5 Standout Shows to See at Small Galleries in March 2025

In this monthly roundup, we spotlight five stellar exhibitions at small and rising galleries.

DREI, Cologne

Through Apr. 12

In German artist Mira Mann’s Cinémathèque Moranbong (2025), two Kodak Carousel slide projectors display images of North Korean dancer Ahn Seung-hee performing a traditional “swords” dance. Originally captured by French photojournalist Chris Marker during his 1958 visit to North Korea, these images have been reinterpreted by Mann, who used magnifying glasses to photograph the details. Presented in a dual projection slideshow, the projections simulate the dancer’s movements. This work is the heart of Mann’s exhibition “Solo” at DREI.

Many works in Mann’s exhibition are related to the performances and influence of Choi Seung-hee, the mother of Ahn and a world-famous Korean dancer. Through the use of electric motors and technology, Mann’s kinetic sculptures resonate with the movement of dance. For instance, Poison Fan (2025) features two brightly colored fans attached to motorized windshield wipers, evoking the traditional Korean buchaechum fan dances. Meanwhile, Solitary Dancer (2025)—a piece combining a gong, sex toys, a microphone, a speaker, and a motion detector—underscores the auditory experience of physical movement, amplifying the sounds of the gong throughout the gallery.

Born in 1993 in Frankfurt, Germany, Mann currently lives and works in Düsseldorf. Last year, their work was a standout in the 15th Gwangju Biennale in Korea. The artist is the recipient of the Peter Mertes Stipend 2025, which will culminate in a solo exhibition at the Bonner Kunstverein in Bonn, Germany.

Maybaum Gallery, San Francisco

Through Mar. 13

Thousands of rolled-up, hand-dyed mulberry papers make up the intricate wall works of South Korean artist Ilhwa Kim. She meticulously arranges these tubes of paper, which she endearingly refers to as “seeds,” to create textural, rippling color fields that jut out from the wall. A new series of these kaleidoscopic assemblages comprises her first solo exhibition with Maybaum Gallery in San Francisco, titled “The Geographic.”

From a distance, Kim’s Geographic Matter (2024), an abstract collection of red, blue, teal, green, and yellow hues surrounded by undyed white papers, could be mistaken for a frantic abstract painting. Up close, the varied sizes of the mulberry papers create a three-dimensional work that ebbs and flows, mimicking the undulating contours of a topographic map. “I create artworks that combine sculpture and painting in order to explore the richness, dynamism, and depth of sensory experience on canvas,” Kim said in a statement. “These layered, entangled, and ever-evolving sensory experiences, happening in a world defined by nature’s infinite possibilities, are what I strive to capture in my works.”

An MFA graduate from Hongik University in Seoul, Kim has previously held solo exhibitions at the House of Fine Art in London and several venues across South Korea, including Gallery K and Insa Art Center.

Swivel Gallery, New York

Through Mar. 22

Each of the three artists featured in Swivel Gallery’s Tribeca group show, “Interspecies: New Scenarios Of Symbiotic Coexistence,” probes the intersection of technology and human life. Alien sculptures, from Italian artist Camilla Alberti’s “The Alchemy of Melted Bodies” series, are made from twisted pigmented plaster and cellulose-based modeling paste. Suspended within their long, sharp steel legs is a lichen sample contained in glass, drawing a juxtaposition between organic and synthetic materials.

Surrounding the sculptures are abstract paintings by New York–based artist Anastasia Komar. Her work features sinuous, root-like structures made of silver electroplated polymer that entwine around the canvas. Striatum II (2024), for example, illustrates this technique with a canvas of undulating blue brushtrokes framed by tentacle-like silver limbs.

The heart of the exhibition is Shanghai-based painter Bai Yiyi’s Crowds Drift With The Wind, Gradually Dissipating Like A Whisper (2024), measuring approximately 10 feet by 13 feet. This sprawling color field comprises frenetic, distorted imagery, from fields of flowers to disparate eyeballs. This large-scale work captures the chaotic essence of the digital age, where the relentless influx of information overwhelms our senses.

L’Atelier 21, Casablanca

Through Mar. 22

The Casablanca Aquarium shuttered in the 1980s, yet its legacy has remained embedded in the Moroccan city’s cultural fabric. The historic site is now the subject of Mohamed Fariji’s “L’aquarium imaginaire, épisode #2” at nearby art space L’Atelier 21. Since 2012, Fariji has championed the aquarium’s legacy, now doing so through a new body of work that pays homage to its original ceramic installations.

Fariji has crafted replicas of the marine-inspired ceramic murals that were originally shown at the aquarium using cardboard, resin, and copper on wood. For example, Les requins qui dansent IV (2024) features stylized shark forms against an emerald-green mosaic. Meanwhile, Les prédateurs des abysses I (2024) features a geometric sawfish among a complicated design consisting of hundreds of small green, orange, and white squares. By reviving the aquarium’s internal aesthetics, the artist intends to tap into the city’s history.

“I have been diving into the archives of this collective memory, in search of what has been forgotten and erased by the waves of time,” he said in a statement. “My project is not limited to the rehabilitation of an abandoned place; it aspires to recreate what has been lost and to give a second life to this aquarium.”

Born in Casablanca in 1966, Fariji is the co-founder and director of Atelier de l’Observatoire, an art and research space dedicated to uplifting creative projects in Morocco. He studied at the National Institute of Fine Arts in Tétouan, Morocco, and the Llotja School of Art and Design in Barcelona.

sangheeut, Seoul

Through Mar. 29