A local's guide to art and the city life around it, starting in downtown NYC.

The coolest art spaces with the warmest welcomes. The neighborhood spots where locals eat, drink, shop, and talk art. Get ready to live your best artlife, and dive into the soul of the city.

The Go-To's

The art spaces with cult status. Say hello to your first and forever stops.

ArtLower East Side

56 HENRY

There’s a renegade spirit at play here. A feeling that the party is just about to get started. And it's infectious.

ArtLower East Side

601Artspace

Free-thinking young curators and artists light up the truth at this experimental non-profit on Eldridge Street.

ArtLower East Side

Bridget Donahue Gallery

Playful, boundary-merging art reflecting on the rituals of everyday life, set against the backdrop of an old-school loft space on the Bowery.

ArtNoHo

Eric Firestone Gallery

Bold, colorful work by artists who have been making waves since the ‘70s. The energy, like the 70s, is groovy, sensual, and rebellious.

ArtLower East Side

Francois Ghebaly New York

At this LA transplant, artists eschew fantasies of fame for surreal reinvention in this single room gallery behind a mid-century shopping mall.

ArtEast Village

Grey Art Museum

Global, diverse, and interdisciplinary exhibitions propel the conversation forward at NYU’s museum in history-drenched Cooper Square.

ArtEast Village

Karma Gallery

This gallery, bookstore, and publishing house is pioneering a genre. Enjoy gentle, slow art that invites you to pause and step back from the fast pace of life.

ArtLower East Side

Miguel Abreu

Poetic, philosophically-minded art in a sun-flooded storefront on Orchard and a cavernous floor-thru loft on Eldridge. The light in the space meets the light in the work.

ArtLower East Side

Museum on Eldridge Street

Neighborhood history is revived in rotating exhibitions at this restored Synagogue from 1887. Don’t miss the glorious starry night rose window by contemporary artist Kiki Smith.

ArtLittle Italy

PARTICIPANT INC

A locally loved, black box (i.e. not white cube) alternative art space with superb shows of historic activist work and underground emerging artists.

ArtLower East Side

Perrotin

A former fabric shop turned global art playground, Perrotin keeps Orchard Street buzzing with color, wit, and spectacle.

ArtLower East Side

Reena Spaulings Fine Art

The brainchild of a very real collective of artists that is every bit as glamorous and mysterious as its fictitious literary namesake.

ArtLower East Side

Sperone Westwater

Three exhibition spaces across a five-story, starchitect designed building. The best of American and Italian conceptual art and photography since 1975.

ArtEast Village

Swiss Institute

Get your brain whirring with global, Intellectual art, at this free museum smack dab in the center of St Mark’s Place.

ArtEast Village

The Hole

Joyful, irreverent, and unfiltered. The Hole is where the conversations never end, and the party is just getting started.

Rising Galleries

Want to see where art is heading next? These are the places to watch.

ArtLower East Side

Below Grand

In a display window and closet in a Chinese kitchen supply store on Orchard Street and a storefront on Allen Street, artist-and-curator rebels stage experimental shows that stretch art world rules.

ArtLittle Italy

Company Gallery

Get immersed in utopian futures with feminist and queer art and artists at this graffiti-covered street-level gallery with subterranean speakeasy.

ArtLower East Side

Derosia

Self-aware, socially-motivated (but never shouty) paintings plug you into the here and now on the second-floor of an office building in the heart of Little Italy.

ArtLower East Side

Elliott Templeton Fine Arts

The highly covetable, highly aesthetic art in a two-room Henry Street gallery named for a fictional gay art dealer can be summed in one word: romantic.

ArtLower East Side

Entrance

The spirit of the zine and DIY maker-culture collides with exquisite taste in this sunny storefront gallery with basement on Ludlow Street.

ArtLower East Side

Foreign & Domestic

Process is worshipped in this bunker-like basement gallery, which champions local and international artists and the immigrant-powered spirit of the LES.

ArtEast Village

Half Gallery

In the mood for love? Head to this glass-walled gallery where desire and fantasy simmer beneath the surface. If art were an aphrodisiac…

ArtLower East Side

Hannah Traore

A spectrum of artists of color push boundaries, subvert labels, and start conversations at this womb-like subterranean space on Orchard Street.

ArtLower East Side

King's Leap

A rising generation of artists whose shared techno and Tumblr experiences splinter into dystopian visions, futuristic dreams, and meta commentaries on 21st-century life.

ArtChinatown

Management

Otherworldly, metaphysical works blur the boundaries between mysticism and philosophy on the fourth floor of a Chinatown office building.

ArtEast Village

MARCH

East Village vibes meet Southern warmth inside this double-wide storefront on Avenue A, where you can expect a mix of NYC up-and-comers and artists exploring Black craftsmanship.

ArtChinatown

Ulrik

Take the pulse of the new New York scene at this spacious, sunny second-floor gallery overlooking Canal Street where artistic careers are launched and revitalized.

Explore Art Life

Discover galleries, museums, and project spaces and fun stuff to do nearby the art on our Directory, which is organized as mapped walkable tours and experiences.

The Specialists

Art spaces where distinct ideas, subcultures, or communities are championed.

ArtLower East Side

Bitforms

A stage for celebrating technology, not as a problem-solving tool, but as an artistic medium – in all its beauty and brilliance.

ArtLower East Side

Fridman Gallery

An open-arms gallery showcasing atmospheric paintings with spiritual vibes. Also home to the experimental sound studio, New Ear Inc.

ArtLower East Side

LAAMS

Art, books, clothes, and records are floor to ceiling at this Orchard Street gallery, steeped in graffiti and skater vibes. Firmly by the neighborhood, for the neighborhood.

ArtLower East Side

Olfactory Art Keller

Immerse yourself in scent as an art form in this innovative Chinatown gallery directed by neurologist-philosopher Andreas Keller.

ArtLower East Side

Steven Harvey Fine Arts

Explore the rigors and elegance of painting at this tiny storefront on leafy green Forsyth Street. Sign up for their Zoom art talks with local critics.

ArtLower East Side

Westwood Gallery

A neighborhood-embedded gallery showcasing artists whose work will transport you to the factory lofts and artist’s studios of iconic ‘70s and ‘80s Bowery.