January 2026 BAG

Your curated Black Art Guide for this month. So many things to see!

Kara Walker, ‘Unmanned Drone’ at The Brick in LA.

Los Angeles

Midtown/Central LA

• [NEW] Casting a Glance: Dancing with Smithson curated by Lisa Le Feuvre at Marian Goodman Gallery (8 Nov until 24 Jan)

• [NEW] Amoako Boafo, I Bring Home with Me at Roberts Projects (17 Jan until 21 Mar)

• J.J. Anderson: Sometimes I Feel Like I Am Almost Home at CAAM (19 Aug until 22 Mar)

• Tavares Strachan: The Day Tomorrow Began at LACMA** (12 Oct until 29 Mar) (highly recommended)

• Kwame Brathwaite: Giving You The Best That I Got at Art + Practice (11 Oct until 7 Mar)

• Kohshin Finley: Still Life at Jeffrey Deitch** (8 Nov-17 Jan) (highly recommended)

• Alteronce Gumby: Walk on the Moon at Jeffrey Deitch (15 Nov-17 Jan)

• Kara Walker: Monuments at The Brick* (Until 3 May)

East Side/DTLA

• Monuments at Geffen Contemporary* at MOCA (23 Oct until 3 May)

New York City

Brooklyn

• Seydou Keïta: A Tactile Lens at Brooklyn Museum (10 Oct-8 Mar)

Chelsea

• Kandy Lopez: Textile Truths: Faces of Resilience at ACA Galleries, 173 10th Avenue, New York, NY (13 Nov-17 Jan)** (highly recommended)

• [NEW] Odili Donald Odita: Shadowland at David Kordansky Gallery (15 Jan-15 Feb)

• [NEW] (Not black, but worth your time) Louise Bourgeois, Gathering Wool at Hauser + Wirth (6 Nov until 18 Apr) New York, 22nd Street

Harlem

• [NEW] Studio Museum is open!

  • From the Studio: Fifty-Eight Years of Artists in Residence (15 Nov until 15 Feb)

  • Expanding the Walls: Making Connections Between Photography, History, and Community (15 Nov until 12 Apr)

  • Tom Lloyd (15 Nov until 22 Mar)

LES

• Naima Green: Instead, I spin fantasies at the ICP (16 Oct-12 Jan)

Midtown

• [NEW] Ron Norsworthy: American Dream at Edwynn Houk Gallery (through 17 Jan)

• Wifredo Lam: When I Don’t Sleep, I Dream at MoMA (Until 11 April)

• Arthur Jafa: Less is Morbid at The Museum of Modern Art (19 Nov-5 July)*

• Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at the Museum of Modern Art (14 Dec until 4 Apr)

• New Photography 2025: Lines of Belonging at MoMA (until 17 Jan)

• Odili Donald Odita: Songs from Life at MoMA* (through Spring 2026; 1st floor)

TriBeCa

• [NEW] Faith Ringgold at Jack Shainman Gallery (14 Nov until 24 Jan)

UES

• Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers at the Guggenheim (until 18 Jan)*

Queens

• Gabrielle Goliath: Personal Accounts at PS1 (6 Nov-16 Mar)

Elsewhere

Berlin

• Kara Walker: Kara Elizabeth Walker presents Dispatches from A— and the Museum of Half-remembered Histories at Sprüth Magers (14 Nov– 4 Apr)

London

• [NEW] Banksy reveals two new works in London

• Kerry James Marshall: The Histories at the Royal Academy of Art (until 18 Jan)**

• Nigerian Modernism at the Tate (8 Oct until 10 May)*

Miami

• Language and Image: Conceptual and Performance-Based Photography from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection at the Perez Art Museum Miami (15 May until 11 Jan)

• Woody De Othello: coming forth by day at Pérez Art Museum Miami (13 Nov until 28 Jun)

Washington

• Lindsay Adams: Ceremony at Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg Center (29 Oct until 7 March)

Media

• Two pieces about the Studio Museum in Harlem. The first is a New Yorker piece that has Thelma Golden ruminating on the neighborhood and the literary works that tell the story of Harlem. The second is a piece that focuses on the institution and the role that it plays in Black Art. It is about why Black Art matters.

• Deborah Willis on her book released 25 years ago, Reflections in Black, A History of Black Photographers, 1840-present. She recorded a podcast last month that revisits the work.

• Kader Attia on Shattering and Gathering our Traces, Film by Pushpin Films, Produced by Lehmann Maupin.

Upcoming

Have I missed anything? Let me know!

*Indicates I have seen the show and can personally recommend it!

Odili Donald Odita: Songs from Life at MoMA

More Bisa Butler