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All the art exhibits coming to NYC's Guggenheim Museum in 2025

Including a powerful Faith Ringgold quilt, a poetic rotunda takeover and art by local kids.

Rossilynne Skena Culgan
Things to Do Editor
The exterior of The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Photograph: By Roy Harris/Shutterstock
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With its stunning Frank Lloyd Wright design, the Guggenheim Museum is a piece of art in itself. Inside these rounded walls, you’ll find floor upon floor of artistic treasures. The modern and contemporary art museum just announced its list of 2025 exhibitions, and it’s a packed slate, so get ready to mark your calendar. 

In the year ahead, expect to see abstract paintings, a poetic rotunda takeover, an important quilt by Faith Ringgold, works by an understudied German modernist, pieces by local kids, and more. Plus, keep scrolling to see what's on view right now.

RECOMMENDED: The best museum exhibitions in NYC right now

Beatriz Milhazes: Rigor and Beauty

March 7–September 7, 2025

Get up-close with a cool art technique called "monotransfer" during this showcase of work by global contemporary artist Beatriz Milhazes. During the monotransfer process, Milhazes paints forms onto clear plastic sheets. Once dry, she layers and adheres the painted films to the canvas one by one, building up an abstract composition. 

Milhazes' works draw upon motifs such as regional folklore, popular culture, decorative arts, nature, and spirituality. In "Rigor and Beauty," see 15 paintings and works on paper that engage with her Brazilian cultural heritage and identity through the language of abstraction. 

The ceiling of the Guggenheim museum.
Photograph: By ItzaVU / Shutterstock

Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers

April 18, 2025–January 18, 2026

The museum's rotunda will become a canvas for Rashid Johnson in this major solo show. In addition to taking over the iconic site, an outdoor sculpture will also be part of the show. Themes include social alienation, rebirth, and escapism, and offer a loose chronology of Johnson's artistic evolution over the course of 25 years.

"A Poem for Deep Thinkers" will be the largest exhibition of the American artist's work. The exhibit takes its name from a poem by Amiri Baraka, an American poet, writer, teacher, and political activist whose work is a frequent source of inspiration for Johnson. Expect to see nearly 90 artworks, including film and video. 

“Through this multidisciplinary approach, Johnson has developed a distinct visual language that engages with the central themes, questions, and aesthetics of the contemporary era, such as race, masculinity, and the conditions of art-making when conventions around medium and meaning have been exploded,” per the museum’s announcement. 

A Year with Children 2025

May 9–June 15, 2025

Young artists—very young artists, to be clear—get top billing in this show. "A Year with Children" features work by students in grades two through six as part of Learning Through Art, the Guggenheim’s artist-in-residence program in New York City public schools. This program partners artists with teachers in local schools to foster curiosity and critical thinking. 

Faith Ringgold

May 9–September 7, 2025

In Faith Ringgold's monumental narrative quilts, you'll go on a journey with a young girl who soars from her Harlem rooftop, celebrating her own freedom and self-possession. The Guggenheim exhibit will spotlight the first in the series of five quilts, titled "Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach." It's one of the most important works by the renowned artist, writer, and activist.

The show will delve into Ringgold's artistic influences and the lasting impact she has had on generations of artists. Also expect to see pieces by European modernists such as Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso, who directly inspired Ringgold, and contemporary American artists such as Tschabalala Self and Sanford Biggers, whose work reflects her legacy.

On End

July 25, 2025–January 2027

A tall, vertical sculpture isn't just a monolith. Instead, this exhibition examines how artists in the postwar period have reimagined the simple abstract parameters of the monolith, infusing it with material experimentation, emotional content, and cultural critique.

Drawing from the museum's permanent collection, "On End" will feature sculptural works by artists including Constantin Brancusi and Alberto Giacometti.  

The inside of the Guggenheim Museum.
Photograph: By Xackery Irving / Shutterstock

The Elizabeth R. and Michael M. Rea Collection

September 26, 2025–March 15, 2026

Longtime collectors Elizabeth R. and Michael M. Rea have built a collection centered on many of the preeminent artists of the twentieth century. For this new show, see 30 pieces from their collection, which includes canvases by Jacob Lawrence, Ad Reinhardt, and Anne Truitt, as well as works on paper by artists like Alberto Giacometti, Roy Lichtenstein, and Yves Tanguy. 

Gabriele Münter: Into Deep Waters

November 7, 2025–April 26, 2026

You may have never heard her name, but the pioneering German artist Gabriele Münter (1877-1962) was a critical figure in the advancement of modernism in Europe in the early twentieth century. At the time, German public art academies excluded women, so she forged her own path to an artistic education, eventually positioning herself at the forefront of experimental activity centered in Munich and nearby Murnau am Staffelsee.

The landmark exhibition will feature 60 paintings and more than a dozen of her early photographs displayed across three galleries, all set to illuminate Münter’s understudied practice and challenge accepted historical narratives that have sidelined women artists.

With her bold planes of vibrant colors, Münter reimagined the traditional genres of still life, landscape, and portraiture and presented an alternative to concurrent innovations in radical abstraction. The artist later explained, "When I begin to paint, it’s like leaping suddenly into deep waters, and I never know beforehand whether I will be able to swim." 

On view now

  • Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910–1930
    Through March 9, 2025
  • Piet Mondrian: Ever further
    Through April 20, 2025
  • By Way Of: Material and Motion in the Guggenheim Collection
    Through June 8, 2025

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