From Trash Cans to Blue Chips: 25 Art Shows I Loved in 2025
By Kaden Bard Dawson
12.31.25
2025 was a year marked by uncertainty. As we navigate the rise of censorship, AI, Trump’s presidency, the ongoing genocide in Palestine, and the lived effects of climate change, stability often feels out of reach. One certainty continues to glow. The perseverance of creativity and its enduring ability to offer comfort, resistance, and hope.
This year in New York City, I found myself inspired, turned on, and humbled by the sheer bloom of exhibitions unfolding across blue chip galleries and project spaces, as well as in salon apartments, tattoo shops, abandoned pools, basements, rooftops, cabaret clubs, and even trash cans. Artists explored lineage, grief, preservation, sexuality, and community through silks, snowmen, porcupine quills, cryotherapy, kinky breakfasts, chainmail, leather couches, and taxidermy. In baring it all, they allowed us to glimpse not only their work, but the beauty of their inner worlds.
For this, I am deeply grateful to the artists, curators, and spaces that opened themselves to the public. What follows are my favorite exhibitions of 2025, presented in no particular order, because art is not a competition.
Lilies Into the Void: Jo Shane, Blade Study
Jo Shane is a rockstar, badass, boss bitch. Give her more shows!
Cherry, Kian McKeown, 95 Gallon Gallery
Somehow there was an even smaller, more DIY gallery space at the U-Haul Art Fair, and I have not been able to stop thinking about how genius it was.
Inflation: A Grand Opening, Locker Room Gallery
This show was FUN! From the hot pink site-specific basement installation by Barcelona-based art collective Penique Productions to the crucifixion diva sex doll available for sale for $7,000 or available to rent for $200 an hour.
The first time I felt like an apartment show wasn’t hiding the fact it was taking place in an apartment, and I loved it. Pairing art salon-style with furniture designers realizes what most galleries don’t. A home is where art feels alive and not sterilized or lonely. And yes, I need porcupine quills protruding out of my bathroom mirror. It may make cleaning a bit more difficult, but art demands sacrifice.
100 QUESTIONS FOR MY BIRTH PARENTS, Kate Williams, Danielle’s
You couldn’t help but feel Kate’s exhaustion as we are tied into her track shoes, running the never-ending race of questions she has carried her whole life.
Catching this reiteration of Rosemary Mayer’s 1979 Snow People felt truly special before the rain took them away a day after they were created. Life is temporary, but that is the beauty in it.
Life Is Drag, Rachel Rampleman, SoMad
Seeing a queer drag performer from your small hometown in Arizona performing in a queer art show in NYC is really a special feeling.
No talking. No photos. No networking. This isn’t your typical schmoozing art show. Home is where you make it, and Elizabeth is making sure that when you are home, you are present.
Greetings, Lovett/Codagnone, Participant Inc
Norman Fucking Rockwell.
Isaiah Davis takes steel into new territories Richard Serra could never reach.
misfits, Thomas Grünfeld, A Hug From The Art World
I found the island of misfit toys, and it felt like a hug.
Les Miserables, Nobuyoshi Araki, Meredith Rosen Gallery
Tie me up and hang me on the wall for everyone to watch.
Flowers Drink the River, Pia Paulina Guilmoth, CLAMP
It is not what scares us that defines us. It is beautiful and tragic queer perseverance in unsafe environments. This show reminded me of the risks I took as a kid trying on my mom’s clothes and makeup when nobody was home. Sometimes, to create, we must survive first to.
Private Viewing, Danielle Gadus, Dock 72
Seeing one of your best friends evolve and push themselves toward new horizons as an artist really makes me cry. We used to smoke weed and talk about art after our business classes in undergrad, and now you are making work that belongs at Dia Beacon.
Sex in the 90s, Nayland Blake, Matthew Marks Gallery
With funding for HIV research being pulled, this feels like an important reminder of the AIDS epidemic and why it is crucial not to forget or allow ourselves to go backward.
Special thank you to my boyfriend Benny Pitt for taking me to this show and introducing me to the genius of Naz. Their work cannot be written about, only experienced in every emotion.
Coil, Cadena y Rosas, Rosewood Theater
We cried in the club. Need I say more.
Privamera, Ricky Cohete, Park Epicurean
Classy homoerotic art lit by candelabras really makes venturing to the Upper East Side not as scary.
Magnificent Product, Vaginal Davis, MoMA PS1
I have nothing but flowers to give to Miss Davis.
Under Light of Moon and Sun, 99CANAL
The best video installation show I have experienced.
Speaking the Unspeakable: Queer Storytelling at the Fringes of Erotic Practice, Peter Cage, Serving The People New York City
Kinky breakfast and thermal piss play parties not only showed us humanity in embracing our desires but also pissed off a straight cis man in the audience who shall not be named or remembered.
Oh, it’s my ass and my anus, Phoebus Osborne, Parent Company
In a city of so many noises, perhaps the sounds Phoebus makes are the most important.
ENDLESS BLISS, Zach Grear, Vacation Forever Tattoo
A highlight of his year and mine too. I can only hope for endless bliss for Zach.
My Life as a Flower, Dietmar Busse, CLAMP
Queerness is a flower to be nurtured with love, care, and curiosity.
Queerness is a flower to be nurtured with love, care, and curiosity.
USER 2, Kristina Nagel, Gratin