FOG Art + Design celebrates its 10-year anniversary this year with what will surely be a banner year for the San Francisco fair.
The winter art season may have kicked off last month in Miami, but it’s just getting warmed up. Here, we’ve curated a cultural map of the best places to start your next year of art, in a few major US cities—from the most exciting exhibitions to the essential fair stops—and a few don’t-miss shows closing soon.
MIAMI
Installation view of “Calida Rawles: Away with the Tides,” at PAMM.
Calida Rawles at Pérez Art Museum Miami, through February 2, 2025
The bayfront siting of PAMM makes it a perfect place to encounter the watery works of Los Angeles–based artist Calida Rawles; her large-scale, hyperrealist figurative paintings explore the nuances of Black Americans’ relationship with water, from the Atlantic slave trade to transcendence. Usually the characters in Rawles paintings are depicted in some level of submersion. This gives them a weightless, almost balletic quality. It seems that Rawles choreographs as much as she paints.
Reynaldo Rivera, Miss Alex at Le Bar, 1998. Courtesy of Nina Johnson Gallery.
Reynaldo Rivera at Nina Johnson, January 16–March 1, 2025
Caption: This spring, Los Angeles–based photographer Reynaldo Rivera got his first mid career survey at New York’s MoMA PS1. Following hot on the heels of this institutional milestone, Rivera makes his Miami debut at Nina Johnson gallery, with an exhibition that zooms in on one of the artist’s most formative muses, Mrs. Alex. Renowned throughout Mexico, Mrs. Alex was a dancer and performer whom Rivera met in the clubs of LA back in the 1980s, when he was both frequenting and documenting that scene. Singular in her beauty, Mrs. Alex also operates as a visual synecdoche for the gentle way that Rivera treats his subjects: always trying to catch them in their best light.
SAN FRANCISCO
Julie Buffalohead, Our Bodies Our Choice, 2023. Photo by Rik Sferra, courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco.
Julie Buffalohead at Jessica Silverman, January 9–February 22, 2025
Ever since “Noble Coyotes,” Julie Buffalohead’s 2022 debut at Jessica Silverman’s gallery, the San Franciscan stalwart has been slowly introducing the Indigenous artist’s work around the country. And while there are ancestral references and symbols held inside Buffalohead’s work, there are also universal ones that don’t require a familiarity with Native cultures to access. The stories Buffalohead tells are engrossing, and remind us in their lyrical nature of the work of fellow artist Kiki Smith.
Anthony Meier’s booth at FOG Design + Art fair last year.
FOG Design + Art, January 23–26, 2025
This year, FOG Design + Art fair celebrated its 10-year anniversary. It was a time to look back at the eclectic reputation the event has earned for its focus on technological ingenuity and its playful mix of local patrons, curious newcomers, and FOG devotees. The latter group, in recent years, has grown, lending the fair that spans collectible design and art an urgency. Now, as it enters its second decade, FOG is making big moves to support its growing fan base, including appointing Sydney Blumenkranz as the fair’s inaugural director.
“Amy Sherald: American Sublime” at SFMOMA, through March 9, 2025
The portraits of New York–based artist Amy Sherald first came into the American consciousness with her iconic depictions of former First Lady Michelle Obama for the official presidential portrait. Then it was Sherald’s heroic depiction of Breonna Taylor that became synonymous with a movement. This January, these paintings join 38 others from Sherald’s archive to form the first mid-career survey of the internationally recognized artist. Debuting first at SFMOMA and then traveling to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the show reveals Sherald’s ability to evoke the sublime within her figures, pushing forward conversations on identity, race, and the shared human experience.
LOS ANGELES
Felix Art Fair takes over The Hollywood Roosevelt with an international roster of galleries exhibiting throughout its rooms.
Felix Art Fair; Frieze Los Angeles, February 19–23, 2025
Never do LA’s bonafides as an art capital shine more than in February, when the awards season and Frieze Los Angeles converge. As the unofficial anchor for the week, Frieze sets the agenda, drawing folks westward for VIP previews. Then, it’s time for satellites like the beloved Felix Art Fair, a hotel-based art fair with a punk attitude that takes over The Hollywood Roosevelt hotel. It is the perfect place to pick up a unique souvenir (a small sculpture or painting, perhaps?) before retiring for a well-deserved martini down the street at Musso & Franks Grill.
David Kordansky’s booth at Frieze Los Angeles, 2024.
Lisa Yuskavage, Rendezvous Behind the Artist’s Studio, 2023; © Lisa Yuskavage, courtesy the artist and David Zwirner.
Lisa Yuskavage at David Zwirner, opening February 18, 2025
One of the most celebrated female painters of our time, Lisa Yuskavage makes her first major LA exhibition in many years for David Zwirner’s sparkling new West Coast headquarters. Since her Yale School of Art days, Yuskavage has created a whole world, with idiosyncratic feminine figures whose protruding breasts and stomachs dramatize an idealized female form. Often erotically charged, her characters toy with the art history canon, simultaneously upending our desires and expectations.
Alice Coltrane, circa 1995.
Alice Coltrane at the Hammer Museum, February 9–May 4, 2025
Relive the spirit and sound of Alice Coltrane at “Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal,” arriving at the Hammer Museum just in time for Frieze Los Angeles. This biographical exhibition blends Coltrane’s personal archive—handwritten sheet music, unreleased recordings, and rare videos— with works by contemporary artists like Jennie C. Jones and Bethany Collins. Through video installation, and performance, visitors will explore themes of spiritual transcendence, sonic innovation, and healing that celebrate the musician’s lasting cultural legacy.
NEW YORK
Chester Higgins, “African American pilgrims dance in honor of ancient spirits. Lake Nasser, Egypt,” 2006. © Chester Higgins, Courtesy Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York.
“Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now” at The Met, through February 17, 2025
Discover how Ancient Egypt has inspired generations of Black artists in this monumental exhibition. Spanning nearly 150 years, the show features around 200 works by well-known names like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Barbara Chase-Riboud, and Kara Walker, in dialogue with The Met’s antiquities. The show explores themes of identity and historical contributions. For the first time in the Met’s history, this includes embracing performance with a gallery devoted to live action.
Installation view of “Christine Sun Kim: Cues on Point” (Secession, Vienna, February 17–April 16, 2023), coming to New York’s Whitney Museum in February.
Christine Sun Kim at the Whitney Museum of American Art, opening February 8, 2025
An artist, performer, and activist, Christine Sun Kim illuminates deaf culture and the complexities of communication through her art, humor, and unique perspective. Explore Kim’s world in “All Day All Night,” her first major museum survey, co-organized by the Whitney Museum and Walker Art Center. This exhibition puts together all of Kim’s innovative works from sound and language, including drawings, murals, and video installations.
Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Night Studio Mirror Negative (_DSF0832), 2024. Courtesy of the artist and Bortolami.
Paul Mpagi Sepuya at Bortolami, opening January 10
LA-based photographer Paul Mpagi Sepuya makes his triumphant return to New York in January, with a marquee show at Bortolami gallery. Once a rising star and now at the height of his powers, Sepuya has become a tentpole of contemporary photography, appearing in collections and survey shows from coast to coast. His work plays with the physical realities of the medium itself to access the nuances of building images and identities.
Images courtesy of Madison Voelkel/BFA; Rigo Ramirez and Felix Art Fair; Oliver Ottenschlager; Christine Sun Kim; Secession; Francois Ghebaly Gallery; White Space; Oriol Tarridas; John & Alice Coltrane; Casey Kelbaugh; Frieze;
