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What to See in N.Y.C. Galleries Right Now

By Will Heinrich ,  Martha Schwendener and John Vincler

Want to see new art in New York this weekend? Tom Fairs has two shows, one on the Upper East Side, the other in TriBeCa. And don’t miss the group show “Drawings by Sculptors” at Helena Anrather on the Bowery, and Shala Miller’s photographs and sculptures at Lyles & King in Chinatown.

Newly Reviewed

Tom fairs & david schoerner.

Through Feb. 25. Kerry Schuss Gallery, 73 Leonard Street, Manhattan; 212-219-9918; kerryschussgallery.com .

Upper East Side

Through Feb. 11. Van Doren Waxter, 23 East 73rd Street, Manhattan; 212-445-0444; vandorenwaxter.com .

Tom Fairs worked in London as an art teacher, showing his own work only occasionally until his death in 2007. This month in New York, though, he’s got two shows at once — one of paintings, at Van Doren Waxter, and the other of his late pencil drawings paired with crisp, black-and-white nature photographs by David Schoerner, at Kerry Schuss.

The paintings, all landscapes, date from the 1970s to the 1990s. Flat planes suffused with bilious color, they look almost like abstractions, full of scrawls and intensity. But there’s always at least one rectangular little house to keep you in the workaday world, as in one green example in which a cottage and piles of hay sit beyond an open field with a disorienting horizon. They’re not bad, but what they chiefly serve to establish, by force of contrast, is the genius of Fairs’s drawings downtown.

Those works, palm- or notebook-size views of bushes and trees that Fairs found in Hampstead Heath and other parks, are master classes in drawing and seeing. Consider one tightly cropped portrait of a sturdy white birch with several dark saplings around it. Its springy lines glow with vitality, but at the same time, because Fairs was so clearly content to remain the student, if not the servant, of the visual information he found in the world, the drawing glows with humility, too. The birch is a tree, of course, but also a river, moving through half a dozen moods from the drawing’s bottom edge to its top. But even while capturing the scene in all its lush and spiritual particularity, Fairs was impressing the page with his own warm personality. WILL HEINRICH

Drawings by Sculptors

Through Feb. 11. Helena Anrather, 132 Bowery, Manhattan; 212-343-7496, helenaanrather.com.

Drawing plays a generative, often central role in the creation of sculpture, architecture and painting. But has the process changed over time? The sculptor Carl D’Alvia poses this question in “Drawings by Sculptors,” an exhibition he organized at Helena Anrather that features 91 works made over the past 50 years by more than 80 artists.

If nothing else, the show is a thrilling matchup of artists from different eras and ethoses. Kiki Smith’s “Transmission” (2016) sits next to Alan Saret’s “Swan” (2022), both suggesting energy and movement. Cool and camp attitude reign in Ken Price’s “High Country Meth Labs” (2015) and Danh Vo’s adjacent “2.2.1861” (2009), while the threesome of Huma Bhabha, Marguerite Humeau and Josh Kline suggests art transcending traditional “nature” as a modeling form, reaching toward the posthuman.

Several works bend the category of drawing, like Michelle Segre’s “Flaunt” (2022), probably best described as a drawing in space that includes yarn and bread balls; Richard Artschwager’s “Liebespaar (Lovers)” from 1998-99, made with rubberized horsehair; or Wells Chandler’s crocheted “Self Portrait as Turtle in Vest” (2023). Some works here are sketches, studies or technical diagrams for fabricating objects; some are provocations or impossible propositions, too fantastical to build.

Of course drawing has changed, in the same way that we now write on laptops or tell time on phones. Morphing between dimensions is also different in the era of 3-D printing and computer graphics. What this exhibition makes most clear is that drawing itself — however you define it — is still as vital as it was when Neolithic artists inscribed images and motifs on rock face. MARTHA SCHWENDENER

Shala Miller

Through Feb. 18. Lyles & King, 19 Henry Street, Manhattan; 646-484-5478, lylesandking.com .

Shala Miller has created a room full of deep affect: Anger and melancholy are coupled with an insistence on beauty that reads as determination and cleareyed hope. The feelings in this Brooklyn-based artist’s show “Obsidian” may be raw, but each artwork — across photographs, sculptures and video — is refined, recalling the lustrous black volcanic glass created by a destructive force that gives the exhibition its name.

The lush soundtrack of the lone video work, “Obsidian Theme” (2023), floods the space and sets the mood. Beginning a cappella in a mode of spirituals, blues and children’s double Dutch or clap-game rhyming songs, the soundtrack shifts into a mash-up of styles from Nina Simone, Radiohead and Meredith Monk via a looping sung refrain. Two paired photographs, “The Making of a Superhero” and “The Making of a Supervillain” (both 2022), feature text, roughly hand-engraved onto the plexiglass face of their frames, like diamond-cut graffiti on a subway train window. The phrases — including “powers still unclear,” “under constant threat but also threatening” — reveal the artist herself, as the title character or alter ego, in the role of Obsidian. Despite the titles’ phrasing, the persona that emerges seems closer to ancient myth than to comic books. In the photographs, we see the artist multiplied in various states of undress emerging from a dark background. Also included are two sculptures, or “inaction figures,” with accompanying poster advertisements. As I took in the museum-ready show, I wondered: Is power a feeling? JOHN VINCLER

Last Chance

Anton van dalen.

Through Jan. 28. PPOW Gallery, 390 Broadway , Manhattan; 212-647-1044, ppowgallery.com .

Anton van Dalen’s training as a graphic artist is immediately apparent in his vivid prints and paintings, as is his link to the East Village art scene in the 1980s, where graffiti, activist posters and wheat-pasted fliers ruled. The 47 pieces in “Doves: Where They Live and Work” surveys the oeuvre of the artist, who was born in the Netherlands in 1938 and moved to New York in 1966.

Van Dalen’s style is mechanically surrealistic, recalling early-20th-century artists like Giorgio de Chirico and Francis Picabia, as well as ’80s peers like Keith Haring and Mark Kostabi. Like these artists, his aesthetic world is simultaneously seductive and menacing. “The Horror Show of Science” (1981), a stark mural-size canvas, uses diagram-like images to show what science and technology have wrought, such as the atomic bomb and animal testing. Other paintings and drawings on lined notebook paper feature fighter planes, tanks (“war toys”), the effects of real estate development, the terror and isolation of the pandemic and how corporate giants like Coke, Amazon and Facebook have infiltrated our lives.

Birds also appear frequently here, serving, as the gallery release states, as emblems of “migration, freedom, peace, and community.” Since 1971, van Dalen has also raised white pigeons that lived on the roof of his East Village building. It is a remarkable detail: The world is affected by upheavals and migrations, but van Dalen, his work and his activist approach have remained local, stable and consistent. MARTHA SCHWENDENER

Ryan Sullivan

Through Jan. 28. 125 Newbury, 395 Broadway, Manhattan; 212 371-5242. 125newbury.com .

The second show at the small TriBeCa project space that Arne Glimcher, the founder of the mega-gallery Pace, has opened as a career bookend (it is named for the Boston address of the first iteration of Pace in 1960) is given to Ryan Sullivan, an adventurous 39-year-old artist. What seem at first to be riffs on Abstract Expressionists like Joan Mitchell reveal, on closer scrutiny, mysterious surfaces that are as smooth as an iPhone or a computer monitor.

Composed of layers of poured pigmented resin that cure to a glassy finish, the pictures are the result of unpredictable and unforgiving trial-and-error. In their fabrication, they are more like sculptures than paintings; and once a layer is added, it can’t be changed or scraped off. They are austere and chilly. When the color palette is composed of blues and grays, you feel that you are gazing into the depths of a frozen pond.

In Sullivan’s last New York show, at Maccarone in 2017, which followed a solo show at the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami in 2015, the surfaces of the paintings were so highly worked that they became topographical. More was never enough: He covered a canvas with gallons of latex paint and then added layer upon layer of water-based acrylic and latex paints, and resin- and oil-based alkyds and enamels. Defying the adage that oil and water don’t mix, those paintings were ravishing. The new ones won me over, too, but more gradually, with coolness rather than heat. ARTHUR LUBOW

Jason Hirata

Through Jan. 28. Ulrik, 453 West 17th Street, Manhattan; ulrik.nyc .

The art movement called Institutional Critique emerged in the 1960s and 1970s as a way of making the financial and political operations of museums and galleries transparent. Every subsequent generation has put their stamp on the practice, however, as Jason Hirata does in his show “ Minutes .”

One of the central works in the exhibition, “The Borrowers” (2022), reverses the vectors of finance and power that early Institutional Critique artists sought to expose. Rather than institutions giving exposure or money to artists, Hirata lent $2,000 to the young Ulrik gallery. The terms of the loan, which the gallerists were allowed to specify (it’s a 0 percent interest loan) are laid out in a document at the front desk. The price of the work is negotiable, reflecting the variable nature of debt in today’s world, where loans themselves are bought and sold on the secondary market, just like art.

Other works in the show are more material or poetic. Photographs of candles in a darkened space recall 19th-century romantic paintings and canvases by the German artist Gerhard Richter , in which he painted lit candles based on photographs. Light bulbs installed near the floor here cast visitors’ shadows against the wall. The gallery’s intercom is rigged so you can hear passers-by in the street. The exhibition is titled “Minutes,” so time is on the agenda, measured by flickering and extinguished flames, transient shadows and the march of humanity coming and going in the street — but also in the ebb and flow of capital and the relationships between artists and their handlers, which are not always so visible. MARTHA SCHWENDENER

More to See

West Village

Rummana Hussain

Through April 30. Institute of Arab and Islamic Art , 22 Christopher Street, Manhattan; instituteaia.org.

Rummana Hussain (1952-1999), one of India’s pioneer conceptual and performance artists, was born a secular Muslim into a well-placed political family in Bangalore. She began her career as a painter but her burgeoning political activism prompted her to expand her formal range. Feminism was a shaping force. So was the explosion of anti-Muslim violence by Hindu nationalists in 1992. Together they pushed her to make work that spun from her identity as a member of two embattled minorities.

Her 1997 installation “The Tomb of Begum Hazrat Mahal,” reassembled by the Institute of Arab and Islamic Art at their new West Village space, touches on all of this. The title refers to a female Muslim ruler in 19th-century India who led a revolt against British colonial rule. In a series of photographs, Hussain enacts the role of the Begum as a commanding but ghostly presence. The installation, evoking the ruler’s mausoleum, holds objects with religious and secular domestic associations, suggesting the power than can be generated by the purposeful assertion of cultural belonging.

Hussain died of cancer at age 47. (She made trips to New York City for medical treatment.) Her surviving body of work is relatively small and has so far been seen in New York only in fragments, notably in exhibitions at Talwar Gallery, which represents her estate. Given the militantly right-wing, anti-Muslim, anti-female path that India, along with many other nations, including our own, is now following, her art is more pertinent and potent than ever. A museum should step up and give us the full scope. HOLLAND COTTER

Cynthia Talmadge

Through Feb. 25. Bortolami, 39 Walker Street, Manhattan; 212-727-2050, bortolamigallery.com .

In her exhibition “Goodbye to All This: Alan Smithee Off Broadway,” the artist Cynthia Talmadge treats Smithee, a pseudonym that Hollywood directors use to disown movies over which they’ve lost creative control, as if he were a person in his own right. Imagining a conventional cinematic arc for him — his rise and fall in Tinseltown, followed by reinvention as a playwright in a downtown Manhattan loft exactly like Bortolami Gallery’s — Talmadge illustrates Smithee’s journey with petite pointillist paintings of his Maserati in front of places like Elaine’s or a Scientology Celebrity Center, enormous faux Playbill covers for an imaginary autobiographical play, and various props and maquettes from both Smithee’s “play” and his “life.” The most exciting are the Playbill covers, which are exactingly rendered in a muted yellow and gray palette inspired by the Playbill logo and evoke the slightly dingy glamour of a New Wave movie. They also sparkle, an effect Talmadge achieves by mixing sand into her paint.

All of this could easily tip over into self-indulgence or whimsy, or just wind up as too much more literary than visual to work as a gallery show. But Talmadge has an unfailing sense of proportion. Her commitment to a kind of documentary extravagance of detail — depicting Smithee’s sports car parked on Walker Street with a boot on its wheel, or his office floor covered with copies of Variety and Dianetics — means that Smithee’s life, though fictional, doesn’t quite read as fiction. Instead it feels like an autopsy, careful but damning, of 20th-century America. WILL HEINRICH

Through Feb. 27. SculptureCenter, 44-19 Purves Street, Queens; 718-361-1750, sculpturecenter.org .

When I first went downstairs at SculptureCenter, I thought I heard a party — complete with people saying “clink” as they clacked their plastic cups — but there was only an empty speakeasy, cross-lit aqua and crimson, and a couple of cryptic red posters of waves glommed on the wall with a sculptural amount of paste. A TV on the bar top loops 11 music videos for songs by Tirzah, the British lo-fi electronic singer-songwriter, showcased in an environment designed by the artist Shahryar Nashat. In the sexy and invasive “Tectonic,” from 2021, the virtual camera interpenetrates 3-D scans of entwined bodies. In 2018’s “Devotion,” as a piano plinks over a slow-jam beat, the Steadicam edges through a hazy, half-speed house party.

Around the corner in a carpeted corridor, a monitor in an arched niche plays the same track. Tirzah’s sparse bedroom techno and underwater soul suffuses the whole of SculptureCenter’s idiosyncratic basement, its concrete nooks and cranny-lined hallways, while chalky light drifting from strips of LEDs shifts with the moods of the videos. The show is less about the videos themselves than a kind of party-as-practice, staged by Nashat with a restraint that chimes with Tirzah’s spare, sweet production. Nashat has stuffed, for example, several of the former electric substation’s old conduits with artificial ivy. You can watch the videos Tirzah and her friends made, or you can wander the reverberant corridors and feel like you’re in one. TRAVIS DIEHL

Through Feb. 25. Vito Schnabel Gallery, 43 Clarkson Street, Manhattan; 646-386-2246, vitoschnabel.com .

With his persistent exploration of ovals and circles, Otis Jones rejects the tyranny of the rectangle in painting. Through six decades of showing his work, the Texas-born and Dallas-based artist has developed a refined individual style. Rather than windows to peer through, an Otis Jones painting looks more like an oversize drumhead. His handmade supports sit off the wall like rounded wooden pallets, providing the rough-hewed platforms across which he stretches and staples his linen or canvas. Three of the works are painted in earthen tones, from adobe brick red-orange, in “Gray Band With One Black Circle,” to the clay-colored near pink of “Sort of Pink with Black and Dirty Circle” (both 2022). The fourth, in black, features a glowing cobalt blue circle painted in the upper-right of its face, opposite a camouflaged black circle to the left. Rather than the work of other painters, they call to mind other primal objects: earthen vessels of fired clay and hand-carved spoons in addition to drums.

Unfortunately, the paintings are shown in a dreadfully inhospitable environment. Jones’s subtle attention to texture and color is under siege by the harsh electrical lighting in this space. The paintings all but beg for natural light (or some better approximation of it), and the glossy tiled floor, recollecting a car dealership waiting room, clashes with and distracts from the paintings’ saturated matte surfaces. The works are potent in their simplicity, but you’ll have to strain to really see them. JOHN VINCLER

Nöle Giulini

Through Feb. 5. 15 Orient, 12 Jefferson Street, Brooklyn, 303-803-4347, 15orient.com.

Kombucha has a cultlike following among adherents who believe in its health benefits. The artist Nöle Giulini goes a step further and makes art with kombucha that she produces herself. Two dozen works she created from 1991 to 2016 are on view at 15 Orient.

A nine-minute video from 1996, “Kombucha Process (Culture),” shows how she does it. After growing the kombucha scoby, which looks like a large beige mushroom or a slab of dough, Giulini incises or sews it together with thread or bunches sections with rubber bands. Works like “Hyrdaya” (2006), titled after the Sanskrit word for the spiritual heart or the core of being, resemble a dried-up animal carcass or a fossil. “Artist Statement” (1991/2022) is “written” entirely with elastic bands, although it doesn’t appear to say anything, and other works are created from assemblages of organic materials like gelatin, vegetables, beeswax, twigs or banana skins.

“Kombucha Process (Culture)” begins with this statement: “The following video is intentionally nonverbal so the viewer may experience the mystery of working with living material.” This feels like a suitable epigraph for the whole show. Biology is harnessed to make art; miraculous processes are on display. These intersect with the human desire to assert creative command over the universe. But ultimately, Mother Nature — more precisely the kombucha “mother,” or scoby — Giulini works with is in control. MARTHA SCHWENDENER

Spencer Finch

Through March 4. Hill Art Foundation, 239 10th Avenue, Manhattan; 212-337-4455; HillArtFoundation.org .

As a critic, I don’t collect: There are too many chances for a conflict of interest. So I was thrilled that “Lux and Lumen,” Spencer Finch’s show at the Hill Art Foundation, let me get another look at the one recent work I’ve longed to own.

“The Outer — from the Inner (Emily Dickinson’s Bedroom, dusk),” is a suite of seven views through a window at Dickinson’s house in Amherst, Mass., photographed across the course of an hour. In the first shot, with the light barely fading outside, we see through to the garden; only hints of the room’s interior are reflected in the glass. The final shot, taken after sunset, shows the whole lamp-lit room in the reflection, with bare traces of the dark garden beyond peeking through. Finch uses a scientist’s rigor to capture the poet’s signature collapse of the domestic and natural worlds.

For “Candlelight (CIE 529/418),” Finch covers a window in pink and orange stained glass, color-balanced to turn the daylight outside into the warm, romantic light of times past, which then intrudes on the modernist gleam of the 21st-century gallery. The work’s scientific manipulation of light turns the clock back to a candlelit moment when science had nothing to do with our lighting.

“Painting Air” fills a large gallery with hanging sheets of tinted glass that, in theory, duplicate light effects from Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny, France. But Finch’s duplication, however precisely calculated, barely calls to mind either the real garden’s light or a painter’s impression of it. As always, Finch’s artful science works both to bring the world into our midst and to distance us from it. BLAKE GOPNIK

UPPER EAST SIDE

‘Ritual and Memory: The Ancient Balkans and Beyond’

Through Feb. 19. Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 15 East 84th Street, Manhattan. 212-992-7800; isaw.nyu.edu .

The premise of “Ritual and Memory” at New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World — to give some overdue attention to antiquity in the borderlands of Europe and Asia, using rare loans from 11 countries — is alluring, if not ultimately convincing. The show’s 5,000-year spread is simply too long, and it’s difficult to find the continuity between primitive clay artifacts and sophisticated Thracian armor, or a pinstriped drinking horn terminating in a gilded sphynx.

That said, though, the armor alone is worth a visit — a silver shin protector with a woman’s lugubrious face at the kneecap is particularly memorable, as are several discrete hoards of identical solid-gold ornaments. And a 7,000-year-old clay man and woman found, along with tiny altars, toy-size‌ houses and other primitive figurines, in what is now Hungary, are extraordinary. The man has something over his shoulder that, according to the wall labels, might be a sickle or something like a boomerang. The woman, missing head and legs but identifiable as such by two tiny protuberant breasts, is flat and angular, and incised from sternum to knees with an intricate decorative pattern. The original meaning of these incisions is lost, along with the cultural context in which they were made. But the unglazed figure looks so simple, so much like a sculpture you might arrive at yourself, given a few hours and some clay, that you can’t help feeling you might recapture its maker’s intention if only you imagine hard enough. WILL HEINRICH

Holland Cotter , Jason Farago and Roberta Smith are staff critics.

Dawn Chan , Aruna D’Souza , Travis Diehl , Yinka Elujoba , Blake Gopnik , Will Heinrich , Max Lakin , Arthur Lubow , Siddhartha Mitter , Seph Rodney , Martha Schwendener , Jillian Steinhauer and John Vincler are contributing critics.

An earlier version of this article misstated the city where the painter Otis Jones lives. He is based in Dallas, not Houston.

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Will Heinrich writes about new developments in contemporary art, and has previously been a critic for The New Yorker and The New York Observer. More about Will Heinrich

THE 10 BEST New York City Art Galleries

Art galleries in new york city.

• Art Galleries
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• Downtown Manhattan (Downtown)
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• Things to do ranked using Tripadvisor data including reviews, ratings, photos, and popularity.

1. Color Factory

2. Gagosian Gallery

3. The National Arts Club

4. Agora Gallery

5. Banksy's "Hammer Boy"

6. Sotheby's

7. David Zwirner Gallery

8. Fotografiska New York

9. Grey Art Gallery NYU

10. 2120: An Art Experience at Portion Gallery

11. The Bard Graduate Center

12. Tiles For America

13. Tribeca Art Factory

14. Artechouse NYC

15. Salmagundi Museum of American Art

16. The Drawing Center

17. Seidenberg Antiques

18. Lilac Gallery

19. Aperture Foundation

20. SohoPhoto Gallery

21. Metro Pictures

22. Hauser & Wirth

23. Taglialatella Galleries

24. The Art Students League of New York

25. Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery

26. UBS Art Gallery

27. Yunhong Chopsticks

28. Praxis Gallery

29. Mother Teresa and Gandhi Mural

30. Momenta Art

What travelers are saying

• Color Factory
• Banksy's "Hammer Boy"
• Agora Gallery
• Gagosian Gallery

The 12 Best Art Galleries in New York City

Andrew Toth  /  Contributor  / Getty Images

New York City ’s art scene is legendary, and it’s not just relegated to the city's famous museums . New York's numerous art galleries are some of the best places to see the latest work from some of the world’s most creative artists, including many that are hard to find in a museum. Exhibiting a wide range of mediums, styles, and artists from around the world, art galleries in NYC are ideal for keeping up with the dynamic art and design worlds. Many galleries are concentrated in the Chelsea neighborhood, but Tribeca has recently become a hotbed for galleries, and there are also several on the Upper East Side and in Brooklyn . Best of all? Whether you’re browsing to buy or just want to see evocative art, nearly all galleries in NYC are free.

David Zwirner

One of the best Blue Chip Chelsea galleries, David Zwirner is a must-visit for big-name artists like Ad Reinhardt, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Paul Klee, Diane Arbus, Bill Traylor, and Richard Serra. These days, it may best be known for bringing Yayoi Kusama’s Instagrammable infinity rooms to NYC, first in 2017. David Zwirner started in Soho in 1993 and has grown to two Chelsea locations, one on the Upper East Side, and outposts in Paris, London, and Hong Kong.

Robert McKeever, Courtesy Gagosian

A cornerstone of the Chelsea contemporary art gallery scene, Larry Gagosian started his namesake gallery there in 1985 after success in Los Angeles. He helped launch many modern artists’ careers, including John Currin, Willem De Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein, and Damien Hirst and is a stalwart of the modern art scene. Gagosian currently has two massive galleries in Chelsea, two uptown on Madison Avenue and another on Park Avenue. Outside of NYC, there are Gagosians in Los Angeles , London , San Francisco, Paris , Rome , Basel, Geneva , Athens , and Hong Kong .

Joe DeNardo

Originally based in Chinatown , this out-of-the-box gallery recently moved to a new space in Tribeca, part of the recent influx of galleries to that neighborhood. Canada was founded in 1999 by Phil Grauer with his wife, Sarah Braman, along with Wallace Whitney and Suzanne Butler (all are artists which is somewhat of a rarity for gallery owners). A bit of a rebel on the gallery scene, Canada is known for championing lesser-known artists and bending the unspoken rules of the art world. Artists who have had previous exhibitions include Samara Golden, Jason Fox, and Lily Ludlow.

Courtesy Lévy Gorvy

Gallerist Dominique Lévy opened her gallery in 2012 and in 2017 teamed up with Brett Gorvy, former chair and head of post war and contemporary art at Christie’s, to form Lévy Gorvy, devoted to post-war, modern, and contemporary art. In addition to the Upper East Side space, there are locations in London and Hong Kong as well. The duo represents artists and artist estates like Alexander Calder , Chung Sang-Hwa, Frank Stella, and Karin Schneider.

Gordon Robichaux

 Gregory Carideo

This unique space on Union Square founded by artists Sam Gordon and Jacob Robichaux pushes the boundaries on what a gallery can be. It promotes emerging artists via exhibitions, performances, readings, shops, and publications. For example, in November 2019 they partnered with Alisa Grifo and Marco ter Haar Romeny to bring back a pop-up of their much-loved, hyper-curated shop/gallery KIOSK—a SoHo Icon until it closed in 2015.

James Cohan

 Phoebe d'Heurle

James Cohan opened his first gallery in 1999 on West 57th Street, featuring the early works of London artists, Gilbert & George. In 2002, the gallery moved to Chelsea and in 2015 it opened a second location on the Lower East Side. Twenty years later in 2019, Cohan moved from Chelsea into Walker Street in Tribeca, which is quickly becoming a new gallery hub in NYC. Stop by to see work by artists like Grace Weaver, Yun-Fei Ji, and Firelei Báez, who recently had a solo exhibit at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

A.I.R. Gallery

The first all-female co-op gallery in the U.S. and one of the first galleries in Soho, A.I.R. Gallery was launched in 1972 by 20 co-founders as a nonprofit art organization supporting women artists. While it has had many homes, today the gallery is in DUMBO , Brooklyn, and exhibits the work of hundreds of women artists each year, and also hosts events, lectures, and symposia on feminism, art, and more. Helene Brandt, Kadie Salfi, and Joan Snitzer are just a few of the women who have shown their work there.

Pioneer Works

Walter Wlodarczyk/Courtesy of Pioneer Works

An artist-run cultural center in Red Hook , Brooklyn, Pioneer Works was founded by artist Dustin Yellin in 2012 as a nonprofit. More than just a gallery (although it is that, too), the red-brick building where Pioneer Works resides dates back to 1866, when it was a factory. Today, visitors will find a technology lab with 3D printing, a virtual environment lab for VR and AR production, a recording studio, a media lab for content creation and dissemination, a darkroom, gardens, a ceramics studio, a press, a bookshop, and multiple galleries. Pioneer Works hosts a rotating schedule of exhibitions, science talks, music performances, workshops, and other free public programming.

Miles McEnery Gallery

Courtesy of David Huffman and Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY

Specializing in post-war contemporary art, Miles McEnery Gallery grew out of Ameringer | McEnery | Yohe, which launched in 1999. Miles McEnery was a partner and managing director. That gallery moved from 57th Street to Chelsea in 2009 and today it operates as Miles McEnery Gallery. In 2017, the gallery was renovated and in 2018 a second location was opened nearby. It represents about 30 artists, including David Huffman, Emily Mason, Guy Yanai, and Ryan McGinnis. 

 Joel Saget/Getty Images

At the tender age of 21, Emmanuel Perrotin founded his first gallery in Paris , where is from. Since then, he has opened 18 spaces, including an NYC outpost. First launched on the Upper East Side in 2013, in 2017 the gallery moved to its current, larger location on the Lower East Side. With 25,000 square feet to play with, Perrotin exhibits boundary-pushing art in a light-filled space from contemporary artists like Chen Fei, Emiyl Mae Smith, and Paola Pivi.

Gladstone Gallery

 Courtesy of Andro Wekua and Gladstone Gallery

Founded by art dealer Barbara Gladstone when she was 40 years old, Gladstone Gallery currently has two Chelsea galleries—one featuring a massive skylight with excellent natural light—as well as one in Brussels . Representing more than 50 artists, visitors might see work by the likes of Richard Prince, Robert Mappelthorpe, Matthew Barney, and Elizabeth Peyton. Gladstone is also known for producing several of Barney’s films.

Kasmin Gallery

 Roland Halbe

Founded in Soho in 1989 by Paul Kasmin, Kasmin Gallery moved to Chelsea in 2000, ahead of the curve. Today, its flagship gallery is in a striking building with a 3,000-square-foot gallery space and a 5,000-square-foot rooftop sculpture garden visible to passersby on the High Line . It also has two smaller spaces nearby. Max Ernst, Robert Motherwell, Roxy Paine, Lee Krasner, David Hockney, and Robert Indiana are just a few of the artists who have had works displayed there. 

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Top 6 Art Galleries To Visit In NYC (2020-21)

There is always something to do in New York City. Here are the 6 top galleries to visit on an afternoon out!

The fine art scene in New York City is one of the best in the world. With the birth of modernism and the influx of European artists after World War II, New York City became an art hotspot. The art galleries of NYC are still representing the world’s most promising artists. Here are the top six art galleries in New York City!

1. David Zwirner Art Galleries

With three Manhattan locations and multiple worldwide,  David Zwirner  is one of the most well-known art galleries in NYC. 

The son of a German art dealer,  David Zwirner was born in Cologne in 1963. He opened his first art gallery in New York City in 1993. Since then, Zwirner opened three New York locations and one in London, Hong Kong, and Paris. Unlike other galleries, Zwirner has an online channel where buyers can buy or reserve online. As an art dealer, David Zwirner is a pioneer in the future of art sales and the top dealer of our contemporary times. 

David Zwirner represents many artists, both well-known and new on the scene. One of the gallery’s most famous contemporary artists is  Yayoi Kusama. 

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Yayoi Kusama  was born in Nagano, Japan in 1929. She refers to herself as  “an obsessional artist” and “a heretic of the art world.”  Her work is easy to recognize. Specializing in sculpture, painting, and light installation, her art is cluttered with brightly colored polka dots and soft gelatinous shapes. Kusama suffers from hallucinations, which are portrayed in her work. She can physically see the polka dots and forms in the space around her and had no choice but to show these visions in her art. To Kusama,  “artwork is an expression of my life, particularly of my mental disease.”

Kusama moved to New York in 1958, where she felt free to create as she wished. She moved back to Japan in 1973, where she checked herself into a facility to help her visions. She still works and lives there today. 

2. The Kitchen

The Kitchen  is a non-profit performance space dedicated to exhibiting groundbreaking work in many different mediums—dance and music performances to film  installations . The Kitchen also holds lectures by artists from around the world. 

The Kitchen was founded in 1971  by Woody and Seina Vasulka. Their goal was to create an art gallery in New York City for experimental artists and a safe space for them to create. To this day, The Kitchen is one of the leading spaces for performance art . 

Many famous artists have graced The Kitchen like Robert Mapplethorpe and Kiki Smith. What’s impressive about The Kitchen is the opportunity for emerging artists to share their work. Cindy Sherman, before becoming famous, started at The Kitchen. 

Cindy Sherman  was born in 1954 and one of the most influential photographers in the contemporary art world. Using herself as her own model, Sherman comments on how women are portrayed throughout pop culture. Dressing up as different personas and stereotypes, Cindy’s photographs have been exhibited at some of the world’s best museums and galleries. When she showed her work at The Kitchen, she was only emerging onto the scene. 

Cindy Sherman  showcased a set of black and white photographs in 1980 at The Kitchen. Sherman started taking these photographs in 1977, and the gallery exhibited three years’ worth of images. In the photographs, Sherman explores the different ways women are portrayed in the 1950s film noir scene. These images are vague, and that’s on purpose. Sherman wanted to capture the moments between movement, showing reality in the fictional world she is creating in front of the camera. 

3. Gagosian Gallery

Without Larry Gagosian, there would be no David Zwirner or any bustling art galleries in NYC. The  Gagosian Gallery  opened its first location in Los Angeles in 1980. Currently, there are 18 locations scattered around the U.S, Europe, and Asia. Gagosian was the first gallery to operate a publishing house, creating books and zines of their artist’s work. They even have a Gagosian shop in New York selling rare art editions, books, cameras, and jewelry. Their large gallery spaces make it easy to install large-scale works like any sculpture created by Richard Serra or even large murals like  Roy Lichtenstein’s  Greene Street Mural . 

Like David Zwirner, Gagosian Gallery represents many artists and estates such as Jeff Koons , Ed Ruscha , Alberto Giacometti , and Cy Twombly . 

Even though  Cy Twombly  passed away nine years ago, his work is still widely exhibited and sold in art galleries in NYC and worldwide. Twombly started drawing in the 1950s after traveling in Europe and Africa. Inspired by myths, poetry, and language, Twombly allowed these factors to affect the canvas. Cy Twombly’s estate allows his work to show at Gagosian and other major art galleries; however, most of his work is exhibited at his own gallery in Houston, Texas. Opened in 1995, Twombly opened the  Cy Twombly Gallery  with help from the Menil and the Dia Foundation. 

4. The Drawing Center

Like The Kitchen,  The Drawing Center  is an exhibition space dedicated to living artists specializing in the drawing medium. Martha Beck, who was a curator at MoMA, opened the Drawing Center in 1977. To Beck, drawing needed a place amongst the great painters, photographers, and sculptors on the walls and floors of art galleries across NYC. 

Many artists have graced the Drawing Center, including  Kara Walker , Carroll Dunham, and Terry Winters. Their current exhibition features the drawings of Edie Fake. 

Chicago based artist Edie Fake’s  installation  Labyrinth  at the Drawing Center mixes drawing and architecture.  Labyrinth  is an homage to the Labyrinth Foundation, an organization dedicated to trans men during the 1960s. As the viewer walks into space, the drawing consumes them. The corkscrew columns and elements of the piece symbolize the path a trans man has to take in their life. It is a powerful and beautiful piece. 

5. Paula Cooper Gallery

A leading woman in the art world,  Paula Cooper opened the first art gallery in SoHo in 1968. Art galleries in NYC, mostly in the 1960s, is a man’s world. Paula Cooper stands above everyone with a legendary gallery she still runs, that’s been open for over 50 years. 

Over the art gallery’s long history in NYC, many famous artists’ works have been exhibited. The first exhibition in  1968 was a benefit for the Student Mobilization Committee dedicated to ending the war in Vietnam. The show exhibited work created by Carl Andre and  Dan Flavin .

Paula Cooper Gallery also represents well-known women artists like  Sophie Calle.  Calle is a French artist specializing in a mixture of  photography and writing.  Calle is interested in the human condition. In one work, she records strangers sleeping in her bed. In another piece, she follows strangers and ponders on who they are. Calle’s goal is to allow the outside world to consume the viewer and to force them to expose their true selves on paper. 

6. Pace Gallery

The oldest art gallery on our list,  Pace Gallery , was opened in 1960 by Arne Glimcher in Boston. Pace has set the bar for how an art gallery succeeds – an art gallery doesn’t stay open for 60 years without some significant skills. Pace currently has 9 locations worldwide, including New York, California, London, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Paris. 

Pace exhibits some fantastic artworks, but Pace Gallery stands out from the rest because of its  Pace Art + Technology  program, launched in 2016. This program explores the relationship between art and technology and how new media is the art world’s future. A lot of galleries are stuck with paintings, sculptures, and photography. Those mediums will never die (hopefully not); however, Pace Gallery recognizes a new medium and understands that the art world is expanding. Not bad for the oldest gallery on the list. 

Pace Gallery represents some of the world’s most popular artists and estates, including Chuck Close, Willem de Kooning , David Hockney , and Yoshitomo Nara. 

If the name  Yoshitomo Nara  doesn’t look familiar, his work will definitely ring a bell. Born in Hirosaki, Japan, in 1959, Nara paints children in his signature style, capturing the younger generation’s bitterness and rebellious nature. Mostly sticking with painting, Nara has also created sculptures and drawings. He doesn’t always stick to paper or canvas; some work is produced on discarded cardboard boxes. Nara’s works prove that art can be made anywhere, and his works sell for thousands on the art market. 

Regarding the creative process, Nara believes that pain creates art:  “I don’t paint when I am happy. I only paint when I am angry, lonely, sad, when I am able to talk to the work.”  In art history, art was a method to let out all emotions on a canvas, like a diary entry. A way to share with the world personal hardship, hoping people relate. Nara’s dissatisfaction with the world and its people are displayed in the faces of the children he paints; they are always angry about something.  

Spend A Day At New York Art Galleries

Perusing art galleries in NYC is a perfect way to spend a day. New York has so many galleries, one will never see them all in one day! Yes, museums are great, but to experience emerging artists’ work or never before seen works by famous artists, NYC art galleries are the way to go. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.

Yayoi Kusama: 10 Facts Worth Knowing on the Infinity Artist

By Zoe Mann BA Art History Zoë is a graduate student living in Los Angeles studying screenwriting. Originally from New York, she received her B.A. in Art History from Pace University. She has worked in art galleries in Manhattan and the Art Institute of Chicago. In her free time, she loves researching for her historical fiction projects and playing with her cat, Harrison.

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Manhattan's 10 Best Art Galleries

Amongst the towering skyscrapers of NYC , a vast cultural history emanates from sprawling warehouses and hidden spaces that have helped define the city as the epicentre of the art world. Inspiration abounds from all corners of Manhattan with blue-chip galleries in Chelsea and the Upper East Side, while cutting-edge dealers pioneer emerging talent in the Lower East Side and SoHo. This list pays homage to the visionaries who shaped this artscape and highlights new players representing the city’s evolving future.

Gagosian Gallery

Arguably the most prominent dealer of our time, Larry Gagosian opened his first New York space in 1985 and owned a gallery with renowned dealer Leo Castelli in SoHo until 1996. Castelli and Gagosian helped define the glamorous SoHo gallery scene that would transfer to Chelsea in the early aughts. He represents and supports some of the most important post-war and contemporary artists including Yayoi Kusama, Richard Serra, and Jeff Koons while also mounting important historical surveys of noted artists such as Jean Michel-Basquiat and Lucio Fontana. Known for his grand, immaculate spaces, Gagosian currently has five gallery outposts in New York City alone with nine more spaces internationally. His prowess, keen eye, and consistent blockbuster exhibits have earned him a spot in history as one of the first mega dealers of the global contemporary art market. Gagosian Gallery, 555 West 24th St, New York, NY, USA , +1 212-7 41-1111

David Zwirner Gallery

Marian Goodman

Native New Yorker Marian Goodman opened her gallery on the Upper East Side in 1977. Maintaining this outpost while watching the gallery scene migrate downtown to SoHo then west to Chelsea illustrates the loyalty of her following and importance as a New York art world anchor. Starting from modest means and good intentions, Goodman aimed to exhibit artists unrepresented in New York City and is known for her ability to identify and cultivate good talent providing her artists with unwavering long-term support. Her roster includes established talents Gerhard Richter and John Baldessari as well as younger artists Adrian Villar-Rojas and Danh Vo . Grounding her exhibits in critical contemporary theory, visit her gallery to see theoretically stimulating shows that are simultaneously visually pleasing. Marian Goodman, 24 West 57th St, New York, NY, USA , +1 212 977 7160

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1. Gavin Brown’s Enterprise

Art Gallery, Museum

Nicholas Acquavella founded Acquavella , a cornerstone of the New York art scene, in 1921. Over the years Acquavella has specialised in Italian Renaissance, Impressionism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art. This unwavering longevity pronounces them as a key player in the dealings of modern art, which can be seen through their noted historical shows by artists like Jean Dubuffet and Wayne Thiebaud. Recent exhibits by contemporary artists Damian Loeb and Enoc Perez illustrates their eye for future talents and continued foray into the contemporary market. Acquavella has occupied their current space, a picturesque townhouse on the Upper East Side, since 1967. Acquavella, 18 E 79th St, New York, NY, USA , +1 212 734 6300

Installation view of Dubuffet | Barceló on view at Acquavella Galleries, June 30 – September 19, 2014 | All works of art by Jean Dubuffet are © 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris All works of art by Miquel Barceló are © Miquel Barceló / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

2. Simone Subal

3. rachel uffner.

Building, Art Gallery

4. Lisa Cooley

Art Gallery

6. Ramiken Crucible

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The 28 Best Art Exhibitions in NYC to Check Out

Hey art lover, we heard you’re going to visit New York City. You’re in for a treat. New York has some of the best art exhibits in the world . Wondering which art fairs and art museums you should check out? Overwhelmed by the number of art exhibits in NYC?

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• The 36 Absolute Best Museums in NYC

We’ve compiled some of the best art exhibitions going on in New York right now. All that’s left for you to do is book your ticket (some of these art exhibitions are for free)!

The Best Art Exhibitions in New York City Right Now

Art exhibitions at moma ps1.

Check out the local art scene in the MoMa Ps1 art exhibit, featuring work from 47 local, contemporary artists. This exhibit explores art-making in New York history, the resilience of artists, and the feelings connected with art. You’ll see a huge emphasis on foreign-born artists, their work full of Egyptian, Iranian, Tunisian, Nigerian, Mexican, Argentinian, and Indian influences. There is also an abundance of Native American artists to enjoy.

• RIRKRIT TIRAVANIJA: A LOT OF PEOPLE (October 12, 2023–March 4, 2024)
• LESLIE MARTINEZ: The Fault of Formation (November 16, 2023–April 8, 2024)
• AND EVER AN EDGE: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2022–23 (November 16, 2023–April 8, 2024)
• TEEN ART SALON: A Protospective (November 16, 2023–April 8, 2024)

My tip: These are the Best Things To Do in New York in Summer .

Fotografiska New York

Fotografiska New York is a wonderful museum in NYC for all art and especially photo art enthusiasts. Originally founded in Stockholm in 2010, the museum also exists in Tallinn (Estonia) and since 2019 in New York.

• Frank Ockenfels 3: Introspection (October 27, 2023 - March 9, 2024)
• Futuristic Ancestry: Warping Matter and Space-time(s) (2 Feb 2024 - 24 May 2024)

Exhibitions at El Museo del Barrio NYC

El Museo del Barrio NYC is right at the north end of the Museum Mile and exhibits everything to do with art and culture from Latin America. After its expensive renovation in 2009, the museum is better than ever and offers its visitors a collection of over 6,500 artifacts, as well as many permanent and special exhibitions alike.

• Something Beautiful: Reframing La Colección (May 19, 2023 - March 10, 2024)

Exhibits at Guggenheim Museum

First off, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is an architectural masterpiece. Second, but most importantly, it is the permanent home of a large collection of art named after its founder. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright the bizarrely shaped building is one of the most famous in NYC. Not only is the outside spectacular, but it is constantly expanding its permanent collection. Also, many special exhibitions are showcased here throughout the years. It is definitely worth a visit!

• Thannhauser Collection (ongoing)
• Going Dark: The Contemporary Figure at the Edge of Visibility (October 20, 2023 – April 7, 2024)

Current exhibitions at Jeffrey Deitch

Anyone who’s a fan of New York City’s contemporary art scene knows the name, Jeffrey Deitch. He’s an esteemed curator and art dealer who’s best known for his gallery that operated from 1996 until 2010 called Deitch Projects, where he curated projects such as Post Human and Lives. After shuttering his art gallery, Deitch moved to Los Angeles, where he served as the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) director until 2013.

• Frank Stella: Recent Sculpture (March 8–April 20, 2024 | 18 Wooster Street)

Queens Museum

One of the most well-known museums in Queens is the Queens Museum of Art, which was built in 1939 to host the New York World’s Fair. Many of the exhibits are documents relating to the fair. And the great thing is that admission is always free of charge!

• "Time Owes Me Rest Again" by Christine Sun Kim (March 13, 2022 - ongoing)
• "Point Reflection" by Aki Sasamoto (December 6, 2023 - April 7, 2024)
• "Other-Worlding" by Emilie L. Gossiaux (December 6, 2023 - April 7, 2024)
• "to reverberate tenderly" by sonia louise davis (December 6, 2023 - April 7, 2024)

Current exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York

A great museum to find out more about the city of New York. Get an exciting look into the history of the Big apple and find out more through a variety of pictures, paintings, clothing, toys and books.

• "People, Place, and Influence" (through April 21, 2024)
• "This Is New York: 100 Years of the City in Art and Pop Culture" (through July 21, 2024)
• Byzantine Bembé (through December 8, 2024)
• "Raise Your Voice" by Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya (ongoing)
• "New York at Its Core" (ongoing)
• "Activist New York" (ongoing)
• "Timescapes" (ongoing)
• "Starlight" (ongoing)

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Frick Madison Art Exhibition

In the temporary new home Frick Madison of the renowned Frick Collection, you can admire renowned masterpieces from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century in the latest Art Exhibition at Frick Madison.

• Where? 945 Madison Avenue
• Nicolas Party and Rosalba Carriera (June 1, 2023 - March 3, 2024)

American Museum of Natural History

The American Museum of Natural History is one of the more popular museums in NYC. If the name sounds recognizable it’s because the museum was the center of attention in the movie, Night at the Museum featuring Ben Stiller. Regardless of it’s Hollywood fame, the Natural History Museum is a huge institution that features numerous exhibits. This is a great place for families with kids so they can learn about the world’s geography, plants, different animal species and many other things.

The American Museum of Natural History is located in the Upper West Side in Manhattan and is the largest natural history museum in the world.

• "Extinct and Endangered: Insects in Peril" (opened June 22, 2022)
• "Davis Family Butterfly Vivarium" (ongoing)
• "Invisible Worlds" (ongoing)

Exhibits at the Museum of Arts and Design

The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) at Columbus Circle is dedicated to contemporary crafts and design. The museum shop is fantastic and offers a range of items centered around design. Be sure to drop in at the café for a break and enjoy the fabulous view of Central Park.

Every Thursday there is a 50% discount on the ticket (from 4 to 7 p.m.). Since the MAD is one of the smaller museums, you don’t have to wait much. By the way: every Friday and Saturday there is a free tour at 11.30 a.m..

• Taylor Swift: Storyteller (Through Mar 24, 2024)
• Shary Boyle: OUTSIDE THE PALACE OF ME (Sep 23, 2023–Feb 25, 2024)
• Sonya Clark: WE ARE EACH OTHER (Mar 23–Sep 22, 2024)

Exhibits at Marc Straus Gallery

The Marc Straus Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in New York City. It was founded in 2011 by Marc Straus in the Lower East Side inside of a four story building that has been reconstructed. The gallery is committed to showing art that has not been seen in decades by older artists. This element of discovery and re-discovery will make you feel like an explorer as soon as your eyes land upon one of these forgotten pieces by a famous artist.

• Antonio Santín (January 13 - March 3, 2024)

Exhibits at Canada Art Gallery

One of the pioneers of the Lower East Side Chinatown gallery scene, CANADA opened in 2000 and has been a major institution, not a typical gallery, ever since.

• Anke Weyer: Nocturnes (January 12 - February 24, 2024 | Location: 60 Lispenard St)
• Joan Snyder: ComeClose (January 12 - February 24, 2024 | Location: 61 Lispenard St)

Exhibits at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art

The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art is one of the newest museums in New York and is the only one fully dedicated to LGBTQ+ art. It was recognized as a museum in 2016, but its roots trace back to 1969. The founders Charles Leslie and Fritz Lohman exhibited the first artworks in their Soho loft back then, and today they have over 25,000 objects in their collection.

• I am a thousand different people, everyone is real (March 15, 2024 - January 5, 2025)
• The Plural of He (March 15 - July 21, 2024)

Newly Renovated Met Museum Galleries

Art lovers, you can’t go to New York without visiting the Met. Even if you’ve been before (lucky you), there is no excuse not to go again since the Met is changing things up. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has moved hundreds of its old art exhibits to new, gorgeously-constructed spaces. The first phase was completed in April 2018, and the second phase was finished in spring 2022. Don’t miss it!

• Women Dressing Women (Through March 3, 2024)
• Africa & Byzantium (Through March 3, 2024)
• Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery (through June 4, 2024)
• "Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room" (ongoing)
• The Facade Commission: Nairy Baghramian, Scratching the Back (Through May 28, 2024)
• Lineages: Korean Art at The Met (through October 20, 2024)

These are only some of the exhibitions at the MET. Click here for more information.

Exhibitions at The New York Public Library

Interested in old artifacts, manuscripts, and archives? This is a New York art exhibition you won’t want to miss. The New York Public Library has taken hundreds of items from its expansive archive to create a permanent exhibition called “The Polonsky Exhibition of The New York Public Library’s Treasures.” This exhibit spans 4,000 years in human history, from Columbus’ only surviving letter to King Ferdinand announcing the discovery of the Americas to the first Gutenberg Bible that arrived in the New World. You don’t want to miss this amazing art exhibit in New York!

• "Polonsky Exhibition of The New York Public Library's Treasures" (ongoing)
• Border Crossings: Exile and American Modern Dance 1900-1955 (through March 16, 2024)
• FUNDI: A Legacy of Learning & Liberation (Through May 1, 2024)
• The Ways of Langston Hughes: Griff Davis and Black Artists in the Making (Through July 8, 2024)
• Reanimating Theater: The Photography of Friedman-Abeles (March 15–September 25, 2024)

McKenzie Fine Art

The McKenzie Fine Art Gallery has been around since 2002 and moved from the Chelsea neighborhood to the Lower East Side in 2012. It focuses on artists who are mid-level in their career, and utilize painting, sculptures, and drawing as their primary medium, or a mixture of them.

There have been dozens of artists who have been able to showcase their talent at the McKenzie Fine Art Gallery. Some of those artists include: Julie Allen, Ann Aspinwall, Paul Corio, Lori Ellison, Tom Leaver, Jean Lowe, and Maureen McQuillan.

• James Nelson (January 26 - March 3, 2024)

Exhibitions at LUMAS Gallery Soho

LUMAS is a contemporary art and photography gallery that features work from artists around the globe. Many guests enjoy LUMAS because they feature works from upcoming and established artists, so they feature a diverse collection of art, which is evident the moment you step through the door or visit their website.

Unlike some galleries, LUMAS aims to price and position their works in ways that are more accessible to collectors just starting out and definitely lean toward a style that can be described as a modern aesthetic. When visiting LUMAS’ Soho location, each work is meticulously displayed using acrylic mounts and museum-quality paper for printing, so even without a frame, they still look great in many environments.

• you can find the current exhibitions here on their website

Exhibitions at Front Room Gallery

The Front Room Gallery has been a one stop shop for art enthusiasts since it opened in 1999. They are a contemporary fine arts gallery that started in Brooklyn and have moved to Chinatown on Hester Street. Many of their pieces are tied back to social responsibility including political, environmental, and social topics.

Their focus is on exhibiting photography, conceptual and installation based work by emerging artists as well as mid-career ones with an emphasis placed primarily on photographic images but also including sculpture or video installations. The Front Room Gallery has exhibited the work of several artists, including Ken Ragsdale, Thomas Broadbent, Paul Raphaelson, Patricia Smith, Sean Hemmerle, and more. In addition to its exhibition program, the gallery also organizes artist talks, screenings, and performances.

• Sean Hemmerle: HOOPS (February 17th-April 7th, 2024 | 205 Warren Street, Hudson, NY)

Exhibitions at bitforms gallery

The bitforms gallery is a contemporary art gallery that features mid-career artists utilizing the latest technologies in New York City. The Bitforms gallery was founded in 2001 with the idea that A world-renowned contemporary visual art gallery, bitforms is home to established artists and those on the rise.

• Gary Hill: Language Pit (February 1–Mar 23, 2024)

Alexandre Gallery

Alexandre Gallery has two locations. The 25 E 73rd Street location has been around for 20 years, and will stay open for private viewings, and American Modernists from the Stieglitz Circle. It will be appointment only. The late 19th early 20th century is a special focus for Alexandre Gallery. Famous artists such as John Marin, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Joseph Stella have paintings on display at the 73rd Street location.

Alexandre Gallery opened its new location at 291 Grand Street in the Lower East Side of Manhattan on September 9, 2021 with Lois Dodd doing a one-person exhibition. The gallery has 2,000 square feet, and was previously used by James Cohan.

• LOIS DODD - Recent Small Panels (January 6 – March 2, 2024)
• JOHN WALKER: Recent Ink Drawings - A Virtual Viewing Room (January 6 – March 2, 2024)
• Pat Adams: Works from the 1950s and ’60s (March 9 – April 20, 2024)
• INDEPENDENT: TOM UTTECH (May 9 – 12, 2024 | Spring Studios, 6 St Johns Lane)

Several Exhibitions at David Zwirner Galleries

David Zwirner is a German art dealer. He comes from a family of artists and grew up with an art studio on the ground floor of where he lived.  He opened his first gallery space in the SoHo neighborhood. In total, there are 3 locations in NY – 19th Street, 20th Street, and 69th Street. In Hong Kong, his gallery is on Queen’s Road Central. In London, you’ll find his gallery on Grafton Street, and in Paris, you’ll see the gallery on rue Vieille du Temple.

• Huma Bhabha: Welcome…to the one who came (February 22 - April 13, 2024 | Location: 537 West 20th Street)
• Huma Bhabha (February 22—April 6, 2024 | 34 East 69th St)
• Cauleen Smith: The Wanda Coleman Songbook (January 19—March 16, 2024 | 52 Walker)
• Steven Shearer: Profaned Travelers (February 22—March 30, 2024 | 533 West 19th St)
• Raymond Saunders: Post No Bills (February 22—April 6, 2024 | 519 & 525 West 19th St)
• Bill Traylor: Works from The William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation (February 22—April 13, 2024 | 537 West 20th Street 2nd Floor)
• Joe Bradley (Opening April 11, 2024 | 533 West 19th St)

Current exhibits at Krause Gallery

The variety of artforms, and artists presented at the Krause Gallery make this one a must visit. You’ll notice paintings, sculpture, and mostly contemporary art. The Krause Gallery has entered the world of NFT’s. NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token, and is the latest craze in the art world (a NFT is a digital asset that is unlike any other).

• Annual Emerging to Established Winter group show (January 18 - March 9, 2024)

Current exhibits at James Fuentes LLC Art Gallery

James Fuentes LLC is a contemporary art gallery located in the heart of New York City. The gallery was founded in 2007 by James Fuentes in the Lower East Side and specializes in presenting innovative and experimental artwork by both emerging and established artists.

• JOSE DURAN: Elena (February 15—March 9, 2024 | 55 Delancey St)
• KIKUO SAITO: Color Codes; Curated by Christopher Y. Lew (March 8—April 20, 2024 | 52 White St)

Current exhibitions at Sean Kelly Gallery

Sean Kelly Gallery, founded in 1991 in New York City by British-born Sean Kelly, represents established and mid-career artists, particularly with work based in installation and performance.

• Julian Charrière: Buried Sunshine (January 12 – March 2, 2024)
• John Guzman: Drowning in Harmony (January 12 – March 2, 2024)
• Idris Khan: After… (MARCH 15 - MAY 4, 2024)

Independent Art Fair

Despite having the words “art fair” in its name, the Independent Art Fair in New York strives to go beyond the concept by embracing different art styles beyond conventional and popular genres. It traces its beginnings to the Dia Center for the Arts in Beacon, New York. The eventual success of the museum and foundation led to the Chelsea neighborhood becoming a thriving art community.

• When? May 11-14, 2023

My tip: These are the Best Things To Do in New York in May .

Frieze New York

For art enthusiasts, one of the best things to do in spring in NYC is attending Frieze New York. It’s hosted on The Shed at Hudson Yards and features works from over 1,000 artists and 200 international galleries.

There are many other fun things to do at the festival as well, such as sitting in on one of the famous panel discussions, soaking in the breathtaking views of The Vessel, and most importantly – immersing yourself in many imaginative outdoor and indoor projects.

• When? May 17-21, 2023

Photo by Casey Kelbaugh. Courtesy of Casey Kelbaugh/Frieze

VOLTA Art Fair New York

At the same time as Frieze Week, the VOLTA Art Fair takes place in the former Dia Building in Chelsea’s Gallery District. It presents 49 national and international galleries, and since the Frieze Art Fair is only a 10-minute walk away, it makes sense to visit both art fairs. The best way to do this is to walk along the High Line.

• When? May 2023

Whitney Museum

Newly opened in 2015, the Whitney Museum in New York shines in a whole new light. The Whitney Museum has one of the most spectacular collections of contemporary art that focuses on American art of the 20th and 21st centuries. Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, and Robert Rauschenberg are just a few of the names whose paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, and installations are part of the exhibits at the Whitney Museum. More than 21,000 works of art are permanently showcased here.

• "The Whitney's Collection" (ongoing)
• Trust Me (August 19, 2023 - February 25, 2024)
• Harold Cohen: AARON (Feb 3–May 19, 2024)

What art exhibit will you be checking out in New York City first? Let us know in the comments!

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10 NYC Art Galleries you Have to Visit

• NYC Galleries

New York City boasts a wealth of incredible art, and these 10 galleries are the best places to see it.

There are very few cities that are as internationally iconic as New York. It is the most visited city in the US, and one of the most visited places in the world so there is certainly no shortage of attraction. New York City also happens to be renowned for boat rocking modern art packed with creativity and innovation. Here are the top 10 art galleries that you have to visit in NYC.

1.     David Zwirner

Hilma af Klint’s Tree of Knowledge (1913–1915) has been acquired by @GlenstoneMuseum … but before the series goes to its permanent home in Maryland, it will travel to our London gallery (via @artnews ): https://t.co/RYypGQq4zy pic.twitter.com/tRoFiFKR4Q — David Zwirner (@davidzwirner) February 14, 2022

David Zwirner is a prominent name in the art world and has three spaces throughout New York City. The founder is a German art dealer known as one of the most influential figures in contemporary art.

He opened his first gallery in 1993, which later saw expansion in 2002. Many significant international artists, including Chris Ofili, Paul Klee, Jeff Koons, and Yayoi Kusama, have been represented on the gallery’s roster.

“20/20” is the most recent exhibition at this art gallery, featuring work from art superstars like Oscar Murrillo, Barbara Kruger, Richard Serra, and many others.

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2.     Hauser & Wirth

. @thetimes reviews ★★★★ #LouiseBourgeois ’ new exhibition ‘The Woven Child’ ?️?? at @haywardgallery — ‘The world that Bourgeois creates – dusty, patched and mended, broken into fragments and stitched back together – is a land of imagination.’ https://t.co/ldLnTxu8Po — Hauser & Wirth (@HauserWirth) February 14, 2022

This international gallery is dedicated to modern and contemporary art and is another widely recognized gallery in the New York City art landscape. Hauser & Wirth was founded in 1992 in Switzerland by Ursula Hauser, Iwan Wirth, and Manuela Wirth.

The gallery began to open spaces in Los Angeles, Somerset, New York, London, and Zurich, quickly becoming a leading global franchise. Hauser & Wirth have two branches in New York City, Chelsea, and the Upper East Side.

Over 60 well-established artists are represented, including Amy Sherald, Mila Rottenberg, Nicolas Party, Rashid Johnson. Hauser & Wirth is determined to revive the art scene by holding public shows, even though the world’s health crisis took a severe toll on the art world.

3.     Gagosian

In a piece for “Gagosian Quarterly,” Chantala Kommanivanh presents a selection of Frankie Knuckles’s personal record collection, contextualizing these records’ importance: https://t.co/33hzB2Cytk pic.twitter.com/zaYTwtlw5H — Gagosian (@Gagosian) February 10, 2022

Larry Gagosian owns the contemporary and modern art gallery known as Gagosian. He is a legendary American art dealer with many gallery locations worldwide.

New York City features five locations that display the work of internationally recognized contemporary artists. Ed Ruscha, Theaster Gates, Ewa Juszkiewicz, and Jenny Saville’s work have been exhibited.

Iconic creators from Pop Art movements, Abstract Expressionism, and The New York School, such as Andy Warhol, Helen Frankenthaler, and Willem de Kooning, are supported by Gagosian.

4.     Gladstone Gallery

Gladstone Gallery is based in New York City and specializes in contemporary plus modern artwork. The American film producer and art dealer Barbara Gladstone owns the gallery. Before establishing her first gallery in New York City in 1980, she used to be an art history professor at Hofstra University.

Over the last 40 years, there has been a diverse selection of artwork by leading contemporary and modern artists, such as Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Alex Katz.

5.     Perrotin

The lovers of #GaheePark wish you a #HappyValentinesday ! ❤️ pic.twitter.com/uS5xkCa3B2 — Perrotin (@galerieperrotin) February 14, 2022

When opening his first gallery at 21, French art collector Emmanuel Perrotin called it Perrotin. He features a wide selection of contemporary artists and has quickly become one of the fastest-growing enterprises.

You can find big names in the gallery’s extensive portfolio like Paola Pivi, Kaws, and Takashi Murakami.

Head down to his gallery on 130 Orchard street to see what solo show he has on display currently.

Invest in Blue-chip Art

6.     Metro Pictures

BTS’s RM visited the National Gallery of Art, Metro Pictures has closed, the National Museum of Afghanistan has reopened, and more in today’s Morning Links. https://t.co/iNJrJeZHuF — ARTnews (@artnews) December 13, 2021

Metro Pictures was established in 1980 and is a New York City art gallery that had its first location in Soho. Janelle Reiring is the founder of this exquisite gallery.

Emerging artists who attained paragons’ status in the contemporary art world, such as Sherrie Levine, Jack Goldstein, Troy Brauntuch, Robert Longo, and Cindy Sherman, were represented by Metro Pictures.

Over four decades later, Metro Pictures remains a blue-chip New York City gallery.

7.     Anton Kern

Neon sign for Anton Kern Gallery @ArtBasel pic.twitter.com/DY1sNnrjj7 — David Shrigley (@davidshrigley) June 8, 2018

The namesake gallery of Anton Kern has gathered mid-career and emerging artists’ work for over two decades. Internationally renowned artists have featured in the gallery’s impressive roster and countless shows.

1996 is when the gallery first opened, and it has changed locations twice since then. This gallery has represented contemporary artists like Julie Curtis, David Burd, and Brian Calvin.

8.     Lisson Gallery

Join #HaroonMirza in conversation about his current #LissonGallery exhibition, ‘For a Dyson Sphere’ with Charlotte Kent, Editor-at-Large of @TheBrooklynRail , this Friday 4 February at 1pm EST. Register here https://t.co/Xpv5OjqZh1 ? © Haroon Mirza, photo by Dan Bradica pic.twitter.com/tudhHKYTZr — Lisson Gallery (@Lisson_Gallery) January 31, 2022

If you are looking for one of the longest-running and most influential international contemporary art galleries in the world with spaces in Shanghai, London, and New York City, you have come to the right place.

Founded in 1967 by British art dealer Nicholas Longsdail, the gallery has amassed a portfolio of over 60 international artists, including Richard Long, Ai Weiwei, and Marina Abramovic. One of the most original and recent exhibitions in New York was devoted to Brazilian artist Helio Oiticica.

A large-scale installation known as “Tropicalia” was displayed to portray the native capital of Brazil.

9.     Jeffrey Deitch

The fully restored 911 will be on view at Jeffrey Deitch gallery this month. https://t.co/qLRWiYAAo7 — HYPEBEAST (@HYPEBEAST) February 3, 2020

Jeffrey Deitch is a contemporary and modern art gallery with Los Angeles and New York spaces. The first gallery was opened in Lenox, Massachusetts, by American art dealer Jeffrey Deitch, who moved into the city.

18 Wooster Street serves as a multilevel creative space and is home to multidimensional and multicultural artwork.

One of the most famous showcases by the gallery include “Judy Chicago: What if Woman Ruled the World?”. The piece centers around the visualization of female dominance in the patriarchal society and contain a stunning set of large-scale tapestries presenting the viewers with proactive questions.

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10.  303 Gallery

Kristin Oppenheim’s newest immersive installation, Bang Bang, is now on view at 303 Gallery until February 19th! ✨ pic.twitter.com/pC4bxNU7XL — 303 Gallery (@303Gallery) January 15, 2022

Established by director and owner Lisa Spellman in 1984, 303 Gallery is an art gallery in Manhattan, New York. The owner is one of the most important art dealers, following the career paths of Marian Goodman and Paula Cooper.

When 303 Gallery started, it was initially located on Park Avenue South and grew in prominence over the years.

It is now one of the most influential and iconic New York City galleries known for its blue-chip quality in the present art world. Important names such as Marina Pinksy, Valentin Carron, Sam Falls, Hans Peter Feldmann, and Sue William’s work feature this gallery.

Investing in art can be a great way to diversify your financial portfolio, in certain circumstances, and increase the store value of your equity. By checking out the above galleries, you can indeed find one that suits your taste, style, and objective.

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15 Best Chelsea Art Galleries To Check Out Right Now

The neighborhood of Chelsea—roughly running from 14th St. to 30th St. between Seventh Ave and the Hudson River—has a rich history in the art world.

This history started as far back as 1884, when the iconic Hotel Chelsea opened on 23rd Street and became a haven for the NYC art and music scene (Andy Warhol even made a film there!). Today, it still holds that same cultural significance, with the addition of the elevated High Line Park with its outdoor exhibitions, and of course, the many art galleries—which are all free to visit. So here’s a guide for your next budget-friendly, high-culture outing with some of the best free art galleries in Chelsea, NYC:

1. Gagosian Gallery

Larry Gagosian is a renowned art gallery owner who started off in Los Angeles in 1980 and has since expanded to New York (his second oldest gallery), Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Paris, Geneva, Basel, Rome, Athens and Hong Kong. It’s a bit high-end, but arguably one of the most best galleries in all of the city, closer to a museum in and of itself.

Where: 555 W 24th St.

Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 10 am – 6 pm

2. David Zwirner Gallery

The David Zwirner Gallery is well-known for its Instagram-friendly gallery exhibitions that pass through (like Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Room). But if you try it off-season, you can enjoy other amazing contemporary art exhibits without the crowds, like James Welling’s Thought Objects exhibit on display now through February 10.

Where: 525 W 19th St.

3. High Line Nine

This gallery only takes up one number on the list, but is pretty much like nine galleries in one! The hybrid gallery, exhibition, and event space is underneath the historic High Line park and connects nine different galleries flowing from one to the other within the space. They also have a lovely on-site Italian cafe with coffee, paninis, pastas, gelato, freshly made pastries, and wine in the evening.

Where: 507 West 27th St.

Hours: Individual gallery hours vary. Learn more here .

4. Agora Gallery

Agora Gallery was founded by an artist in 1984 in hopes of promoting all different kinds of work by artists from all over the world in the competitive New York market. Exhibits typically change up monthly, and the current one open features works by a variety of different artists, called “Altered Perceptions.”

Where: 530 West 25th St.

Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11 am – 6 pm

5. Wilensky Exquisite Mineral Gallery

This is nature’s art gallery! A hidden gem (literally), the Wilnesky Mineral Gallery displays the Earth’s most beautiful minerals as art sculptures. Right now you can catch stunning fluorite, tourmaline, opal, celestite, rhodonite, amethyst, and more!

Where: 173 10th Ave.

Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 12 pm – 5 pm

6. C24 Gallery

C24 Gallery (it’s in Chelsea on 24th St., so we can guess where the name comes from) opened in 2011 and serves as a contemporary international art gallery. The past few years they have been on a mission to include more underrepresented artists and to better reflect political and social issues in the works they choose to display. It’s multi-leveled and has lots of natural light thanks to a giant skylight.

Where: 560 W 24th St.

Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 10 am – 6 pm

7. 303 Gallery

303 is one of the oldest galleries in Chelsea, harkening back to 1984 (though in later years it did move to the East Village to SoHo and then eventually back to Chelsea). Though on the smaller side, it has many interesting mixed media exhibits.

Where: 555 W 21st St.

8. Lisson Gallery

The Lisson Gallery opened in 2016 and boasts 4,500 square feet of gallery space (along with another 4,000 square feet of offices, viewing spaces and storage). It’s under the High Line, connecting 23rd and 24th St. The current exhibits include color-saturated paintings by Tony Bechara and minimal abstract art from the 1940s by Leon Polk Smith.

Where: 504 West 24th St.

Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10a.m. – 6p.m.

9. Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

This gallery offers many more sculptural and installation pieces, perfect if you like art you can interact with. The current exhibit, May I Know How to be the Sun on Cloudy Days, comes from Sandra Cinto who uses drawing to create create intricate images and immersive environments of seascapes, rainstorms, and beyond.

Where: 521 W 21st St.

10. Petzel Gallery

The Petzel Gallery just opened another sister museum on the Upper East Side, and features internationally renowned artists like Yael Bartana, Walead Beshty, Cosima von Bonin, Troy Brauntuch, and many more.

Where: 456 W 18th St.

11. Pace Gallery

Pace Gallery is a leading international art gallery representing some of the most influential contemporary artists and estates from the past century, including Alexander Calder, Jean Dubuffet, Barbara Hepworth, Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, and Mark Rothko. With 2 adjacent locations in Chelsea, the gallery welcomes over 120,000 visitors a year. See what’s on at Pace Gallery here .

Where: 540 W 25th St & 610 W 25th St

12. Taglialatella Galleries

This modern and contemporary art gallery in Chelsea is most known for their pop and street art, which has featured the likes of Damian Hirst, KAWS, Invader, and many more. If you’re looking for some cool cultural street staples, head here. See what’s on at Tagliatella Galleries here .

Where: 229 10th Ave

Hours: Monday – Saturday 10 am – 6 pm

13. Marianne Boesky Gallery

Consisting of two adjacent spaces, Marianne Boesky Gallery welcomes the work of contemporary international artists of all media. It’s known most for “ambitious solo and group shows that highlight dynamic narratives and parallels across artist, media, and theme.” See what’s on at Marianne Boesky Gallery here.

Where: 507 W 24th St

14. Hauser & Wirth

This 5 story gallery was designed by world-renowned architect Annabelle Selldorf and features art that aims to be the “forefront of every visitor experience.” You can find a wide range of contemporary art across various mediums here. See what’s on at Hauser & Wirth here .

Where: 542 W 22nd St

15. Templon

Originating in Paris back in 1966, Templon has a New York location where it welcomes incredible international art from around the world. See what’s on at Templon here .

Where: 293 10th Ave

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10 of the Most Hip Art Galleries to visit in New York

New York has everything for everyone in art field and beyond. If the first part of this article explored more “blue chip” galleries of New York scene, below is overview of places that are go-to destinations for hip, fresh, emerging artists and stars of the contemporary global art scene. Spaces are smaller, but more welcoming. Aura of genuine artistic presence is alive.

You are never bored when you go to Lower East Side, Tribeca, Bushwick spots because more often than not you are going to see a show or an artist you never hear of, but who can make your soul sing. As a living and breathing organism, New York expands, contracts, gentrifies, becomes less or more affordable for art spots in some areas, continuously changing art geography of the space. If once upon a time Chelsea was a home for warehouses and underground art gatherings, now Bushwick serves this function, inviting adventurer art aficionados. In the meantime, Lower East Side and Tribeca galleries function as bridges between glitzy crowds of uptown collectors and fresh visionary currents from Brooklyn.

1. Canada (@canada.nyc)

Canada opened its doors to the public in the small basement space on the Lower East Side in 2000 aiming to showcase less known established artists as well as up-and-coming creators. Founded by artists themselves, Sarah Braman, Suzanne Butler, Phil Grauer, and Wallace Whitney, Canada earned a title of one of New York’s new-generation galleries, unafraid to take risks and follow its own vision. Presenting artists like Joe Bradley, Katherine Bernhardt, Xylor Jane, Matt Connors, and Joanna Malinowska when they are far less known then today. Now the gallery’s portfolio includes an impressive roster of contemporary masters, including Elena Pankova, Lily Ludlow, Tyson Reeder, and many others. 

2. Karma (@karmakarma9)

Karma Gallery was founded by Brendan Dugan in 2011 in New York’s West Village space first combining an art bookshop with a gallery. Now located in the East Village, the gallery owns two exhibition spaces that handle work in all media, including painting, sculpture, photography, video, drawing, and printmaking. Yearly, Karma holds from eight to ten shows highlighting international contemporary artists. The upcoming January exhibition will showcase the works by Reggie Burrows Hodges, California-born, Maine-based painter, whose topical works explore the relationships between humans and their environments. The gallery currently represents twenty-seven multi-generation artists, including the big names, such as Nicolas Party, Gertrude Abercrombie, Taboo!, Thaddeus Mosley, among other notable artistic figures.  

3. Bodega (@bodega__)

Bodega Gallery, established in 2014 on the Lower East Side, grew out of a short-lived artist-run project space based in Philadelphia. Founded by five young multidisciplinary artists, Elyse Derosia, Ariela Kuh, Lydia Okrent, James Pettengill, and Eric Veit, Bodega became a space that gave people the freedom to experiment.Focusing on the contemporary art scene, Bodega provides emerging and mid-career artists with various opportunities, including solo shows in their New York exhibition space, time to work on experimental projects, site-specific installations, and more. Bodega currently represents Gene Beery, Zoe Barcza, Jason Benson, Whitney Claflin. 

4. Hashimoto Contemporary (@hashimotocontemporary)

In 2013, Ken Harman Hashimoto, a curator, gallerist and arts writer based in New York City,established an eponymousgalleryopening its first location in San Francisco and the second in New York City a few years later. The gallery’s monthly rotating exhibitions feature a diverse programming with the focus on painting, sculpture, and installation works. Among a manifold of artists, Hashimoto Contemporary represents notable names, like Destiny Belgrave, Crystal Wagner, Denise Stewart-Sanabria, Anna Valdez and many others. In its New York space, through February 6, 2021, the gallery opens a group exhibition “Lush” curated by Jennifer Rizzo, showcasing the works by Rachel Gregor, Lizzie Gill, Gregory Eclide, among the others.  

5. JTT (@jtt_nyc)

Located on the Lower East Side, JTT gallery was founded in 2021 by Jasmin Tsou when she was twenty-seven years old. JTT’s goal is to provide emerging artists with opportunities in a climate that Tsou described as “scary and intimidating” in the interview with Art Basel. The gallery represents seventeen artists, including eleven creators who had their solo shows in the JTT such as Jamian Juliano-Villani, Dan Herschlein, Becky Kolsrud, Charles Harlan, Anna-Sophie Berger, Borna Sammak, Sable Elyse Smith, and Doreen Garner. The gallery continues to grow and has received significant recognition from the art audience globally.

6. Jack Hanley (@jackhanleygallery)

Originally established in Austin, Texas as Trans-Avant Garde Gallery in 1987, Jack Hanley Gallery grew from a small community of artists, representing the painters like Christopher Wool, Thomas Locher, and Claudia Hart, to an imposing artistic enterprise that continues to stay true to its mission: discovering and fostering emerging contemporary artists. After traveling around the United States for thirty-four years opening and eventually closing his galleries in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Hanley permanently moved to Broome Street in New York City. The gallery proudly represents a portfolio of seventeen artists, including emerging talents like Emma Kohlmann, Danielle Orchard, Nikki Maloof, and many others. 

7. Shrine (@shrine.nyc)

Founded by Scott Ogden in 2016, over its short history, Shrine became an artistic phenomenon located in the Chinatown district. Ogden began his journey as an amateur collector on a low budget in the early 90s back when he was still a college student. Over the years, he accumulated an impressive assembly of artwork and decided to launch an exhibition space based on his passion for outsider and emerging artists. After almost five years, Shine represents twenty-seven multimedia artists that for sure stand out in the densely populated New York City art scene. The roster includes artists such as Hayley Barker, Hawkins Bolden, Kyle Breitenbach, and many other outsider artists. 

8. Miguel Abreu (@miguelabreugallery)

Miguel Abreu Gallery was among the first adventurous pioneers to open a space on the Lower East Side back in 2006. When Abreu opened his first gallery, his vision was shaped around the world of experimental cinema, influencing him to curate his exhibitions inspired by film sequences. “I try to show art which is conceptually challenging and plastically realized,” Abreu explained his vision behind the gallery in his interview with Art Basel. His impressive artistic collective amasses contemporary artists, photographers, and filmmakers, such as Yuyi Agematsu, Alexander Carver, Pamela Rosenkranz, among many others. The gallery currently has two shows on view, including Jean-Marie Straub e Danièle Huillet, Film e Loro Siti (Films and Their Sites), and Rétrospective Straub-Huillet 1962-2020. 

9. The Hole (@theholenyc)

Located on Bowery Street, The Hole is a contemporary art gallery run by Kathy Grayson in 2010. Presenting a solo and group shows every month, the gallery focuses on emerging artists from the United States and abroad. Currently, the Hole’s roster has more than fifteen artists and has exhibited over two hundred more. The list of artists includes Dan Attoe, Cristina Banban, Morgan Blair, Alison Blickle, and many others. The gallery space on Bowery Street measures 3800 sq. ft. of exhibition spacealso contains an attached bookstore featuring unique art products. The most recent show “Blues” from December 2020 was highlighting the work by Alex Gardner, a Long Beach-based painter.  

10. Microscope Gallery (@miscroscope_gallery)

Microscope Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Founded by artists and curators Elle Burchill and Andrea Monti it opened in September 2010. Ever since, the gallery specializes in multimedia work, especially sound, film, digital, and performance art. The gallery’s portfolio includes extraordinary creators, like Katherine Bauer, Sarah Halpern, Marti Kotak, and others. Recently, Microscope showed a solo exhibition highlighting the works by a Los Angeles-based mixed-media artist Matt Town, whose sculpture and video works raise dialogues about and critically question gun culture in the United States.

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Best Art Galleries to Visit in New York City

With over 1,500 art galleries to choose from, New York City is the best adventure that art lovers can embark upon. From Brooklyn to Manhattan and Queens, New York City hosts more art galleries than bookstores. By some estimates, it is claimed that the city has approximately 100 bookstores only.

If you are an art lover and planning on visiting Manhattan, you are in for a treat. The art galleries in New York City mostly cover the works from all the eras. However, the majority of them have art pieces belonging to contemporary art produced in the latter half of the 20th century. One of the best things about New York City and its art galleries is that most of them are free! Yes, you can fulfill your quench for appreciating art without burdening your pocket. Nevertheless, even if your wallet can afford to visit all of them, your feet cannot.

Here is the list of best art galleries to visit while you are in New York City:

David Zwirner Art Gallery 

Focusing mainly on contemporary art, David Zwirner is one of the top artists belonging to Germany. His art gallery is the prime showcase of Cuban concretism. This art gallery opened up first in SoHo and was then relocated to Chelsea in 2002. It has four different locations in the neighborhood, while the most coveted one is located on the 69th Street East.

The list of artists you will find in this amazing gallery is loaded with most renowned artists, such as Dan Flavin and Donald Judd – who are well-known for their works utilizing light and space. The gallery also proudly exhibits the worldwide appreciated works of Japanese Polka Dot Queen, Yayoi Kusama.

Location: 525 W 19th St, New York

Levy Gorvy Art Gallery 

Founded by Dominique Lévy and Brett Gorvy, this amazing art gallery is devoted to exhibiting the most appreciative art pieces by artists that are committed to innovative concepts. It hosts and advocates art belonging to modern, postwar, and contemporary art.

The gallery was inaugurated in New York City in 2013 and soon had a second one opened up in London. The gallery has top artists exhibiting their works addressing numerous interests. If you are interested in buying the works of legends in this field, then this gallery has the most options for you. From Jean-Michel Basquiat to Lucio Fontana, Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso, Levy Gorvy art gallery has all the collection.

Location: 909 Madison Avenue at, E 73rd St, New York

Luhring Augustine Art Gallery 

Located in Chelsea, after being moved from SoHo in 1998, Luhring Augustine is the best option for lovers of contemporary artists. It contains painting, sculpture, video, photography, and drawing. Some of the well-known artists whose works you will find at Luhring Augustine’s art gallery include, Glenn Ligon, Zarina Hashmi, Piplotti Rist, and Yasumasa Morimura.

This gallery also deals in selling of the great artworks of 20th-century artists such as Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Jackson Pollock.

Location: 531 W 24th St, New York

Matthew Marks Art Gallery 

Proudly showcasing the playful pieces by legendary artists, such as Peter Fischli, Jasper John with his famous dissident images, and the intimate portrait photography of Nan Goldin by Thomas Demand, Matthew Marks Art Gallery is a must-visit. Spanning three different locations, this gallery exhibits the works of about 29 artists from America as well as Europe.

If you are in New York City for a long time, you might even catch an exhibition of various media of art hosted by Matthew Marks Art Gallery, as it holds about 15 exhibitions every year.

Location: 523 W 24th St, New York

Gagosian Art Gallery 

Gagosian Art Gallery has occupied two ideal locations in Chelsea and three in Manhattan. This contemporary art gallery, owned and directed by Larry Gagosian, is a perfect place to visit if you are an avid lover of artists that changed the course of artistry during the 20th century, such as Pablo Picasso, Henry Moore, and Alberto Giacometti.

It exhibits the great works of Murakami Takashi, a Japanese artist, including his paintings, sculptures, and commercial works such as animation and various merchandise. Boldly expanding its sphere, the Gagosian Art Gallery has recently started showcasing the works of late Austrian artist Franz West who is well-known for his sculptures and furniture.

Location: 555 W 24th St, New York

Marianne Boesky Gallery 

Since being relocated to Chelsea in 2006, the Marianne Boesky Gallery has been the center of attention of art enthusiasts and esthetic lovers. The gallery has showcased works of some of the great artists who were new to the field but had massive potential that put them in high ranks, such as Diana Al-Hadid, Jay Heikes, and Anthony Pearson.

The gallery also has Frank Stella’s name attached to it as it started exhibiting the work of this predominant artist in 2014. Some of the other well-known artists whose works are exhibited in this art gallery are Maria Lao, Dashiell Manley, Jennifer Bartlett, and Barnaby Furnas.

Location: 509 W 24th St, New York

Sean Kelly Gallery 

With its prime focus on installation and performance, the Sean Kelly Gallery was established in 1991 by British-born Sean Kelly. The gallery spans at a vast area of 7,000 square feet. in Hudson Yards and enlists the names of popular artists whose works are showcased here, such as Callum Innes, James Casebere, and Marina Abramovic.

Location: 475 10th Ave, New York

Lehmann Maupin Gallery

This art gallery exhibits works of some of the quite diverse and forward-looking artists such as Os Gemeos, a graffiti artist from Brazil and Juergen Teller, an artist working avidly in representing fashion. In Lehmann Maupin, you will also find the landscape malachite works of Teresita Fernandez focused on Cuba and Robin Rhode expressing views on the power cuts in South Africa.

The gallery’s architecture itself is a great exhibition of art and finesse. Well-known Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas designed the gallery in collaboration with the founders.

Locations: 536 W 22nd St, New York; 501 W 24th St, New York

Greene Naftali Gallery

Primarily concentrating on intellectual and conceptual works of Paul Chan, Rachel Harrison, Jacqueline Humphries, and Tony Conrad, the Green Naftali art gallery is one of the best contemporary art galleries in New York City. It was founded by an American art dealer Carol Greene who was born and raised in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Having renovated the building in 2014, the gallery offers three grand exhibition rooms beautifully set against the backdrop of the High Line.

In addition to this gallery, the owner is also involved in several arts organizations, including Artists Space, where she is one of the members of the board of directors.

Location: 508 W 26th St, New York

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery 

Spanning over a grand area of 5,000 square feet, this sophisticated single-level art gallery is a must-visit for all the art lovers visiting or living in New York. It has displayed the works of some of the finest artists such as Martin Boyce’s fragmented cityscapes, Olafur Eliasson’s elemental installations, and some amazing architectural sculptures by Sarah Sze, a contemporary artist.

This gallery operates on the aim of providing a great platform for novice artists with promising works. Other prominent artists whose works you can find in this gallery are Laura Lima, Slavs and Tatars, Agnieszka Kurant, and Lisa Oppenheim.

Location: 521 W 21st St #1, New York

Final Words

New York City is the biggest metropolitan city of the United States. It is regarded as the city that is known for producing and nurturing artists belonging to every field and class. With more than a thousand art galleries around the city, including Chelsea (Neighborhood in New York City), New York City is the biggest tourist attraction for art lovers and appreciators.

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23 Most Captivating NYC Art Galleries to Visit in 2024

New York City is an artist's haven, and the five boroughs have plenty of NYC art galleries that show off incredible works. Well-established, internationally known artists and those who are just beginning to make a name for themselves in the art world alike show their work in this unofficial art capital.

So, what is there to see in NYC art galleries? Detailed fine art, street art and pieces that will make you think, feel and want to create your next masterpiece. 

Making art has plenty of benefits, including lowering stress, improving focus and activating the brain’s reward center, according to NPR . And viewing art also has benefits, as it can make bring out your emotions, and make you think and appreciate the work, says the University of Arizona Global Campus .

You may be looking for NYC art galleries for emerging artists to show off your own work. Or maybe you want to see what artists are showing off in art galleries in Manhattan to be inspired. We’ve rounded up a list of NYC art galleries that are a must-visit when you’re in the city. 

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Best nyc art galleries for emerging artists, largest nyc art galleries, small nyc art galleries, most unique nyc art galleries, 1. nyc art classes & events.

Art classes in NYC , pottery classes in NYC and painting classes in NYC are great indoor activities in NYC for those who enjoy being creative. After taking these classes with world-class artists, you may have sparked an interest in art or be interested in seeing the work of other emerging artists.

You can also visit Smack Mellon in Brooklyn, an NYC art gallery that offers a fellowship and free studio space for emerging and early-career artists. The gallery also features exhibitions of emerging and early-career artists.

2. C24 Gallery

Located in Chelsea, C24 Gallery features contemporary art in 9,000 square feet of space. The gallery has devoutly exhibited artists who are just emerging on the scene, which makes it one of the best art galleries in NYC to view those new on the scene or for artists looking to have their work featured.

3. CLEARING

Originating in Brussels, CLEARING features contemporary works from emerging artists from around the world, particularly those of younger artists. It’s one of the best NYC art galleries to understand commentary and perspectives from young creative minds.

4. Marianne Boesky Gallery

The Marianne Boesky Gallery has a storied history as an NYC art gallery. It moved around the city before settling in Chelsea. Art dealer Marianne Boesky routinely features emerging and mid-career artists that have gone on to become big names in the art world.

5. Martos Gallery

This critically acclaimed gallery allows artists to work with a variety of mediums. Martos Gallery routinely features emerging talent and well-established names. The gallery also represents estates of art collectors, so visitors are able to view priceless works.

6. Half Gallery 

Tucked away in the East Village, Half Gallery exhibits emerging and established artists from a variety of stylistic backgrounds. The cozy space was founded by William Powers and features vibrant works made to evoke feelings.

Wondering how to get art shown in NYC? Consider approaching one of these galleries that feature emerging and new artists about exhibiting your work.

7. Perrotin

With over 25,000 square feet, Perrotin features some of the most unique art in the city. Beyond the art, there are panel discussions, workshops, concerts and a bookstore. If you’re wondering how to meet people in a new city , Perrotin is a great way to meet like-minded art lovers.

8. Templon 

Templon originated in France in 1966, so the gallery has a storied history with many international artists. The NYC art gallery currently represents some of the art world’s most famous artists and features work from some of the largest names in the industry, past and present. 

9. Metropolitan Museum of Art 

What is the largest art gallery in New York? The Metropolitan Museum of Art, of course. This legendary museum is also the most famous art gallery in New York City and the largest art museum in the Americas.

It hosts some of the world’s most famous paintings as well as exhibits from contemporary painters, ancient architecture, and the renowned Costume Institute. Plan a  birthday dinner in NYC  where you can discuss some of the amazing exhibits after visiting.

10. David Zwirner Gallery

Where are most galleries in NYC? Many NYC art galleries can be found in the Chelsea area, and David Zwirner is one of them. With over 30,000 square feet, the David Zwirner Gallery is among the largest NYC art galleries, and one of the finest.

It features beautiful shows of contemporary artists from around the world, along with historical pieces of art.

11. Sean Kelly Gallery

Sean Kelly Gallery is a great place to find art ideas to inspire your own work. This NYC art gallery features art installations and performance art from established and mid-career artists. The gallery is known for risk-taking and modifying the space to fit the work of the artist featured.

12. Pace Gallery 

The Pace Gallery has nine spaces around the world, making it one of the largest collections of exceptional artwork. This famous space features classic mediums such as paintings and photography as well as newer, groundbreaking and expanding mediums, making for a well-rounded exhibit.

This artist-run gallery is a must-visit on this list of NYC art galleries. The exhibits blend trends, culture, and media to create engaging pieces.

If you’re still wondering how to find your art style , find inspiration in their unique exhibits. This small art gallery in NYC also collaborates with up-and-coming artists.

14. Van Der Plas Gallery

Though it has a small square footage, the Van Der Plas Gallery boasts some big historical art movements. Van Der Plas Gallery shows off New York’s street art movement, where many artists in the 1980s paved the way and created their own movements.

15. The 8th Floor

As an independent art exhibition space, The 8th Floor is a small art gallery in NYC that seeks to broaden access to art in the city. The gallery features performances and discussions among their collection of contemporary artists.

16. Anita Shapolsky Gallery

Anita Shapolsky has been a curated and collector for over 40 years. The gallery boasts a variety of exhibited artists who create expressionist and abstract works.

Proudly displaying Latin American, African American and women artists, this is one of the most diverse places on this gallery guide of NYC.

17. The Hole NYC 

This gallery guide of NYC has to feature this fun and collaborative space. Presenting solo and group monthly exhibitions and representing emerging artists, The Hole NYC is a great place for local artists to collaborate and find community.

18. ACA Galleries

ACA Galleries is unique for being one of the oldest on the list. Having been established in 1932, this gallery has exhibited political and progressive art for nearly a century. Here you’ll see some of the most high-profile works in New York City.

19. bitforms gallery 

To see art that deviates from the standard, bitforms gallery is the place to be. The cutting-edge gallery features artists who are up-and-coming and mid-career that use the latest technology to create unique pieces.

20. Small is Beautiful

Micro and miniature works can amaze just as much as large-format art. Small is Beautiful exhibits art in the tiniest form, like as small a pencil tip of a mini diorama. This unique place is one of the best date ideas in NYC .

21. Pop International Galleries

For anyone who loves color, Pop International Galleries is the place to be. The exhibits feature work from icons like Basquiat, Haring and Warhol. And with unique pieces available to purchase, this gallery is also a great place to find gifts for artists .

22. Olfactory Art Keller

At Olfactory Art Keller, visual artists mix their work with scents to create a total sensory experience. Smell is the artistic medium here and you’ll find scented objects, performances and multi-sensory works.

The perfumes sold in their store make unforgettable New York gifts  to remember your trip.

This gallery in the East Village features 20 exhibitions a year from a variety of artists from diverse style backgrounds. The store has books and publications about each of the exhibits, making it one of the most fun indoor activities in NYC .

Art galleries in Manhattan and across the other four boroughs feature diverse perspectives, messages and artists. NYC is known as one of the best cities for artists .

From the most famous art gallery in New York to some of the more underground spaces, there are plenty of spaces to get inspired, view art and even show off some of your own work. New York is the perfect city to let out your creativity.

For even more fun NYC activities, check out other experiences happening on Classpop!

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The Best Galleries to Visit in Edinburgh in 2024

Most of the must-visit art galleries in edinburgh are free and open to the public..

Scotland’s vibrant capital city is a destination steeped in history and brimming with character with loads to see and do. Edinburgh Castle looms over the skyline and sits opposite Arthur’s Seat, an ancient volcano situated in the middle of the wild but walkable highland landscape of Holyrood Park. The city also boasts centuries-old pubs, Michelin-starred restaurants, luxury accommodations like Gleneagles Townhouse and stunning architecture.

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Edinburgh’s art scene is yet another draw, and in fact, the city may be best known to culturally attuned international visitors as the site of the annual Fringe Festival—the largest performing arts festival in the world. Beyond the Fringe, however, the city’s thriving year-round visual arts scene offers an exciting program of exhibitions, events and installations in an array of galleries and museums.

The list below features some of Edinburgh’s top art galleries, but it’s by no means an exhaustive list (honorable mentions include the eclectic Velvet Easel Gallery, the multi-arts venue Summerhall, Ingleby Gallery and the photography focused Stills Gallery). Most of the must-visit art galleries in Edinburgh are free and open to the public, and all offer something unique within the realm of visual arts, from textile works to outdoor installations and more.

Edinburgh’s Best Art Galleries

Fruitmarket gallery.

If you’re traveling to or from Edinburgh by train, then you don’t have much of an excuse not to visit Fruitmarket. Built in the 1970s on the site of a former fruit and vegetable market, Fruitmarket Gallery is a small, independent exhibition space nestled right next to Waverley Station, making it the perfect place to call in before continuing your journey.

Despite its relatively small size, Fruitmarket has shown big names in contemporary art throughout the years, including David Hockney , Eduardo Paolozzi and Nancy Spero . Under the careful directorship of Fiona Bradley , who took the helm in 2003, there’s always something fascinating to explore in the gallery’s three exhibition spaces.

Recent highlights include “ the apparent length of a floor area ,” an exhibition by Portuguese artist Leonor Antunes . Her sculptural installations are inspired by traditional artisanal techniques and make use of cork, wood and rope to rethink how sculpture is defined. Fruitmarket is currently screening a documentary film on climate change entitled “Project Paradise” by the artist Sarah Woods, and the gallery hosts Edinburgh’s annual Artists’ Bookmarket, a festival that celebrates artist-led publishing.

Fruitmarket celebrates its 50th anniversary this year and will be presenting a program of Scottish, British and international artists including work by Turner Prize-winning sculptor Martin Boyce and Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama . There’s also a fantastic cafe and gallery shop to enjoy once you’ve finished exploring the exhibitions.

Jupiter Artland

Founded in 2009 by Robert and Nicky Wilson, Jupiter Artland is a fabulous and sprawling sculpture garden located just on the edge of Edinburgh. In the peaceful surrounds of the 100-acre estate, you can plot a route between more than thirty outdoor installations, including Antony Gormley ’s Firmament , a giant polygonal structure constructed of steel balls, and Landscape with Gun and Tree , the nine-meter-tall cast-iron shotgun by Cornelia Parker that leans against one of the park’s trees. You can even check exactly how many kilometers away you are from the planet Jupiter thanks to Peter Liversidge ’s handy Signpost to Jupiter .

The interplay between art and nature at Jupiter Artland is often whimsical, but there are more unsettling pieces to unwrap, too. A particular highlight is Scottish artist Nathan Coley ’s In Memory , which depicts a private cemetery containing several gravestones with the names of the deceased removed. Site-specific works by artists such as Christian Boltanski , whose Animitas installation sits within Jupiter Artland’s Duck Pond, invite visitors to sit and reflect using all five senses ( Animitas has over 200 Japanese bells that gently chime in the wind).

Recent exhibitions have included a series of raw and deeply personal works by Tracey Emin entitled “I Lay Here For You” (2022), as well as a hugely well-received first solo show by Lindsey Mendick entitled “SH*TFACED” (2023).

Alongside slightly more adult-oriented artwork, there’s also plenty for families with children to enjoy. Easter time brings egg hunts in the park, while at Christmas, the estate transforms into a Winter Wonderland complete with Festive Donkeys and an Elf Workshop. The permanent installations offer plenty for young children as well, with Peter Jencks ’ landform work Cells of Life providing a network of sculpted hillsides and small lakes to explore. Incidentally, you can find another outdoor work by Jencks, Ueda , right outside the entrance to Modern One (see below).

National Galleries of Scotland: National

The National is (as the name suggests) the national gallery of Scotland. The building is in the middle of the city, overlooked by Edinburgh Castle, and directly surrounded by other iconic locations including Princes Street Gardens, the Balmoral Hotel and the Scott Monument. Easy to access and mostly free to enter (bar certain temporary exhibitions), the National Gallery is an excellent introduction to Scotland’s artistic heritage.

After years of renovation work, the gallery now boasts a stunning new wing devoted to the finest in Scottish artwork. Its open-plan design, which features a series of large windows, allows visitors to admire works by pioneering Scottish artists such as William McTaggart and Charles Rennie Mackintosh , while also enjoying snapshots of Edinburgh’s iconic city center in the background.

For many, Sir Edwin Landseer ’s The Monarch of the Glen will be the most recognizable painting on display. The majestic red deer stag sits among a host of traditional Scottish oil-on-canvas landscapes. But there are other jewels in the new wing, too, including The Progress of a Soul , a stunning series of four embroidered panels by Phoebe Anna Traquair that depict the soul’s journey from birth to final redemption.

The National also offers an array of international art, including Renaissance works by Titian and paintings by Dutch masters Rembrandt and Vermeer. For families with children, the venue hosts an activity space and relaxed informal events for parents and youngsters, including ‘Bring Your Own Baby’ and ‘Family Fridays.’ Finish off your visit with lunch at the cafe, which overlooks Princes Street Gardens or treat yourself to a souvenir from the gallery gift shop.

Dovecot Studios

Dovecot Studios offers something different from other art galleries in Edinburgh. Located a stone’s throw from the city’s historic Cowgate, Dovecot is a unique artistic center that combines a working textile studio with a traditional gallery space.

Visitors don’t have to pay to enter the studios, where you can peer down from the Tapestry Studio’s viewing balcony and watch the resident Dovecot weavers at work. This is a real treat—members of the public can observe works-in-progress as they’re hand-woven in real time. The Dovecot team has collaborated with a host of famous artists over the years, including Turner Prize winner Chris Ofili and renowned Scottish-Barbadian artist Alberta Whittle .

In addition to the viewing balcony, Dovecot Studios hosts a program of paid exhibitions throughout the year. A special mention must go to the hugely well-received “Scottish Women Artists – 250 Years of Challenging Perception” which closed in January after a tremendous six-month run and celebrated the work of female artists including Joan Eardley and Victoria Crowe . Now Dovecot is playing host to the first-ever showcase of Andy Warhol ’s commercial textile designs.

National Galleries of Scotland: Modern

Modern is the place to visit for Edinburgh’s most outstanding collection of contemporary art. The gallery is split into two buildings, Modern One and Two, both of which are located on Belford Road in the city’s stunning Dean Village neighborhood. The grounds feature a striking landform by Charles Jencks, with other outdoor installations by the likes of Martin Creed to discover along the pathways up to each gallery.

Contemporary art lovers of all tastes and styles will find something to enjoy here. The permanent collection at Modern One hosts work by big names such as Henri Matisse and Barbara Hepworth and lesser-known gems such as Slow Movement by Eileen Agar. Modern Two tends to focus on abstract and experimental work from the late 19th Century onwards.

Modern is an excellent introduction to contemporary art and has previously played host to the British Art Show (“British Art Show 8”), as well as recent exhibitions on Surrealism. This year promises more exciting and challenging displays: from May onwards you can visit “Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990.” And if the Scottish weather holds out and the sun is shining, make sure to enjoy the courtyard cafe at Modern One for some tea and scones.

National Galleries of Scotland: Portrait

Last but by no means least, the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland is not to be missed. Its diverse collection of portraits, which includes iconic faces from Mary, Queen of Scots through to Billy Connolly and Chris Hoy, tells the story of Scotland through its people—and the artists who painted them.

Located in the city center on Queen Street, the gallery building is an attraction in itself. Surrounded on all sides by modern architecture, Portrait is a Neo-Gothic masterpiece. Inside its Great Hall, the beautiful so-called ‘Zodiac ceiling’ has thousands of golden stars and 47 constellations.

The collection itself is a fascinating glimpse into some of the lives that have shaped the Scotland we know today. And when you need a break from viewing the portraits, you can browse the building’s stunning 19th-century Library and Print Room.

• SEE ALSO : Wall Street Leaders Raise $1.5M for the Museum of American Finance

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The best Chelsea galleries in NYC exhibiting contemporary artists

These top flight Chelsea art galleries offer the very best in contemporary painting, sculpture and more

As one of the major art hubs in New York City, even more so than  the  Upper East Side , the  Lower East Side , midtown and Soho, C helsea's gallery scene certainly takes the top spot as the best.

Since the 1990s, the Chelsea gallery scene has been synonymous with the New York art world, even though numerous other neighborhoods (the Upper East Side , the Lower East Side , Midtown and Soho, as well as parts of Brooklyn and Queens such as Bushwick and Long Island City) play host to NYC’s myriad art galleries .

Even so, Chelsea remains the largest such district with scores of spaces to traipse through—including the flagship outposts of global mega-dealers Larry Gagosian and David Zwirner.

RECOMMENDED: The ultimate guide to Chelsea

Occupying roughly 10 blocks straddling 10th and 11th Avenues from 18th to 28th Streets, Chelsea was once home to hundreds of garages and warehouses. This industrial heritage is reflected in gallery interiors that tend to be large and generally free of columns, a combination that encourages extremely ambitious installations like those by the sculptor Richard Serra.

This propensity for enormous art has drawn criticism in recent years, but in any case, Chelsea has seen its star dimmed somewhat thanks to an invasion of starchitect-designed residential buildings, and rising rents that have driven many galleries to other parts of town. Still, if you want to see tons of contemporary art, Chelsea is the one-stop-shopping place to be. To help find your way around, check out our select list of the best Chelsea art galleries.

RECOMMENDED: Full guide to  art galleries in NYC

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Best Chelsea art galleries

1.  David Zwirner

German expatriate David Zwirner mixes museum-quality shows of historical figures and movements (Dan Flavin; West Coast Minimalism) with a head-turning array of international contemporary artists that includes such luminaries as Yayoi Kusama, Marcel Dzama, Luc Tuymans, Chris Ofili, Neo Rauch and Lisa Yuskavage.

2.  Hauser & Wirth New York

This 36,000-square-foot space is known for showing permanent, site-specific artist’s interventions across its five stories. It currently represents over 60 established and emerging artists, including Mark Bradford, Christoph Büchel, Roni Horn, Paul McCarthy and Pipilotti Rist, and is responsible for artist estates and foundations including the Louise Bourgeois Studio, the Estate of Philip Guston, the Eva Hesse Estate, Allan Kaprow Estate, Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, the Estate of Jason Rhoades, the Estate of David Smith and the Dieter Roth Estate.

3.  Marianne Boesky Gallery

Founded in Soho in 1996, Marianne Boesky Gallery migrated to Chelsea in 2005, taking up an elegant purpose-built space right next to the High Line. After opening and closing venues on both the Upper and Lower East Side, Boesky re-consolidated her operation at her Chelsea shop, adding an annex—Boesky East—next door. She also operates a space in Aspen, Colorado. Throughout her career, Boesky has exhibited a mix of established, mid-career and emerging artists that includes such high-profile names as Frank Stella and John Waters.

4.  Gagosian Gallery

Larry Gagosian’s mammoth (20,000-square-foot) contribution to 24th Street’s top-level galleries was launched in 1999 with a thrilling Richard Serra show. Follow-up exhibitions have featured works by Ellen Gallagher, Damien Hirst, Anselm Kiefer, Ed Ruscha, Julian Schnabel and Andy Warhol.

5.  Cavin-Morris Gallery

• Contemporary art

6.  C24 Gallery

7.  Ricco Maresca Gallery

8.  Dia Chelsea

After a two-year renovation and expansion, the Dia Art Foundation finally reopened its doors on 22nd Street to the public, unveiling its new three-building, 20,000-square-feet space with integrated street-level galleries for exhibitions, a new flexible space for public and educational programs, and Dia’s beloved bookstore. Dia moved to Chelsea in 1987, moving from its location in Soho (where it was since 1974), triggering an influx of galleries. Now that Dia Chelsea is open, it is offering free admission across all its locations. Timed tickets are available now .  The bookshop is open  Wednesday – Saturday  for purchases from 12 – 6pm . It is also free to enter.

9.  Galerie Lelong & Co.

10.  Garth Greenan Gallery

11.  FLAG Art Foundation

Founded in 2008 by art patron Glenn Fuhrman, this Chelsea nonprofit specializes in curated group shows of established and emerging contemporary artists, and is located in an expansive two-floor facility in the ritzy Chelsea Arts Tower. Besides thematic exhibits, FLAG has featured solo surveys of Ellsworth Kelly, Ashley Bickerton and Richard Pettibone. 

12.  Paula Cooper Gallery

Legendary dealer Paula Cooper opened the very first gallery in Soho back in 1968, when it was still a scruffy neighborhood where artists lived and worked. Cooper was among the first dealers to champion Minimalism and Conceptual Art, mounting historically important early shows by Donald Judd and Carl Andre, among others. By the 1990s, the artists in Soho were gone, and so, too, was Copper, who decamped to Chelsea—one of the first dealers to open there, making her once again a pioneer of a gallery distict. Since then, she's built an impressive art temple that showcases the talents of artists such as Christian Marclay, Tauba Auerbach and Sophie Calle.  

13.  Alexander Gray Associates

Located within throwing distance of the High Line, this Chelsea space opened in 2006, and showcases midcareer talents who first emerged during the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. Among the artists who show there, you’ll find veterans such as Polly Apfelbaum, Joan Semmel and Luis Camnitzer.

14.  Fergus McCaffrey

A Dublin-born dealer who previously worked for both Larry Gagosian and Michael Werner, McCaffrey opened his own shop on the Upper East side in 2006 before relocating eight years later to a two-floor space in the shadow of the High Line. While the gallery specializes in modern and contemporary Japanese artists, including figures associated with Japan’s avante-gard Gutai ground of the 1960s, its roster also features American artists such as sculptor Barry X Ball and Minimalist painter Marcia Hafif.

15.  Mitchell-Innes & Nash

Partners Lucy Mitchell-Innes and David Nash started their gallery uptown in 1996 after working in high-powered positions at Sotheby's auction house. The space quickly established a reputation for mounting high-quality exhibits of modern and postwar masters. In 2005, the couple opened a Chelsea branch, which focuses on contemporary artists.

16.  Petzel Gallery

Founded in 1994, Petzel Gallery represents some of the brightest stars on the international scene, so you can count on some intriguing shows. Sculptor Keith Edmier, photographer Dana Hoey, painter and filmmaker Sarah Morris, and installation artists Jorge Pardo and Philippe Parreno are just some of the names on the gallery’s high-powered roster.

17.  Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

18.  Metro Pictures

Metro Pictures is best known for representing art-world superstar Cindy Sherman, along with such big contemporary names as multimedia artist Mike Kelley, Robert Longo—famous for his works produced using photography and charcoal—and the late German artist Martin Kippenberger.

19.  303 Gallery

A mainstay of Chelsea (and before that the Soho and East Village scenes of the late 1980s and early 1990s), this gallery actually got its start in an offbeat location: the Park Avenue South apartment of principal Lisa Spellman (hence the name; it's her old address). Over the years, 303 has fostered the careers of critically acclaimed artists working in a variety of media—among them photographers Thomas Demand and Stephen Shore and painters Inka Essenhigh, Mary Heilmann and Karen Kilimnik.

20.  James Cohan Gallery

This swank, blue-chip Chelsea gallery opened September 1999 with an inaugural exhibition of early photo pieces by Gilbert & George.  It's maintained a similar focus on international contemporary art ever since, with a stable divided between established and emerging artists—including the Estate of Lee Mullican, Richard Long, Yinka Shonibare MBE, Fred Tomaselli and Bill Viola.  

21.  Lehmann Maupin

This gallery left its Rem Koolhaas–designed loft in Soho for new Koolhaas-designed digs in an old Chelsea garage. Epic exhibitions feature hip Americans and Europeans, including Teresita Fernández, Do-Ho Suh, Kutlug Ataman and Tracy Emin.

22.  Gladstone Gallery

Gladstone is strictly blue-chip, with a heavy emphasis on the Conceptual, the philosophical and the daring. Matthew Barney, Richard Prince, Anish Kapoor and Rosemarie Trockel show here.

23.  Pace Gallery

In a space designed by artist Robert Irwin, this welcoming branch of the famous midtown gallery houses grand-scale shows by big-time contemporaries, including Georg Baselitz, Chuck Close, Alex Katz, Sol LeWitt, Elizabeth Murray and Kiki Smith.

24.  Greene Naftali

This gallery is worth a visit just for its wonderful light and spectacular bird’s-eye city view. Greene Naftali has a reputation for hosting potent rock-’em-sock-’em Conceptualist group shows.

25.  Luhring Augustine

Designed by the area’s architect of choice, Richard Gluckman, this cool gallery features work from an impressive index of artists that includes Briton Rachel Whiteread; Swiss video star Pipilotti Rist; Japanese photo artist Yasumasa Morimura; and Americans Janine Antoni, Larry Clark and Christopher Wool.

26.  Matthew Marks Gallery

The Matthew Marks gallery was a driving force behind Chelsea’s transformation into an art destination, and it remains one of the neighborhood’s biggest draws; its 9,000-square-foot, two-story locale has a second-floor public gallery. Marks showcases Nan Goldin, Andreas Gursky, Ellsworth Kelly, Willem de Kooning, Brice Marden and Ugo Rondinone.

27.  Lisson Gallery

London’s Lisson Gallery has been one of the world’s leading showcases for contemporary art since 1967. Numerous bold-face names-Ai Wei Wei, Marina Abramović and Sol LeWitt, to name a few—have shown with Lisson over the years.

28.  Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

While this elegant Chelsea space doesn't quite match the footprint of supergalleries like Gagosian or Zwirner, it does include some powerhouse names on its roster of artists, such as Uta Barth, Ernesto Neto and New York City Waterfalls maestro Olafur Eliasson.

29.  Paul Kasmin Gallery

Established contemporary artists as well as such blue-chip heavy-hitters as Morris Louis, Robert Indiana and Robert Motherwell are the specialty of this Chelsea mainstay.

30.  Cheim & Read

• Arts centers

This international group of established contemporary artists includes such superstars as Diane Arbus, Jenny Holzer, Milton Resnick and Pat Steir. The practices showcased here include painting, drawing, sculpture and photography; a number of individuals on the gallery's roster are venerable New Yorkers.

31.  Sean Kelly Gallery

• Hell's Kitchen

Representing established and midcareer artists, this gallery has a strong reputation for supporting work based in installation and performance; Laurie Anderson and Iran do Espírito Santo are a couple of the notable talents here.

32.  Marlborough Gallery

33.  Jane Lombard Gallery

34.  Asya Geisberg Gallery

35.  Casey Kaplan

36.  P.P.O.W.

Looking for more of the best in art.

Check out the top five New York art shows this week

Check out our suggestions for the best art exhibitions you don't want to miss, including gallery openings and more

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14 Most Beautiful Places To See In New York City

• New York City offers a vibrant and diverse experience with its famous streets, iconic buildings, and beautiful parks and gardens.
• The High Line is a must-visit urban oasis with lush greenery, gardens, and stunning views of the cityscape and Hudson River.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Washington Square Park, and Central Park are some of the most beautiful and culturally significant places to see in New York City.

New York City is one of the most vibrant destinations on the East Coast. Whether walking down its famous streets, visiting its iconic buildings, or discovering the beauty of New York City's parks and gardens - the city will have anything but a dull moment. New York City is one of the most diverse cities in the world, and people from all over the world visit to immerse themselves in all that it has to offer.

With some of the most delicious world cuisine ( including some authentic Italian restaurants ), museums, a raging art and music scene, shopping, entertainment, and more - New York is the epitome of city life. Experiencing the city's hustle and bustle will be a lifetime trip. This city is home to some of the most beautiful and historical places in the United States. Choosing which sites to add to one's bucket list may be challenging with all the options. Here are ten of the most beautiful places to see in New York City.

UPDATE: 2023/09/28 22:43 EST BY LUANA FERREIRA

More Beautiful Places To Visit In New York

New York is one of the world's biggest cities, and there are countless beautiful places that locals and tourists should visit. Therefore, this list has been expanded to include places such as the High Line, the Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, the Washington Square Park, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Have fun!

RELATED: 10 Things To Do In The Bronx: Complete Guide To NYC's Northernmost Borough

The High Line

The High Line in New York City is an urban oasis suspended above the bustling streets of Manhattan, and its tranquil ambiance and architectural ingenuity make it a must-visit destination, providing both locals and tourists a respite in the heart of the metropolis.

This elevated linear park, repurposed from a historic railway track, offers a serene escape amidst the city's hustle and bustle.

Lush greenery, vibrant gardens, and public art installations adorn the path, creating a harmonious blend of nature and urbanity. The High Line provides stunning views of the cityscape and Hudson River, offering a unique perspective of New York.

• Address : New York, NY 10011, United States
• Open hours: From 9 am to 10 pm

DUMBO, Brooklyn

DUMBO, short for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, is a famous neighborhood in Brooklyn. Nestled along the East River, it boasts a distinctive blend of historic charm and modern vibrancy, thanks to its cobblestone streets, converted warehouses, and stunning views of the Manhattan skyline characterize this waterfront enclave.

DUMBO is a hub for art, culture, and innovation, hosting numerous galleries, boutiques, and tech startups. Visitors can revel in the enchanting scenery of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, enjoy a scenic stroll along the waterfront, and savor culinary delights at trendy eateries. DUMBO encapsulates Brooklyn's dynamic spirit, making it a compelling destination to explore.

It's possible to reach DUMBO by crossing the Brooklyn Bridge walking or by bike

Washington Square Park

Locals and tourists looking for an urban oasis amidst America's most populous city can find it at Washington Square Park. The place is a cultural crossroads, offering a serene respite, captivating ambiance, and a front-row seat to the lively spirit of Greenwich Village.

Located in Manhattan, the Washington Square Park features the iconic Washington Arch, a historic landmark. Trees, gardens, and a central fountain surround visitors. The park's bohemian atmosphere, abuzz with musicians, artists, and locals, lends it a dynamic character. The stunning arch frames views of the surrounding cityscape, adding to its allure.

• Address : Washington Square, New York, NY 10012, United States

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is often referred to as "The Met" (Yes, the same place that hosts the famous Met Gala). The museum is an architectural and cultural masterpiece in New York City thanks to its grand Beaux-Arts façade.

Beyond its architecture, the Met features a worldwide collection representing 5,000 years of history. Visitors admire over two million works, from ancient artifacts to contemporary masterpieces. The museum's diverse exhibits, including European paintings, Egyptian antiquities, and Asian art, offer a global journey through artistic expression.

• Address : 1000 5th Ave, New York, NY 10028, USA
• Admission fees: $30 for adults, $22 for seniors, $17 for students
• Open hours: From Sunday to Thursday - 10 am to 5 pm; Friday and Sunday from 10 am to 9 pm

Central Park

Central Park is one of New York's most iconic attractions. People from all over the world visit to admire its beauty, and the best part - is that Central Park is free, and there are many ways to spend time there . This park is famous for its landscape design and is one of the city's most beautiful places. The park offers many things to do and see, where visitors can spend hours discovering different areas with some of the most picturesque views.

• The Central Park has 843 acres

Old City Hall Subway Station

With some of the most beautiful places in New York - Old City Hall Subway Station is a must-see when visiting the city. Initially opening in 1904, this hidden subway station has a mesmerizing architectural build and is a beautiful way to see New York's historical public transportation system. It is located at the end of the six-train line, and tours are available for guests who want to visit the old subway station.

• Admission fees: Between $35 and $50

Related: New York City's Springtime Waterways: Exploring The City's Rivers & Harbors On Boat Tours

Statue Of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty is a historical attraction in the city - a neoclassical structure that offers some of the most beautiful views in the city. People worldwide visit to witness the statue and all its beauty. With some of the prettiest parts of New York one can explore , a trip to the Statue of Liberty will show visitors the rich history of New York City. This is one of the best locations to take amazing pictures!

• Ferry fees: $12 (Children), $24.50 (Adult), $18 (Senior)
• Pedestal access: $12.30 (Children), $24.80 (Adult), $18.30 (Senior)

Prospect Park

New York City has some of the most beautiful parks, not just Central Park. Prospect Park is in Brooklyn, New York, and is home to a breathtaking green space in the city. From excellent trails, a botanical garden, waterfalls, and a zoo - Prospect Park is a must-visit when discovering beautiful areas in New York City. Whether walking in the park or having a picnic with family and friends, it's a lovely way to spend some time in the city's gorgeous outdoors.

• Famous events: Evening Under the Sphere, FallFur Picnic, Harvest Moon Circle

Brooklyn Bridge

Take a trip to Brooklyn Bridge to see one of the most iconic bridges in New York. Visiting New York's beautiful and historic attractions is one of the best parts of traveling in the city. Brooklyn Bridge’s stunning architectural build shows the city's vast history. It's a beautiful way to walk along the bridge, with many opportunities to take pictures and view the city's skyline.

It's possible to cross the Brooklyn Bridge using the pedestrian walkway.

Edge Observation Deck

Edge Observation Deck is an attraction in New York City that offers some of the most mesmerizing views of the city. It is 100 stories high and is a beautiful way to immerse in the city's beauty. It is one of the best ways to see the city's beauty from a high point. A trip to the Edge will be the experience of a lifetime with its glass floors, breathtaking 360-degree views of the city, and a bar for enjoyment.

• Address: 30 Hudson Yards, New York, NY 10001, United States

Related: Flavors Of New York State: Discovering 10 Must-Try Cuisines In New York City

New York is home to some of the most iconic neighborhoods. SoHo is a neighborhood worth visiting for those who want to experience New York's beautiful streets and breathtaking buildings. From art galleries, shops, street vendors, restaurants, a nightlife scene, and so much more - there is much to see and discover in this beautiful neighborhood in New York City.

• Things to do: Museum of Ice Cream, The Museum of Modern Art, Housing Works Bookstore

Madison Square Park

Home to some of the most beautiful parks - Madison Square Park is high on the list of New York's mesmerizing outdoor spaces. It is a fantastic place to visit to walk and enjoy New York in the spring. For nature lovers, the park offers various greenery to escape the busy city life. Whether taking a small snack or enjoying time with family or friends, it will be a beautiful and relaxing experience in the city.

• Address : 11 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10010, United States

Times Square

Times Square is one of the most popular destinations in New York City. People worldwide travel to see its iconic lights, billboards, buildings, and so much more. It is a must-visit when touring the city to see the town's beauty and all it is known for. Offering many shops and restaurants, the area has much to do and see, with many opportunities for pictures. Times Square is one of New York's most busy and thrilling areas and is worth experiencing for those traveling to the city!

The most common and convenient way to reach Times Square is by subway. Multiple subway lines, including the 1, 2, 3, 7, N, Q, R, and S lines, serve the Times Square-42nd Street station.

Related: 10 Top-Rated Museums In New York City That Should Be On Your List

New York Public Library - Stephen A. Schwarzman Building

Visit the New York City Public Library to get views of its stunning architecture and immerse in the city's history. This extensive library is a charming destination to discover New York's diverse beauty and experience all the city's spaces. With a fantastic collection of books and areas to discover inside and outside the library, it is one of the most beautiful places to visit in New York City.

• Address: 476 Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street