Now in its sixth year, Upstate Art Weekend has become something like the I Ching for the Hudson Valley art scene—a wandering oracle of openings, oddities, and off-road installations that reveal the state of the creative union, one barn and Brutalist basement at a time.
With more than 130 participants spread across 10 counties, this self-guided festival of contemporary art invites the faithful and the art-curious alike to put some miles on the road and witness what’s blooming around the region. Here are some suggestions.
“Life, Still” at ADS Warehouse
Curated by Colin Beattie, the group photography show at the ADS Warehouse in Newburgh is less a meditation on stillness than a collective act of refusal—of crisis fatigue, of genre convention, of the illusion that the image is ever neutral. Caleb Stein’s decade-long documentation of a single swimming hole in the Hudson Valley suggests that place, like the human body, is always in flux. Hannah Altman’s images channel Yiddish folklore into an eerily present now, while Asger Carlsen’s AI-generated work tests what happens when the human is only half the author.
“Pairings: Drawings from the Jack Shear Collection”
On Saturday, July 19, from 1-4pm, Jack Shear, one of the world’s foremost collectors of drawings, is opening his collection of 1,800 drawings from the 15th to the 21st centuries, across multiple galleries within the Ellsworth Kelly Studio in Spencertown. The event is free but registration is required.
His drawings collection has been the subject of multiple exhibitions including, “Drawn: From the Collection of Jack Shear” at the Blanton Museum of Art; “Ways of Seeing, Three Takes on the Jack Shear Drawing Collection” at the Drawing Center; and “Infinity on Paper: Drawings from the Collections of the Benton Museum of Art and Jack Shear” at the Benton Museum of Art. At 11am, Shear will join Jennifer Tonkovich, curator from Morgan Library & Museum, for an informal conversation about the collection. The event is free but registration is required.
Upstate Open Studios
New this year, Upstate Open Studios joins the Upstate Art Weekend constellation with an ambitious debut: over 185 artists across the region throwing open their studio doors to the public. From converted barns to backyard kilns, the event offers an intimate glimpse into the spaces where the creative sausage gets made. It’s less polished white cube, more raw encounter—process over product, conversation over spectacle. A chance to see the Hudson Valley’s art scene at work, literally.
“Half the Sky” at KuBe Art Center
This show at Kube Art Center in Beacon brings together 11 groundbreaking Chinese women artists in a long-awaited exhibition first envisioned by curator Joan Lebold Cohen. From Lin Tianmiao’s string-wrapped bicycle to Xiao Lu’s bullet-pierced self-portraits, the show spans mediums and generations, reclaiming space for voices too long overlooked. Curated by Ethan Cohen and Donna Mikkelsen, “Half the Sky” is both homage and upheaval—an urgent testament to power, memory, and transformation.
“Tomokazu Matsuyama: Morning Sun” at the Edward Hopper House
Matsuyama’s dazzling, anime-inflected dreamscapes hang like technicolor ghosts in Edward Hopper’s boyhood home in Nyack, a time-slip dialogue between two artists separated by oceans and a century, but united by a fascination with the figure adrift. Matsuyama’s paintings thrum with energy—blending Edo-era iconography, global pop, and fractured consumer mythologies—and manage to make Hopper’s stillness feel more haunted in contrast.
“Peculiar Manufactures” at Catskill Octagon House
The historic Catskill Octagon House transforms into a maximalist mind palace in “Peculiar Manufactures,” curated by Marie Catalano. Inspired by 17th-century cabinets of curiosity, the exhibition reimagines the house as a spiraling Kunstkammer, where sculpture, textiles, furniture, and found objects consort like strange bedfellows. Featuring heavy hitters like Susan Cianciolo, Abigail Lucien, and Jessi Reaves, this isn’t your grandma’s parlor room—unless she kept talismans, textiles, and taxidermy in cardinal alignment.
Memory of a Star at Foreland
Kyter Steffes’s Memory of a Star lands for one day only at Foreland in Catskill on July 19, from 2 to 8pm. The New York–based artist-architect and lead design manager of Vegas’s Sphere, channels cosmic phenomena into a multisensory installation that literally lets you “hear the unheard,” translating gravitational waves and celestial data into immersive sound, light, and sculpture. It’s an ephemeral, space‑bound encounter in a reimagined stairwell—part sonic instrument, part telescopic dream.
Hero’s Hill in Ellenville
Kate Browne’s Hero’s Hill, installed beside the Ellenville Train Station along Route 52, resurrects the spirit of the American roadside attraction with a wink and a bugle call. A gravel mound wrapped in shining letters repeats the mantra “We Want the Next Hero to Arrive on Time”, while a sound column blasts Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever”—until, abruptly, it doesn’t. Brown’s latest large-scale installation invites visitors to reflect on heroism, history, and the fleeting nature of glory.
“A Permit, to Permit” at Glass House
Glasshouse’s “A Permit, To Permit” unfolds over 24 hours at their Springtown Road site in New Paltz July 19-20 from 10am-10pm. Organized by Lital Dotan, it weaves durational performances and ephemeral installations around the dual meaning of “permit”—as bureaucratic pass and personal consent. Highlights include Spencer Tunick and Emma Shapiro’s “Remedy,” a participatory photographic meditation on group truth-making, Tamar Ettun’s celestial textile forms, Jocelyn Beausire’s rural ritual “Shed,” Hannes Egger’s audience-guided “May I?,” and Immanuel J’s immersive “Suga’N’Tanks.”
Sleepy Hollow Mermaid Festival at Kingsland Point Park
The Sleepy Hollow Mermaid Festival splashes into Kingsland Point Park on July 19 from 12 to 4 pm. This free, family-friendly celebration features a dazzling land–and–water mermaid parade at 1 pm, community art‑making, a puppet show, live music, bounce houses, food trucks, and an open lifeguarded beach. Artists and vendors fill the MerMade marketplace while river stewardship partners like Riverkeeper foster engagement with the Hudson. A joyous, colorful respite from the more serious art offerings of UAW.
This article appears in July 2025.
