Sean Kelly Gallery

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Sean Kelly Gallery A contemporary art gallery founded in 1991 with locations in New York City and Los Angeles. Contemporary Art Gallery in New York and Los Angeles.

Since its inception in 1991, Sean Kelly Gallery has been internationally regarded for its diverse, intellectually driven program and a highly regarded roster of artists. The gallery has garnered international attention for its high caliber exhibition program and collaboration with many of the most significant cultural institutions around the world. The gallery opened its first public space at 43 Mercer Street. During these formative years, it established a reputation for diverse, intellectually driven, unconventional exhibitions. The original list of artists represented; Marina Abramović, James Casebere, Callum Innes, Joseph Kosuth and Julião Sarmento (1948-2021), all of whom are still represented by the gallery today, exemplified the Gallery’s commitment to presenting important and challenging contemporary art. In 2001, Sean Kelly moved to a converted 7,000 square-foot industrial space on 29th Street in the Chelsea gallery district. The spacious location enabled the Gallery to mount increasingly ambitious, museum-quality exhibitions to great critical acclaim. The Gallery’s roster of artists expanded to include Rebecca Horn, Frank Thiel, Laurent Grasso, Peter Liversidge, Anthony McCall, Alec Soth, and Kehinde Wiley. In October 2012, Sean Kelly opened its current 22,000 square foot space at 475 Tenth Avenue in a historic 1914 building. With the gallery’s expansion into the new space, Sean Kelly added internationally acclaimed artists to its roster; David Claerbout, José Dávila, Candida Höfer, Ilse D’Hollander, Idris Khan, Hugo McCloud, Mariko Mori, Liu Wei, and Sun Xun. Sean Kelly has continued to expand its program to include a new generation of exceptional contemporary artists such as Dawoud Bey, Julian Charrière, Landon Metz, Sam Moyer, Shahzia Sikander, Janaina Tschäpe and Wu Chi-Tsung. Over the course of more than thirty years, the Gallery has become a symbol for high quality, thought-provoking contemporary art and conversation, most recently with the launch of Collect Wisely in May 2018. Collect Wisely is a provocative media campaign designed to encourage lively conversation around topics of collecting and connoisseurship. At the heart of this initiative is the Collect Wisely podcast, a series of interviews in which Sean Kelly discusses with collectors their passion for art, artists, and a passion for collecting and connoisseurship. On September 17, 2022, the Gallery opened a major new space in Los Angeles.

10/22/2026

Shahzia Sikander’s 3 to 12 Nautical Miles, 2026, is a radiant cinematic tableau animated from hand-painted images, gestures, objects, and symbols that signal how authority was constructed, distributed, and contested, from Indian fields and ports to Chinese treaty cities and British naval power.

Navigating the enduring currents of power and trade that have shaped the global landscape from the nineteenth century to the modern era, 3 to 12 Nautical Miles traces the entangled histories of empire, trade, and maritime power that linked the British East India Company, Mughal India, and Qing China.

As the animation unfolds, it charts the decline of Mughal authority under Akbar II, the internal strains of the Qing dynasty, and the East India Company’s rise from commercial venture to territorial power. Within this context, the work interrogates Britain’s o***m cultivation in India, its coercive trade with China, and the First O***m War, exposing the mechanisms of imperial extraction and the deep power asymmetries between Britain and China at the time.

Video: Shahzia Sikander, 3 to 12 Nautical Miles (excerpt), 2026, HD video animation with 7.1 surround sound; Music by Du Yun; Commissioned by the M+ Museum, Hong Kong, duration: 9 minutes, variable dimensions © Shahzia Sikander Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York
sikander

Sean Kelly is delighted to announce Mariko Mori: All That Shines, the artist’s first major retrospective in Japan since ...
10/21/2026

Sean Kelly is delighted to announce Mariko Mori: All That Shines, the artist’s first major retrospective in Japan since Mariko Mori: Pure Land, 2002, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.

Organized by the Mori Art Museum, the exhibition is co-curated by Alexandra Munroe, Senior Curator at Large, Global Arts, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation and Kataoka Mami, Director, Mori Art Museum. The show features some forty works spanning more than three decades and surveys Mori’s artistic and conceptual innovations across all her signature media: performance-based and computer-imaging photography and video; drawing; sculpture and large-scale interactive installations.

Mariko Mori: All That Shines is on view from October 31, 2026 – March 28, 2027 at the Mori Art Museum.

Image: Installation view: Mariko Mori: Wave UFO, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, 2003 Photo: Richard Learoyd © Mariko Mori Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

Mariko Mori Mori Art Museum 森美術館 Alexandra Munroe Mami Kataoka

Skylight, 2020, a vertical solid-light installation that extends Anthony McCall’s investigation of perception through an...
10/20/2026

Skylight, 2020, a vertical solid-light installation that extends Anthony McCall’s investigation of perception through an intricate dialogue between light and sound. Projected from above onto a plinth, the work produces a slowly shifting cone of light that can be experienced from every angle.

Accompanied by an original score by acclaimed composer David Grubbs, Skylight evokes the gradual approach and recession of an imagined thunderstorm through distant rumbles, flashes of lightning, and the steady rhythm of falling rain. The work belongs to a series of works in which McCall explores the dynamic relationship between visual form, silence, and sound.

Images: Installation View of Anthony McCall: Solid Light, 1973, 2020, 2026 at Sean Kelly, New York, September 11 – October 31, 2026, Photography: Adam Reich, New York, Courtesy: Sean Kelly, New York

Anthony McCall

Drawing inspiration from sources including the history of art and music as well as key philosophical and theological tex...
10/19/2026

Drawing inspiration from sources including the history of art and music as well as key philosophical and theological texts, Idris Khan is widely acclaimed for works that investigate memory, creativity and the layering of experience.

Comprising a series of panels painted in jewel-like hues embellished with gold leaf, Time Present, Time Past continues the artist’s ongoing exploration of colour, repetition and the spiritual potential of abstraction, with particular reference to the rich traditions of Islamic culture. Through many years of study, Khan has developed his exploration of colour to evoke both emotional immediacy and contemplative stillness by building layers of pigment.

The colour acts as a psychological and spatial field – expansive, immersive and affecting. In these new works, each panel is carefully inscribed with layers of musical notation or Arabic text, applied by hand using gold leaf. These inscriptions, often poetic or meditative, are overlaid repeatedly until only their edges remain legible. In this process, language folds in on itself and meaning dissolves into form.

Images: Idris Khan, Time Present, Time Past (Zahri I), 2025, oil based ink and 23 ct gold leaf on gesso, on aluminum, artwork: 15 3/4 x 9 3/4 x 9/16 inches, framed: 19 1/4 x 13 3/16 x 2 inches © Idris Khan Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

Idris Khan, OBE

Dawoud Bey is featured in the exhibition, If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground, on view at The Museum of Con...
10/18/2026

Dawoud Bey is featured in the exhibition, If Emmett Till Lived: Freedom on American Ground, on view at The Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago through December 19, 2026.

In his photographic series Harlem, USA, Dawoud Bey explores the history and community of the iconic neighborhood. Growing up in Queens, Bey was drawn to his family’s ties to Harlem: his parents had met at a local church, and many relatives and family friends lived there. At sixteen, after encountering the photographs of James Van Der Zee, Bey began making photographs himself. Together with Bey’s personal connection to the neighborhood, would later inspire his Harlem, USA series (1975–79).

“The relationships and exchanges that I had with some of these people are experiences I will never forget. It is in those relationships and the lives of the people that these pictures recall that the deeper meaning of these photographs can be found.” - Dawoud Bey, 1979

Image: Dawoud Bey, A Woman and Two Boys Passing, Harlem, NY, 1978, gelatin silver print, image: 8 1/16 x 11 7/8 inches, paper: 11 x 14 inches, framed: 17 1/8 x 21 1/8 x 1 1/2 inches © Dawoud Bey Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

Dawoud Bey MoCP

Candida Höfer is a renowned German photographer celebrated for her architectural photographs that capture the splendor o...
10/17/2026

Candida Höfer is a renowned German photographer celebrated for her architectural photographs that capture the splendor of public spaces. One of her notable works features the Semperoper in Dresden, a grand opera house that stands as a testament to the rich cultural history of the city.

Completed in 1878 and designed by architect Gottfried Semper, the Semperoper showcases Neoclassical architecture with baroque elements and is an integral part of Dresden’s historical skyline. In her portrayal of the Semperoper, Höfer emphasizes both the architectural beauty of the structure and the absence of human presence, inviting viewers to consider the space as a silent witness to artistic expression and the passage of time.

The empty halls and grand auditoriums evoke a sense of anticipation, allowing the viewer to imagine the performances that have taken place within their walls. Her work resonates with themes of memory and communal experience, highlighting the significance of cultural institutions while reflecting the stark beauty inherent in solitude.

Image: Candida Höfer, Semper Oper Dresden I 2023, inkjet print, paper: 70 7/8 x 72 7/16 inches, framed: 72 3/8 x 74 x 1 7/8 inches © Candida Höfer, Köln / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026 Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

Candida Höfer

Sean Kelly Gallery is delighted to announce, What the Light Becomes, Kehinde Wiley’s fourth exhibition at the gallery. T...
10/16/2026

Sean Kelly Gallery is delighted to announce, What the Light Becomes, Kehinde Wiley’s fourth exhibition at the gallery.

The exhibition focuses specifically on contemporary New Yorkers and, more broadly, on how New York represents a portrait of America at this moment, not as a single cohesive identity, but as something diverse, shifting and continually being remade. The exhibition is conceived of as a love letter to New York and a return to the subject of the city that launched Wiley’s career, after a number of years in which his practice has taken him around the world.

There will be an opening reception on Thursday, November 5 from 6-8pm. The artist will be present.

Image: Kehinde Wiley, Portrait of Madison Billups, 2026, oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches © Kehinde Wiley Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

Kehinde Wiley

Luke Agada’s When the Center Holds reflects on quieter forms of endurance. The exhibition proposes that coherence is not...
10/15/2026

Luke Agada’s When the Center Holds reflects on quieter forms of endurance. The exhibition proposes that coherence is not a given, but something continually assembled through memory, imagination, and connection. In Agada’s work, painting becomes a space where uncertainty is neither resolved, nor escaped, but inhabited with openness and resilience, offering a timely meditation on how we sustain meaning in an increasingly fractured world.

“We retain the capacity to remember, and to imagine, and to relate to one another, to continually compose new forms of meaning and belonging.” - Luke Agada

Images: Luke Agada, Manoah I, 2026, oil on canvas, 36 x 60 x 1 3/4 inches © Luke Agada Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York

Luke Agada Luke Agada Studio

The Large Payne series, an ongoing body of oil-on-panel paintings initiated in 2020, extends Sam Moyer’s long-standing e...
10/14/2026

The Large Payne series, an ongoing body of oil-on-panel paintings initiated in 2020, extends Sam Moyer’s long-standing engagement with the effects of light.

Evolving from her earlier Payne works on paper, which she began in 2017, these paintings are unified by a restrained palette dominated by Payne’s Gray—a color that captures the fleeting glow of the “magic hour,” the brief moment between sunset and nightfall when light softens, and contrast intensifies. Reinforcing the sculptural nature of her work, Moyer’s tactile application of oil paint, creates surfaces that shift and transform as the viewer moves.

“Moyer uses the term “Payne” not only as a reference to the pigment itself, but also to the standard windowpane, an architectural and illusory device that has strongly informed her drawing practice particularly... It is a device that simultaneously defines and abstracts the natural world and provides an apparatus for the artist to focus her attention and explore new spatial relationships.” - Jeffrey Grove, Director, Museums & Publications, Sean Kelly

Images: Sam Moyer, Large Payne 35, 2023, oil on panel, walnut frame, panel: 60 x 48 x 2 inches, framed: 60 13/16 x 48 7/8 x 2 1/4 inches

sammemoyer

Sean Kelly is delighted to announce the Marina Abramović’s Balkan Erotic Epic. The Stage Version, the second edition of ...
10/13/2026

Sean Kelly is delighted to announce the Marina Abramović’s Balkan Erotic Epic. The Stage Version, the second edition of the the artist’s presentation for the Berliner Festspiele from October 13 to 17, 2026. Abramovíc’s immersive stage performance explores feminine energy, shame, desire, and the relationship between the body and history through rituals and folk mythology of the Balkans reigion.

Balkan Erotic Epic: The Stage Version presents a large-scale performance featuring more than thirty singers, dancers, and musicians. Structured in ten scenes, it moves through states of celebration, prayer, and liberation, drawing on the spiritual and political prowess of Marina Abramović’s oeuvre while employing a distinctly communal, sensuous, and ritualistic form.

Rooted in the myths, customs, and tensions of Abramović’s homeland, the work examines the relationship between eroticism, pain, and belief. It approaches the body as a site of vulnerability and expression, and presents erotic energy as a potential source of insight, healing, and collective power.

Images: Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Stage Version © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026; photo: Marco Anelli, Instagram Marco Anelli

Marina Abramović Institute Berliner Festspiele

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475 10th Avenue
New York, NY
10018

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Tuesday 11am - 6pm
Wednesday 11am - 6pm
Thursday 11am - 6pm
Friday 11am - 6pm
Saturday 10am - 6pm

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+12122391181

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