Artistic expression continues to carry us through turbulence with hope, especially during the bountiful fall season. As happy pumpkins return to the scene, a host of exhibitions beckon you to take a day trip — or even a weekend getaway? — from the city and experience the harvest of art for yourself. In Upstate New York, there are two remaining weekends to catch the Trees Never End and Houses Never End Biennial Exhibition at Sky High Farm in Germantown (a must see!), and make your way to nearby Art Omi in Ghent to see Kiyan Williams’s installations and other outdoor sculptures. Two exhibitions at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse celebrate organic floral abundance through large-scale ink works. Meanwhile, in Connecticut, Human Marks: Tattooing in Contemporary Art at the Joseloff Gallery at the University of Hartford in West Hartford presents work by artists who tattoo. If you are traveling through Massachusetts, be sure to visit MASS MoCA in North Adams to see Jeffrey Gibson’s all-out exhibition, while further north, the Bell at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island presents the powerful monochrome work of Native sculptor Eric-Paul Riege. This fall season, let us pursue the sacred in art around New York and beyond!Trees Never End and Houses Never End Biennial ExhibitionSky High Farm, 11 Main Street, Germantown, New YorkThrough September 20Installation view of Marco Saavedra, “Allée tree series” (2024), size variable (photo courtesy The Campus)Among the weirdest-slash-coolest-slash-most-unusual shows to catch in Upstate New York this season — before it closes in 2 weeks! — is the Sky High Farm biennial Trees Never End and Houses Never End. Installed in a former cold storage warehouse and featuring a maze of industrial water containers on the first floor and an immersive mirror reflective floor on the second, this diverse show highlights issues concerning agriculture, climate, and art. The powerhouse roster of over 50 leading artists includes Tschabalala Self, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Anne Imhof, and Carroll Dunham, among other international stars. Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez: Dream Map and CornucopiaEverson Museum of Art, 401 Harrison Street, Syracuse, New YorkThrough October 19Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez, “Dream Map and Cornucopia with Helicopters” (2022), ink on Tyvek, 135 x 90 inches (~343 x 229 cm) (courtesy the artist)The title Dream Map and Cornucopia reminds me of the fall season itself — and it also describes Colombian-American arist Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez’s work. Overflowing with organic energy and the promise of growth, her large-scale ink works and delightful clay sculptures fill the Everson Museum of Art with a mythical-magical energy. Painted vases are laden with imaginative and magnificent flowers — “Dream Mao and Cornucopia with Totumo” (2018), with its beautiful wrangling limbs against a black background, is a stunning example.All Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art GroupHessel Museum of Art, Bard College | Annandale-on-Hudson, New YorkThrough October 19Amar Dawod, “Repercussions” (2011) (courtesy the artist and Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College)The Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College has built a reputation for hosting some of the strongest exhibitions in the region. The group show All Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group, curated by Nada Shabout, scholar of modern Iraqi art, with assistance from Tiffany Floyd and Lauren Cornell, is no exception. Featuring over 140 objects — including paintings, sculptures, drawings, and archival material — this rich exhibition focuses on a generative period in the history of Arab art. Spanning works from 1946 to 2023 and with a special focus on the Baghdad Modern Art Group (established in 1951 and active through the early 1970s), All Manner of Experiments presents a powerful vision of Iraqi modernism. 2025 Annual ExhibitionThe Campus, 341 NY-217, Hudson, New YorkThrough October 26Marta Minujín, “Rombo A” (2016), hand-painted mattress fabric, cut and glued, 55 1/8 x 55 1/8 inches (140 x 140 cm)If you have not visited The Campus yet, make this a top priority in your Upstate vagabonding this season. With their 2025 Annual Exhibition, the institution once again presents a compelling installation of top-notch artists in and around the funky environs of this former high school, including the gymnasium and other nooks around the building. Single classrooms are host to “solo shows” by celebrated international artists such as Richard Tuttle, Huma Bhabha, Kiki Smith, Mark Dion, Oscar Murillo, and Ming Fay, among others. My favorite moment was encountering a fabulously decadent red-hued sculpture by Vanessa German in one of the hallway entrances.At Play | Artists & EntertainmentNassau County Museum of Art, One Museum Drive, Roslyn Harbor, New YorkThrough November 9Glen Hansen, “Modern Snack Bar” (2025), oil on panel (courtesy the artist)Take a drive or train ride out to sunny Long Island to catch At Play | Artists & Entertainment at the Nassau County Museum of Art. With a focus on the diversity and excitement of entertainment, the show features mixed-media works by legendary artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Raoul Dufy. The exhibition also includes play-themed artworks by modern and contemporary artists, including Max Beckmann and John Grande, as well as specially designed costumes by Marc Chagall and vintage fashion items by designer Alfred Shaheen.Kevin Beasley | PROSCENIUM| Rebirth/Growth: The Watch/Harvest/Dormancy: On ReflectionStorm King Art Center, 20 Old Peasant Hill Road, New Windsor, New YorkThrough November 10Installation view of Kevin Beasley, PROSCENIUM| Rebirth / Growth: The Watch / Harvest / Dormancy: On Reflection (2024–25) (photo by Jeffrey Jenkins; courtesy the artist, Casey Kaplan, New York, and Regen Projects, Los Angeles)Set against the sensational landscape of New Windsor, Kevin Beasley’s exhibition at Storm King Art Center is a magnificent vision of art about nature, presented in nature. The museum re-opened this past spring season with new welcome pavilions and an outdoor lobby; Beasley is one of three artists — along with Sonia Gomes and Dionne Lee — included in a suite of site-specific temporary large-scale commissions. His outdoor installation in the Tippet’s Field area, “PROSCENIUM,” features a 100-foot-long series of resin slabs embedded with clothing, fabric, plants, and other materials, resulting in a three-dimensional composition that appears like a landscape of its own. Stay: The Black Women of 19th-Century NewarkNewark Museum of Art, 49 Washington Street, Newark, NJThrough November 30Noelle Lorraine Williams, “Ellen King” (2023), archival photo, lace, and other materials (© Noelle Lorraine Williams; photo by Richard Goodbody, courtesy Noelle Lorraine Williams)With a focus on three Newark women descended from community activists and abolitionists — Sara O’Fake Evans, Ellen King, and Hannah Mandeville — Noelle Lorraine Williams’s exhibition Stay at the Newark Museum of Art celebrates the tireless work of Black women in America. With mixed-media works, including the daring “Neon Light of Man Whipping Woman” (2023), which features a woman in a defiant dance-like pose against a man who cracks a whip in her direction, the show illuminates the continued struggle for equality in the face of racism and misogyny. Jean Shin: Bodies of KnowledgeThe Dorsky at the State University of New York New Paltz, 1 Hawk Drive, New Paltz, New YorkThrough December 7Jean Shin, “E-Bundle (Black AAM)” (2020), laptops, hard drives, electrical cords, and ethernet cables (photo by Kevin Candland; courtesy the artist and Praise Shadows Art Gallery)Jean Shin is a creative rebel at heart. This season, the Dorsky at SUNY New Paltz presents Jean Shin: Bodies of Knowledge, including videos, sculptures, and site-specific installations. With defunct computer parts and cell phones as her primary material, she highlights the overload of information in the digital era with stoic sculptures that reflect the messiness of technology. Works such as “E-Bundle (Black AAM)” (2020), consisting of discarded laptops, hard drives, electrical cords, and ethernet cables, bluntly embody the over-consumption and over-use of these objects of communication.Eric-Paul Riege: ojo|-|ólǫ́The Bell, List Art Building, Brown University | 64 College Street, Providence, RISeptember 3–December 7Installation view of Eric-Paul Riege: ojo|-|ólǫ́ (photo by Sarah Meftah; photo courtesy the Bell)The Bell Gallery at Brown University in collaboration with the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington in Seattle presents ojo|-|ólǫ́, an exhibition by Diné sculptor Eric-Paul Riege that engages with select artworks from both institutions’ Navajo art collections. Combining combs, textiles, jewelry, dolls, and more, Riege creates large weavings and sculptures that invoke Diné myths and histories. His largest solo show to date, Riege’s charged artworks command your attention as much as they welcome it with their lush materiality.Human Marks: Tattooing in Contemporary ArtUniversity of Hartford, Joseloff Gallery, 200 Bloomfield Avenue, West Hartford, CTSeptember 11–December 13Lyric Shen, “Secret Grotto” (2023), ink on ceramic (photo courtesy the artist and Silke Lindner, New York)I have been obsessed with tattoos since my first tatting experience as a teenager (I am now almost 50 and covered in ink). Thus, it is an utter thrill to learn that tattoo artists — and artists who tattoo — are finally being recognized for their brilliance. Human Marks: Tattooing in Contemporary Art at the University of Hartford’s Joseloff Gallery is a group show of international artists who also practice the art of tattooing, including six commissioned works and other mixed-media pieces that employ diverse materials such as silicone and perfume. The show includes beloved artists such as Don Ed Hardy, Duke Riley, and Tamara Santibañez, among other legends. Kiyan Williams: Vertigo Art Omi, 1405 County Route 22, Ghent, New YorkThrough Fall 2025Installation view of Kiyan Williams, “Ruins of Empire ” (2022) (left) and “Vertigo” (2024) (right) (photo by Bryan Zimmerman, courtesy Art Omi)It is a joy to visit Art Omi any time of the year, but that goes double for the fall season, during which the landscape serves as a blazing backdrop for outdoor sculpture. There, you will encounter commanding works installed throughout the grounds, including Kiyan Williams’s “Vertigo” (2024) and “Ruins of Empire” (2022), both made of earth and moss. (You may be familiar with Williams’s art from last year’s Whitney Biennale.) If you visit after October 11, you’ll get an added treat in the chance to see a new sculptural commission by Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio — a glass enclosure that medidates on colonialism, which marks the artist’s first outdoor installation on the East Coast.For Liberation and For Life: The Legacy of Black Dimensions in ArtAlbany Institute of History and Art, 125 Washington Avenue, Albany, New YorkThrough December 31Roy DeCarava, “Catsup bottles, tables and coat” (1952–1953), silver gelatin print (© Estate of Roy DeCarava; courtesy Albany Institute of History and Art)Honoring the 50th anniversary of Black Dimensions in Art, Inc. (BDA), founded in 1975 by creatives in Schenectady, New York, For Liberation and For Life: The Legacy of Black Dimensions in Art at the Albany Institute of History and Art is a robust and celebratory show — and kudos to Albany Institute for hosting the first BDA museum show in 1976! The exhibition features diverse mixed-media artworks by over 60 internationally recognized artists, including Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, and Roy DeCarava, as well as contemporary artists working in the New York region. Concurrent with For Liberation and For Life is a special presentation of monographic silkscreen prints by Jacob Lawrence.Sheila Goloborotko: If Not Now, When?Hunterdon Art Museum, 7 Lower Center Street, Clinton, New JerseySeptember 21–January 11, 2026Detail of Sheila Goloborotko, “Sistema” (2018–ongoing), hand-cut screenprint on Mylar, dimensions variable (image courtesy Hunterdon Art Museum)As concerns about sustainability and the health of our planet become ever more pressing, artists such as Sheila Goloborotko are responding through art. Her solo exhibition If Not Now, When? at the Hunterdon Art Museum presents her prints, digital works, and installations in a sensitive, serious, and dynamic installation. Goloborotko’s screenprints on plastic, such as “Flora Regium I” (2024), engage with sacred geometries, suggesting that mother nature is the supreme mathematician. Meanwhile, “Flora Ingrata” (2024), an installation of hanging screenprints with frail silhouettes of humans and large, tropical-looking leaves, inspires a sense of much-needed tranquility.Zak Prekop: DurationThe Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 258 Main Street, Ridgefield, ConnecticutThrough January 11, 2026Zak Prekop, “Reidy” (2025), oil on muslin (courtesy the artist and Maxwell Graham, New York)Exploding with vibrant energy, Zak Prekop’s graphic and abstract style is pure elation. Duration at the Aldrich is the artist’s first solo museum show, and brings together 13 recent paintings that embody his fascination with “paintings as measures of time,” as the artist puts it in the press release. To me, they embody the collapse of time into the dimension of painting. Prekop’s orchestration of organic shapes and his use of raw, bright colors result in wildly jubilant works that are slightly reminiscent of Kandinsky, but with a denser intensity and a contemporary flair. Time Exposed: Hiroshi Sugimoto’s SeascapesThe Parrish Art Museum, 279 Montauk Highway, Water Mill, New YorkSeptember 13–February 8, 2026Hiroshi Sugimoto, “Mediterranean Sea, La Ciotat” (1989), photolithograph (© Hiroshi Sugimoto; courtesy the Parrish Art Museum)Hiroshi Sugimoto’s obsession with photographing the sea is a singular effort in the field of international contemporary art, and each of his photos is a meditative experience. Time Exposed: Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Seascapes at the Parrish Art Museum presents a series of his indomitable yet calming black and white photographs. I was utterly transfixed by this work from the very first time I saw it during my undergraduate art school years, and his patient photos of oceans around the world never fail to reach into my soul. Piero Manzoni: Total SpaceMagazzino Italian Art, 2700 Route 9, Cold Spring, New YorkThrough March 23, 2026Piero Manzoni, “Achrome” (1958), kaolin on canvas in artist’s original wood frame (photo courtesy Magazzino Italian Art Foundation)This exhibition features two visionary installations that self-taught Italian sculptor Piero Manzoni conceived in 1961, which remained unrealized at the time of his death in 1963 at age 29. The two room-sized immersive environments demonstrate just how ahead of his time he was. Total Space includes additional Manzoni works on loan from private collections, enhancing this special presentation that embodies Arte Povera at its boldest.Noel W Anderson: Black ExcellenceUniversity Art Museum at State University of New York at Albany, 1400 Washington Avenue, Albany, New YorkThrough April 3, 2026Noel W Anderson, “But Where?” (2022–23), picked and distressed stretched cotton tapestry (photo courtesy the artist)Noel W Anderson’s largest solo museum show to date, spanning 15 years of his practice, packs a visual punch. Featuring over 35 artworks, including mural-size suspended tapestries, video, works on paper, archival materials, and newly commissioned pieces, the exhibition is unabashed in its celebration of Black power and identity. Through his creative process of research, appropriation, erasure, and abstraction, as well as digital manipulations, Anderson explores complex themes that relate to Black male exceptionalism and American history. Jeffrey Gibson: POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENTMASS MoCA, Building 5, 1040 Mass MoCA Way, North Adams, New YorkThrough September 7, 2026Installation view of Jeffrey Gibson: POWER FULL BECAUSE WE’RE DIFFERENTA visit to MASS MoCA is always an uplifting experience, and ever more so with this immersive and newly commissioned installation. The first Indigenous artist to represent the United States with a solo presentation at the Venice Biennale in 2024, Gibson honors Native traditions via a bold visual language that vibrates throughout this site-specific installation. Featuring hanging garments that hover over disco-like floor panels and windows infused with vigorous colors, it is a stunning vision of contemporary art. Jamea Richmond-Edwards: Another World and Yet the SameThe Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College, 198 College Hill Road, Clinton, New YorkSeptember 13–June 14, 2026Jamea Richmond-Edwards, “Terra Sancta, Terra Sancta” (2025), acrylic, glitter, graphite, ink, marker, oil pastel, and mixed media collage on canvas. 96 x 144 x 5 inches (243.8 x 365.7 x 12.7 cm) (photo by John Bentham, courtesy the artist)Jamea Richmond-Edwards’s lively style welcomes us into her vivid paintings. Another World and Yet the Same, curated by Alexander Jarman at the Wellin Museum of Art, presents a series of colorful mixed-media paintings exploring race and beauty. In “The Great Return” (2022), two outstretched women face each other holding hands amid gloriously chaotic environs (snakes and ancient temples and all). “Terra Sancta, Terra Sancta” (2025) features glamorous people who shimmer with imaginative rhythm, infusing the exhibition with both fabulousness and a sense of freedom. Tehching Hsieh: Lifeworks 1978 – 1999Dia Beacon, 3 Beekman Street, Beacon, New YorkOpens Oct. 4Tehching Hsieh and Linda Montano, “Art/Life One Year Performance 1983–1984” (Rope Piece made in collaboration with Linda Montano, 1983–84) (© Tehching Hsieh and Linda Montano; photo: Tehching Hsieh and Linda Montano, Life Images; courtesy Dia Art Foundation)I have been a devoted fangirl of the endurance-based performance works of Tehching Hsieh for more than a quarter century. His year-long performances are utter legend, and Dia Beacon’s Tehching Hsieh: Lifeworks 1978 – 1999 surveys this badass artist in all his glory. A personal favorite work is his “Art/Life One Year Performance 1983–1984 (Rope Piece made in collaboration with Linda Montano),” in which the two remained connected by a rope for 365 days, a fantastic feat of patience and fortitude.