Free things to do in New York City: Art exhibitions
Discover gratis art exhibitions and gallery shows in our roundup of free things to do for the art-seeking set.
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Free things to do in NYC: Your guide to gratis entertainment
Looking for some free things to do, art enthusiasts? Thought so. Which is why we found a bunch of exhibitions at galleries and museums throughout the city that won’t cost you a cent.
RECOMMENDED: Full list of free things to do in NYC
Elizabeth Neel, "3 and 4 Before 2 and 5"
- Critics choice
- Free
Negative space is the place in these oil- and spray-paint abstractions, featuring voids left by strips of masking tape and other objects and materials used as stencils. The artist is the granddaughter of painter Alice Neel.
- Sikkema Jenkins & Co. 530 W 22nd St, between Tenth and Eleventh Aves
- Wed May 22
Kara Walker
- Free
Race and abasement are, as usual, the themes in this silhouetted mural by Walker, dated 2010.
- Sikkema Jenkins & Co. 530 W 22nd St, between Tenth and Eleventh Aves
- Wed May 22
Ugo Rondinone, Human Nature
- Critics choice
- Free
Rondinone goes paleolithic with this grouping of monumental megalithic figures for Rockefeller Plaza; they're a modern Stone Age family.
- Public Art Fund at Rockefeller Center Plaza 45 Rockefeller Plaza, between 49th and 50th Sts and Fifth and Sixth Aves
- Thu May 23 - Fri Jun 7
Orly Genger, Red, Yellow and Blue
- Critics choice
- Free
Intricately hand-knotted nautical rope is used to build this outdoor work, which encloses select areas of Madison Square Park with a series of undulating walls painted the primary colors.
- Madison Square Park E 23rd St to E 26th St, between Fifth and Madison Aves
- Thu May 23 - Sun Sep 8
"Busted"
- Free
Ditch the stuffy museums and head to the High Line, where you can see a number of sculptures that riff on portraits and monuments, created by nine artists from around the world. Think Roman forum, but with a waft of humor and a contemporary spin. Works you’ll see among the benches and greenery include a bronze satyr, Colin Powell and a giant nose. Sculptors represented include Frank Benson, Steven Claydon, George Condo, Mark Grotjahn, Sean Landers, Goshka Macuga, Ruby Neri, Amalia Pica and Andra Ursuta.
- The High Line Washington St at Gansevoort St, to Tenth Ave at 30th St
- Thu May 23 - Wed Sep 18
"Maya Lin: Here and There"
- Critics choice
- Free
Water, its relationship to climate change and its growing scarcity in parts of the world are the subjects touched upon by these sculptures depicting various lakes and rivers in Africa and Europe by the designer of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.
- Pace Gallery 32 E 57th St, between Madison and Park Aves
- Thu May 23 - Sat Jun 22
"Henry Wessel: Incidents"
- Critics choice
- Free
Wessel's black-and-white photos capture ordinary people doing unremarkable things, but often at a distance which makes their actions seem pregnant with meaning.
- Pace/MacGill 32 E 57th St, between Madison and Park Aves, ninth floor
- Thu May 23 - Sat Jun 15
"Infinity of Nations: Art and History in the Collections of the National Museum of the American Indian"
- Critics choice
- Free
Presenting a diverse range of artistic output by natives of North, Central and South America, the permanent exhibition includes approximately 700 pieces spanning thousands of years. Tykes can gape at headdresses, 2,000-year-old duck decoys created by peoples in the Great Basin, elaborate masks from the Northwest Coast, and Olmec and Mayan carvings.
- National Museum of the American Indian Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, 1 Bowling Green, between State and Whitehall Sts
- Thu May 23 - Tue Dec 31
Paul McCarthy
- Critics choice
- Free
One of the godfathers of L.A. art (or at least the branch that treats pop culture as one big wallow in sexual abjection), McCarthy has certainly made his contribution, with sculptures of cute Santa figures wielding butt-plugs and depictions of the Seven Dwarves with flacid penises for noses. But more than that, his work sends up America’s glorification of masculinity. With two galleries at his his disposal, expect something big and disturbing.
- Hauser & Wirth New York 511 W 18th St, between Tenth and Eleventh Aves, 1011
- Thu May 23 - Sat Jul 27
"Richard Serra: Early Work"
- Rated as: 5/5
- Critics choice
- Free
Mighty oaks, as they say, grow from tiny acorns, but judging from “Richard Serra: Early Work,” the nut that germinated the famed sculptor’s career was a hefty one. David Zwirner’s museum-quality survey takes viewers back to the downtown scene of the late 1960s, when a gritty New York spawned many of the methods being used by contemporary artists around the globe. Video, performance, installation, site-specific and process art were all part of a messy reaction against the slickness of Pop Art and Minimalism. Serra was in the thick of the action, but as this exhibition demonstrates, his audacity and single-minded vision set him apart almost immediately. The latter might be described as a kind formal absolutism, which suffuses all of the sculptures here, though most of them are modestly sized compared with Serra’s more recent efforts. At a mere eight by ten inches, a 1967 drawing titled Verb List serves as the Rosetta stone of his artistic approach, offering a taxonomy of simple actions—to crease, to roll, to fold—that have more or less governed his output. Tantamount among these, arguably, is the dictate to impress. Though Serra’s work has earned him the sobriquet “Man of Steel,” the front gallery shows his experiments with more malleable materials, such as lead, rubber fiberglass and neon tubing. Nonetheless, the four lead plates leaning against each other to form 1969’s One Ton Prop (House of Cards), as well as the 8-by-24-foot sheet of steel wedged into a corner of the secon
- David Zwirner 537 W 20th St, between Tenth and Eleventh Aves, 10011
- Thu May 23 - Sat Jun 15
