Public Art
Lots of free art to explore - some of it touchable & climbable – at NYC's site-specific art installations in parks, galleries and stores. Also see our kid-friendly museum guide, ideas for making art at home and all sorts of free events.
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MIDTOWN
Gilded Lady Mural
The myriad of details in this colorful 97 by 40-foot mural by famed street artist Tristan Eaton on the side of a residential building on Fifth Avenue in reference the rich history of the NoMad neighborhood from the Gilded Age onward. The woman’s face is based on early 20th-century model, chorus girl and catalyst for…
The New York Public Library’s Treasures
See some of the most extraordinary items from the 56 million in the New York Public Library’s collections of the last 125+ years. Encounter manuscripts, artworks, letters, still and moving images, recordings, and more that bring vividly to life voices of the past. Highlight’s include the stuffed inspiration for Winnie-the-Pooh and Thomas Jefferson’s handwritten copy…
MoMA First Floor & Sculpture Garden
No ticket is needed to visit MoMA’s first floor including a lovely Sculpture Garden with a range of interesting statues (and a Paris Metro station entrance). Wander across marble stairs and bridges, throw a penny in the fountain, and bring a picnic or get ice cream and snacks from a stand in the…
Never Alone: Video Games and Other Interactive Design
Explore notable examples of interaction design, the points of contact between objects—whether machines, apps, or entire infrastructures—and people. Watch video games such as Tetris and Pac-Man, to immersive explorations of the natural world, like Flower, and records of indigenous traditions and culture, like Never Alone. Works ranges from the iconic and universal @ sign, a symbol dating back to…
Ancestor
Artist Bharti Kher connects New Delhi and New York City with this nearly eighteen-foot-tall bronze universal mother figure, an enlargement of a miniature assembled by recomposing broken clay figurines. This colossal sculpture reflects Kher’s cross-cultural identity and her appreciation for India’s rich material culture. Every meaning-laden detail and distressed surface of the original hand-crafted object…
Refik Anadol’s Unsupervised
See what a machine might dream about after seeing the art in MoMA’s collection in a trippy, vibrant large-scale digital video in the museum’s lobby produced by artificial intelligence.
Artist Refik Anadol trained a sophisticated machine-learning model to reimagine more than 200 years of arts. Site-specific input from the environment —changes in light, movement, acoustics,…
Shahzia Sikander: Havah…to breathe, air, life
Walk through forty-nine haunting Atlantic white cedar trees evoking the outsized impact of a looming environmental calamity in Maya Lin's installation in Madison Square Park Listen to Lin's Ghost Forest Soundscape from your phone to hear native species of animals...
Hippo Ballerina & Friends
See a smaller version of Danish artist Bjørn Okholm Skaarup’s whimsical Hippo Ballerina previously seen in Dante Park and Pershing Square, along with Hippo Ballerina, pirouette and Rhino Harlequin, pirouette. These outdoor installations are part of his Commedia dell’arte series.
Macy’s Flower Show
Macy’s annual ode to springtime returns, with thousands of stunning flowers & lush plants transforming the flagship store into a colorful destination.
A dreamscape of fluffy clouds, whimsical floral landscapes and other playful, whimsical displays feature several gravity-defying elements.
In partnership with Dior, a scent-sational installation on the balcony level takes spectators on a journey…
CHELSEA/MEATPACKING
Kobra Street Art Gandhi & Mother Teresa Mural
Humanitarians Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi Brazilian are depicted facing each other in street artist Eduardo Kobra’s colorful harlequin-pattern mural.
Kobra Street Art Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein is a NY-loving graffitist in street artist Eduardo Kobra’s colorful harlequin-pattern mural.
DVF x Ashley Longshore Gallery
See Ashley Longshore’s paintings of inspirational women including Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Jackie Kennedy, Marlene Dietrich, Cleopatra, Oprah, Gloria Steinem, Nina Simone, Amelia Earhart, Rosa Parks and Jane Goodall in a photogenic gallery at the Diane von Furstenberg store.
Kobra Street Art: Warhol, Kahlo, Haring & Bastiquiat
Artists Andy Warhol, Jean Michelle Basquiat, Keith Haring and Frida Kahlo come together in street artist Eduardo Kobra’s colorful mural that incorporates each artists’ unique style.
High Line Art
See world-class art projects on and around the High Line, in dialogue with the nature and city scape of the unique park
Current highlights include:
* You know who I am (16th St), the Statue of Liberty recreated by Paola Pivi, wearing a playful emoji-inspired masks that changes every few months.
* NYC LOVE…
High Line Nine: Kenny Nguyen: Home/land
Explore a collection of sky-lit galleries with a rotating cross-section of culture. Watch resident artists create (behind glass) and see finished work in a variety of mediums.
In Kenny Nguyen: Home/land, the galleries’ back wall is covered in a gradient of silk that is simultaneously colorful painting, textile, and sculpture.
Tony Oursler: mAcHiNe E.L.F.
Enter an immersive forest of giant crystals reflecting whirling digital video imagery from an overhead projection. Shaped mirrors and refraction screens amplify and colorize the images from different angles. Combining new and archival footage with interventions from AI technology, Oursler explores a series of poetically associated themes in the work, including the digital sublime, melting…
Reviving the Pop Shop
See and shop Keith Haring’s iconography in a tribute to his famous “Pop Shop” store, previously located at 292 Lafayette St in downtown Manhattan. Browse vintage items including clothing and jewelry, Haring’s art-themed merchandise such as stickers and post-cards, to actual wall fragments of the Pop Shop interior – famously painted from floor to ceiling…
Edward Burtynsky – African Studies
See stunning large-format photographs conveying the fragility of the natural world, bringing together images of lush, undisturbed landscapes and environments irretrievably altered by industry. Mostly photographed from aerial perspectives, Sub-Saharan Africa’s diverse topography forms graphic patterns and gradients of sumptuous color.
Since the early 1980s, Edward Burtynsky has been photographing industrial landscapes across the globe,…
Helen Frankenthaler – Drawing within Nature: Paintings from the 1990s
See twelve paintings and two large-scale works on paper by painting pioneer Helen Frankenthaler. See her famous soak-stained canvases, some of an unexpectedly large size from this art giant’s final decade,
DOWNTOWN
Wilson NYC Flagship
Play in a 6,400-square-foot atrium in the new Wilson NYC Flagship store. Hit tennis balls, shoot hoops on an indoor court and test out products among cool design.
In-store services include racket stringing, leather ball customization, and glove personalization.
Mon-Sat 11 am–8 pm
Sun 11 am–6 pm
SEAPORT/FIDI
imagiNATIONS Activity Center
Solve puzzles, perform experiments, play state-of-the-art computer simulations and find out how corn is like a dog in this interactive, family-friendly space. Explore scientific principles behind Native innovations and technologies that are so ingenious, many remain a part of our daily lives.
XO World & XO Play
XO WORLD (outside One World Trade Center) features a giant globe and 12 foot “Jack” from the game of Jacks (the “X” with crossed arms attached to the spoke to represent love).
Created by Daniel Anderson, an internationally recognized artist inspired by children’s natural acceptance of others regardless of race, gender, age, or religious preference.
Dubuffet Sculpture
An office tower plaza features a dynamic Jean Dubuffet sculpture and a peaceful Noguchi rock garden fountain.
Art Walk at Brookfield Place
Look for works ranging from oil on canvas to handmade ceramics throughout the 40-foot palms and glass atrium in this shopping and office complex.
In addition to a permanent collection on view, new artists exhibit their work throughout the year. Right now see Rashid Johnson’s Untitled Broken Crowd, a monumental tile mosaic composed of handmade ceramics, wood, brass, oyster shells, spray paint, wax, soap, and mirrors. Look fir wild and agitated faces, fractured both metaphorically and physically.
Download an art map/guide for details and exact locations.
Trinity Church
An active Episcopal church, built in 1846 on the site of a congregation founded in 1697, welcomes visitors of all faiths to a Gothic Revival style building where Founding Fathers worshiped. Peek in at lovely stain-glassed windows.
In the picturesque graveyard, visit the final resting place of notable early Americans including Alexander Hamilton, Eliza Hamilton and Angelica Schuyler Church. The Soldiers’ Monument honors of Revolutionary War soldiers held in captivity in NYC and thought to be buried at Trinity.
Geo
Walk through a dazzling 30-by-10-foot dome is filled with brightly colored corridors made of rope intended to echo the towering urban landscape. Explore winding, playful avenues made of steel frames and over five miles of fluorescent paracord.
Created by design studio Hou de Sousa, also responsible for the colorful climbable installation Ziggy.
James Hsieh: No Place I’d Rather Be
Vibrant embroideries and hand-sewn textile sculptures by multi-disciplinary artist James Hsieh juxtapose childlike wonderments with adult thoughts and emotions in 28 Liberty’s ground-level amphitheater and retail space. Walk though fantastical nature in immersive environments and watch whimsical animations on oversized screens.
See the artists at work Mondays & Tuesdays from 12-6 pm.
Presented with Art on the Ave NYC, a nonprofit community initiative, provides artists with a platform to share their work with the local community.
The Water Arch
Come to the Seaport Museum to take part in this free hands-on art installation that highlights the ever-increasing use of clean drinking water in an intriguing and immersive way.
Created by the Netherlands-based pioneer in media design, Dropstuff Media, The Water Arch is an abstraction of a classic barrel organ. Standing at the center of the piece, turn a wheel to pump over 35 gallons of water throughout the clear pipes and receptacles to have it rain down around you, without getting you wet. The amount of water symbolizes the average volume used by a Dutch person every day––but Americans use more than double this amount of water on a daily basis.
UPTOWN
Cathedral of St. John the Divine & Peace Fountain
HarlemThe largest Cathedral in the world, built in 1892, is open for visitors Monday-Friday 9:30 am–3 pm and Saturday–Sunday 9:30 am-5 pm. Timed tickets strongly encouraged.
Explore rotating art exhibitions that span centuries, celebrating the creativity of 17th century weavers to modern painters and everything in between. 48 relief panels on the giant bronze…
Ancestor
Central ParkArtist Bharti Kher connects New Delhi and New York City with this nearly eighteen-foot-tall bronze universal mother figure, an enlargement of a miniature assembled by recomposing broken clay figurines. This colossal sculpture reflects Kher’s cross-cultural identity and her appreciation for India’s rich material culture. Every meaning-laden detail and distressed surface of the original hand-crafted object…
Boundless: 10 Years of Seeding Black Comic Futures
HarlemCelebrate the tenth anniversary of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture’s Black Comic Book Festival with photographs, memorabilia, creator highlights, comic book reading stations, and clips from past festival programs. Drawn from the Schomburg Center’s archival collections, this exhibition illuminates the long history of Black comics and sequential art creators and their motivations…
The Wondrous Willa Kim: Costume Designs for Actors and Dancers
Upper West Side-Lincoln CenterAdmire an assortment of designs and costumes from costume designer Willa Kim long and prolific career, including work from productions like Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies, The Will Rogers Follies, and her final Broadway show, Victor/Victoria starring Julie Andrews.
From her earliest designs to her very last production, Kim demonstrated her gift for creating whimsical costumes by using extraordinary combinations…
What That Quilt Knows About Me
Upper West Side-Lincoln CenterExplore the deeply personal and emotional power associated with the experience of making and living with quilts through 35 quilts and related works of art. Look for intimate stories revealing a range of poignant and sometimes unexpected biographies, from a pair of enslaved sisters in antebellum Kentucky to a convalescent British soldier during the Crimean…
BROOKLYN
Green-Wood
Sunset ParkThis historic cemetery (founded in 1838) is a lovely place to wander, with 478 spectacular acres of hills, valleys, glacial ponds and paths, plus gorgeous views of the Manhattan skyline and extraordinary 19th- and 20th-century statuary and mausoleums.
* Honor famous permanent residents such as Leonard Bernstein, Boss Tweed, Charles Ebbets, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louis Comfort…
Art at Industry City
Sunset ParkFind sparkly disco-inspired installations in the courtyards and buildings of this happening design hub.
Also take a photo in the arty elevators, go on a colorful hunt with a printable art map and see pretty decor (and tasty food) at Japan Village.
See our guides to eating, arcade games and more…
Art in Dumbo Open Studios
DUMBO, Downtown & HeightsArtists in DUMBO open their doors to the public, giving visitors a look into studios and workspaces across the Brooklyn waterfront. Interactive guides to help you decide where to start, written by the staff at DUMBO arts organizations including A.I.R. Gallery, Higher Pictures Generation, Undercurrent, and more. Known for its high density of artist studios,…
QUEENS
Queens Botanical Garden
Queens: Corona/FlushingExplore lovely gardens in a 39-acre oasis in one of New York City’s most bustling and diverse neighborhoods.
Look for site-specific art throughout the garden including a reflective, life-sized kaleidoscope and a beautiful mural ‘Wonder Garden’ outside the Education Building.
Closed Mondays (except holidays).