As February’s winter slowdown gives way to a fresh wave of downtown openings, New York’s contemporary art scene is heating up across Tribeca, Lower East Side, East Village, SoHo, and West Village. This week’s NYC gallery openings spotlight a dynamic mix of emerging and mid-career artists, new group exhibitions, and experimental installations debuting in some of the city’s most influential downtown art districts. From immersive solo presentations to tightly curated thematic shows, February 2026 brings a strong lineup of must-see art exhibitions in Lower Manhattan—offering collectors, curators, and art-world insiders plenty of reasons to hit the opening night circuit. Whether you’re planning a Tribeca gallery crawl or mapping out the latest Lower East Side art openings, this week’s exhibitions reflect the neighborhoods’ continued role as a driving force in New York’s contemporary gallery landscape.
Lower East Side | Fri
Abri Mars, 53a Stanton St, two waters by Eric Wolf
Karma, 22 East 2nd Street, ‘MILK TEETH’ by Kate Hargrave
Auxier Kline, 19 Monroe St, ‘Flight Spiral’ by Hank Ehrenfried
End Scene, 41 Orchard St, After Six Lots of Things are Bothering Me’ by Corey Escoto, Lucas Moran, 6pm-9pm
Karma, 188 East 2nd Street, ‘Ten Sculptures’ by Peter Bradley
Palo, 21 E 3rd St, Subject Object with various artists
Soho | Fri
The Drawing Center, 35 Wooster St, ‘Making Visible’ by Ceija Stojka
Times, 151 Lafayette Street, 4th Fl, ‘Old Friends’ by Nina Beier, 7pm-9pm
West Village | Fri
New York Studio School, 8 W 8th St, Two Ships Passing in the Night’ by Alex Maceda, Liam Murphy-Torres
Tribeca | Fri
Klaus Von Nichtssagend Gallery, 87 Franklin Street, work by Holly Coulis
Jack Shianman Gallery, 46 Lafayette St, ‘Manuscripts of Tradition’ by Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu
Leslie Lohman, 26 Wooster Street, ‘Soft Spaces’ Curated by Chloe Ming, ‘Through Different Eyes’ by Hortensia Mi Kafchin, ‘Sacred and Profane’ by Pamela Sneed and Carlos Martiel
Space ZeroOne, 371 Broadway, ‘Sweat Models 1991-2026’ by Michael Joo
Alexander Gray Associates, 384 Broadway, ‘Infrequencies’ by Kamrooz Aram
Derek Eller Gallery, 38 Walker Street, ‘Window Shopping’ by Melissa Brown, ‘From the Series Cancellations’ by Thomas Barrow
GR Gallery, 116 Chambers St, ‘Purgatory’ by Jordan Sullivan, Robert Martin, Jacob Rochester, and RUMINZ
Jack Barrett, 89 Franklin St, ‘Outside Your Cloud’ by Sabrina Piersol
James Cohan, 48 Walker St, work by Elias Sime
James Cohan, 52 Walker St, ‘Silent Sirens’ by Bruce Richards
Nino Mier Gallery, 380 Broadway, ‘The Gifts’ by Quentin James McCaffrey
Ruttkowski;68, 46 Cortland Alley, ‘Your Presence Is Requested’ by Joya Mukerjee Logue
Asya Geisberg Gallery, 45 White St, ‘Looking Glass’ by Julie Schenkelberg
Canada, 60 Lispenard St, ‘Afterpiece’ by Spencer Lewis
Chart, 74 Franklin St, ‘The cut worm forgives the plow’ by Ian Myers
Cristin Tierney, 49 Walker St, ‘Titanic, A Deep Emotion’ by Claudia Bitrán
Galerie Timonier, 246 West Broadway, ‘Yellow 5’ by Chase Wilson
Harkawik, 88 Walker St, ‘In Transit’ by Marc Librizzi
IRL, 86 Walker St, 2nd Fl, ‘Day For Night’ by Andrei Pokrovskii, Lane Walkup, Sydney Kleinrock
Margot Samel, 295 Church Street, ‘Episodes’ by Cathleen Clarke
Friday Art Crawl Gallery Map:
West Village | Sat
Eli Klein, 398 West Street, ’ I Want to Know, I Need to Know’ by Andrius Alvarez-Backus
Lower East Side | Sat
Hashimoto Contemporary, 54 Ludlow St., ‘On Paper’ with Scott Albrecht, Laura Burke, Camila Buxeda, CHIAOZZA, Genevieve Cohn, Ryan Travis Christian, Gregory Euclide, Liz Flores, Dan Gluibizzi, Catherine Haggarty, Rachel Hayden, Johanna Tagada Hoffbeck, Seonna Hong, Cody Hudson, Celia Jacobs, Jeff Ladouceur, Amelie Mancini, Marbie, Kara Rose Marshall, Christopher Martin, Stacey Rozich, Andrew Schoultz, Francisco Diaz Scotto, Polly Shindler, Elizabeth King Stanton, Kristin Texeira, Melody Tuttle, Andrew Watch
Hoffman Donahue, 99 Bowery, ‘Back Stitch’ by Elaine Reichek
King’s Leap, 105 Henry Street (Store 5), work by Noémie Degen, Simon Jaton
Marinaro, 99 Bowery, ‘Backstitch’ by Elaine Reichek
Lyles & King, 21 Catherine Street, ‘Figures of Speech’ by Mira Schor
Slip House, 246 East 5th St, ‘Elemental Hours’ by Victoria Gitman, Byron Kim, Sarah Schlesinger, Greta Waller
As you plan your NYC Lower Manhattan gallery crawl this week, don’t miss our featured solo exhibition at CHART, now on view in the gallery’s lower-level PROJECTION space. Ian Myers: The cut worm forgives the plow anchors this week’s Tribeca and Lower East Side art openings with a focused presentation of ten 10×8-inch egg tempera paintings on marble dust ground—offering a materially rich counterpoint to the neighborhood’s fast-moving contemporary exhibition calendar.
Taking its title from a line in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake, the exhibition reflects a conceptual framework rooted in ambiguity, devotion, and contradiction—qualities that closely parallel Myers’s painting process. By working in egg tempera, a historically significant medium associated with early religious icon painting, Myers situates his practice within a lineage that emphasizes surface, time, and material limitation—key concerns in current contemporary painting discourse across Tribeca and the Lower East Side gallery scene.
Optimized for close looking, the exhibition’s reduced scale intensifies the relationship between gesture and ground, allowing layered surfaces to develop gradually and reward sustained viewing—an experience that resonates with collectors, curators, and audiences seeking out emerging artists during this week’s NYC gallery openings. A monochrome green panel titled field highlights the tension between illusion and objecthood, foregrounding the physicality of paint within an increasingly digital exhibition landscape.
Continuing CHART’s PROJECTION series dedicated to emerging and underrecognized artists, Ian Myers: The cut worm forgives the plow stands out as a must-see stop among this week’s Lower Manhattan art openings in Tribeca and LES—offering a timely addition to February 2026’s downtown New York contemporary art exhibitions.
Featured work above by Ian Myers at Chart Gallery
