CELEBRATE SPRING AT THE WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART WITH FREE ADMISSION AND PROGRAMS
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The Whitney Museum now offers free admission and programming every Friday from 5–10 pm and on the second Sunday of every month, and is always free for visitors age 25 and under!
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Experience artist Amy Sherald’s iconic portraits in the landmark exhibition American Sublime, the must-see event of New York City’s spring season!
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New York, NY, March 27, 2025 — Steps away from the High Line and Chelsea Market in New York City’s vibrant Meatpacking District, the Whitney Museum of American Art is the perfect spring destination for visitors of all ages to immerse themselves in art, culture, and all that NYC has to offer. The Whitney presents soaring views of the famous city skyline via four stories of outdoor balcony terraces and awe-inspiring architecture amid its collection of masterworks by leading American artists like Jean-Michel Basqiat, Edward Hopper, Jacob Lawrence, and Georgia O'Keeffe, along with cutting-edge exhibitions featuring today's most celebrated contemporary artists. This spring and summer, the Whitney will celebrate ten years in the Meatpacking District with Decade Downtown, featuring ten weeks of special programs and events beginning May 1, including dance parties, live music, DJ nights, tours, artmaking activities, and more!
The Whitney now offers free admission, artist-led programs, all-ages artmaking activities, and more to visitors from anywhere in the world on Free Friday Nights, every Friday from 5–10 pm, and Free Second Sundays on the second Sunday of every month. Free Friday Nights offer special programs and music, with delicious food and drinks available at the Museum’s new restaurants, Frenchette Bakery at the Whitney and Studio Bar. On Free Second Sundays, the Whitney offers free all-day admission to visitors, Story Time with The New York Public Library, and special programming for families and beyond. In addition, admission to the Whitney is now always free for visitors age 25 and under. Gather with family and friends to enjoy free programs and access to all exhibitions currently on view, including the critically acclaimed Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night and Shifting Landscapes.
This spring, plan a special visit to the Whitney to experience Amy Sherald: American Sublime (April 9–August 10), the artist’s debut solo exhibition at a New York museum and the most comprehensive showing of her work. American Sublime brings nearly fifty of Amy Sherald’s luminous paintings to New York, including her iconic portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama. This landmark exhibition celebrates Black life and identity while presenting never-before-seen works alongside Sherald’s most defining paintings.
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Masterpieces from the Whitney Collection
The Whitney houses the foremost collection of American art from the 20th and 21st centuries, with a special focus on the most innovative artists of our time. Iconic works by Lee Krasner, Norman Lewis, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and many more are now on view in The Whitney’s Collection: Selections from 1900 to 1965. This multi-year presentation also includes a panoramic installation of Alexander Calder’s Calder’s Circus, which New York magazine calls “one of the most fun, beloved, and radical works of 20th-century American art.”
Current and Upcoming Exhibitions
On view through July 6 across three floors of the Museum, Christine Sun Kim: All Day All Night is the artist’s first major museum survey. Co-organized by the Whitney Museum and Walker Art Center, this dynamic exhibition foregrounds how Christine Sun Kim utilizes sound, language, and the complexities of communication in her wide-ranging approach to artmaking. All Day All Night brings together works spanning 2011 to the present and features drawings, site-specific murals, paintings, video installations, and sculptures.
On view through January 2026, Shifting Landscapes explores how evolving political, ecological, and social issues motivate artists’ representations of the world around them. The 120 works by more than 80 artists—including Firelei Báez, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jane Dickson, Gordon Matta-Clark, Amalia Mesa-Bains, and Purvis Young—depict the effects of industrialization on the environment, grapple with the impact of geopolitical borders, and give shape to imagined spaces as a way of destabilizing the concept of a “natural” world.
Opening April 9, 2025, Amy Sherald: American Sublime brings together some fifty paintings by one of the foremost artists of our time. In her first major museum survey, Amy Sherald presents work from 2007 to the present, from her poetic early portraits to the incisive and moving figure paintings for which she is best known. Iconic portraits of former First Lady Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor—two of the most recognizable and significant paintings made by an American artist in recent years—are joined by early works, never or rarely seen by the public, and new work created specifically for this presentation.
More information about the current and upcoming exhibitions can be found at whitney.org/exhibitions.
Decade Downtown
This spring and summer, the Whitney presents Decade Downtown, a series of on-site public programs and events spanning ten weeks, starting in May 2025 and running through mid-July to celebrate ten years of the Whitney in the Meatpacking District. Since May 2015, the Museum has called this neighborhood home in its Renzo Piano–designed building at 99 Gansevoort Street. As part of a neighborhood rich in history, creativity, and cultural exchange, the Whitney has played an integral role in contributing to this vibrant cultural center on Manhattan’s West Side by bringing art, ideas, and community together with its state-of-the-art exhibitions, education programing, free admissions initiatives, and strong engagement with partner organizations and neighbors. To mark this exciting milestone and celebrate many more years to come, Decade Downtown will activate the Museum building and surrounding neighborhood with festivities for visitors of all ages. More information about Decade Downtown and updated program information is available on the Whitney’s website at whitney.org/decade-downtown.
Family and Public Programs
All year round, the Whitney hosts free art programming for kids and teens on weekends and a robust slate of public programs and events for visitors of all ages. This spring, the Whitney’s exciting lineup of free programs includes music and DJ sets at Free Friday Nights, open studios for teens, special all-ages artmaking sessions during Free Second Sundays, and more. More public program information can be found online at whitney.org/events.
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Frenchette Bakery and Studio Bar
As part of the Whitney’s reimagined food and beverage program, Frenchette Bakery opened a new flagship location, with its first-ever cafe in the Museum’s redesigned ground-floor restaurant space. The new Frenchette Bakery at the Whitney offers a grab-and-go bakery with a selection of on-premises-baked sweet and savory fare, as well as a sit-down, full-service cafe with pizzas, soups, salads, sandwiches, entrees, desserts, and a carefully selected wine, beer, and cocktail menu. The restaurant features a new installation from artist Rashid Johnson, a steel-grid sculpture laden with plants and ceramics, extending from within the Whitney out to the plaza.
In addition to the ground-floor restaurant, the Whitney worked with the team behind Frenchette on a new concept for the Museum’s eighth-floor cafe space. The newly revamped Studio Bar offers visitors a quiet space to take a break, recharge, have a snack or drink, and enjoy the Whitney’s terraces and views, all while remaining immersed in art. The eighth-floor space showcases a monumental artwork in mosaic tile by artist Dyani White Hawk.
Whitney Shop
The Whitney Shop offers unique items for art lovers of all ages and at a variety of price points, including apparel, accessories, home décor, and artmaking activities for emerging artists. Find one-of-a-kind designs by some of our favorite artists and makers, plus gifts inspired by acclaimed exhibitions and exclusive items available only at the Whitney! Shop online at shop.whitney.org or in-person at the Whitney Shop at 99 Gansevoort Street.
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About the Whitney’s Building
This spring, the Whitney Museum of American Art will celebrate the 10th anniversary of its building in downtown Manhattan's Meatpacking District, which opened to the public on May 1, 2015. Designed by renowned architect Renzo Piano and situated on Gansevoort Street between the High Line elevated park and the Hudson River, the new building greatly increased the Whitney's exhibition and programming space, providing the most expansive view ever of its unsurpassed collection of modern and contemporary American art. The building features outdoor galleries with striking views of the city and state-of-the-art facilities for performance, film, video, and education programs.
AAbout the Neighborhood
The Whitney Museum of American Art is the cultural anchor of the Meatpacking District, a twenty-square-block area on the far West Side of Manhattan. A neighborhood where old New York meets the electric pace of the 21st century, today the Meatpacking District is bustling with numerous architecture and design firms, fashion boutiques, high-tech companies, innovative public parks, and some of New York's most notable restaurants, bars, clubs, and hotels. The neighborhood is bordered by Chelsea, renowned for its art galleries, cultural organizations, and Chelsea Market. The Whitney is only a few steps from the High Line, one of New York City's most exceptional public parks located thirty feet above street level on a 1930s freight railway, as well as Little Island and Gansevoort Peninsula. Day and night, the cobblestone streets of the Meatpacking District are alive with culture. The Whitney recently transformed the artist Roy Lichtenstein’s nearby Greenwich Village studio into a new permanent home for its Independent Study Program, creating a dynamic space for creativity and scholarship.
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For press materials and image requests, please visit our press site at whitney.org/press or contact:
Emma LeHocky, Senior Publicist
Whitney Museum of American Art
(212) 671-1844
[email protected]
Benjamin Lipnick, Assistant Director, Tourism
Whitney Museum of American Art
(646) 666-5525
[email protected]
Whitney Press Office
whitney.org/press
(212) 570-3633
[email protected]
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The Whitney Museum of American Art, founded in 1930 by the artist and philanthropist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), houses the foremost collection of American art from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Mrs. Whitney, an early and ardent supporter of modern American art, nurtured groundbreaking artists when audiences were still largely preoccupied with the Old Masters. From her vision arose the Whitney Museum of American Art, which has been championing the most innovative art of the United States for ninety years. The core of the Whitney’s mission is to collect, preserve, interpret, and exhibit American art of our time and serve a wide variety of audiences in celebration of the complexity and diversity of art and culture in the United States. Through this mission and a steadfast commitment to artists, the Whitney has long been a powerful force in support of modern and contemporary art and continues to help define what is innovative and influential in American art today.
Whitney Museum Land Acknowledgment
The Whitney is located in Lenapehoking, the ancestral homeland of the Lenape. The name Manhattan comes from their word Mannahatta, meaning “island of many hills.” The Museum’s current site is close to land that was a Lenape fishing and planting site called Sapponckanikan (“tobacco field”). The Whitney acknowledges the displacement of this region’s original inhabitants and the Lenape diaspora that exists today.
As a museum of American art in a city with vital and diverse communities of Indigenous people, the Whitney recognizes the historical exclusion of Indigenous artists from its collection and program. The Museum is committed to addressing these erasures and honoring the perspectives of Indigenous artists and communities as we work for a more equitable future. To read more about the Museum’s Land Acknowledgment, visit the Museum’s website.
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The Whitney Museum of American Art is located at 99 Gansevoort Street between Washington and West Streets, New York City. Public hours are Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, 10:30 am–6 pm; Friday, 10:30 am–10 pm; and Saturday and Sunday, 10:30 am–6 pm. Closed Tuesday. Visitors twenty-five years and under and Whitney members: FREE. The Museum offers FREE admission and special programming for visitors of all ages every Friday evening from 5–10 pm and on the second Sunday of every month. Groups of ten or more enjoy discounted admission rates when they reserve in advance, and may request a private guided tour of the permanent collection or a special exhibition for an additional fee.
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