Studio Museum Premieres Fall 2026 Presentations and Announces Spring 2027 Exhibition Lineup

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HARLEM, NEW YORK, NY, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2026 — The Studio Museum in Harlem today opened the final exhibitions of its inaugural year in its new building. A sustained becoming: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2026 features new work by Derriann Pharr, Simonette Quamina, and Taylor Simmons, the 2026 cohort of the institution’s acclaimed Artist-in-Residence program, who are the first to work out of the custom-designed studios in the Museum's purpose-built home. Tone features a range of works by artists who use tonal variation as an expressive force and unique material language. This exhibition is part of the organization's ongoing commitment to spotlighting an abundant and diverse selection of works from its celebrated permanent collection.

A sustained becoming and Tone join installations that have recently opened to the public, including Dreams of This Future: The Collection of Peggy Cooper Cafritz, an ambitious display of works bequeathed to the Museum by the legendary arts patron, educator, and civil rights activist Peggy Cooper Cafritz; Geometries, a selection of works that explores how artists of African descent have used lines, shapes, and the spaces between to convey emotion, express identity, or work through formal concerns; and a presentation of all twenty-six works on paper in Mark Bradford’s Untitled (A–Z) (2010), which builds on the artist’s ongoing body of work based on advertisements collected in Bradford’s South Los Angeles neighborhood.

Arriving on the heels of these exhibitions is Studio Museum in Harlem: A History, the first book in the institution's lifetime that details its establishment and traces the organization’s evolution from 1968 to today. Now available for preorder online and in-store at Studio Store, Studio Museum in Harlem: A History will be published on October 27 of this year.

As the Museum’s inaugural year ends, its spring 2027 season welcomes two new solo presentations that cement its status as the nexus for artists of African descent locally, nationally, and internationally. Opening February 11, 2027, Woody De Othello: coming forth by day is the Miami-born artist’s first institutional solo show in New York City. This exhibition travels to the Museum from the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art and the Pérez Art Museum Miami, where the artist had his first solo museum presentation. Mavis Pusey: Mobile Images, a major survey of the Jamaican-born artist, co-organized by the Studio Museum and the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, arrives at the Museum on April 9, 2027. Additional details on the Museum’s upcoming seasons and accompanying public programs will be announced in the coming months.

Upcoming
Woody De Othello: coming forth by day
February 11, 2027, to May 16, 2027

Miami-born artist Woody De Othello’s solo presentation, coming forth by day, a new series of ceramic and wood sculptures, tiled wall works, and a large-scale bronze, travels to the Studio Museum in Harlem from the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, having originally been presented at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM). This will be the artist’s first institutional solo show in New York City.

Othello’s practice is rooted in precolonial and diasporic African traditions, with the artist drawing from spiritual practices, hermetic philosophy, and cultural artifacts—including nkisi power figures, Dogon ritual objects, and Egyptian pyramids.

Woody De Othello: coming forth by day is organized by Jennifer Inacio, PAMM curator, with the support of Fabiana A. Sotillo, PAMM curatorial assistant. The presentation at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art is organized by Susie Kantor, associate curator and exhibition department head. The presentation at the Studio Museum is organized by Yelena Keller, Associate Curator.

Mavis Pusey: Mobile Images
April 9, 2027, to September 5, 2027

This exhibition, coorganized by the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania (ICA Philadelphia), marks the first major survey dedicated to the work and life of Jamaican-born artist Mavis Pusey (1928–2019), and features an array of artworks from Pusey's prolific fifty-year career. An important figure in geometric abstraction, Pusey created rich abstract paintings and works on paper that reflect her wide-ranging engagement with fashion, printmaking, and the cities in which she lived. While Pusey maintained an international presence in the art world, her work has largely remained overlooked. This comprehensive retrospective is the culmination of over a decade of research and collaboration and offers an expansive reexamination of Pusey’s impact on abstraction and beyond.

The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive publication documenting Pusey’s creative practice. Designed by Miko McGinty Inc., the catalogue includes forewords by directors Thelma Golden and Johanna Burton; an introduction by curator Hallie Ringle; essays by Valerie Cassel Oliver and Cecilia González Godino; a roundtable with Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, sonia louise davis, Tomashi Jackson, Kiel Adrian Scott, Kiki Teshome; and an archive essay by Teshome. The publication is copublished by the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Mavis Pusey: Mobile Images is curated by Hallie Ringle, Daniel and Brett Sundheim Chief Curator of the ICA Philadelphia, with Kiki Teshome, Curatorial Assistant, Studio Museum in Harlem. The exhibition is coorganized by the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania and the Studio Museum in Harlem. The presentation at the Studio Museum is organized by Teshome.

Major support for Mobile Images has been provided by the Mellon Foundation. Lead support for the Studio Museum presentation and publication, Mavis Pusey: Mobile Images, is made possible by MetLife Foundation.

Support for Mavis Pusey: Mobile Images and the exhibition-related symposium at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania has been provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Support for curatorial research has been provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. This exhibition was made possible by the Neil Lane-Jacobson Family Foundation, Jemilah Afshar & Sascha S. Bauer, and Dana McDonald Strong & Mark Strong. Additional support has been provided by Nancy & Leonard Amoroso, Danielle M. Anderman, Marjorie & Michael Levine, Meredith & Bryan Verona, Caroline & Daniel Werther, and The Study at University City. Publication support is provided by the Wyeth Foundation for American Art.

Now On View
A sustained becoming: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2026
Through January 3, 2027

A sustained becoming: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2026 features work by Derriann Pharr, Simonette Quamina, and Taylor Simmons, the first cohort in the institution’s new building.

Working across a range of media, Pharr, Quamina, and Simmons employ distinct approaches to figuration that engage with cultural memory, bodily presence, storytelling, and archival materials. Real and otherworldly images coalesce to reveal familiar and new narratives, gesturing to the experience of remembering or dreaming. The works in this exhibition create momentary suspensions in time to imagine what has already transpired and what is yet to come.

A sustained becoming: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2026 is organized by Adria Gunter, Assistant Curator. Exhibition support provided by Cam McEwen, former Studio Museum/MoMA Curatorial Fellow.

The Studio Museum in Harlem’s Artist-in-Residence program is funded by the Glenstone Foundation. Additional support for the Artist-in-Residence program provided by the American Express Kenneth and Kathryn Chenault Sponsorship Fund; Joy of Giving Something; Jerome Foundation; and by endowments established by the Andrea Frank Foundation; the Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Trust; and Rockefeller Brothers Fund.


Mark Bradford, Untitled (A–Z), 2010
Through January 3, 2027

This installation revisits a major body of work by Mark Bradford that builds on an ongoing series called “merchant posters,” wherein the artist collects local business advertisements in his South Los Angeles neighborhood. Bradford layers and sands down these once-posted signs—featuring phrases such as “Stop Evictions” and “Affordable Daycare"—abstracting their original messaging so that only fragments remain. The result is twenty-six individual works on paper, each depicting a single letter from the English alphabet. By isolating the letters from their original context, they become more symbolic than functional, alluding to the social and economic systems that impact the lives of the people in the community where the materials were found.

Mark Bradford, Untitled (A–Z) (2010) is organized by Yelena Keller, Associate Curator.


Tone
Through January 3, 2027

In drawings, paintings, photographs, and sculptures, the artists in Tone harness the expressive force of black, white, and every value between to demonstrate that tone functions beyond a technical condition as a unique material language.

Artists in the exhibition include Jules Allen, Pat Davis, Roy DeCarava, Touhami Ennadre, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Zanele Muholi, Chris Ofili, Gordon Parks, Elle Pérez, Gary Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Ming Smith, Paul Anthony Smith, Chiffon Thomas, Larry Walker, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.

Tone is organized by Jayson Overby Jr., former Assistant Curator.

Support for Tone provided by the Charina Endowment Fund and Alice L. Walton Foundation Exhibition Endowment.


Through Motion and Repose: Expanding the Walls 2026
Through January 31, 2027

Through Motion and Repose: Expanding the Walls 2026 features photography by the seventeen artists in this year’s cohort of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s signature teen program, Expanding the Walls: Making Connections Between Photography, History, and Community.

The artists capture both vibrant scenes on the streets of New York City and personal, intimate moments within the home. Seen together, the images in this exhibition record motion and repose, fundamental elements of the artists’ experiences as young people growing up in New York.

Through Motion and Repose features work by Agnes Baidoo, Angel Torres, Christopher Soriano, Fairooz Ahamed, Isabella Amankwa-Jones, Ismael Parache Henry, Janelly Rosendo, Jony Pineda Feliz, Jordyn Vargas, Keyaris Canty, Lalah Harper, Nathaly Lopez Alvarez, Nyasia Massey, Rijika Chowdhury, Stephanie Muñoz, Valentina Megraw, and Yoselyn Lucero.

Through Motion and Repose: Expanding the Walls 2026 is organized by Cam McEwen and Taylor Ndiaye, former MoMA/Studio Museum in Harlem Curatorial Fellows; Maria Wilson, Robert Rauschenberg Curatorial Fellow; and the Expanding the Walls 2026 participants. Exhibition support provided by Jayson Overby Jr., former Assistant Curator; with Ally Caple, former Expanding the Walls Coordinator; and Alexandra Nelson, School and Community Programs Coordinator.

Expanding the Walls is made possible with support from the Keith Haring Foundation Education Fund; Joy of Giving Something; J.Crew; the KHR McNeely Family Foundation, Kevin, Rosemary, and Hannah Rose McNeely; Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation; William Talbott Hillman Foundation; Hearst Endowment Fund; and by the Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Trust. The Studio Museum is deeply grateful for Donna Van Der Zee’s continued support of this program.


Dreams of This Future: The Collection of Peggy Cooper Cafritz
Through February 28, 2027

This exhibition brings together a selection of works from an historic 2018 gift to the Studio Museum in Harlem by Peggy Cooper Cafritz (1947–2018) to celebrate her legacy as an advocate for the arts and her lifelong commitment to artists and their practices. An arts patron, educator, and civil rights activist, Cafritz bequeathed the majority of her art collection to the Studio Museum and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, a public school in Washington, DC, which she cofounded in 1974.

The gift to the Studio Museum encompasses a multigenerational range of artists of African descent and features many alumni of the Museum’s signature Artist-in-Residence program or those who have had work exhibited at the Museum, demonstrating the shared commitment of Cafritz and the Studio Museum to supporting Black artists throughout their careers.

Artists in the exhibition include Nina Chanel Abney, Derrick Adams, Laylah Ali, ruby onyinyechi amanze, Philip Kwame Apagya, Alexandre Arrechea, Radcliffe Bailey, John Bankston, Sanford Biggers, Diedrick Brackens, Nick Cave, Elizabeth Colomba, Gregory Coates, Noah Davis, Emory Douglas, Derek Fordjour, Hassan Hajjaj, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Kay Hassan, Samuel Levi Jones, Titus Kaphar, Gwendolyn C. Knight, Jas Knight, Marcia Kure, Jerome Lagarrigue, Deana Lawson, Simone Leigh, Nate Lewis, Turiya Magadlela, Mustafa Maluka, Kerry James Marshall, Wangechi Mutu, Jackie Nickerson, Arcmanoro Niles, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Kambui Olujimi, Chinedu Felix Osuchukwu, Jennifer Packer, Deborah Roberts, Rozeal., Tschabalala Self, Alexandria Smith, Stan Squirewell, Devin Troy Strother, Hank Willis Thomas, William Villalongo, and Saya Woolfalk.

Dreams of This Future is organized by Connie H. Choi, former Curator, and Kiki Teshome, Curatorial Assistant. The Studio Museum is grateful to the Cafritz family for their support of this exhibition.

Geometries
Through February 7, 2027

This exhibition centers the ancient mathematical study as a point of artistic inquiry, exploring how artists have used lines, shapes, and the spaces between to convey emotion, express identity, or work through formal concerns.

Whether conjuring figures from elemental building blocks or destabilizing perception with abstract compositions, artists make use of geometry as an organizational logic for the images they create. They translate the breadth of the study—grid-like city maps, West African textiles, patterned flowerheads, and sonic vibrations—into a shared visual vocabulary. Through that common language, artists impart meaning onto material, opening new interpretive avenues for viewers in turn.

Artists in the exhibition include Loretta Pettway Bennett, McArthur Binion, Sonia Boyce, Catti, Colin Chase, Emilio Cruz, Torkwase Dyson, Rico Gatson, Cynthia Hawkins, Leslie Hewitt, Steffani Jemison, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Jennie C. Jones, Caroline Kent, Norman Lewis, James Little, Al Loving, Howard McCalebb, Julie Mehretu, Odili Donald Odita, Senam Okudzeto, Adam Pendleton, Mavis Pusey, Jorge Luis Rodriguez, Thomas Sills, Shinique Smith, Alma Thomas, Stanley Whitney, Jack Whitten, and William T. Williams.

Geometries is organized by Thelma Golden, Ford Foundation Director and Chief Curator, and Simon Ghebreyesus, Curatorial Assistant.

Support for Geometries provided by the Charina Endowment Fund and Alice L. Walton Foundation Exhibition Endowment.


Kapwani Kiwanga: BLEED
Through April 1, 2027

A new site-specific commission by French and Canadian artist Kapwani Kiwanga, BLEED draws inspiration from quilting traditions and the symbolism embedded in their intricate designs. Along the Underground Railroad, quilts hanging on clotheslines were believed to be stitched with codes that communicated critical information. BLEED features one of these motifs—a pattern of triangles called the “flying geese” that was purported to guide people north.

Kapwani Kiwanga: BLEED is organized by Yelena Keller, Associate Curator.

Upcoming Programs
Studio Salon
Studio Salon explores the dynamic intersections of literature and contemporary art through interdisciplinary discussions and experiences with writers, artists, and cultural leaders.


Primary: After and With Alma Thomas
Saturday, October 10, 2026, 3:00–5:00 pm

This conversation between scholar Alexis Pauline Gumbs and artist Steffani Jemison celebrates the release of Gumbs's new book, Primary: After and With Alma Thomas, published by Yale University Press, which explores the life and art of the late artist Alma Thomas.


Crossing the Horizon
Friday, October 16, 2026, 2:00–8:00 pm

This day of programming marks the launch of “Crossing the Horizon,” Volume 8 of FORGOTTEN LANDS, a journal of Caribbean art, culture, and dialogue. The day features a conversation between curator and painter Dejá Aaliyah Belardo, artist Firelei Báez, and writer and curator Gervais Marsh; a discussion between writer Edwidge Danticat, scholar Dantaé Garee Elliott, and artist Manuel Mathieu; an immersive listening experience by James Allister Sprang; and a closing DJ set by Shie Moreno.


Touched by the Mother
Sunday, October 25, 2026, 3:00–5:00 pm

This conversation between Huey Copeland, Thomas Lax, and Glenn Ligon is organized on the occasion of Copeland’s new book, Touched by the Mother: Black Men, American Art, Feminist Horizons. The discussion will be followed by a performance by musician Alicia Hall Moran.

Ongoing Programs
Every Sunday
Enjoy free admission to the Studio Museum every Sunday, from 11:00 am until 6:00 pm, with Studio Sundays, a day of programs designed for visitors of all ages, including children and their families. In addition to viewing the exhibitions, visitors can enjoy talks, tours, art-making workshops, storytime, and family gallery tours. Though admission is free, tickets are required.

Generous support for Studio Sundays provided by Art Bridges.


Every Third Wednesday of the Month
Lil’ Studio, held every third Wednesday of the month from 10:00 to 11:00 am, is a free early childhood program that engages children and their adult(s) in reading, singing, movement, and art making to build social, emotional, cognitive, physical, and language development. Parents, caregivers, and organizations caring for little ones under five years old are invited to enjoy activities that encourage creative time and bonding. Preregistration is required.

Funding Credits
Bank of America is the Studio Museum in Harlem’s lead opening partner.

Support for the Studio Museum in Harlem’s exhibition program provided by the Alice L. Walton Foundation Exhibitions Endowment.

Major support for the Studio Museum in Harlem's Learning & Engagement programs provided by the Thompson Foundation Education Fund and the Alice L. Walton Foundation Education and Engagement Endowment.

Additional funding provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

About the Studio Museum in Harlem
Founded in 1968 by a diverse group of artists, community activists, and philanthropists, the Studio Museum in Harlem is internationally known for its catalytic role in promoting the work of artists of African descent. The Studio Museum’s new home, situated at its longtime location on West 125th Street, opened to the public on November 15, 2025. Designed by Adjaye Associates with Corgan (formerly Cooper Robertson) serving as executive architect, the building—the first created expressly for the institution’s program—enables the Studio Museum to better serve a growing and diverse audience, provide additional educational opportunities for people of all ages, expand its program of world-renowned exhibitions, effectively display its singular collection, and strengthen its trailblazing Artist-in-Residence program.

For more information, visit studiomuseum.org.

Visitor Information
The Studio Museum in Harlem is located at 144 West 125th Street, between Malcolm X Boulevard (Lenox Avenue) and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard (Seventh Avenue).

The Studio Museum is open Wednesday through Sunday, from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm, with extended hours on Friday, from 11:00 am to 9:00 pm.

The Museum is open to Members on Saturday mornings, from 10:00 to 11:00 am, before the galleries open to the public.

Admission rates are offered as a suggestion, with Sundays free for everyone. Suggested rates are $16 for adults and $9 for seniors (sixty-five years and over), students, and visitors with disabilities (care partners are free). Admission is free for children sixteen and under.

Tickets to the Studio Museum may be purchased online at studiomuseum.org/visit or at the Museum.

Media Contacts
Sasha Cordingley
Studio Museum in Harlem
[email protected]

Sara Ory
Polskin Arts
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