Each week, downtown NYC’s gallery scene brings a new wave of openings across the Lower East Side, SoHo, NoHo, and Tribeca. This week’s listings highlight the diversity of contemporary art shaping New York right now, spanning painting, sculpture, installation, and interdisciplinary practices. Explore the latest exhibitions, opening receptions, and standout presentations happening throughout downtown Manhattan this week.
East Village | Monday
Zurcher Gallery, 33 Bleeker St, Salon of Zurcher: 100 Women of Spirit
East Village | Tuesday
Slip House, 246 East 5th St, ‘On New Romanticism’ by Andrew Cranston, Sebastián Espejo, Elizabeth Jaeger, Noorain Inam, Maude Maris, Cate Pasquarelli, Oda Iselin Sønderland, 6pm-9pm
Eric Firestone Gallery, 4 Great Jones St #3, Women Across America 1945 to 1977
Soho | Tuesday
Nicodim, 15 Greene Street, Second Face’ by Rae Klein
Nino Mier Gallery, 62 Crosby St, ‘Suspending Time’ by Jess Allen
Lower East Side | Wednesday
Fridman Gallery, 169 Bowery, ‘Cautionary Tales: A Symphony of Anger/Kòlè’ by Laurena Finéus
Martos Gallery, 41 Elizabeth St, ‘More Light’ by Keith Haring
Spielzeug, 165 Allen St, Mar-A-Lago Face with various artists, 8pm-2am
Long Story Short, 52 Henry St, Transmission’ by Philip Akkerman, Erik Parker
Hair+Nails, 39 Henry St, ‘Body Roll’ by Rose McBurney, 6pm-9pm
Tribeca | Wednesday
Rainrain, 110 Lafayette St, work by Kosuke Kawahara
Noho | Wednesday
Venus Over Manhattan, 39 Great Jones St, Bowery Nation: Birds Are Talking by Brad Kahlhamer
Soho | Thursday
Sandy Bottom Swimwear popup at The Canvas, 456 West Broadway, Opening Night RSVP LINK
Lower East Side | Thursday
Satellite Art Show, 279 Broome St, The Adventures of PaintoMime’ by David Henry Nobody Jr, 6pm-9pm
14BC Gallery, 626 East 14th St, AlienNation by Brian McNulty, 5pm-9pm
Totah, 183 Stanton St, ‘The Time That’s Left’ by Tommaso Spazzini Villa
Reena Spauldings Fine Art, 165 East Broadway, ‘Trample Paths’ by Ryan Sullivan, curated by Ivy Shapiro
Lyles & King, 21 Catherine Street, ‘A Skeleton to Share’ by Jessie Makinson, work by Cato Ouyang, Fernanda Galvão, Ren Light Pan
bitforms gallery, 131 Allen St, ‘Code Chronicles V.2’ by Claudia Hart, Libby Heaney, Seo Hyojung, Ellie Pritts, Emily Xie, and Addie Wagenknecht
Equity Gallery, 245 Broome St, ‘Ecstatic Collapse’ by Linnea Paskow
Noho | Thursday
Aicon, 35 Great Jones St, ‘Shape of Attention’ group show curated by Manya Kochhar
Tribeca | Thursday
Independent Art Fair (First Day) 299 South Street, ticket link
Francois Ghebaly, 391 Grand St, Paintings by Salim Green
Pablo’s Birthday, 105 Hudson Street, #410, ‘Love Takes Miles’ by Henrik Eiben
ILY2, 35 Saint James Place, work by Pace Taylor
Sixty White, 60 White St, ‘A World in Motion’ by Keith Haring
This week’s weekday gallery listings spotlight some of downtown New York’s most compelling contemporary art exhibitions across the Lower East Side, SoHo, NoHo, and Tribeca. Leading this week’s featured selections is Fridman Gallery’s presentation of Haitian-Canadian painter Laurena Finéus in her first solo exhibition, Cautionary Tales: A Symphony of Anger/Kòlè. Balancing abstraction and realism, Finéus creates layered paintings in oil, ink, pigment, and acrylic that evoke rugged landscapes shaped by displacement, environmental collapse, and survival. Her richly textured surfaces mirror the dense forests and unstable terrains of Maroon geographies, where regrowth and destruction coexist simultaneously. Throughout the exhibition, recurring natural elements function as symbols of endurance and transformation. Magnolia seeds, once believed extinct in Haiti, speak to fragility and persistence, while fire becomes both a force of devastation and liberation. Influenced by Édouard Glissant’s concept of Chaos-Monde, Finéus frames instability not simply as collapse, but as an ongoing process of renewal and possibility. The exhibition also draws inspiration from Amour by Marie Vieux Chauvet through the figure of La Femme Désordre — a rebellious feminine presence that resists silence, containment, and social expectation. Referencing the writings of Audre Lorde, Finéus transforms anger into something spiritual, collective, and regenerative. As downtown NYC galleries unveil new spring exhibitions this week, Cautionary Tales: A Symphony of Anger/Kòlè stands out as a powerful meditation on rupture, resilience, and the enduring search for freedom.
Featured work above by Laurena Finéus
