to her filmmaking, and it features her iconic slideshows reimagined as immersive installations. The show spans six major works, including her magnum opus The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1981–2022); Memory Lost (2019–21), which highlights the agony of addiction and withdrawal; and The Other Side (1992–2021), a collective portrait of her trans friends whom she photographed between 1972 and 2010. Two new works, You Never Did Anything Wrong and Stendhal Syndrome, will also premiere, alongside a new sound installation. All of these are housed in architect Hala Wardé’s custom-built pavilions, creating intimate viewing spaces within the museum. It’s a raw, poetic, and deeply personal journey through memory, trauma, and intimacy, with a touch of Goldin‘s signature wry humor.
—M.C.

“Christian Marclay: The Clock” at Neue Nationalgalerie, BerlinNovember 29, 2025–January 18, 2026
Christian Marclay, The Clock (2010). © Christian Marclay. Photo: Ben Westoby, © White Cube.
Since winning the prestigious Golden Lion award at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011, Christian Marclay‘s The Clock (2010) has been touring major institutions across the globe, including MoMA, Tate Modern, and the Centre Pompidou. This fall, it comes to Berlin for the very first time.
Notoriously long, the looped 24-hour video work takes viewers on a journey through the history of cinema by stitching together clips featuring clocks or watches from a century of film into one rolling montage. The mammoth endeavor took some three years to make with the help of a research team and the support of White Cube. In each location, the film correlates to local time so that, as time passes, the subjects’ activities roughly correlate with those expected in a typical day. The video’s vast scope, which encompasses blockbusters and lesser-known pieces, drawing from a wide range of genres from thrillers to westerns, makes for a surprisingly exhilarating watch, and is a moving testament to the many expanding avenues of human creativity.
—J.L-T.
Jacques Louis-David at Louvre Museum, ParisOctober 15–January 26, 2026
Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the Horatii (1784-85). Photo: Michel Urtado, © GrandPalaisRmn (Musée du Louvre).
Our understanding of several key moments in French history has been formed through the lens of Jacques-Louis David, no matter how idealized his Neoclassical masterpieces may be. Though initially embraced by the ancien régime, the illustrious painter made his name in the late 18th century as a dedicated revolutionary who captured its triumphs, as in the Tennis Court Oath (1789), as well as its tranquilly rendered tragedies, like the Death of Marat (1793). By the early 19th century, he had instead become a prominent propagandist for Napoleon Bonaparte, valorizing the emperor with majestic portraits like Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass (1800–05). Where better, then, to celebrate David‘s achievements on the bicentenary of his death, in 1825, than in the very heart of Paris?
It is little surprise that some of the best paintings on view already belong to the Louvre, but visitors can still anticipate a whopping 100 loans. Among the star attractions is the original Death of Marat, which arrives from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels, and Death of Socrates (1787) from the Met. An unfinished Oath of the Tennis Court painting has also been temporarily retrieved from long-term loan at the Palace of Versailles.
—J.L-T. More

Rembrandt is best known for his shadowy paintings. His 1642 canvas The Night Watch is a masterclass in dynamic composition, while the self-portraits he made throughout his life chart his aging likeness alongside his developing aesthetic. Yet it’s the artist’s smaller scale, black-and white etchings that highlight the exactitude of Rembrandt’s visions, and reveal how he constructed shadow, mark by individual mark. 
For the first time, a trove of the artist’s etchings are going on view in the United States, in a traveling showcase organized by the American Federation of Arts (AFA) and Amsterdam’s Rembrandt House Museum. Emphasizing the Dutch master’s groundbreaking printmaking process, “Rembrandt: Masterpieces in Black and White—Prints from the Rembrandt House Museum” has opened at Charleston’s Gibbes Museum of Art with works that encourage slow looking in the age of the quick digital scroll.
Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, Wearing a Flat Cap (c. 1642). Photo courtesy of Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam.
“While we expect many visitors to the exhibition to arrive with some degree of familiarity with Rembrandt,” H. Alexander Rich, president and CEO of the Gibbes Museum, said in a statement, “the show—with its focus on his etchings—offers fresh, unexpected, and exciting insight into aspects of Rembrandt’s life, career, and creative output that we may think about less often.”
Etching was a relatively new form of printmaking in Rembrandt’s time. The process required the artist to draw on wax applied atop copper plates, drop them in acid, coat them in ink, then press them to paper on which the print would appear. He often combined the technique with drypoint, working directly on the metal and forgoing the acid step in order to create softer lines. The artist’s commingling of the forms produced marks that were both durable and delicate, a contrast that paralleled Rembrandt’s handling of shadow and light.
Rembrandt van Rijn, View of Haarlem and Bloemendaal (1651). Photo courtesy of Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam.
The etchings on view in “Masterpieces in Black and White” range in subject matter from self-portraits to Biblical studies and bucolic Dutch landscapes that contributed to what Rich called “that now-collective vision of the Netherlands.”
Rembrandt’s 1641 print Windmill, for example, features the titular apparatus in precise detail. The artist captured every bar on the sails’ lattice framework, every rung on the ladders leading up to the entryways. Dense crosshatchings place one side of the windmill in deep shadow, and two dark windows look like architectural eyes; under Rembrandt’s hand, the windmill becomes anthropomorphized, given as much personality as any of his self-portraits. Exhibition curator Epco Runia, head of collections at the Rembrandt House Museum, noted in press materials how “each of Rembrandt’s prints is a work of art in its own right.”
Rembrandt van Rijn, The Windmill (1641). Photo courtsy of Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam.
The exhibition includes other objects and artworks to allow for greater scrutiny and deeper context. Two copperplates appear alongside the etchings they helped produce. Magnifying glasses are available “for audiences to study each and every etched mark and decision Rembrandt made to produce these prints,” Rich said. Fourteen works by 19th- and 20th-century artists, including Pablo Picasso and James McNeil Whistler, suggest Rembrandt’s crucial influence on later generations. 
Towards the end of his life, according to the exhibition brochure, Rembrandt “began experimenting with freer lines and dark shadows on different types of paper, and explored working the plates extensively to create night scenes.” The artist, then, approached darkness and finality with the same open, omnivorous spirit and capacity for metaphor that characterize his entire oeuvre. As the artist’s body declined, etching preserved every last trace. 
Rembrandt van Rijn, A Scholar in His Study (“Faust”) (1652). Photo courtesy of Rembrandt House Museum, Amsterdam.
The show marks the Rembrandt House Museum’s first collaboration with both the AFA and the Gibbes Museum of Art. Following its stop in Charleston, the exhibition is set to travel to the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati, Ohio, in February 2026, then the Naples Art Institute in Florida in October 2026.
The AFA’s partnerships with these museums, the organization’s director and CEO Pauline Forlenza said in a statement, “will allow us to bring these momentous etchings out of the Netherlands for the first time as a collection, for the benefit of audiences in the United States so that they can experience Rembrandt’s work directly.”
“Rembrandt: Masterpieces in Black and White—Prints from the Rembrandt House Museum” is on view at the Gibbes Museum of Art, 135 Meeting St, Charleston, South Carolina, October 24, 2025–January 11, 2026. More