A view of a previous edition of The Armory Show in New York City.
The Armory Show
New York’s premiere art fair, The Armory Show returns to the Javits Center on 11th Avenue this September 5 to 7, highlighting the world’s leading international contemporary and modern art galleries. This year’s show will include special sections like Galleries (20th and 21st-century artworks across various media); Solo (intimate presentations focusing on the work of a single emerging, established or historic artist working in the 20th or 21st century); Focus (celebrating artists and galleries of the American South) and more. In addition, the fair will lead important conversations and events that highlight influential members of the international art community, as well as a number of prominent guest curators like Jessica Bell Brown and Ebony L. Haynes.
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Trans Forming Liberty by Amy Sherald.
Amy Sherald cancels National Gallery show
Esteemed portrait artist Amy Sherald recently canceled a major solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. amid concerns about the censorship of a certain Sherald painting. The piece in question, Trans Forming Liberty, depicts a trans woman in a blue dress and pink hair (the colors of the transgender pride flag), holding a torch of flowers. The National Gallery allegedly proposed replacing the painting with a video of people reacting to the painting and discussing transgender issues. Sherald—best known for her commissioned portrait of Michelle Obama as well as her bold portrayals of Black and other minority figures—rejected the idea on the grounds that it would have included anti-trans views. Sherald and famed portraitist Kehinde Wiley are the first Black artists to have received presidential portrait commissions from the National Portrait Gallery, back in 2016.
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Tawny Chatmon, Not Your Blackamoor, from the series The Restoration, 2025, cowrie shells, acrylic and thread on archival pigment print, 50 x 48 in. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Myrtis. © Tawny Chatmon. Photo by Lee Stalsworth.
Tawny Chatmon at NMWA
This fall the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) presents a solo exhibition of richly layered, photography-based works by Tawny Chatmon. In Tawny Chatmon: Sanctuaries of Truth, Dissolution of Lies, the artist uses stylistic languages drawn from historical decorative motifs and potent African American cultural markers to create lush and strikingly powerful portraits that challenge racism and erasure. The exhibition features more than 25 large-scale photographs from recent series dating from 2019 to the present. This is the artist’s first museum exhibition in Washington, D.C. and will be on view from October 15, 2025, to March 8, 2026.+++
Arline Mann, Open Window, 2025, watercolor on Arches paper, 30 x 20 in.
The Forever House
On view through October 26, the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center in Clarksville, Tennessee, presents The Forever House, an exhibition showcasing the works of award-winning watercolorist Arline Mann. The show highlights paintings by Mann that shed light on “a magical place—Elder Mountain (near Chattanooga), and the stone house built on the mountain around 1923 by George Elder with materials from that mountain—the first home erected there after the Cherokee were marched out in the 1840s on the Trail of Tears.” Mann’s paintings are displayed among historic photographs of Elder House and Elder Mountain, with text relating the history of both.
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Natalie Christensen in her Santa Fe, New Mexico, studio. Photo credit: Christine Alexander.
Deconstructed Self
A new exhibition at SUNY Polytechnic Institute’s Gannett Gallery in Utica, New York, showcases the photography of Natalie Christensen. Known for her minimalist compositions and exploration of psychological landscapes, Christensen brings her distinctive vision to central New York with a series that interrogates the interplay between interior experience and the constructed environment. Deconstructed Self features evocative images that strip away context, encouraging viewers to confront themes of identity, memory and perception. The show runs through October 3. —Powered by Froala Editor
