One of the best ways to enjoy the warmer weather in New York City is to get outside and see some art and attend art-related events! This June, you'll find larger-than-life flowers, a museum on wheels, a celebration of pigeons, and more:
Van Gogh's Flowers
"Irises on Yellow Columns" by Graphic Rewinding at Van Gogh's Flowers, Courtesy of New York Botanical Garden
📍New York Botanical Garden 🗓️ On view through October 26, 2025 🎟️ Book online
The iconic van Gogh paintings of irises and sunflowers come to life in this year's summer exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden.Flourishing floral displays and large-scale interactive artworks fully immerse you in van Gogh's timeless masterpieces. Learn more about the exhibit from one of the artists who worked on it, here!
The city's biggest pop-up photography event will hit all five boroughs this June! Photoville returns for its 14th year with over 80 international exhibits that highlight the work of photographers from right here in New York City and nations across the globe. The photo festival's signature shipping container galleries will be on view at Brooklyn Bridge Park while satellite exhibits can be seen at Barretto Point Park, Bella Abzug Park, the Seaport, Alice Austen House, and many other locations. One special exhibit to look out for is Early Distant Warning. It features large photographs frozen in large ice blocks that will gradually melt throughout the day to reveal Louie Palu's photographs of the Arctic. See it at Brooklyn Bridge Park on June 7th from 1:30-7pm!
Pigeon Fest
📍Various locations on the High Line along 30th Street and the Spur 🗓️ Saturday, June 14, 2025 from 12 – 8pm 🎟️ Free with registration
Did you know there is a National Pigeon Appreciation Day?! Well, the High Line is celebrating with Pigeon Fest, in honor of Iván Argote’s 17-foot-tall aluminum pigeon sculpture Dinosaur currently on view at the Spur. This full-day festival will feature free public programming including pigeon-themed carnival games, family-friendly art workshops, a Pigeon Impersonation Pageant, panel discussions, and a concert presented in collaboration with the Birdsong Project.
AMPLIFIED
Photos by ATH Studio
📍ARTECHOUSE NYC, Chelsea Market 🗓️ On view through August 31st 🎟️ Book online
Get ready to rock at ARTECHOUSE NYC's latest immersive experience, AMPLIFIED, presented by Rolling Stone. This 50-minute journey into rock ‘n’ roll history, culture, and music is made of rare live performance video and never-before-seen behind-the-scenes footage, exclusive portrait sessions, album art, posters, and 1,300 Rolling Stone covers. Featuring over 300 iconic artists and narration from actor/musician Kevin Bacon, the experience explodes onto ARTECHOUSE's 270-degree, floor-to-ceiling digital canvas in the basement of Chelsea Market.
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Gardens of Renewal
Gardens of Renewal by Lily Kwong, Photo Courtesy of Madison Square Park
📍Redbud and Sparrow Lawns, Madison Square Park 🗓️ On view through September 1, 2025 🎟️ Free!
The winding pathway of this living installation provides opportunities for play, learning, self-reflection, and ecological awakening. Created by artist Lily Kwong in collaboration with the Madison Square Park Conservancy,Gardens of Renewal "explores the ecological potential of the built environment while underscoring the political urgency of the climate crisis." In the Meditation Garden, visitors follow a spiral path surrounded by gorgeous flowers, herbs, and other native plants, with endangered and rare specimens at the center. On Sparrow Lawn, the Children’s Garden offers a library, stage, and play structures that promote adventure, creativity, and ecological awareness.
The installation is accompanied by a series of conversations, performances, and educational programming for children of all ages. QR codes scattered throughout the gardens offer supplemental digital materials, including an illustrated field guide plant list, a meditation, and a customized playlist.
Turning Point
Photos by Jane Kratochvil
📍 14th Street Busway, between Broadway and University Place, Union Square
New York-based visual artist Yuke Li has transformed a bland busway into a vibrant 7,500-square-foot mural. Union Square Partnership’s fifth annual street mural was completed with the help of volunteers who spent five days bringing Li's vision to life. Turning Point "honors Union Square’s role as a place that facilitates the movement of people, whether gathering, dispersing, or embarking on new journeys." This movement and flow are represented by retro-inspired abstract shapes painted in bright colors.
Monumental 20-foot screens have taken over six acres of land on Manhattan’s east side next to the United Nations. This photography and video project takes an optimistic approach to the future of America on the occasion of our nation's 250th anniversary. Spread out along a winding path, viewers will uncover the stories of over fifty everyday Americans captured on film by award-winning local filmmaker and photographer Daniella Vale. Each subject shares their thoughts on liberty, democracy, and what it means to be American.
Museum Mile Festival
Photo by Liz Ligon
📍Fifth Avenue from 82nd and 110th Streets 🗓️ Tuesday, June 10, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. 🎟️ Free!
Eight of New York City's best museums will be free for one night! The 47th annual Museum Mile Festival is a celebration of art, culture, and community where visitors can enjoy free admission, live performances, art-making activities, and more at institutions like The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Neue Galerie New York, Guggenheim New York, Cooper Hewitt, The Jewish Museum, Museum of the City of New York, El Museo del Barrio, and The Africa Center. The block party kicks off with an opening ceremony at 5:45 p.m. at the Museum of the City of New York (1220 Fifth Avenue).
The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Installation view of the Arts of Oceania, Photo by Bruce Schwarz
📍Metropolitan Museum of Art 🗓️ Opens May 31st 🎟️ Book Online
A daylong celebration will mark the reopening of the Met's galleries dedicated to the Arts of Africa, the Ancient Americas, and Oceania, which have been closed since 2021. The newly reimagined Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, designed by Kulapat Yantrasast of WHY Architecture in collaboration with Beyer, Blinder, Belle Architects LLP, and The Met’s Design Department, covers more than 40,000 square feet on the Museum’s south side. Throughout the galleries, visitors will see familiar pieces alongside never-before-displayed works, all on view with innovative lighting, deeper contextualization, and new digital features.
Fifth Avenue Blooms™
Photos Courtesy of the Fifth Avenue Association
📍Fifth Avenue from 51st to 58th Street 🗓️ June 11- July 6 🎟️ Free!
Fifth Avenue will get its flowers this summer when the famous thoroughfare is lined with thousands of stems, including a first-of-its-kind pink rose to be unveiled in honor of the avenue's 200thanniversary.Two flower arches will serve as the perfect photo ops along the way. The colorful blooms will be accompanied by live music on the weekends and a variety of promotions from local retailers, including Longchamp, which will open an exclusive sidewalk café at its flagship store at 645 Fifth Avenue with special treats from Angelina Paris.
Touching the Earth
Thaddeus Mosley, by Anire Mosley, 1990. Courtesy the artist and Karma/Public Art Fund.
📍City Hall Park 🗓️ Open June 3 - November 16, 2025 🎟️ Free!
Thaddeus Mosley's Touching the Earth puts a new spin on old sculptures. The eight-piece bronze installation was cast from wood sculptures that the artist made between 1996 and 2021. Western African masks, Jazz, modernist sculpture, and simply "listening to wood" inspired the shapes Mosley crafted.
Reflection Point
📍Rockefeller Center 🗓️ Open June 5 - July 20 🎟️ Free!
The centerpiece of Summer at The Rink brings a playful, interactive experience for the whole family. Created by Brooklyn-based artist duo Wade and Leta (Wade Jeffree and Leta Sobierajski), Reflection Point is a mirrored maze with bold graphic shapes that function as doors. These portals invite visitors to push through and uncover new routes for an endless and ever-changing experience.
What The House Saw: 260 Years of Stories from the Morris-Jumel Collection and Community
Trish Mayo, Courtesy of Morris-Jumel Mansion
📍Morris Jumel Mansion 🗓️ Opens June 14th 🎟️ Included with museum admission
The Morris Jumel Mansion has been around longer than America has been a country! This new exhibition explores the incredible history of the site, from the Lenape tribes who first lived on the land to today’s multicultural Washington Heights community. While exploring seven key eras of transformation from the past 260 years, visitors will get to view rarely seen items and learn tales gathered from the Mansion’s archives and members of the surrounding community. As each new phase is installed, visitors will discover how the house has stood witness to history through colonial times, the Revolution, the Civil War, the Civil Rights movement, and more.
100 Years of Bonsais
The C.V. Starr Bonsai Museum in autumn. Photo by Michael Stewart
📍Brooklyn Botanic Garden 🗓️ June 14th - October 19, 2025 🎟️ Included with Garden admission
Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) is home to one of the oldest and largest collections of bonsai trees on public display outside Japan, and this year, the collection turns 100 years old! To celebrate this milestone, BBG will offer expanded displays of specimens, including never-before-displayed “tiny trees,” plus special tours, exhibits, workshops, and more.
One of the special exhibits on view is The Mountain, the Tree, and the Man bygraphic novelistMisakoRocks. In this playful display, a bonsai in BBG’s collection shares memories of its life in manga-style panels. Along the way, visitors will learn about the Garden’s first bonsai curator, Frank Okamura.
Open Call: Portals, Diffuse Control, Viola's Room
📍The Shed, Doctoroff Lobby (30th Street entrance) 🗓️ Opens June 27th 🎟️ Free!
In Diffuse Control, the audience is invited to collaborate with a kinetic digital sculpture designed by digital artist Beeple. Over 12 weeks, images selected by established and emerging curators will be transformed by the sculpture into AI-generated abstractions. The audience can further manipulate these images using an online interface.
📍The Shed, Level 2 Gallery, and the outdoor Plaza 🗓️ June 27 - August 24 🎟️ Free with reservation
In Open Call: Portals, twelve early-career, NYC-based artists and collectives will share "new works that harness personal stories and ancestral global history to open portals for passage, transformation, and resistance." These works are diverse in medium, from paintings and films to sculptures and performances, but are tied together by their exploration of connections, whether between the past and present, memory and material, or displacement and belonging.
📍The Shed, Level 4 Gallery 🗓️ June 17 - October 19 🎟️ Book Online
Also premiering this June at The Shed isViola's Room, an audio-driven immersive experienceby the creators of Sleep No More. Written by Booker Prize–shortlisted author Daisy Johnson, Viola’s Room reimagines Barry Pain’s 1901 gothic short story “The Moon-Slave." Audience members will be guided through a maze-like installation in small groups of six, guided by the narration of award-winning actress Helena Bonham Carter and a soundtrack that includes Seal, The Smashing Pumpkins, Tori Amos, and more. Tickets are already going fast!
📍Hudson River Park, Pier 25 & Pier 26 (Closest entrance N. Moore St. in Tribeca) 🗓️ On view through Spring 2026 🎟️ Free!
The west side of Manhattan we know today as Hudson River Park, looked much different just a few decades ago. In this new photo exhibit, visitors can see the dramatic transformation of the waterfront from the 1970s to today, from Chambers Street to West 59th Street. Stunning images (including some never-before-seen shots) by Alvin Baltrop, Carl Glassman, Irene Liberman, Darleen Rubin, and more illustrate how the area evolved from a derelict former cargo hub to the vibrant green space it is now.
The Brooklyn Museum might be rolling into your neighborhood soon! The Museum on Wheels is on the road with a custom-designed, ADA-compliant Airstream trailer filled with hands-on cultural and creative experiences. Decked out with bright, bold exterior artworks by artist Christopher Myers, the mobile museum brings activities such as art-making, storytelling, tactile exploration of objects from the Museum’s teaching collection, and games straight to the heart of New York City's communities. Check out where it's going here!
Midnight Moment
Yuge Zhou, Trampoline Color Exercise, 2021-2024
📍Times Square 🗓️ Every night, 11:57pm to midnight 🎟️ Free!
Yuge Zhou (June), Rosa Barba (July), and Bianca Abdi-Boragi (August) are the latest batch of artists to create works for the world’s largest, longest-running digital art exhibition. For three minutes every evening, their work will take over 92 electronic billboards at the Crossroad of the World. For the month of June, artist Yuge Zhou's Trampoline Color Exercise will fill the screens with a moving-image collage of leaping gymnasts whose uniforms and identities shapeshift as they flip and tumble on pink gridded trampolines. These images were crafted by manipulating aerial vantage points of archival Olympic Games footage.
