Dearest summer season: We need you more than ever! With the daily overflow of political folly and global discord, we welcome the life-affirming energy that you so generously bestow year after year. In Upstate New York, the arts ecosystem is ripe with exhibitions in every direction, and this guide suggests a selection of shows to enliven your soul this summer. The Loeb at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie presents two exhibitions that extol and examine artistic histories of the Hudson Valley, encompassing over 50 artworks. Meanwhile, Catskill Art Space in Livingston Manor exhibits a series of smaller daring sculptures by Arlene Shechet and the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown presents beautifully moody paintings by Emily Pettigrew. CPW in Kingston offers a peek into worlds both glamorous and mundane in the work of Larry Fink, and Dia Beacon presents a comprehensive look at Renée Green’s conceptual critique through the shuffling of words. More below, including Smoke in Our Hair: Native Memory and Unsettled Time, curated by Hyperallergic contributor Sháńdíín Brown at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, a trailblazing look at time and its cyclicality by Native American, Alaska Native, First Nations, and Métis artists. This sweet and sunny season, let us indulge in the abundance of art! Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Black Space-Making from Harlem to the Hudson ValleyGreat Green Hope for the Urban Blues The Loeb at Vassar College, 124 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie, New York Through August 17 Caleb Stein, “Sanjay. The watering hole.” (2020), gelatin silver print, included in Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Black Space-Making from Harlem to the Hudson Valley (© Caleb Stein)The Loeb at Vassar College presents Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Black Space-Making from Harlem to the Hudson Valley as a companion to its main exhibition: Great Green Hope for the Urban Blues. While the Great Green Hope extols the beauty of the Hudson Valley through over 50 artworks across three galleries, it also examines the obscured histories of colonialism and slavery through a variety of media, including prints, paintings, photography, and sculpture. Between a Rock, in turn, offers a re-telling of Black history in the region as a way “to complicate the myth of the Hudson Valley,” as described by curator Harrison Brisbon-McKinnon, Vassar College class of 2026.Arlene ShechetCatskill Art Space, 48 Main Street, Livingston Manor, New YorkJuly 5–August 23Arlene Schechet, “Now Now” (2024), glazed ceramic, powder coated steel (© Arlene Shechet; image courtesy the artist)Last year, Arlene Shechet’s colorful oversized sculptures at Storm King were a highlight of the season. This summer, a smaller exhibition of her work at Catskill Art Space keeps the thread going with a series of smaller sculptures, including her bulbous ceramic work “Now Now” (2024) and other intimate sculptural experiments. A pioneering multi-disciplinary artist of her generation, Shechet continues to work in clay, steel, wood, and other mediums to create dynamic organic forms and installations that are both exhilarating and otherworldly.Emily Pettigrew: Painting in the Catskills 2021 – 2025 Fenimore Art Museum, 5798 State Highway 80, Cooperstown, New York Through August 24 Emily Pettigrew, “Kim’s Lilac Dress” (2023), acrylic on panel (image courtesy the Collection of Rob and Eric Thomas-Sewall)Infused with a highly graphic and moody style, Emily Pettigrew’s art is both solitary and tender, equally lonesome as it is charming. The Fenimore Art Museum presents some of her latest work in this exhibition, which includes “Kim’s Lilac Dress” (2023) and an image of a woman gently descending a staircase. Pettigrew’s figures are often suspended in moments of dreamlike pause amid stark architectural environs, where shadows hang long and a gentle wind blows, painterly visions whose gentle stoicism naturally pulls at our heartstrings.Robert Grosvenor‘T’ Space Rhinebeck, 60 Round Lake Road, Rhinebeck, New York June 8–August 24Robert Grosvenor, “Untitled” (c. 2000–2013), photograph (© Robert Grosvenor; photo by Steven Probert, courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, NY and ‘T’ Space)To encounter Robert Grosvenor’s art is to reconsider the term “juxtaposition” — an apt description of his singular style of creative provocation. Exploring the contrast of things and their meanings, the artist’s solo show at ‘T’ Space Rhinebeck presents a series of his earlier photographs alongside recent sculptures. For nearly 60 years, the artist has been exploring the spatial relationships between his audience, architecture, and familiar objects in unusual settings. Grosvenor’s “Untitled” (2023), a teal and white finned boat with room for two, is a classic vision of his minimalist edge with a hint of humorous summertime flair.Larry Fink: Sensual EmpathyCPW, 25 Dederick Street, Kingston, New YorkThrough August 31 Larry Fink, “A Sabatine Christmas, Martins Creek, PA, December 1983” (1983) (© Larry Fink / MUUS Collection)A first-rate photograph sweeps us into stationary drama while sweeping us off our feet, and Larry Fink is a master. Featuring an exquisite display of black and white photographs that chronicle over 50 years of his artistic prowess among elite glitterati and everyday people alike, Larry Fink: Sensual Empathy is a treasure chest of scenes from all walks of life. Known for iconic images such as “Coretta Scott King, Poor Peoples Campaign, Washington, DC, May 1968” and “Studio 54, New York, NY, May 1977,” Fink had the ability to document and embolden his chosen subjects — forming both a record of American history and a celebration of humanity in all its guts and beauty. Renée Green: The Equator Has MovedDia Beacon, 3 Beekman Street, Beacon, New YorkThrough August 31 Installation view of Renée Green: The Equator Has Moved at Dia Beacon (© Renée Green and Free Agent Media; photo by Bill Jacobson Studio, NY, courtesy Dia Art Foundation)Her first major solo museum show in New York State, Renée Green: The Equator Has Moved is a victorious presentation of this powerhouse artist in full bloom. The dynamic display includes her text-based work in sculpture, wall paintings, and various multi-media sculptural installations, showcasing Green’s poetic in-your-face-ness at its most potent. Her highly aphoristic style of rearranging words to expose ulterior meanings is on full display in the sprawling exhibition that fills two adjacent gallery halls. Take your time to take in this superior show that features some of her earliest work, such as “Colour Games” (1989), to her latest series of colorful banners, including “Space Poem 14” (2024) with candid veiled phrases such as “Every Day I Try.”Smoke in Our Hair: Native Memory and Unsettled TimeHudson River Museum, 511 Warburton Avenue, Yonkers, New YorkThrough August 31James Luna (Payómkawichum, Ipai, and Mexican), “Hi-Tech Peace Pipe” (1992), pipes, beads, and plastic telephone (image courtesy Hudson River Museum)Contemporary artworks by 27 Native American, Alaska Native, First Nations, and Métis artists come together for the trailblazing exhibition Smoke in Our Hair: Native Memory and Unsettled Time. Featuring celebrated and never-before-seen artworks by some of the most influential Native artists active during the last 60 years, this show invokes smoke as a metaphor for memory in considering perceptions of self, the intersection of remembrance and time, and personal stories re-imagined. Three sections — wood, fire, and smoke — organize the show and honor the past while pointing toward an Indigenous futurism as envisioned by these artists.So It Goes Wassaic Project, 37 Furnace Bank Road, Wassaic, New YorkThrough September 13Rosabel Rosalind, “Tabernacle: The Valley Altarpiece II” (2025), acrylic, colored pencil, kosher salt on birch plywood, and plaster, wood, and enamel (photo by Joshua Simpson, courtesy Wassaic Project)The dynamic creative scene at Wassaic Project is always in full swing, and this summer’s group exhibition So It Goes embodies its fun-loving intensity. Installations, paintings, ceramics, and artworks that defy categorization by 43 artists working across disciplines, such as Caleb Weintraub’s “Mincing Words” (2024) and the vision of two figures cavorting amid a colorful quasi-Surrealist fruit-infused blow-out, respond to the title of this show and the legacy of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) with artistic embodiments meant to shake us from our desensitization to horror.Harold Stevenson: Less Real Than My Routine FantasyArt Omi, 1405 County Route 22, Ghent, New YorkJune 28–October 26Harold Stevenson, “David and James” (1961), mixed media on canvas (photo by Alon Koppel Photography, courtesy Collection of Barry Sloane)A friend, mentor, and associate of Andy Warhol, Harold Stevenson was born and later died in his hometown of Idabel, Oklahoma, at nearly 90 years of age. In between, he lived in New York City, Paris, Key West, and the Hamptons and remained devoted to celebrating sensuality and the erotic through his art for more than 50 years, including through explorations in painting, sculpture, and writing. Harold Stevenson: Less Real Than My Routine Fantasy gathers mixed media works that boldly express his affinity for corporality and his exaltation of all things human, from fleshy nipples and hairy armpits to pubic mounds, revealed for all to see and appreciate.The Arrested Image: Identity Through the Lens of Law EnforcementThe Dorsky at SUNY New Paltz, 1 Hawk Drive, New Paltz, New YorkJune 21–November 2 Julio César Morales, “Boy in Suitcase” (2013), video and mirror, duration: 3:33 minutes (image courtesy the artist)The Arrested Image: Identity Through the Lens of Law Enforcement is a blunt look at a category of ubiquitous yet underexamined imagery: portraits of individuals as produced by “police vision.” Curated by Sophie Landres and featuring both archival material and works of contemporary art, The Arrested Image addresses concepts of truth and truth-to-power as reconsidered in an artistic context. While law enforcement capacities have evolved considerably during the digital age, the 16 contemporary artists in this show — including Sophie Calle, Dread Scott, and Tomashi Jackson — employ photography, video, sculpture and installation to reposition the eye of the law to reveal racial and class biases while using creative strategies to confront and undermine these threats to freedom.Up to Us: Black Dimensions in Art, 1975–TomorrowThe Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs, New YorkThrough November 2Romare Bearden, “In the Garden” (1980), lithograph (image courtesy Tang Teaching Museum)Black Dimensions in Art (BDA), founded in 1975 in Schenectady, New York, is a volunteer-led group of creatives and activists who continue to educate, encourage, and empower the conversations concerning Black and their visibility in the art world at large. This exhibition honors BDA’s vibrant 50-year history through a collection of archival material, artworks by its member artists, and select works from the Tang Teaching Museum’s collection. As Black communities around the country create and claim space for themselves and a new generation of artists, Up to Us is as urgent as ever.Sonia Gomes: Ó Abre Alas!Storm King Art Center, 20 Old Pleasant Hill Road, New Windsor, New YorkThrough November 10Sonia Gomes, “Untitled (Tear series)” (2024), drawing, bindings, various fabrics, rope, wood, nails, and lace (photo by Jeffrey Jenkins, courtesy Storm King Art Center)Using fabrics, textiles, and stitching to orchestrate glorious ensembles dripping with harmonious chaos, Sonia Gomes is an expert in thread-based play. This summer, Storm King presents Sonia Gomes: Ó Abre Alas!, featuring a series of ravishing installations and cloth-laden sculptures that seduce the soul. From hanging cocoon-like works such as “Untitled (Pendente series)” (2023) to her expressive wall moorings that combine binding and weaving as seen in “Tantas Estórias” (2015), Gomes ruminates on memory and celebrates her Afro-Brazilian roots with every thread.GENERAL CONDITIONSThe School: Jack Shainman Gallery, 25 Broad Street, Kinderhook, New YorkThrough November 29Hayv Kahraman, “Look Me in the Eyes, No. 3” (2023), oil and acrylic on linen (image courtesy the artists and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York)With its prescient title and stacked roster of over 20 artists, GENERAL CONDITIONS at The School, Jack Shainman Gallery’s outpost in Kinderhook, sets out to rattle your psyche — and succeeds. Nearly 130 artworks in a range of media address issues of dislocation, colonization, and falsification, among other loaded social-political themes. Where photos by Gordon Parks capture Black American life, a series of sculptures by Alina Tenser lighten the mood with a sense of abstract humor, and large-scale jacquard tapestries by Shannon Bool are a compelling blend of futuristic kink and domestic anxiety that speak to the overall ambiance of this dynamic show: energetically eerie.Stan Douglas: GhostlightHessel Museum of Art at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York June 21–November 30 Stan Douglas, “Stranded” (2017), digital chromogenic print mounted on Dibond aluminum (© Stan Douglas; image courtesy the artist,Victoria Miro and David Zwirner)Having worked in film, photography and various multidisciplinary projects since the late 1980s, Stan Douglas continues to question modernity and the role of mass media in shaping our collective consciousness. Stan Douglas: Ghostlight presents a major survey of the artist’s work, including digital prints, video projections, and the premiere of an immersive, multi-channel video installation that together address complex narratives — from legacies of transatlantic slavery to modern freedom movements. Douglas’s re-staged theatrical scenes are meant to illuminate and destabilize, and represent his ongoing investigation into historical events and moments of rupture.The Unknown and Its Poetics KinoSaito, 115 7th Street, Verplanck, New York Through December 21 Fawn Krieger, “//89” (2025), fired porcelain, underglaze, concrete, pigment, and epoxy (photo by Chika Kobari, courtesy KinoSaito)Quoting the Italian artist Giorgio Morandi’s assertion that “nothing is more abstract than reality,” The Unknown and Its Poetics brings together works by 19 artists who explore diverse cross-cultural forces since living away from their home countries. Mixed media works including porcelain, stoneware, sculpture and installation offer distinct configurations of identity and home, including Edgar Cobián’s “Construcción de Verdad” (2013) translating to “construction of truth,” comprising a keyboard loaded with colorful fruits and vegetables, and Elana Herzog’s “Cross Pollinations #1” (2020) consisting of decorative patterned textiles sourced in Russia, Finland, Norway and New York City.