New York Autumn 2026: MoMA, New Museum, MoMA PS1, Met and Grey Art Museum Open Major Shows

Key facts

• MoMA's 'Architects of Liberation: Modernism in Western Africa' runs until 2 January 2027 and is the first major museum exhibition on post-liberation West African architecture.
• The MoMA show features 400 objects from Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon, made between the 1960s and early 80s, most shown publicly for the first time.
• The New Museum's 'Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony' runs 25 September–5 January 2027 and is Jafa's first US museum survey, spanning nearly 40 years of his work.
• Jafa's exhibition includes 'Love Is the Message, The Message is Death' (2016) and the Golden Lion-winning 'The White Album' (2019), plus a newly commissioned work.
• MoMA PS1 presents 'Teresa Margolles: En el lugar de los hechos (At the Scene)' from 24 September to February 2027, featuring 22 tons of pulverised materials from an abandoned Ciudad Juárez home.
• A new Margolles work with water from scenes of violence dripping onto seven heated steel plates will be at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art's first Orientalism exhibition, 'Orientalism: Between Fact and Fantasy', runs until 28 February 2027 with 180 objects from 12 curatorial departments.
• The Grey Art Museum shows 'By Alison Knowles: A Retrospective (1960-2022)' until 30 January 2027, organised by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.