New York’s art scene refuses to slow down for winter. Here are four shows for your enjoyment this February:
Eugène Atget: The Making of a Reputation at the International Center of Photography (29 Jan – 4 May)
This exhibition takes a fresh glance at Eugène Atget’s career, spotlighting the crucial role photographer Berenice Abbott played in building his legendary status following his death. Atget (1857-1927) spent decades photographing Paris in the early morning hours, capturing grand buildings, street scenes, storefronts and workers in a distinctive diffuse light that renders everything more enigmatic. His work documented a city on the brink of massive change, preserving neighbourhoods that would soon be demolished for modernisation.
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Jongsuk Yoon: Azalea Spring at Marian Goodman Gallery (6 Feb – 21 Mar)
This marks Jongsuk Yoon’s first New York exhibition, featuring large-scale paintings and works on paper that blur the line between memory and imagination. Born in South Korea and trained in Germany, Yoon creates what she calls “landscapes of the soul”: immersive colour fields bursting with pinks, reds and yellows that capture springtime memories of azaleas and mountains. Her intuitive approach ditches traditional horizons and viewpoints, instead enveloping you in pure colour and sensation.
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Makinti Napanangka: The Embodied Archive at D’Lan Contemporary (10 Feb – 20 Mar)
Makinti Napanangka (c.1922-2011), a Pintupi woman from the Western Desert, created some of the most striking work in Australian Indigenous art despite significant physical challenges. Working first with impaired vision, then restored sight, and finally with an aging hand, each phase brought a distinct visual style. Her early works feature tactile tangles of desert-hued blues, purples and oranges, while later pieces show delicate, light-filled compositions and kinetic interlaced lines that echo the movement of ceremonial hairstring skirts.
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John Akomfrah: Listening All Night To The Rain at Lisson Gallery (11 Feb – 25 Apr)
The U.S. premiere of John Akomfrah’s acclaimed work from the 2024 Venice Biennale focuses on Canto VI, a multi-channel film tracing independence movements and uprisings across Africa and Asia from the 1940s to the 1970s, alongside the parallel history of women’s liberation. The British artist weaves together archival footage, newly filmed material and tableaux to explore post-colonialism and resistance. Drawing its title from Chinese poet Su Dongpo’s meditations on political exile, the exhibition positions listening itself as a form of activism, telling stories of migrant communities in Britain through layered narratives.
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