The best galleries in New York? Artists choose their favorites

Among New York’s art museums the most popular in the world — the Metropolitan Museum of Art (known as Met) and Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) attracted 5.4 million and 2.8 million visitors, respectively, in 2023, according to The Art Newspaper.

CNBC asked artists to name their top New York galleries, from the well-known to the underground.

Screen printing artist based in London Diego Arellano like Manhattan’s Chelsea galleries for their large rooms and high ceilings. “Places like C24, Hauser & Wirth and Dia feel like small modern museums — just without the tourist lines (and free!),” he told CNBC via email. These galleries sometimes have “more daring” exhibitions than larger institutions, Arellano said.

C24 Gallery presents artists involved in sculpture, ceramics and photography, as well as painting, while Dia Chelsea will present an exhibition by director Steve McQueen from September 20. Hauser & Wirth has two Chelsea galleries, both currently showing works by Hungarian-born US artist Rita Ackermann.

Brooklyn resident and artist Zhuo Xiong also favors the Chelsea galleries. Gladstone Gallery — with two locations in Chelsea — is one of his favorites. “The artists they choose and the exhibitions they curate are top notch,” he told CNBC via email, and he loves it David Zwirner the gallery’s current exhibit, featuring works by more than 60 of its employees at its 519 and 525 West 19th Street locations;

Xiong also chose the Tribeca gallery P·P·O·Wfounded more than 40 years ago by agents Wendy Olsoff and Penny Pilkington and currently airing “Airhead,” a group show based on teaching as a concept.

Artist and actor Edward Akrout is a fan of the area Mriya gallery, which opened last September and claims to be the “first Ukrainian art gallery in New York.”

Akrout runs the non-profit organization Shield of Artwhich supports artists threatened by conflict or censorship, and said he is looking forward to the release of “Saints,” a book by photographer Sasha Maslov documenting the war in Ukraine, which will launch in Mriya in the fall. “Saints” features “portraits of ordinary Ukrainians who acted bravely and elevated themselves to sainthood,” according to Akrout, in an email to CNBC.

Arellano likes New York for the proximity of well-known galleries to each other. “You can actually visit it WhitneyMoMA and Guggenheim all on the same day,” he said. The Whitney Museum of American Art is located in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan, while the MoMA is in Midtown and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is further north on the Upper East Side.

MoMA is “special” to British artist Kate Lewis, who first visited the museum when she was 17 years old. “There I ‘met’ Matisse, Hopper [and] Degas,” she told CNBC via email, referring to French artists Henri Matisse and Edgar Degas and American realist painter Edward Hopper.

Lewis, who creates botanical style collage from newspaper stories, he also recommended the Whitney for its “overlooked” Biennial exhibits. His current show, “Even better than the real thing,” showcases the work of 71 artists and collectives “wrestling with many of today’s most pressing issues” — such as how artificial intelligence affects what we understand to be real — according to the gallery’s website.

Xiong has described the Met Gallery as having the greatest influence on his painting career. “The Met’s collection is incredibly diverse, with everything from Egyptian mummies to Chinese porcelain, ancient Chinese bronzes, Chinese calligraphy and paintings, and European medieval works,” he said.

Xiong, who is from Inner Mongolia, said “The Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual,” a Qing Dynasty painting guide that is part of the Met’s collection, has influenced his upcoming exhibition in London. “Gone With the Wind” is on display at London’s Maison Pan gallery – housed in vaults that once made up the archives of the UK’s National Gallery – until 15 August.

Arellano described the experimental art museum Swiss Institute in the East Village as a hidden gem, and said he likes its lobby bookstore, Printed Matter, which also hosts exhibitions and openings.

Also in the East Village, artist and costume designer Machine Dazzle (born Matthew Flower) recommended La MaMa Galleriawhich is connected to the theater space La MaMa Experimental Theater Club. “It supports artists who push the limits of their medium,” he told CNBC via email.

It’s not very far OSMOSa space run by Cay Sophie Rabinowitz, former Art Basel artistic director and “art world insider,” according to the gallery’s website. Dazzle described her as “an art world genius” and said the gallery’s eponymous print magazine is “top notch”.

If you don’t want to go to a gallery, there are plenty of creative endeavors to see on the city’s streets, Arellano said. “In New York, walking for hours, listening to conversations and music, seeing millions of stickers, billboards and posters and what they write and paint on their walls, has given me more material and inspiration than any other place I’ve seen When. it was,” he said.