art dates to bookmark for the year
From heavyweight, architect-designed destination museums to surprising new city sites for global mega-galleries, these are the shiniest new spaces – with interesting artist line-ups and talking-point exhibitions – worth visiting this year.
PoMo Museum
The parallel between postcards and art – both have a public and personal meaning – and the Art Nouveau former post office setting, are the inspiration behind the inaugural group exhibition at Trondheim’s new India Mahdavi-renovated museum. Featuring over 100 works, Postcards from the Future will dig into themes such as community, identity and material culture.
Opening February
Perrotin
This Paris-born contemporary art gallery has global outposts – and regularly exhibits at Frieze, where in 2024, it showed work by British sculptor Lynn Chadwick – but the new space in Claridge’s hotel will be its first permanent base in London. High-profile names on the roster include street artist JR, conceptual artist Sophie Calle and controversial hyperrealist Maurizio Cattelan.
Opening March
V&A East Storehouse
Part of East Bank, a new cultural quarter in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Go for a behind-the-scenes peek into the conservation studios at this working museum store which houses over 250,000 objects, from the Glastonbury Festival archive to Schiaparelli couture. Six wow-factor objects will anchor the Collections Hall, including a Mughal colonnade from the Agra fort bathhouse.
Opening May
Naoshima New Museum of Art
A yellow pumpkin on the pier by Yayoi Kusama and Shinro Ohtake’s mural-and-mosaic adorned bath house, both at Miyanoura Port, are visitors’ first clue to Naoshima’s art destination status. The island’s latest addition is the brutalist-style Naoshima New Museum of Art, which is dedicated to contemporary works by Asian artists and designed by celebrated Japanese architect Tadao Ando.
Opening spring
Fenix Museum
The once-gritty harbourside area of Katendrecht has been a hip food hub for several years now but this migration-themed museum in a restored warehouse, designed by Beijing’s MAD Architects, will add cultural kudos. The inaugural exhibition, All Directions: Art That Moves You, features 150 artworks and objects by the likes of Steve McQueen, Cornelia Parker and Yinka Shonibare.
Opening May
Galleries Of The Arts Of Oceania At The Metropolitan Museum Of Art
Asmat spirit poles, red feather currency from the Solomon Islands, and Sepik River region ceremonial canoe prows are just a few of the extraordinary pieces that will be on display when the Oceania galleries in The Met’s Michael C. Rockefeller Wing reopen after a major four-year renovation. Better contextualised from indigenous perspectives, the artworks span over 500 years.
Opening May
Studio Museum In Harlem
Not strictly new but a game-changing move for this Harlem arts space which champions work by artists of African descent. In 1968, the museum’s inaugural show was electronically programmed lightworks by the now-late artist and activist Tom Lloyd, so it’s fitting that when it re-opens in the Adjaye Associates-designed building, his found-metal sculptures will be on display.
Opening autumn
Drift Museum
From a flock of lit-up drones that emulate starling flight patterns to a kinetic installation that mirrors the biological rhythm of plants, Amsterdam-based Studio Drift blurs the lines between art and technology. Now the pair behind it, Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta, have found a forever home for these performative pieces and more.
Opening late 2025
Emma Love
