Whitney Museum of American Art
99 Gansevoort Street
New York, NY 10014
Opens May 1st, 2015
The new Whitney Museum of American Art will open its new building to the public on May 1st, 2015. The opening marks a celebration and homecoming for the preeminent institution devoted to art of the United States. Designed by architect Renzo Piano and situated between the High Line and the Hudson River in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, the Whitney’s new building will vastly increase the Museum’s exhibition and programming space, providing an expansive view of its unsurpassed collection of modern and contemporary American art.
The Whitney Museum was founded by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1930, and it has been growing its unique art collection ever since; this re-opening allows for the display of many more works than the old location allowed.
As Adam D. Weinberg, the Whitney’s Alice Pratt Brown Director asserts, “This transformative moment—the opening of our beautiful new home downtown—calls for a fresh look at ourselves and is the perfect occasion for us to celebrate our collection, the essence of who we are.”
Setting forth a distinctly new narrative, the Whitney’s inaugural exhibit, America Is Hard to See, presents fresh perspectives on the Whitney’s collection and reflects upon art in the United States with approximately 650 works by some 400 artists, spanning the period from about 1900 to the present. The exhibition—its title is taken from a poem by Robert Frost and also used by the filmmaker Emile de Antonio for one of his political documentaries—is the most ambitious display to date of the Whitney’s collection.
