A local's guide to art and the city life around it.

The coolest art spaces with the warmest welcomes in downtown NYC. Plus the neighborhood spots where locals eat, drink, shop, and talk art.

Local Legends

The art spaces that have earned and kept cult status

GalleryLower East Side

Reena Spaulings Fine Art

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

Art Project SpaceLittle Italy

PARTICIPANT INC

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

GalleryChinatown

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.

GalleryLower East Side

Miguel Abreu Gallery

Poetic, philosophically-minded art in a cavernous floor-thru loft on Eldridge Street, where the ethereal light of the space meets the light behind the work.

GalleryLower East Side

Sperone Westwater

Bathe in the meditative light of world-celebrated artists in this breathtaking, Sir Norman Foster-designed gallery.

MuseumEast Village

Swiss Institute

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

GalleryLower East Side

Ramiken

The Lower East Side’s punk past is alive and well at this gallery, where beauty and decay dance in tandem.

GalleryLower East Side

Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba

Where Black artists, communities, and movements have been nurtured, honored, and lifted for generations.

GalleryLower East Side

Westwood Gallery

A neighborhood-embedded gallery showcasing artists whose work will transport you to the factory lofts and artists’ studios of iconic 1970s and ‘80s Bowery.

GalleryEast 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.

MuseumNoHo

Grey Art Museum

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

GalleryNoHo

Eric Firestone Gallery

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

GalleryEast Village

The Hole

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

GalleryLower East Side

Perrotin

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

Rising Galleries

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

GalleryLower East Side

Blade Study

Escape the algorithm inside this tiny, but mighty, gallery for internet explorers, anime theorists, and meme mythmakers.

GalleryLittle Italy

Company Gallery

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

GalleryLittle Italy

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.

GalleryLower 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.

GalleryLower 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.

GalleryLower 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.

GalleryLower East Side

gratin

Shows here are global, cool, and buzzy (in the best way) at this painted black, corner storefront with after-hours vibes on Avenue B.

GalleryEast 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…

GalleryLower 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.

GalleryLower East Side

King's Leap

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

GalleryChinatown

Long Story Short

Two neighboring storefronts make up this big-hearted gallery where locals gather on the benches outside and rising artists explore imagined realms inside.

GalleryChinatown

Management

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

GalleryEast 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.

GalleryChinatown

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

The art spaces where distinct ideas, subcultures, or communities are championed.

GalleryLower 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.

GalleryLower East Side

Fridman Gallery

An open-arms gallery showcasing atmospheric paintings with spiritual vibes that also doubles as the home of experimental sound studio, New Ear Inc.

GalleryLower East Side

Heft

Where human curiosity meets generative codes and artists test the frontier between human imagination and artificial intelligence.

Art Project SpaceLower East Side

Howl! Arts Howl! Archive!

The spirit of the bohemian East Village screams in this living shrine to its artist icons, past and present.

Artist-Run SpaceLower East Side

LAAMS

Art, books, streetwear, and records are floor to ceiling at this Orchard Street gallery, made by the neighborhood for the neighborhood.

MuseumLower East Side

Museum on Eldridge Street

Be immersed in the Jewish history of the Lower East Side in this tenderly restored synagogue, where downtown artists weave the neighborhood’s past into shows and the building itself.

GalleryLower 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.

GalleryLower East Side

Westwood Gallery

A neighborhood-embedded gallery showcasing artists whose work will transport you to the factory lofts and artists’ studios of iconic 1970s and ‘80s Bowery.

GalleryLower East Side

Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba

Where Black artists, communities, and movements have been nurtured, honored, and lifted for generations.