Get thee to New York’s museums and get thee to them now. Life in the Big Apple begins anew in springtime and arriving with it is a bounty of new exhibitions and goings-on at the city’s many museums and cultural institutions. The first Monday in May heralds the start of the most anticipated of them all—a new installation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, christened by the annual Met Gala extravaganza. But aside from this, the Met and its peers are just as busy with a myriad of other exhibits to cater to every type of museum-goer—find our guide below.
David Zwirner Gallery, 19th Street
Spanning three of David Zwirner’s gallery spaces—located side-by-side at 519, 525, and 533 West 19th Street—and running from May 11-July 21, I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers is one of the most ambitious gallery displays of the beloved Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s work to date. It’s also all new—new sculptures next to new paintings next to a brand new infinity mirror installation. The exhibition is free and operates on a first-come, first-served basis, and each visitor’s time within the Infinity Mirrored Room is clocked to ensure that everyone who shows up will get a chance to see it for themselves.
Senior editor Megan Spurrell checked it out: “You’re going to wait in a long line to get into the infinity room—it was at least 50-75-people deep when I dropped by at lunchtime on a Tuesday—though you can subscribe to David Zwirner’s email list for a chance to cut the queue. Inside, it is pretty amazing—and a lot more colorful than most of her other infinity rooms. The good news: It’s totally free, and you can just walk in off the street, zero wait, to the hangar-style space housing her massive flower sculptures.”
Knockdown Center
If you’ve heard of Knockdown Center in Maspeth, Queens, it’s probably in its context as a music venue. Indeed, the multipurpose space will, per usual, host a bevy of exciting programming in the summer months—Outline Festival, an unofficial summer kick-off, is a celebration of international electronic music that runs from May 19-20 and brings DJs, art installations, panel discussions, and more to the Center’s enormous atrium. All the while, Knockdown’s sprawling industrial campus houses temporary art exhibitions that are worth checking out. Artists are encouraged, at present and on a rolling basis, to submit self-designed flags to the Philip von Zweck project Temporary Allegiance—selected flags will fly for two weeks each from the 40-foot flagpole that greets visitors at Knockdown Center’s entrance. In collaboration with Queens gallery Mrs., there’s also the new mural Vessels by Mark Mulroney, which is on display in the East Corridor through September 4.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Following the Met Gala festivities, the Costume Institute’s 2023 exhibition opens to the public on May 5. A dedicated love letter to the career of the late Karl Lagerfeld—the creative director that made Chanel, Fendi, and Chloé the brands they are today—Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty collages some 150 pieces of clothing from the aforementioned houses (ranging from his first creative expressions in the 1950’s to his final 2019 Chanel collection) with the designer’s sketches and other juxtaposed multimedia footage.
The exhibition presupposes that most modern designers (read: anyone designing clothes in a post-Lagerfeld world) strive to take on Lagerfeld’s legacy in one way or another. His artistic pursuits—meticulous sketching, namely, and an obsession with modernity—are only part of this. Lagerfeld-as-impresario—the discerning, collecting, black-and-white uniform-donning personality—some would say almost eclipsed his work. Each room presents contrasting lines of interest for Lagerfeld; artisanal versus mechanical, floral versus geometric, rococo versus classical. But things get interesting when they drop that approach in the final room and focus on the satirical—this room is full of tongue-in-cheek references to Lagerfeld’s own celebrity as well as some unexpected acts of kitsch, camp, and whimsy (think a dress embroidered with a candlestick so that the wearer’s head pops out of the wick).
If you find yourself at the Met on or after May 22, you’d be remiss to miss out on Van Gogh’s Cypresses, which will run through August 27.
Museum of the Moving Image
Astoria’s fabulous Museum of the Moving Image launched Cinema of Sensations: The Never-Ending Screen of Val del Omar in March—this is the first major stateside exhibition of Spanish photographer José Val del Omar’s immersive cinematic works. Open through October 1, this exhibit functions almost as a deconstructed film—museumgoers effectively step through the camera and into scenes, moving amid Val del Omar’s photographs, archival materials, films, and inventions. International contemporary artists—everyone from Sally Golding and Matt Spendlove to Basque filmmaking pair Duo Prismáticas (comprised of Aitziber Olaskoaga and Pilar Monsell)—have supplied pieces to further augment the experience.
Elsewhere at MoMI, The Jim Henson Exhibition is an ongoing tribute to its namesake’s work on shows like The Muppets, Sesame Street, The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and more. Be sure to say hello to Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Elmo, Big Bird, and all of their friends (47 puppets are included in a collection of some 300 total artifacts).
The American Museum of Natural History
Across Central Park on the Upper West Side, a whole new building at the American Museum of Natural History makes its debut. The Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation opens May 5 and, among many other things, brings all kinds of bugs to NYC. Manhattan’s newest residents live in the Gilder Center’s vast and impressive insectarium and vivarium, which between them account for all sorts of butterflies and some 500,000 leafcutter ants, among others. There’s also Invisible Worlds, an immersive experience that will have even skeptics of such installations (that have swept through cities the world over since Van Gogh’s swirls starred in an episode of Emily in Paris a few years back) darting around guiding water through root systems with their feet. The true highlight, whether or not you’re a fan of architectural wizardry, is the Jeanne Gang-designed building itself. Swirling upward with no dead ends and an artfully-incorporated Collections Core, this Derinkuyu-esque beauty fills the viewer with a wonder so childlike that this writer may or may not have teared up a bit at the sheer joy of getting to walk around in it.
