Parrish Art Museum's 2025 Exhibition Lineup

The Parrish Art Museum has announced its 2025 schedule, featuring solo exhibitions by internationally renowned artists Shirin Neshat, Sean Scully, James Howell, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Nina Yankowitz.

“The museum’s ambitious 2025 program underscores the Parrish’s commitment to excellence and to presenting artists whose work resonates both locally and globally,” said the museum’s Executive Director Mónica Ramírez-Montagut. “This year’s diverse lineup — spanning painting, photography, video and installation — highlights the dynamic dialogue between artists and themes of place, memory, and our exquisite surroundings on the East End.

“I am especially excited to introduce Sean Scully’s Montauk series and Shirin Neshat’s deeply personal collection to our community through our planned in-person events and programming,”

“Shirin Neshat: Born of Fire” — April 20 to September 1

This exhibition marks the artist’s first museum exhibition in the New York area in two decades. It offers a nonlinear survey of Neshat’s artistic development, presenting focused installations of four significant bodies of work. These range from her first major photographic works, “Women of Allah” (1993-1997), images inspired by women’s involvement in the Islamic Revolution and Iran-Iraq War, to “The Book of Kings” (2012), a portrait series that calls on the tradition of Persian epic poetry to address the Arab Spring protest movement.

The exhibition will also include more recent projects that present Neshat’s surreal film and video works alongside still photographs, including “Land of Dreams” (2019), in which the artist turns her attention to exploring American culture from the perspective of an Iranian artist in exile, and “The Fury” (2022-2023), addressing sexual exploitation of female political prisoners.

Though distinct, all four bodies of work are connected by motifs of female empowerment, political resistance, and displacement. Presented together, they reveal how these key themes have evolved throughout Neshat’s artistic journey. The exhibition also features a gallery dedicated to her private collection of work by fellow artists, from friends such as Marina Abramović and Robert Longo to artists based in the Middle East, revealing Neshat’s inspirations and her championship of lesser-known peers, especially from cultures where censorship impedes free expression.

The show is organized by the Parrish’s chief curator Corinne Erni with Scout Hutchinson, associate curator of exhibitions.

“Sean Scully: The Albee Barn, Montauk” — May 11 to September 21

This show is a survey of the artist’s work ranging from 1981 to 2024, exploring his Long Island connection and how a single month spent in Montauk in the summer of 1982 with a fellowship at the Edward F. Albee Foundation became a pivotal place and moment in the artist’s career.

It was in 1981 that Sean Scully broke the hold of Minimalism with his manifesto painting “Backs and Fronts.” There was a return of color and space. Brushstrokes were now visible, broken free of the constriction of taped lines. But it was the following summer of 1982 spent in Montauk that provided the artist’s first intimate encounter with nature; an experience which, for Sean Scully — brought up in highly urban environments — was decisive. A month painting in the Albee “Barn” gave Scully the freedom to produce small multi-panel works on found scraps of wood as a direct response to the movement of light and the environment around him, an approach that has been a touchstone in Scully’s work ever since.

This exhibition recalls this transformative moment by bringing together 15 of the original 1982 Montauk paintings for the first time since their time in the Barn, in the same geographic region near the site where they were inspired and produced 43 years ago. The exhibition includes over 70 works in total, chosen in collaboration with the artist to highlight the works’ contextual site — landscape and light — while engaging the viewer in the same context.

Further rooms are filled with important paintings such as “Backs and Fronts,” 1981, “Heart of Darkness,” 1982, the “Wall of Light” series last seen in New York at the Metropolitan Museum in 2006, the “Landline” series last exhibited at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in 2018, and the Wadsworth Atheneum in 2019, to the more recent “Wall Landlines,” and the first “Tower” painting, a new series of monumental assemblage paintings started in 2024 and exhibited at the Parrish for the first time.

A fully illustrated corresponding exhibition catalog published by Hatje Cantz will include two interpretive essays, an interview with Scully, a complete plate section, a detailed chronology, and an essay on the role the Albee Foundation has played for artists through the years.

“Sean Scully: The Albee Barn, Montauk” is organized by Ramírez-Montagut with associate curator and publications manager Kaitlin Halloran.

“Our upcoming exhibitions offer profound insights into the creative journeys of visionary and widely diverse artists. From Shirin Neshat’s highly stylized videos and photography exploring female experiences in both Islamic and Western culture, Sean Scully’s Montauk-inspired paintings, Howell’s and Sugimoto’s vast explorations of the color gray in painting and photography, to Nina Yankowitz’s boundary-defying multimedia works, each show will spark meaningful conversations and immersive experiences for our audiences,” said Corinne Erni, Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman, chief curator, art and education, Parrish Art Museum. “It’s going to be an incredible season filled with exciting art and conversation.”

“James Howell” — September 14 to February 8, 2026

This exhibition highlights the minimalist works of James Howell (American, 1935-2014), whose paintings, prints and drawings explore the infinite tonal variations of gray. Inspired by mathematical precision and the changing light of Montauk, Howell’s work balances scientific calculation with artistic intuition. This will be the first exhibition of Howell’s work on Long Island, a place that deeply impacted the artist’s later career. Between 2006 and his death, Howell worked out of his studio in Montauk, where the ever-changing nature of the elements — fog, water and light — provided fresh inspiration for his decades-long fascination with the seemingly infinite array of grays. The show is co-curated by associate curator and publications manager Kaitlin Halloran and associate curator of exhibitions Scout Hutchinson.

“Time Exposed: Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Seascapes” — September 14 to February 8, 2026

A presentation of Hiroshi Sugimoto’s (Japanese, b. 1948) black-and-white seascapes is shown for the first time at the Parrish Art Museum. Acquired by the museum in 2022, the photolithographic series explores Sugimoto’s unwavering interest in the incremental atmospheric changes around vast bodies of water. The “Time Exposed” project saw Sugimoto use a 19th-century film camera to document the subtle changes in light, fog, and atmosphere. The show is curated by associate curator and publications manager Kaitlin Halloran.

“Nina Yankowitz: In the Out/Out the In” — October 5 to February 22, 2026

Organized in partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, Florida, this exhibition features 36 works by Nina Yankowitz (American, b. 1946), a boundary-defying artist who has addressed themes of feminism, environmentalism and social justice through abstraction for nearly six decades. Ranging from pleated and draped canvases to immersive multimedia installations, Yankowitz’s work challenges traditional art categorizations and inspires fresh perspectives on the evolution of artistic expression. Yankowitz began her career in 1960s New York, where she experimented with the material and technical possibilities of canvas, cardboard, paint sprayers and sewing equipment to create her paintings. A founder of the Heresies Collective (1976-1993), Yankowitz drew on Abstract Expressionism, Process Art and the feminist movement in her work.

Accompanying all these exhibitions will be a series of related programs, including artist talks, panel discussions, film screenings, educational and family programs, and events designed to enhance visitors’ engagement with the artists and their work.

Additional 2025 Exhibitions at the Parrish Include:

“Fresh Paint: Reggie Burrows Hodges” which is on view now through June 9 and organized by the museum’s associate curator of exhibitions Scout Hutchinson in collaboration with The FLAG Art Foundation’s Director Jon Rider, Director of Exhibitions Caroline Cassidy. “Fresh Paint” is an ongoing collaboration between the Parrish and The FLAG Art Foundation that features a rotating series of single-artwork exhibitions that spotlight new or never-before-exhibited works by both emerging and established artists.

The 2025 Student Exhibition which will be on view from March 15 to April 27 is a longstanding tradition at the Parrish and an annual exhibition to showcase the work of over 1,000 young artists (kindergarten to high school) from Eastern Long Island schools. Students demonstrate creativity and technical skills across painting, sculpture, drawing, and photography, with collaborative projects created alongside visiting artist Andrea Cote.

“Linear | Amorphous: Geometric Abstractions From the Permanent Collection” will run from September 14 to February 8, 2026, and will present over 35 works from the Parrish’s permanent collection, ranging from the late 1950s to 2024. This exhibition aims to highlight the myriad ways artists from different generations employ abstraction to create their compositions. Making use of bright and vivacious colors, artists like Ilya Bolotowsky, Alexander Calder, Theo Hios and Lee Krasner employ deeply saturated tones to present both rigid and unstructured abstractions. In contrast, works by Stephen Antonakos, Agnes Martin and Richard Serra all utilize a monochromatic palette to depict their compositions. Highlighting geometric abstractions through works that have not recently been on view, this collection rotation offers new dialogues amid drawings, paintings and prints. The show is curated by associate curator and publications manager Kaitlin Halloran.

Finally, the Parrish Art Museum’s Midsummer Gala 2025 will be on Saturday, July 19. Titled “Echoes of the Cosmos,” the gala dinner event will run from 6 to 9 p.m. and honor philanthropists Sandy and Stephen Perlbinder, and artists Sanford Biggers, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer and Nina Yankowitz. The Afterglow Party will follow from 9 p.m. to midnight.

For more information about the 2025 exhibitions and Parrish events, visit parrishart.org. The Parrish Art Museum is at 279 Montauk Highway in Water Mill.