5+ Uptown Art Exhibitions to Add to Your Spring Bucket List
Experience the magic of Uptown's art scene at these spring exhibitions.
Art is the heartbeat of New York City culture. What better way to embrace the energy of the spring season than immersing yourself in Uptown's vibrant creative scene? From Harlem to the Bronx, cultural institutions have unveiled a lineup of immersive exhibitions that celebrate the innovative and inspiring work of local artists.
While there are so many exciting exhibits Uptown this season, we've curated a roundup of a few must-see shows to check out. Whether you're looking for additions to your weekend gallery-hopping itinerary or you need a midweek creative escape, experience the power of community through art at these Uptown exhibitions.
Songs of New York: 100 Years of Imagining the City Through Music
Date: Ongoing
Location: 1220 5th Ave, New York, NY 10029
From Nat King Cole’s "Harlem Blues" to Fleetwood Mac’s "Empire State," the art of music has historically been a definitive element of New York City’s character. Museum of the City of New York's Songs of New York: 100 Years of Imagining the City Through Music exhibition is a sonic celebration of the Big Apple’s diversity. Pairing audio and archival images, the immersive time capsule of New York City-inspired tunes highlights the music of 100 artists from the 1920s to the 2020s.
From punk rock to hip-hop, Songs of New York illustrates how NYC has been the birthplace of groundbreaking genres and backdrop for the creation of musical masterpieces. Through iconic ballads that serve as odes to the beauty of the city’s skyline to electrifying songs laced with lyricism about lived experiences in the five boroughs, the eclectic exhibition offers museumgoers a glimpse into the magnitude of NYC’s musical greatness. Bringing the experience beyond its doors, MCNY has curated a Spotify playlist of lively songs featured in the exhibition.
'Wayward Signs' and 'Traces of Care' at The Wallach Art Gallery
Date: Both exhibitions are on view through April 15, 2025
Location: 615 W 129th St, New York, NY 10027
Nestled on Columbia's Manhattanville campus, the Wallach Art Gallery celebrates diversity of thought through creative expression. One of its latest exhibitions Wayward Signs, featuring the work of artist-writers Steffani Jemison and Renee Gladman, is centered on the connection between language and visuality. Through the use of semiotics, the exhibition—curated by Zoë Hopkins—explores the creative power of diverging from the confines of traditional linguistics. The exhibition delves into elements of Black culture and history through the lens of improvisation and innovation. “Wayward Signs asks—through Gladman and Jemison’s work—how the ungovernable force of Black life and aesthetics open up and overturn the ground of language,” the exhibition’s description reads. “Moving beyond any and all discursive enclosures.”
Traces of Care highlights the significance of support systems within the human experience. The exhibition—which includes the work of artists Janine Antoni, Hannah Levy, and Hannah Wilke—encompasses art pieces across different mediums that display diverse perspectives on the themes of connection, vulnerability, and intimacy.
Seconds of My Life: Photographs from 1975-2024
Date: On view through May 3, 2025
Location: 364 E 151st St, Bronx, NY 10455
Brooklyn-bred photographer Jamel Shabazz's collection of work has served as a pictorial point of reference for the expressive street style that defined the 1980s. The Seconds of My Life: Photographs from 1975-2024 exhibition at the Bronx Documentary Center—curated by Mike Kamber and Cynthia Rivera—includes a selection of nostalgic New York City images Shabazz captured along his treks with his Kodak Instamatic 126 camera.
With subway station stills of fashionable friend groups and sidewalk snaps of New Yorkers who exude the city’s flair and flamboyance, the collection of vintage photos captures the essence of culture and community. From his photo albums to the gallery walls, the exhibit celebrates Shabazz’s vision for using his artistry to preserve treasured moments in time that reflect joy, resilience, and connection.
Women in the Heights: Hair—Untangling Identity
Date: On view through June 30, 2025
Location: 4140 Broadway, New York, NY 10033
Centering and celebrating the artistry of women in Washington Heights and Inwood, the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance's latest exhibition—Hair: Untangling Identity—visually explores how strands are used as a means for storytelling. The Uptown exhibit, curated by award-winning artist Andrea Arroyo, features a poignant collection of pieces that capture how hair, culture, and creative expression are intertwined.
Through vibrant watercolor paintings like Yaritza Piñeiro’s La Barbie y Yo, metaphorical mixed media works like Uniqua Simmons' My Hair is My Crown, and pensive photographs like Sam Popp’s Self-Portrait with Alopecia Areata, the exhibition amplifies the diversity of experiences with hair and calls on those who stop by to reflect on their own. Hair: Untangling Identity marks the 16th anniversary of NoMAA’s Women in the Heights series.
Teresa Baker: Twenty Minutes to Sunset
Date: April 10, 2025 through July 3, 2025
Location: Audubon Terrace, Broadway between West 155th and W 156th St, New York, NY 10032
Artist Teresa Baker’s mixed media work is rooted in reflections of memory and movement. Her upcoming exhibition at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, titled Twenty Minutes to Sunset, explores the transitional phases of daylight and how natural environments can shape and shift art. Among the work included in the exhibition is a painting Baker started in her backyard in Los Angeles that was exposed to the elements of the 2025 West Coast wildfires and another piece that was created "in dialogue with changing daylight” and incorporates “layered astroturf topography evoking the Midwest’s undulating terrain.” As part of the exhibit’s official opening, Arts and Letters will host an Uptown celebration on April 13 featuring a dynamic discussion with Baker about her creative process and current works.