The best free museum shows and exhibitions in NYC

Rare works by French master Pierre Soulages are coming to the Upper East Side in a new exhibition at the Lévy Gorvy Dayan gallery (19 E. 64th St.). Organized with the artist’s widow, the show features more than 20 paintings on paper, including works drawn directly from Soulages’s estate that have never been exhibited publicly. Spanning decades of work, the exhibition explores a medium he prized for its immediacy and unforgiving nature, using walnut stain, gouache, ink and improvised tools to experiment with light, texture and transparency. 

Celebrity pets have been a thing long before Paris Hilton put her tiny dog in her purse. A new exhibit at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts puts the animals in the spotlight they always deserved, now through February 23, 2027. Unleashed: Pets of the Performing Arts celebrates the beloved pets who have shaped and inspired some of the greatest performing artists of all time, from Baryshnikov to Billie Holiday. It’s a delightful reminder that even the most inspired genius probably had lengthy, one-sided conversations with a silent pet about when she'd come home.

Sofy Gallery in Chelsea opens a new group exhibit, The Weight of Normal Things, on October 1, joining painters Susan P. Martin and Patrick Earl Barnes with photographer Mara Clemente for a meditation on beauty hiding in plain sight. Curated by Luca Cantore D’Amore, the exhibition considers everyday people, places and gestures through three distinct forms of attention. Martin’s paintings blur self-portraiture and landscape, Barnes shows quietly charged urban scenes and Clemente's photographs bring the intimacy. The show kicks off the gallery’s 2026/'27 season and runs through October 24. Admission is free, with an opening reception from 6 to 9pm on October 1.