With September here, that rush to bask in the last dregs of summer pulls most of us outside. But perhaps the best way to ease into fall is ending those late summer sojourns with a visit to a museum or gallery. After all, the sun isn’t the only thing you can bask in—art has always proven a balm to listless summer, fall, or winter spirits. We’ve gathered a smattering of the best shows to get you out of that late summer funk and into that back-to-school anticipatory spirit.
Georges de La Tour: From Shadow to Light at Musée Jacquemart-André
Paris, France
When considering how light has been rendered by painters throughout history, it is the Dutch and Italian masters that usually get the most air time. Rembrandt’s name is always on the tip of the tongue, Vermeer was no stranger to a stream of well placed light, and Caravaggio’s use of chiaroscuro resulted in some of the most emotionally charged scenes of the Baroque period. But Georges de la Tour, a contemporary of Caravaggio, Peter Paul Rubens, and Anthony van Dyck, had his own love affair with light. An exhibition dedicated to the Frenchman will open September 12 in the historically significant context of the Musée Jacquemart-André. The 19th century mansion was constructed as a residence for Edouard André and Nélie Jacquemart, and held their robust collection of Renaissance and Flemish masterpieces and 18th century French decorative arts, most of which is still on view today. From Shadow to Light offers roughly thirty paintings that track the development of de La Tour’s hand over the course of his career. His experiments with light most frequently take the form of genre scenes and symbolic depictions of saints, but they also suggest a preoccupation with time, movement, and atmosphere, and how all those things impact his subject’s interior worlds. The exhibition is on view through January 25, 2026. —Camille Okhio
An Ecology of Quilts: The Natural History of American Textiles at the American Folk Art Museum
New York, NY
Thread by thread, curators Emelie Gevalt and Austin Losada are unraveling the hidden histories woven into our most beloved textiles. Opening on September 26 at the American Folk Art Museum, An Ecology of Quilts challenges how we see these familiar domestic objects—not just as cozy bedspreads or grandmother’s handiwork, but as complex documents of global trade, environmental impact, and human labor that span centuries. Drawing from the museum’s collection of over 600 quilts, this exhibition traces examples from the 18th to 20th centuries to reveal the intricate web of relationships between cotton fields and indigo plantations, enslaved labor and international commerce, and natural dyes and toxic production processes. From the “blue gold” of South Carolina’s indigo crops to the mechanized chintz patterns that revolutionized American textile markets, each quilt tells multiple stories—of the quilters who stitched them, yes, but also of the countless hands that cultivated, harvested, dyed, and transported the raw materials that made their artistry possible. It’s an eco-critical investigation that asks what environmental and social costs were stitched into America’s most quintessential art form. The result is both beautiful and haunting, and a reminder that every thread connects us to a larger, more complex world than we might imagine. On view through March 1, 2026. —Julia Cancilla
Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries at Japan Society
New York, New York
Identity can be as impossible to pin down as a many-headed hydra. As soon as we understand ourselves, our selves change. Chiharu Shiota explores the liminal space within identity, where who we choose to be meets the parts of ourselves we cannot change or deny. Her solo show Two Home Countries at the Japan Society feels like an elegy for the widely varied Japanese-American experience as much as a monument to her unique traumas and triumphs. The installation with which the exhibition shares its title, takes the form of two adjoining houses. Within their ghostly frames, red thread explodes like ruptured cells or DNA in the midst of recoding. Cell speaks to Shiota’s experience of motherhood and the ovarian cancer diagnosis she survived. Diary involved facsimiles of the World War II-era diary pages by Japanese soldiers eager for their families to have a piece of their internal world in the event of their deaths. Grief and trauma live in our cells, as recent scholarship shows. Shiota’s body of work brings form to those genetic markers, allowing their roots and triggers to be examined and understood at the individual pace of each visitor. It is a deeply moving exhibition and unfortunately timely, as we witness the internment camps initially used to cage Japanese-American citizens being repurposed for equally evil means. Two Home Countries does not provide a particular path forward but plants the seeds for several paths to grow. On view through January 11, 2026. —C.O.
Rich Aybar: RUBBERWORKS at TIWA Select
New York, New York
Lighting from Rubberworks.
Designer Rich Aybar.
I first wrote about Dominican-American artist and designer Rich Aybar’s work in 2022, when he showed with creative director Alexander May as part of his itinerant curatorial series, SIZED. That show also introduced Aybar’s work to the New York City-based gallerist Alex Tieghi-Walker, and it was love at first sight. “I honestly have never seen anyone play with rubber in the way that Rich does,” Tieghi-Walker says. Most onlookers will likely agree. Aybar, a former fashion stylist, introduced his Rubberworks series during Milan Design Week as part of a show curated by Valentina Ciuffi and Joseph Grima, founders of the emerging design platform Alcova. The exhibition at TIWA Select sees him expand on the range with pieces that combine synthetic, and, for the first time, natural rubber with steel and salvaged chestnut from his home upstate. There is an exploration of new techniques, including Japanese joinery and welding, which he studied earlier this year during a four-month residency at the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach. But it is Aybar’s now-signature use of rubber, which he prizes for its “haptic” qualities, that invites intrigue and discomfiture in equal measure. And that’s precisely the appeal. “It plays with the idea of what’s natural and what isn’t,” says Tieghi-Walker. “And at the end of the day, it’s just really pretty.” On view September 5th–October 8th. —Sean Santiago
Carol Bove: Nights of Cabiria at Gagosian
Beverly Hills, California
Parallel Friction by Carol Bove, 2025
Pedestal and art converge in Carol Bove’s deceptively simple sculptures. Nights of Cabiria explores the industrial heritage of Los Angeles, with particularly poignant references to its arms manufacturing industry. Heavy topics yes, but Bove is able to play with them with levity. The easy formal precedent for her work would be John Chamberlain. They share a penchant for the large scale. But where Chamberlain’s sculptures were straightforward explorations of value and industrialism, Bove’s work could potentially touch on structure and support in a more abstract sense. Priestcraft uses industrial scaffolding as a base: what is usually a blemish on the façade of a structure here is celebrated and centered. Nights of Cabiria presents a vision of beauty infused with force and facelessness. On view through November 1, 2025. —C.O.
Viola’s Room
New York, New York
Viola’s Room, presented by The Shed and Punchdrunk, June 17 – October 19, 2025.
When entering Viola’s Room, a new immersive experience at The Shed, visitors are asked to take off their shoes and socks, sanitize their feet, put on a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, and follow the circuitous path before them. Created by production company Punchdrunk, Viola’s Room is the team’s first New York project since their acclaimed immersive Macbeth adaptation, Sleep No More. Based on a gothic horror story, Viola’s Room involves no actors. Visitors are guided through the labyrinthine space—occasionally crawling, running, ducking, and pulling back scenery—by Helena Bonham Carter’s voice and a directive to “follow the light.” The elaborate scenery and sets are the main form of storytelling; these spaces include a retro teenage bedroom, hallways with detailed miniatures, a dining room set up for a feast, and more. It’s eerie and disorienting, but that’s part of the point. And the experience emphasizes design’s power in theater. Viola’s Room’s sets aren’t just part of the storytelling—they’re core to it. Runs through October 19. —Annie Goldsmith