Jeffrey Gibson and Kara Walker are the living artists most visible across American museums this autumn, according to a quarterly ranking that tracks exhibition data across the United States. The September 2026 edition of the Museum Artist list, compiled using figures from the exhibition database Artfacts.net, scores artists by appearances: group shows count for one point, while larger exhibitions earn between two and five depending on scale. Gibson leads with 18 points and Walker follows with 17. Gibson remains at the summit despite the September closing of his long-running MASS MoCA show Power Full Because We're Different, which had been on view since November 2024. The touring exhibition They Teach Love, drawn from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his family foundation, continues at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene, Oregon, until March 2027 before travelling to the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art in April. Even without those anchor shows, his 11 group-show appearances would secure his position. Walker reaches her tally almost entirely through curators placing her in group exhibitions across the country, from the Hammer Museum to the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. Behind them, filmmaker Sky Hopinka, 99-year-old painter Alex Katz and painter Kay WalkingStick each score 15. Katz's standing owes much to two concurrent shows organised by the Colby College Museum of Art in Maine, which dedicates a wing to his work. Rashid Johnson follows with 13. The list's freshest names sit further down: installation artist Saya Woolfalk, collage artist Joiri Minaya and Lebanese-Yurok artist Saif Senussi Azzuz, whose work addresses personal heritage, ancestral knowledge and cross-cultural symbolism. The compiler notes that while the big names stay visible because museums plan years ahead, no rising artist in the data represents a new theme. Betye Saar, a strong performer in previous editions, died over the summer. Among the near misses with significant visibility are Norman Akers, Carolina Caycedo, Nicholas Galanin, Jenny Holzer, Titus Kaphar, Danny Lyon, Wendy Red Star, Deborah Roberts, Ed Ruscha, Lorna Simpson, Kiki Smith and Nari Ward, underlining how established the current canon of museum-friendly American art has become.