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
"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
- Sat May 25 - Wed Sep 18
"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
- Sat May 25 - 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
- Sat May 25 - 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
- Sat May 25 - Sat Jun 15
Martin Boyce, "It's Over and Over"
- Critics choice
- Free
This Glaswegian artist and winner of the 2011 Turner Prize makes evocative sculptures with a smooth midcentury vibe, suggesting a mash-up of Noguchi, Calder and early-career Ellsworth Kelly. The works here include a table-cum-lantern contraption, as well as photos taken aboard an aircraft, which depict a window-shaped patch of sunlight moving across the plane's interior.
- Tanya Bonakdar Gallery 521 W 21st St, between Tenth and Eleventh Aves
- Sat May 25
Hannah Starkey, "In the company of Mothers"
- Critics choice
- Free
Women and their children are the subjects of these latest photos by Starkey, an Irish artist working in London, who is known for staged color images burnished with a cinematic sheen.
- Tanya Bonakdar Gallery 521 W 21st St, between Tenth and Eleventh Aves
- Sat May 25
Elizabeth Peyton, "Klara 13 Pictures"
- Critics choice
- Free
Werner presents Peyton's portraits of fellow artist Klara Liden, a frequent subject over the past four years.
- Michael Werner 4 E 77th St, between Fifth and Madison Aves
- Sat May 25 - Sat Jun 15
Ellsworth Kelly, "Singular Forms 1966–2009"
- Critics choice
- Free
Kelly offers a master class in how to make art that holds a wall with these shaped monochrome reliefs, each painted a different bold color.
- Mnuchin Gallery 45 E 78th St, between Madison and Park Aves, 10075
- Sat May 25 - Sat Jun 1
"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
- Sat May 25 - Sat Jun 22
Simon Hantaï
- Critics choice
- Free
The Hungarian-born French abstractionist came to his adopted country shortly after World War II, and his work betrays traces of the significant movements from the early postwar era, including late Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Art Informel. His paintings are distinguished by his signature technique (which he called “pliage”), a form of tie-dye that creates pronounced interplays between positive and negative space, resulting in an overall compositional effect that feels as botanical as it is geometric. The selection here comprises never-before-seen works.
- Paul Kasmin Gallery 515 W 27th St, between Tenth and Eleventh Aves
- Sat May 25 - Sat Jun 15
