On view at MoMA PS1: Precious Okoyomon | Among Flowers 

Artist and poet Precious Okoyomon (Nigerian-American, b. 1993) transforms the MoMA PS1 courtyard into a living forest of plants, interactive sculpture, and sound in the Museum’s  inaugural Courtyard Commission. Okoyomon’s largest outdoor installation to date cultivates a world of grasses, flowers, weeds, sedges, pollinators, and vines. This ever-growing woodland brings together species often perceived in opposition, but which in reality co-exist: native and invasive plants, annuals and perennials, cultivated and wild growth.

In the center of the garden an oversized teddy bear sculpture invites visitors to interact every which way as they listen to an sound piece of whimsical instrumentation inspired by flowers and poetry read by the artist. Anticipating the landscapes of the near future, and considering the unpredictability of climate changes, Okoyomon creates a garden for the city, in which softness, rest, and rebirth are essential.

MoMA PS1, 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Queens, NY Info

Last chance, August 7: Plants, Animals and Sky at CANADA

If your summer itinerary involves navigating the sizzling canyons of Tribeca, drop in to Tribeca’s CANADA NYC where Plants, Animals and Sky is on view. The exhibition centers around the natural world, refracting themes of ecology, landscape, and the environment through the unique lenses of the gallery's contemporary painters and sculptors. A diverse cohort of modern and historic artists, reaching back to tonalist painter George Innes, also includes Lois Dodd, Marsden Hartley, Gerald Ferguson, Francesco Igory Deiana, Elizabeth Kley, Sam Falls, and Tyson Reeder Click for  a preview. Above: Mary Temple, Twilight Hudson with Fireflies
Save the date: Thursday, August 6, 6:30pm: Sound Meditation for Plants, Animals, Sky with Robbie Pangaea and Jess Stathos @canada.nyc

CANADA NYC, 60 Lispenard Street, New York, NY Info 

Saturday, August 8, 6-8pm: Annual Critics Choice at Ki Smith

New York’s late-summer art calendar gets a boost with an exhibition that serves as a barometer for where contemporary art is heading. Based on a competitive open-call juried by a premier panel of arts writers and critics, this annual show rewards viewers with works that challenge viewers to look past traditional commercial aesthetics and engage with bold, conceptual narratives. The visual and cerebral rewards lie in its unpredictability, offering an unfiltered glimpse into the studios of tomorrow’s art makers. The lasting value of this exhibition can be grasped by scanning the awards on offer [scroll down]. 

Ki Smith Gallery, 170 Forsyth Street, New York, NY Info

Last chance Saturday, August 8: Ryan McGinley | Night Shift at Deitch

Expanding on Ryan McGinley’s career-defining visual language, Night Shift recodes the aesthetics of his early practice–the raw, energetic spontaneity of nude bodies traversing the American landscape–to arrive at the endless possibilities of a nocturnal New York .“This is my poem to New York City,” says McGinley. “A place where the rare quietness of the city can reveal itself as a playground for a body in motion.”

Shot between 9pm and 5am through Spring into Winter 2025, the series captures all five boroughs - east to west, up to down. Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island. It is nine to five, the other way around. Employing a slow shutter, long lens, and radio flash, McGinley creates luminous, hallucinatory scenes in which bodies and city become one. Neon, halogen, and brake lights paint pulsating compositions of a city whose subject dance through, around, and within

Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, 18 Wooster Street, New York, NY Info

Last chance, Sunday, August 9: New Humans at New Museum

Curated by Massimiliano Gioni, "New Humans: Memories of the Future" is less of a typical museum survey and more of a hallucinatory, shape-shifting self-portrait of the species. Spanning three floors and packing in over 700 objects, the exhibition sidesteps the usual, surface-level AI panic by tethering our current digital anxieties to a deeper history of human mutation, surrealism, and physical transformation. 

Walking through the galleries, visitors might note how masterfully the oldest mediums hold their own against the new; a tightly hung gallery of postwar paintings anchors the space with an urgent, tactile energy, even as Hito Steyerl’s software bots and Anicka Yi's floating, unearthly installation [above] confront us with what we might become. It is a marathon of a show that demands your full attention—so eat a good breakfast, arrive early, and prepare to have your idea of the human form thoroughly scrambled. 

New Museum, 235 Bowery, New York, NY Info