The Whitney Museum
If you haven’t visited the Whitney Museum of American Art we’ve got great reasons why to visit it!
It’s a museum that celebrates the living.
Museums most often celebrate and preserve the past, and that’s a wonderful thing in its own right, but the Whitney is a museum about the present. As a museum focused on America’s living artists, the Whitney’s exhibits have a freshness and relevance that makes “museum” almost feel like the wrong word.
It’s the American art world’s equivalent of CMJ.
Do you love the excitement of the CMJ Music Marathon, where you can see talented musicians before they are a household name? The Whitney regularly purchases and exhibits many pieces of art in the same year they were created, before the artists are widely known. In fact, the Whitney helps to define what is influential and innovative in American art.
It’s a museum with an open mind.
In the 21st century we have more mediums to communicate and express ourselves than ever before. The Whitney Museum is a leader in embracing mediums beyond the traditional canvas. It was the first New York museum to present a major exhibition of a video artist (Nam June Paik in 1982) and its exhibits regularly include film, video, installation art, net art and new media.
The Whitney offers so much more than just expansive indoor and outdoor exhibition spaces. Architect Renzo Piano expresses it beautifully: “At this gathering place beneath the High Line, visitors will see through the building entrance and the large windows on the west side to the Hudson River beyond. Here, all at once, you have the water, the park, the powerful industrial structures and the exciting mix of people, brought together and focused by this new building and the experience of art.”
Book a stay at The Benjamin and warm up your winter with a rich sensory experience. Spend an afternoon at the Whitney Museum, and follow it with a fabulous dinner at The National.