Winter Art to Warm Your Imagination

s the days get shorter and the light shifts toward cool blues and long shadows, winter becomes one of the richest seasons for reflection — and art that mirrors that mood. Below are a few standout experiences to sink into this season, from video to visual inspiration.

Watch: Inside Kid Cudi’s Secret Life as a Painter

If you usually think of Kid Cudi as a musician, this documentary-style video flips the script: for the past year and a half he’s been spending time painting alone in a huge warehouse studio, developing quietly but intentionally as a visual artist. It’s a testament to how solitude (very winter energy) can expand creativity — and how putting down your primary tool (for Cudi, music) and picking up another (paint) can be a beautiful, unexpected practice of self-exploration.

Whether you’re a fan of his music or just curious about artistic process in general, this video rewards patience and presence.

Go See: Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective at MoMA

This winter, The Museum of Modern Art in New York is hosting Ruth Asawa: A Retrospective, a sweeping, six-decade-spanning survey of the artist’s work that runs through February 7, 2026.

Asawa was a visionary sculptor who blurred the boundaries between craft and fine art. The retrospective brings together around 300 works — from her iconic looped-wire sculptures to bronze casts, drawings, prints, and public commissions — revealing how she continuously questioned form, space, and material in inventive ways.

What makes this show particularly resonant in the quieter months is its meditative quality: Asawa’s rhythmic, organic structures feel almost architectural yet intimate, inviting viewers to slow down and see light and shadow in new ways — a perfect complement to winter’s introspective pace.

Whether you’re a longtime fan of her work or discovering it for the first time, this exhibition is a standout on New York’s winter art calendar — intellectually rich, visually gentle, and deeply satisfying in the moment.

Isamu Noguchi’s New York: Sculpture as Civic Thought

From February 4 through September 13, 2026, The Noguchi Museum presents Noguchi’s New York, an exhibition tracing Isamu Noguchi’s lifelong relationship with the city.

Noguchi first arrived in New York at seventeen and, despite decades of travel and international recognition, continually returned. This exhibition treats the city not just as backdrop but as collaborator — a site Noguchi wanted to reshape through sculpture, landscape, and public space.

Through sculptures, models, photographs, archival material, and audio recordings, the show maps his networks, unrealized proposals, and major public works — including Red Cube, News, and Sunken Garden. What emerges is an artist thinking seriously about how form operates in civic life: how sculpture can interrupt routine, offer pause, or subtly reorganize movement.

There’s something deeply winter-appropriate about this exhibition. It’s reflective without being nostalgic, ambitious without spectacle. You leave thinking differently about sidewalks, plazas, and the spaces you move through every day.