Museums have always been cool, but this fall, the Brooklyn Museum is making sure there’s no question as it rolls out a particularly eclectic slate of exhibitions and installations.
The big draw is Art of Manga (October 3–January 31, 2027), making its East Coast debut in the Museum’s Great Hall. The exhibition brings together a huge selection of original manga artwork, including pieces connected to series such as Inuyasha, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Ōoku: The Inner Chambers and One Piece.
And because apparently one manga exhibition wasn’t enough, the Great Hall will also host Manga Before Manga: Japanese Art from the Collection (October 3–January 31, 2027), which digs into the historical roots of the art form.
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If your taste runs more Cézanne than Straw Hat, there’s Cézanne to Modigliani: Gifts of Modern Art from the Pearlman Collection (October 2–April 18, 2027), featuring more than 50 European masterpieces. Think of it as both a concentrated dose of modernism and a fresh transfusion of gift shop merch.
Hopi Kachina Dolls: Blessings for a Balanced World (October 2–June 27, 2027) takes a different approach, examining the kachina doll tradition through the perspective of Hopi girls and women. Michael Richards: Free F’All (September 11–June 6, 2027) will occupy the lobby, honoring the history of the Tuskegee Airmen while remembering the artist himself, who died on September 11, 2001. The installation brings Richards’ work into conversation with that history, adding a sobering counterpoint to the season’s more exuberant offerings.
Then there’s the still-running Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses (on view through December 6), a tribute to the revolutionary fashion designer whose work exists somewhere between haute couture, sculpture and what appears to be an extremely elegant science experiment. And coming in October to the Toby Devan Lewis Education Center, Mika Ninagawa: Feel the Flow(ers) brings the vivid photographic practice of the celebrated Japanese artist into the museum.
Basically, the Brooklyn Museum’s fall agenda is shaping up to be a “choose your own adventure” kind of experience, from manga to modernism to couture. Museum-going has rarely looked quite so compelling on so many different levels.
