JANUARY: Ai Weiwei’s New Toy Brick Masterpieces Re-Mix Art History

Artist Ai Weiwei wields hundreds of thousands of LEGO and WOMA bricks – these ubiquitous bricks are the genesis from which two exhibitions emerged: “What You See Is What You See” at Faurschou New York, and “Ai Weiwei: Child’s Play” at Vito Schnabel Gallery, at once pixelating and abstracting famous works to provide deeper meaning.

Jennifer J. Lee, Lee Jeans, 2024 (detail) \\\ Photo: David Behringer

FEBRUARY: Jennifer J. Lee’s New Paintings on Burlap Are Unbelievable

Jennifer J. Lee’s created “The Falls,” a series of 11 photorealistic paintings, all on a rough burlap canvas. As the material is coarse and porous, it eats up pigment, allowing the gridded weave of the fabric to shine through expertly rendered slices of modern life.

Julian Opie, “Year 2 A (First Grade A), 2024” © Julian Opie, Courtesy Lisson Gallery

MARCH: Julian Opie’s 10-Foot Pedestrians Are a Joyous Surprise

Julian Opie’s graphic sensibilities are strong, conveying a wide range of detail in simplistic form. His newest work showed at Lisson Gallery in New York, playing with scale, movement, working to express individuality within parameter, breaking into abstraction as the viewer draws closer.

Kennedy Yanko: Jetstream Dreams, 2025 \\\ Photo: Elisabeth Bernstein

APRIL: Kennedy Yanko’s Epic Two-Gallery Exhibition of Crushed Metal

Kennedy Yanko presented her largest exhibition to date – 30 crushed metal and “paint skin” sculptures packing a resonating gravitational punch. The exhibit was dual: in Tribeca, “Epithets” at James Cohan Gallery was a gray-walled gritty exhibition, while “Retro Future” at Salon 94 on the Upper East Side occupied all three floors that crescendoed into sunlit rooms and a bonus group exhibition curated by the artist.

Jeff Koons. Frieze New York, 2025, installation view. Artwork © Jeff Koons, Incredible Hulk ™, and © Marvel. All rights reserved. \\\ Photo: Maris Hutchinson, courtesy Gagosian

MAY: 4 New York City Contemporary Art Fairs Deliver 8 Surprises

Gagosian Gallery presented a crowd-gathering trio of Jeff Koons’ “Hulk” sculptures at Frieze this year, in a booth fully designed and conceived by the artist. Though each appears to be an inflatable, they are all actually wrought in a heavy polychromed bronze.

Alicja Kwade: Telos Tales, 508 & 510 West 25th Street, New York, NY \\\ Photo: © Alicja Kwade, courtesy Pace Gallery

JUNE: Alicja Kwade Traps Time in Perception-Warping Exhibition

Branch-like structures intertwine with clock faces and reflections in Alicja Kwade’s “Telos Tales” exhibition at Pace Gallery, offering a hypnotic and sensory-heightening experience of material, movement, and time.

Andy Warhol: Fashion, curated by Vincent Fremont at Anton Kern Gallery (installation) \\\ Photo: David Behringer

JULY: Up Close: Andy Warhol Before the Silkscreens

Almost 50 of Andy Warhol’s ink drawings, produced in the late 1950s before his famous screenprints, was on view at Anton Kern Gallery in New York. Curated by Vincent Fremont, a longtime Warhol collaborator, and co-founder of the Andy Warhol Foundation, this show was a treat for both Warhol lovers and art appreciators alike.

Paul Anthony Smith Melody #6, 2025 \\\ Photo: Nicholas Knight, courtesy of Public Art Fund, NY

AUGUST: Paul Anthony Smith’s Photographs Surprise at 300 City Bus Stops

One might never expect that instead of seeking out some of the best art in the city, it might just come find you. Paul Anthony Smith’s “Melodies from a running spring,” presented by Public Art Fund, was featured on 300 JCDecaux bus shelters across New York, Boston, and Chicago, bringing moments of pause in between the blaring sirens of the city.

Spencer Finch, Moonlight (Reflected in a Pond), 2025 \\\ Photo: Phoebe d’Heurle, © Spencer Finch 2025, courtesy the artist and James Cohan

SEPTEMBER: Spencer Finch Transports Viewers Through Time and Space

“One Hundred Famous Views of New York City (After Hiroshige)” at James Cohan will change how you view things, quite literally. Spencer Finch invited visitors to look through rose colored lenses, then yellow, then green – his light sculptures bathed in colored light streaming in from the windows, tinting our perception.

Donald Moffett, Lot 062525 (nature cult, first snow), 2025 \\\ Photo: David Behringer

OCTOBER: Donald Moffett Melts the Line Between Abstraction and Activism

Donald Moffett’s presented “Snowflake,” a poetic combination of visually magnetic paintings and political bite. Moffett is a founding member of Gran Fury – the graphic design collective that emerged from ACT UP in the late 1980s, creating some of the most powerful and important media with the mission to end the AIDS pandemic. Viewers were encouraged to look at and through the works, engaging with ephemerality.

Installation view, Analia Saban: Flowchart, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York \\\ Photo: Dan Bradica, courtesy the artist Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

NOVEMBER: Get Closer to Analia Saban’s New Paint-Woven Work

Analia Saban’s new exhibition Flowchart was on view at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York, featuring a marble hyper-realistic carving of a jacket and exceptional paintings created on a loom, among others. Her flowcharts, etched in a thick layer of black oil paint over encaustic, detail the series of decisions that an artist takes to create a painting. Self-analysis is set on stage, giving the viewer a look into the art, and also directly into the mind.

Check out the rest of Design Milk’s end of the year coverage here!

Growing up in NYC has given Aria a unique perspective into art + design, constantly striving for new projects to get immersed in. An avid baker, crocheter, and pasta maker, handwork and personal touch is central to what she loves about the built environment. Outside of the city, she enjoys hiking, biking, and learning about space.