The Ramones, Ebony G. Patterson and more of spring’s best art exhibits

The Metropolitan Museum opens its new Met Breuer with two inaugural exhibitions, but that’s not all that’s happening in the art world this season.

On March 18, the Metropolitan Museum of Artwill openits much-anticipated annex for modern and contemporary art in the old, beloved Whitney Museum building designed by Marcel Breuer on Madison and 75th Street. The new digs will include a fresh, subtle restoration, a Blue Bottle coffee shop and two new exhibitions: a survey of the little-known but wonderful Indian minimalistNasreen Mohamediand “Unfinished,” a look at incomplete works ranging from Titian to Rembrandt to Pollack. Expect lines out the door.

But, while the Met Breuer may be the art event of the season, there are plenty of other exciting exhibitions opening throughout the city this spring. Here are a few worth checking out.

Ebony G. Patterson, Rashaad Newsome and Rodney McMillian
March 24-June 26
Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 W. 125th St.

TheStudio Museumhas a group of impressive shows this spring, from a site-specific installation by Jamaican multimedia artist Ebony G. Patterson “… when they grow up …” featuring exuberant images of black youth in hand-embellished, large-scale, photo-based wall works, to video and performance artist Rashaad Newsome’s exploration on black LGBTQ culture and voguing, “This Is What I Want to See.” But its centerpiece exhibition is a look at the politically charged works of L.A.-based artist Rodney McMillian. In “Views of Main Street,” McMillian uses symbols of domesticity to reveal political and economic biases in our society, from a sateen sofa split in half and cemented back together to a flimsy, deteriorating cut-out canvas painting of the Supreme Court building.

Hey! Ho! Let’s Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk
April 10-July 31
Queens Museum, New York City Building, Flushing Meadows Corona Park

It’s been 40 years since The Ramones rocked the world with their self-titled debut, and now the punk pioneers are getting their own exhibition. The Queens Museum has teamed up with the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles for “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go,” a two-part exploration on these New York misfits’ wide-ranging influence on music and pop culture, from their roots in Forest Hills, Queens, to their history-making performances at CBGB, to their indelible impact on visual art, from MAD Magazine to Shepard Fairey.

Uniformity
May 20-Nov. 19
Museum at FIT, 227 W. 27th St.

TheMuseum at the Fashion Institute of Technologywill take a break from itsusual couture offeringsto focus on the antithesis of fashion’s ever-changing whims and trends: the uniform. “Uniformity” will explore the history behind a variety of uniforms — from football jerseys to varsity jackets, schoolgirl plaid to army camo, flight attendant gear to fast-food attire — considering both their role as symbols of social order and their influence on high fashion. Many of the exhibition’s 70-plus objects, all from the Museum at FIT’s permanent collection, have never been on view before.

Moholy-Nagy: Future Present
May 27-Sept. 7
Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Ave.

Utopian modernist, Bauhaus instructor and groundbreaking multimedia artist László Moholy-Nagy gets his first U.S. retrospective in 50 years at the Guggenheim this May. With more than 300 collages, drawings, films, paintings, photographs and sculptures, “Future Present” will reveal a man who believed in the power of art and technology to improve society and humanity. The restless artist and educator experimented with cameraless photography, was one of the first to use industrial materials in painting and sculpture, and pioneered abstraction. His graphic, colorful works still have an influence on graphic and product design today.