6 Under-the-Radar Art Shows to See in New York Right Now

As the city prepares for the art world to descend around a burst of art fairs next month, New York is abloom with new gallery and museum shows. Here are six under-the-radar highlights from the many presentations on view right now—as well as three shows we’re looking forward to. Lotus Kang, “Already,” at 52 Walker “Already” (through June 7) is the absorbing first solo presentation at 52 Walker of Canadian-born, New York–based artist Lotus L.

Kang. Her installation of long, wide sheets of light-sensitive film, draped from the ceiling and eventually bearing traces of sunlight and heat, was one of the highlights of last year’s Whitney Biennial, part of her ongoing investigations into impermanence, inheritance, memory, and time. A few of those panels can be found in this show, but the centerpiece is two greenhouses, which she often uses (outdoors) to expose the photographic film.

They prompted a consideration of the kinds of artificial spaces that typically facilitate organic growth and transformation and are permeable and absorptive, like a body. You can’t enter the greenhouses, but peek around and you’ll see Kang’s signature aluminum- and bronze-cast food objects (anchovies and lotus tubers here), styrofoam pear holders, soju bottles, gingko leaves, and larger-than-life cast-aluminum kelp knots. Claudia Alarcón and Silät at James Cohan Upstairs at 52 Walker is the first solo New York exhibition of Silät, a collective of 100 women weavers from the Indigenous Wichí communities in Argentina led by artist Claudia Alarcón, on view at James Cohan through May 10.

Weaving with hand-spun fibers from the local chaguar plant has been a communal, female-led activity for centuries. Their enchanting, colorful works, some of which were included in last year’s Venice Biennale , are often made with the yica stitch common in Wichí weaving that produces a meshlike weave similar to a spiderweb. It’s also used to make yicas, or everyday crossbody bags, and this show features a staggering wall 100 of them, representing each of the women in the collective.

The rest of the exhibition comprises new works exploring celestial themes, which is particularly apt given one of the community’s myths: that women used to live in the sky as stars and would travel down to earth on woven chaguar ropes to dine on fishermen’s catch. After the fisherman trapped them on earth, they continued to weave and pass the knowledge to their daughters. Kim Yun Shin, “Divide Two Divide One,” at Lehmann Maupin Eighty-nine-year-old pioneering Korean artist Kim Yun Shin’s first major solo exhibition at Lehmann Maupin (through May 31) follows a breakthrough 2024 for the artist.

Last year a group of Kim’s stone and wood sculptures was included in the Venice Biennale and she joined Lehmann Maupin’s roster, marking her first time being represented by a commercial gallery in her nearly seven-decade career blending sculpture, painting, and philosophy. As one of South Korea’s first female sculptors to receive formal training, she has influenced generations of artists through her innovative use of materials and conceptual rigor, and continues to actively paint and wield a chainsaw to craft deeply meditative wood sculptures. This show is a mini survey of work from 1980 to the present, including paintings and sculptures with expressive, patternlike carvings, some in Algarrobo wood indigenous to Kim’s adoptive home of Argentina.

The title represents the fusion of opposing concepts into a complete whole, the Eastern philosophy of yin and yang, as well as a lifelong communion with nature. Teresa Baker, “Twenty Minutes to Sunset,” at the American Academy of Arts and Letters Teresa Baker’s contemplative mixed-media works blend artificial and natural materials—including acrylic yarn, willow, and buckskin—to create abstract landscapes that explore themes of place, memory, and identity. She often works with AstroTurf as her canvas, its synthetic surface echoing the grasses of her Northern Plains upbringing.

This exhibition at the American Academy of Arts and Letters (on view through July 3) features recent paintings and two large, double-sided works suspended from the ceiling—one of which was begun in her Los Angeles backyard and exposed to ash and smoke from the January wildfires. Sandra Poulson, “Este quarto parece uma República!” at MoMA PS1 With a title that translates to “This Bedroom Looks Like a Republic!,” this jewelbox presentation featuring sculptures made from wood and appropriated furniture marks interdisciplinary artist Sandra Poulson’s first museum exhibition (on view through October 6). Through things like vernacular garments and domestic furniture, the Angolan-raised Central Saint Martins fashion graduate draws on everyday life and customs in her hometown, Luanda, to investigate the transnational circulation of images and material culture.

Poulson’s memorable installation was one of my highlights at last year’s Art Basel (she also created one at the 2024 Venice Biennale), and here she continues to explore how intimate spaces, items, and garments are charged with politics and symbols detached from their original contexts. Yu Nishimura, “Clearing Unfolds” at David Zwirner A pleasing peacefulness in Yu Nishimura’s paintings perfectly matches the regal Upper East Side townhouse occupied by the gallery David Zwirner. This exhibition of introspective new paintings and works on paper, the Japanese artist’s first solo show in the US, is informed by a recent visit to his hometown about an hour south of Tokyo, where towering housing complexes abut fields of grass, forests, and vacant lots.

In one group of paintings here, solitary figures roam in naturescapes tinged with quiet melancholy. His dreamlike arrangements of partially blurred and simplified forms—incorporating elements of street photography and anime—evoke the transience of memory and human connection. Teruko Yokoi, “Noh Theater,” at Hollis Taggart Teruko Yokoi, an undersung Japanese-born Swiss abstract painter who spent much of her career in the US, was known for her work combining modern American abstraction with traditional Japanese aesthetics.

This exhibition, on view May 1 through June 14, spans the artist’s career from the late ’50s to the early 2000s, focusing specifically on the Japanese dance-drama Noh as an influence on Yokoi’s practice. One of the few women artists in the 1950s New York milieu of Abstract Expressionism, she lived in the Chelsea Hotel for a spell with her husband, the painter Sam Francis; later in May the iconic hotel will unveil a Japanese restaurant named in her honor, showcasing eight works by Yokoi from its collection. Hilma af Klint, “What Stands Behind the Flowers” at MoMA This presentation, on view May 11 to September 27, showcases MoMA’s recently acquired Nature Studies , a portfolio of 46 botanical drawings by the Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862–1944) that will be on display for the first time.

The focus is on af Klimt’s engagement with the natural world and exploration of spirituality in nature, juxtaposing detailed renderings of the Swedish flora that surrounded her with enigmatic abstract diagrams. By observing nature, she sought to reveal, in her words, “what stands behind the flowers” and unearth truths about the human condition. Stephanie Comilang, “An Apparition, A Song” at Center for Art, Research and Alliances Canadian-born, Berlin-based Stephanie Comilang addresses themes of migration, labor, and cultural identity through video, installation, and textile works.

Her first solo institutional exhibition in the United States, on view from May 31 through August 10, will examine the complexities of global interconnectedness and reimagine shared histories of isolation and displacement. It will include an immersive installation involving virtual reality that considers the transnational histories of the piña (pineapple fiber) brought by the Spanish to the Philippines from South America and video installations set among Filipina migrant workers in Hong Kong and pearl divers across the Philippines, the Persian Gulf, and China..