Technically speaking, fall begins in the New York art world before summer even ends, with many galleries starting the new season next week, opening shows after August vacations. If you want to know where to go for openings, you’ll have to prepare for a lot of shuffling. Between September 8 and September 13, at least 150 galleries are having openings in Manhattan. (On top of this, a few other galleries already got a head start by opening their fall shows last week.)
Many of the openings are in Chelsea, which is currently home to Manhattan’s most crowded gallery district. Next week, at least 81 are having openings there—67 on Thursday night alone. This means that somewhere between one fifth and one quarter of Chelsea’s 350-plus galleries will be hosting receptions.
Meanwhile, in Downtown Manhattan (here used to designate the Lower East Side, Tribeca, Soho, and the West and East Villages), Wednesday is the more popular night—23 of the 59 Downtown galleries that we counted have scheduled their receptions for Wednesday, perhaps because the holiday weekend makes Sunday a less desirable option in this case.
Uptown Manhattan’s galleries will be taking it easy next week—by our count, just 10 spaces are having openings. Five of those galleries are having openings on Wednesday.
For a closer look at the beginning of this busy fall season, consult our graphic, which shows which areas are having openings when. The data for this graphic was collected using the listings on Artslant for the coming week, as supplemented by invitations and press releases that came into the office.