Gary Carrion-Murayari, the New Museum’s senior curator, first joined the institution in 2010. Since then, he has curated exhibitions dedicated to artists such as Phyllida Barlow, Haroon Mirza and Faith Ringgold. Later this year, he will present the most comprehensive survey to date of Arthur Jafa’s works. Carrion-Murayari previously worked at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where he co-curated the 2010 Whitney Biennial with Francesco Bonami. We caught up with Carrion-Murayari at Frieze New York, where he told us about some of his favourite works.
Arthur Simms
Insect in the Wall (2024)
Karma
“Arthur Simms is a great, underappreciated artist Karma has been working with for the past few years. He has an amazing studio on Staten Island, making sculpture out of discarded objects in the tradition of Jamaican assemblage.”
Photo: Steven Molina Contreras
Haegue Yang
A Matter of Fact (from Dan)—Peep Asymmetry (2025)
Kukje Gallery
“Kukje is a wonderful gallery in Seoul that brought a lot of US artists to Korea for the first time. Sometimes, Haegue Yang’s works are kinetic; many times, they’re animated. Her works reflect the poetry of everyday surroundings.”
Photo: Steven Molina Contreras
Abel Rodriguez and Aycoobo-Wilson Rodríguez
Terraza Vajá (2022)
Instituto de Visión
“Instituto de Visión have a space in New York, but I met them in Bogotá; they’re one of the great galleries to have come out of South America. Abel Rodriguez and Aycoobo-Wilson Rodríguez are a father-son duo who were in the 2024 Venice Biennale under the curator Adriano Pedrosa. They have done some amazing work about the history of the environment in Colombia.”
Photo: Steven Molina Contreras
Sung Tieu
Untitled (2026)
Emalin
“Emalin has an experimental, exceptional programme. Sung Tieu is one of two artists representing Germany at the Venice Biennale this year and did the amazing pavilion façade. She is quite conceptual and political, thinking about the history of immigration in Germany.”
Photo: Steven Molina Contreras
Maryam Hoseini
Oblique Horizon (Bird of Paradise) (2026)
Dastan
“Maryam Hoseini was part of a three-person show that we held in our lobby gallery at the New Museum. She is an amazing artist. She is a very playful painter who focuses on the body and performance, but this is surprising for me. I didn’t realise this was by her.”
Photo: Steven Molina Contreras
Pedro Neves
Untitled (2026)
Mitre Galeria
“My father was from the Amazon, and I’ve always been interested in art from the Amazon. I didn’t realise this artist was Brazilian; it definitely triggered something.”
Photo: Steven Molina Contreras
Melvin Way
Purple Haze (around 2008)
Andrew Edlin Gallery
“Melvin Way does these incredible small-scale, alchemical drawings on tiny bits of paper. I like his works that are smaller than this better, but I love the intricacy here.”