Online Guide to the New York Craig Roland ArtScene
If you’re planning to attend the
National Art Education Association conference in New York
City in March, be sure to set
time aside to check out the New
York art scene. Whether you prefer
ancient art, contemporary art, or
something in between, there is a
New York art museum or gallery to
suit your taste. Here is a list of some
of New York’s most popular art
museums and galleries, along with
a few other useful resources to help
plan your trip to the Big Apple.
NYC Art Museums
Only a block away from the conference hotel, the Museum of Modern Art has over 150,000 art and
design objects
in its collection including
such must-see
works as van
Gogh’s The
Starry Night,
Picasso’s Les
Desmoiselles
d’Avignon,
Pollock’s
Lavender Mist, and
Warhol’s Soup
Cans. Down
the street from
MoMA, is the
American Folk
Art Museum, where you can see
early American folk art as well
works by contemporary self-taught
artists.
Venturing further away from the
conference hotel, the Metropolitan
Museum of Art is definitely worth
a visit. While it would take days to
see everything in the Metropolitan,
which spans four city blocks, give
yourself a full morning or afternoon
to take in the exhibits you most
want to see. To prepare for your
visit to the Metropolitan, you can
visit the museum’s Web site and
view floor plans of the museum,
find out about special exhibitions,
and even download audio guides to
listen to on your computer or MP3
player.
About seven blocks up from the
Metropolitan
Museum on
5th Avenue
you’ll find
the Guggenheim Museum
and the Cooper-Hewitt
National
Design
Museum, each
of which are
(over 300 galleries) you need to give
yourself several hours to visit as
many galleries as you can. At the
Chelsea galleries Web site, you can
preview new shows in the district
and create, save, and print out your
own gallery walk to prepare for your
visit.
New York City Subways
Once you’ve decided on the museums and galleries you’d like to visit
while in New York, you need to
determine how you’ll get to them.
The New York
City subway is
the fastest, easiest, and least
expensive way
to get around
the city. Before
leaving home,
I recommend
printing your
own map of the
subway routes
to find subway
directions for
your trips around the city. See you
in the Big Apple!
www.whitney.org
possible to do in
an hour or two. If
you’re interested
in American
art don’t miss
the Whitney
Museum of
American Art,
which is seven
blocks down
from the Metropolitan and one
block over on
Madison Avenue.
Lastly, for a
unique viewing experience check
out the Frick Collection, which
includes a diverse range of Western
painting, sculpture, and decorative
arts displayed in the 5th Avenue
mansion of Henry Clay Frick.
Craig Roland is an associate professor of
art education in the School of Art and Art
History at the University of Florida in
Gainesville, Florida. He is the author of
The Art Teacher’s Guide to the Internet
(Davis, 2005). rolandc@ufl.edu
www.frick.org
Chelsea Gallery District
If you’re interested in contemporary
art, you should head for Chelsea’s
gallery district located mostly
between 10th and 11th avenues
with the greatest concentration of
galleries between 20th and 27th
streets. Since the district is so large
Museum of Modern Art
www.moma.org
American Folk Art Museum
www.folkartmuseum.org
Metropolitan Museum of Art
www.metmuseum.org
Solomon R. Guggenhein Museum
www.guggenheim.org
Cooper-Hewitt National Design
Museum ndm.si.edu
Whitney Museum of American Art
www.whitney.org
Frick Collection www.frick.org
Chelsea Gallery District
chelseaartgalleries.com
New York City Subways
www.nycsubway.org/maps
