New York's Best Museum Shows This Winter: Brancusi, Virgil Abloh and Pop at the Guggenheim

Brancusi on MoMA's sixth floor

The Museum of Modern Art in Midtown is showing Brancusi: The Artist and His Studio until 27 February, across the whole sixth floor. The hang is built around Constantin Brâncuși's studio. The sculptures stand with the hand-carved furniture and bases he made for them. His own films, photographs and tools are shown alongside. Bird in Space, Endless Column and Sleeping Muse are among the pieces, and these rarely travel.

Adults pay $30, students $17, and every temporary show is included in that ticket. So Na Mira's installation in the Kravis Studio, which uses radio frequencies, infrared heat and holography, costs nothing extra; it runs from 14 November to 15 February. Pierre Huyghe's screen work in the sculpture garden comes down on 29 November, so see that first if you want it.

The Guggenheim's ramp and Pop

Frank Lloyd Wright's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue works best when one artist gets the whole ramp. Taryn Simon has it until 14 March. Father Country I Do Love You is one piece made of unseen photographs, text, video and sculpture. It follows a single unnamed federal agent, and you read it by walking up. Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now is on at the same time, and Alex Da Corte's ROY G BIV is performed live in the gallery on 19 November.

Adults pay $30. There is a pay-what-you-wish hour in the late afternoon; check which days it falls on before you go. Access tours, including ASL-led ones, run through the Simon show. One warning: with the rotunda given over to her until March, don't come expecting a big permanent-collection hang.

Krasner and Pollock at the Met

The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue has Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous in the Tisch Galleries until 31 January, included with the $30 adult ticket. The curators keep the two in separate rooms instead of pairing them. You start among Lee Krasner's big mid-1950s collage paintings. Through a gap in the wall you catch Pollock's Convergence, hung back to back with the Met's own Autumn Rhythm. The later galleries are mostly Krasner, with Pollock turning up in one-offs like Portrait and a Dream.

The Fifth Avenue building opens 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. most days and until 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. It closes on Wednesdays, so don't build a Wednesday around it.

Lichtenstein by the High Line

The Whitney Museum of American Art, beside the High Line in the Meatpacking District, has Roy Lichtenstein: Like New until 10 May, mostly on the fifth floor. Step off the lift and you are in a recreation of his Greene Street Mural. A large Girl in Window stands outside on the terrace above the Hudson. Adults pay $30 and anyone 25 and under gets in free, which makes it the best value of the big museums for a young traveller. Friday nights are free for everyone from 5 to 10 p.m., as are second Sundays. Closed Tuesdays.

Arthur Jafa on the Bowery

The New Museum on the Bowery reopened in March with an extension that roughly doubled its galleries. Arthur Jafa: I Am Tony fills two floors of it until 4 January, the largest survey of his work so far. Entry is $25 with a timed reservation, free if you are 18 or under. Thursday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m. are pay-what-you-wish if you book online. Closed Mondays.

Manga in Brooklyn

Brooklyn Museum on Eastern Parkway is the one show here you can miss without regret. Art of Manga runs until 31 January, with original hand-drawn pages including work from ONE PIECE and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. It needs its own timed ticket, $30 for adults and $12 for children aged four to 12, which also covers the rest of the museum. Book a slot before you travel out. General admission on its own is pay what you can, and the museum opens 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday.

Bronzes at the Frick

The Frick Collection, in the mansion at 1 East 70th Street, has The Art of Bronze, 1450 to 1500 until 18 January. These are Sienese bronzes, with work by Donatello and Vecchietta. Most of them have never been shown outside Tuscany. From 12 November there is also Kent Monkman's Officer and Laughing Girl, new paintings answering the Vermeer that hangs on the Frick's own walls. Adults pay $30, and Wednesday afternoons from 1.30 to 5.30 p.m. are pay-what-you-wish. The house is small, so an hour and a half covers the bronzes and the period rooms. Children under 10 are not admitted at all.

Rembrandt at the Morgan

The Morgan Library & Museum has Rembrandt's Lions until 31 January, the first show on what he made of the ancient world. Graphic Devotions, a display of late medieval blockbooks, runs much longer, to 16 May. Pierpont Morgan's 1906 library is reason enough to go on its own, with three tiers of walnut bookcases under a painted vaulted ceiling. Friday evenings are free, but you have to reserve online first. There is a curator's tour of the Rembrandt show on 4 December, included with admission. Closed Mondays.

Fifth Avenue mansions

The Jewish Museum, in the Warburg mansion at Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street, is free every Saturday, which makes Sacred Splendor the best free exhibition of the winter. It sets reliquaries lent by St. Vitus Cathedral beside Jewish treasures never shown before in the United States, among them a gilded-iron sacrament house from about 1375. Other days adults pay $24. Closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Further down Fifth Avenue at East 86th Street, Neue Galerie New York reopens all its galleries on 12 November for a two-month anniversary hang, up to 11 January. Klimt's Adele Bloch-Bauer I goes on the wall with the rest of the collection, floor by floor. That arrangement only lasts until 11 January, so this is the window for it. Adults pay $28 and First Fridays are free from 5 to 8 p.m., first come first served. Children under 12 cannot come in during normal hours. Café Sabarsky inside serves until 9 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday, so you can eat Viennese after the galleries shut.

Disco and punk uptown

The New York Historical on Central Park West has You Should Be Dancing: New York, 1976 and Beyond until 4 April. It covers how punk, disco and hip hop came out of the city's financial crisis. You walk through rooms built to look like 1970s clubs, with instruments, stage costumes, flyers and albums. Adults pay $24 and Friday evenings are pay as you wish. It was the New-York Historical Society until late 2024, so older guidebooks and signs won't match. Closed Mondays.

Colour rooms for children

The American Museum of Natural History opens The Nature of Color on 16 November, running to 2 May. It is hands-on: a white room where you experiment with light, a yellow room that tests how colour makes you feel, and a light lab to work through. This is the stop if you are travelling with children. The show is an add-on you choose at checkout, on top of general admission of $37 for adults from outside New York State. The Origami Holiday Tree goes up on 20 November. Open daily 10 a.m. to 5.30 p.m., last entry 5 p.m.

Akari lanterns in Queens

If you want quiet and have a spare morning, go to The Noguchi Museum in Long Island City. Take the N or W train to Broadway in Queens and walk down toward the water, about half an hour door to door from Midtown. No Ordinary Light: Akari at 75 opened on 4 November and runs into September. It shows 75 years of Isamu Noguchi's paper light sculptures among his stone, metal and clay work. Admission is $16, and the first Friday of each month is free with no reservation, starting on 4 December. Gallery tours run at 2 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday without booking. Skip it if you have one tight day in Manhattan.

Before you go

Check the closed day before you set out, because the Met shuts on Wednesdays, the Whitney on Tuesdays, and Brooklyn and Noguchi on both Monday and Tuesday. The manga ticket, the New Museum's timed entry and the Morgan's free Friday evening all have to be booked online in advance. See the New York guide and the New York hotel search.