Whitney Museum of American Art

Having only visited once, I can only comment on the space.

I appreciate the stairs, they are short, accessible and much more time efficient than the elevators.

6 floors plus basement is a more manageable size than the Moma. We could quickly view each floor without getting lost.

I really appreciate the leather seating at the basement level for weary museum goers to rest. Especially if you sprinted through 6 floors of exhibits.

And the Untitled farm-to-table cafe seems like an appealing and delicious concept. Brooklyn sourced foodstuffs such as Stumptown coffee, and 4 & 20 blackbirds? Yes please!

As for the exhibit:

Jeff Koons is amazing. I have been a fan of Jeff Koons since his balloon animals days. I love how he can turn stiff materials such as concrete and transform said material into child hood playthings that look soft. Such his Play Doh pile.
Go see his exhibit before time runs out!

The Whitney Museum features paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, films, videos, and new media by US artists during the 20th and 21st centuries, particularly living artists. One of my favorite parts of Whitney was the giant's bird nest by the entrance :D I'm a huge Edward Hopper fan, so seeing some of his work was amazing; Calder's 'Calder's Circus' is a miniature piece that was pretty neat to see; Man Ray''s 'La Fortune' was lovely, and Ray's 'Puzzle Bottle' of a self-portrait of the artist in a glass bottle (one of the museum's prized possessions) was cool. A nice museum to check out if you';re in this part of town. :D

+Edward Hopper :D

The Whitney feels like MoMA's younger, more manageable cousin. There are pieces in the permanent collection from well-known American artists on the 5th floor - Edward Hopper, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns.

But the real reason to visit the Whitney *NOW* is the Jeff Koons retrospective. There are four full floors devoted to his work. So even if you've been to the Whitney before, you'll be seeing something new.

Disclaimer: I've been a Jeff Koons fan for years. So when the elevator doors opened onto the 4th floor's 'Celebration' I had an overwhelming impulse to act like a kid in a candy store and run around squealing "shiny! shiny! shiny!" and touching everything. The security guards can thank me for my supreme will power and ability to act like an adult.

The museum offers free guided tours on different floors of the Koons exhibition. If you have time, I recommend going on one as it enhances the experience. The art is arranged chronologically and by collection. We started with the newest collection and worked our way backwards, but I think Koons' growth as an artist is better appreciated by starting with his first works on the lower floors and then working your way up.

For those on a budget, the Whitney offers free admission on Friday nights. Also, don't forget to pick-up your free audio guide when you enter.

Parental Warning: you might know Koons for his giant balloon animal sculptures, but this exhibition is not for the knee-biters. Unless you're looking for a way to bring up the topic of sexuality in art and the role of tacky 80's lingerie with the kids.

I went with a few friends on a pay-what-you-can Friday for the Whitney Biennial, which I was all excited about. I heard lots of good things and was ready to see Greatness.

I really do love art. I swear. But in my very (very) humble opinion, the majority of the things on display were not my version of art. I mean, a framed piece of wood that looks like my bathroom door????? REALLY?!?!? Some pieces were (trying to be) outrageous, and some were just entirely too obtuse for my small and obviously un-artistic brain.

In no particular order, I was confused by: the 3 blocks of wood nailed together and displayed on a pillar, a couch covered in newspaper decorated with clay pots, a random re-creation of a diner booth, a blow-up toilet (hasn't the toilet thing already been done?), and an ambulance parked in the middle of a room. There was a sense of gratuitousness, work that was perplexing just for the sake of being avant garde, and it annoyed me.

That said, there were definitely some really interesting paintings, creative installations, and shocking photographs that were nothing if not attention-grabbing. The museum itself is a bastion of creativity, and it is definitely nice to go to something "cultured" for a change. But I think the next time I have a night off, I'm going to hit up the Met.

There's a wide variety of art here. There's a mix of pretty everything and that any person can pretty much enjoy one or all of the 5 floors of art out display.

I'm a vintage video game dude and one of their displays was several bowling games from various video game entertainment systems to include NES, SNES, Game Cube and PS2. What's cool about this video game exhibit is that they hacked each game to make the players continuously throw gutter balls on an endless loop. Now that's awesome.
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/BY64dznSI-6e_xZLe40qMw?select=KQ44mhBmTNQoWrI-YaoatA

But ultimately, my favorite exhibit (until Oct 2011) was the Lyonel Feininger: At the Edge of the World exhibit. This exhibit has several of this German artist's paintings, caricatures and his less known photos are here as well. His famous works include the Gelmeroda VIII, Carnival, Green Bridge and the Self Portrait are all found here. His works were the early forms of cubism, by the use of geometric shapes in several of his arts.

On the 5th floor is the Singular Visions exhibit, one of their permanant collections. Each room on the 5th floor has just one piece of item. That's it, that's singular for ya.

And on the 2nd floor is their Breaking Ground exhibit. Prior to the Whitney museum being open back in 1931, Gertrude Whitney started amassing several paintings from Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keefe, Stuart Davis and amongst other. These originals are found on this floor since it did break ground.

As you can tell, there's stuff for pretty much everyone. It's part of the NY City Pass so take advantage of this museum during your visit here.

This museum's focus is American artists. Currently there is a substantial Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit. The majority is her abstract oil, and watercolor paintings, with some close up florals. It's difficult to know what the permanent art displays are like here, as traveling exhibits occupied much of the space. There is also a Dan Graham, the artist's first U.S. retrospective. It has some bizarre psycho babble video installations. For example 2 men in black and white footage, one talking about the past, and the other one talking about what the other one just talked about. Or something like that. The exhibit is free with admission, and includes footage of New York's art-rock scenes from the 80's.

The building is five stories high, and the 2nd floor is presently under renovation. Not a big museum, possible to see all of it in under two hours. Free audio tour and headsets included with admission. General Admission is $14 per person. Rather high, considering the museums around Washington DC are free, and the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit is traveling there next. Bank of America customers free admission was just missed since it is restricted to particular days. Too bad we missed free Friday nights here.

I love the building; I love an exhibit I saw here. I don't think I care for the permanent collection. It just isn't mentally exciting or stimulating. In short, it bored me a little, and I'm an art nerd. Kind of. I have my limits.

I also have a theory, art is only as good as your frame of mind at the moment. Since art is subjective, I could argue that you see what you feel. Perhaps I was in a boring part of my head on that Sunday afternoon. Or maybe the permanent collection was just not doing it for me. I was a bit frantic to see everything I could as it was in the building since they are relocating off of Museum Mile in about a year.

I was there to see the Hopper drawing exhibit. His wife bequeathed his work, including many studies/drawings/sketches to the Whitney, and this made for a marvelous exhibit.

He really put quite a bit of thought into his art. Virtually every detail. What patience! Most of his paintings are about contemplation. Either the observer (you) is spying on the snapshot scene of people contemplating their scene or you are the subject contemplating a scene. Always the observer, though. Thinking and considering. Reflecting.

The way the sketches and studies lead up to each painting is almost reminiscent of the framework of a building or the backside of a sculpture. It lets you see Hopper in a way most don't see him, with his slip showing.

The exhibit was fantastic. And it was brilliant that the Whitney put this exhibit together (and had the means), it's just a shame that the other exhibits weren't as witty. Perhaps they just didn't speak to me. Perhaps I wasn't listening.

Came here on a whim during my trip to NYC, and thoroughly enjoyed it. My group and I initially came to just get some brunch at Untitled, which is the restaurant in there. We decided to check out the museum afterwards also since it was a Jeff Koons exhibit, and we were all interested in seeing some of his work since we've all seen his stuff around many times before. I don't know much about modern/post-modern and contemporary art, but I did find myself interested in a lot of the art. Okay, maybe I was really confused about why some stuff was considered "art," but it was still interesting to read about the stories behind the pieces.

The Whitney is very nicely organized and structured. It's not overwhelming, and it's not hard to guide yourself from room to room and floor to floor. Really engaging actually. The Jeff Koons exhibit is very interesting, and we got to learn a lot about him as an artist and an individual from his art pieces and the commentaries provided about the pieces. The security is pretty hardcore in the museum in my opinion. They watch you like a hawk and will not hesitate to warn you not to step over the boundaries of the pieces even when you're just closely behind the taped lines.

Definitely check this place out if you are in the area. It took us I'd say a little over an hour to check out all five floors, but we are not educated in the arts so most of the time, we were strolling by and reading. The Whitney is less crowded than the MoMA and the Met so it was a nice chance to be able to check out everything without having a hoard of people around you.

I positively love Georgia O'Keeffe. I have been to the museum in her honor out in Santa Fe, New Mexico on more than one occasion. So imagine my delight when I learned that the Whitney is running an exhibition dedicated to her abstract paintings! Finally, this past Sunday I was able to pay a visit.

The exhibition is quite extensive and worth a trip in to see. It was great seeing some of her early charcoal work where she was trying to develop her technique. Yes, erotic floral paintings did abound, and they were conceptually interesting. This was all contrasted and contextualized nicely with her abstractions of flowers and a series of nude photos of her shot by Stieglitz. I loved the Jack-in-the-Pulpit series in particular and the very different perspectives she took with regard to said flower. Also, there were some great examples of her later work that was perhaps not so abstract like, "Sky Above Clouds III" and "Black Door with Red". The exhibition was greatly enhanced by the use of the freely available audio guides (be sure to do this if you decide to go).

Beyond the O'Keeffe exhibition, there were no less than two floors dedicated to Roni Horn aka Roni Horn. Wow! I didn't think it was possible to encounter a new artist, experience new work, and grow to hate said artist in such a short period of time. What a terrible waste of space! If any bold statements were being made my random rods with even more random words emblazoned on them, or hundreds of photos of a random, unattractive girl all juxtaposed on a grand wall, it was lost on me. Dreadful.

But not all is lost, because even in the permanent collection, there are some wonderful finds. For example, it was so exhilarating to look at George Bellows' "Dempsey and Firpo". Also, any New Yorker should pay homage to Joseph Stella's "The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme" -- a painting we have all seen in print, but can be readily seen in its original form here. I also loved the silent films being shown in the theater. Really, there is so much here to while away an afternoon in the city. Come and enjoy it. Just avoid that Roni junk.

I adore this museum. We've been here twice over the years. The galleries are well designed and the pieces are usually large and spread out. Very easy to enjoy. When museums cram in too many pieces I feel overwhelmed.

The Cory ArcAngel Pro Tools exhibit was awesome and will be running until September 11, 2011. It was the one exhibit where we could take pictures and they had free wifi. Yay! Lots of cool art, including one with video consoles from my youth. Brought back memories.

Xavier Cha's Body Drama was also pretty interesting, showing until October 9, 2011. Every hour on the hour, an actor straps on a camera with the lens facing the actor and the actor pretends to be trapped, freaking out. When the actor isn't there, the museum shows footage of other actors from the camera. It's pretty disorienting. Watching the live actor was a little weird - I felt like a peeping tom. But the footage and how it disorients you in the room was pretty interesting.

I suggest taking the stairs. The museum usually has some interesting artwork in there and the stairwell is very nice.