The best galleries in New York? Artists select their favorites

The art museums of New York City are amongst The hottest on this planet – the Metropolitan Museum of Art (often known as mead) and Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) attracted 5.4 million and a couple of.8 million visitors respectively in 2023, in response to The Art Newspaper.

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

London based screen printing artist Diego Arellano likes the Chelsea galleries in Manhattan for his or her large spaces and high ceilings. “Places like C24, Hauser & Wirth and Dia feel like small contemporary museums — just without the tourist lines (and free!),” he told CNBC via email. These galleries sometimes have “bolder” exhibitions than larger organizations, Arellano said.

C24 Gallery presents artists working within the fields of sculpture, ceramics and photography in addition to painting, while She is Chelsea can be showing an exhibition by filmmaker Steve McQueen from September twentieth. Hauser & Wirth has two galleries in Chelsea and each are currently showing works by Hungarian-born US artist Rita Ackermann.

Brooklyn residents and artists Zhuo Xiong also prefers the Chelsea galleries. Gladstone Gallery – with two locations in Chelsea – is one among his favorites. “The artists they select and the exhibitions they curate are top-notch,” he told CNBC via email, and he likes the David Zwirner The gallery's current exhibition features works by greater than 60 of its collaborators at its locations at 519 and 525 West nineteenth Street.

Xiong also selected the Tribeca Gallery P P O WFounded over 40 years ago by dealers Wendy Olsoff and Penny Pilkington, the gallery is currently showing “Airhead,” a gaggle exhibition based on the concept of teaching.

The artist and actor Edward Akrout is a fan of the world Mriya Gallery that opened last September and claims to be the “first Ukrainian art gallery in NYC.”

Akrout heads the non-profit ArtShieldwho supports artists threatened by conflict or censorship, and said he was looking forward to the discharge of “Saints,” a book by photographer Sasha Maslov documenting the war in Ukraine, to be published by Mriya in the autumn. “Saints” features “portraits of ordinary Ukrainians who acted courageously and elevated themselves to sainthood,” Akrout said in an email to CNBC.

Arellano likes New York City due to proximity of his famous galleries to one another. “You can essentially see the WhitneyMoMA and Guggenheim all on the same day,” he said. The Whitney Museum of American Art is in Manhattan's Meatpacking District, the MoMA in Midtown and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum further north on the Upper East Side.

For British artist Kate Lewis, the MoMA is something “special” because she visited the museum for the primary time on the age of 17. “There I saw Matisse, Hopper and [and] Degas,” she told CNBC via email, referring to French artists Henri Matisse and Edgar Degas and American realist painter Edward Hopper.

Lewis, the Creator Collages in botanical style from newspaper reports, also recommended the Whitney for its “indispensable” Biennial exhibitions. His current show, “Even better than the original,” features the work of 71 artists and collectives who “address many of the most pressing issues of our time” – such as how AI affects our understanding of reality – according to the gallery's website.

Xiong said the Met gallery had the greatest influence on his career as a painter. “The Met's collection is incredibly diverse, including everything from Egyptian mummies to Chinese porcelain, ancient Chinese bronzes, Chinese calligraphy and painting, and European medieval works,” he said.

Xiong, who is from Inner Mongolia, said “The Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual,” a Qing Dynasty painting manual that is a component of the Met’s collection, influenced his upcoming exhibition in London.Gone with the wind” can be on display until August 15 at London's Maison Pan gallery – housed within the vaults that when formed the archives of the British National Gallery.

Akrout likes a “secret” gallery under the Manhattan Bridge, positioned above the East Broadway Mall in Chinatown. “It's a very important underground gallery for contemporary art,” he said.

Arellano described the experimental art museum Swiss Institute within the East Village as a hidden gem and said he liked the lobby bookstore there, Printed Matter, which also hosts trade shows and product launches.

Also within the East Village: artists and costume designers Machine glare (born Matthew Flower) advisable The MaMa Gallerywhich is affiliated with the theater space La MaMa Experimental Theater Club. “It supports artists who are pushing the boundaries of their medium,” he told CNBC via email.

Not distant is OSMOSISan area run by Cay Sophie Rabinowitz, a former artistic director of Art Basel and “art world insider,” in response to the gallery's website. Dazzle described her as “an art world genius” and said the gallery's eponymous print magazine was “top notch.”

If you don't feel like going to a gallery, you may admire many creative works on the town's streets, says Arellano. “Walking around New York for hours, listening to conversations and music, seeing millions of stickers, placards and posters and what they write and paint on their walls has given me more material and inspiration than any other place I've ever been,” he says.