New York Museum Exhibitions, Winter 2010-2011: A Selected List, With Openings in December, January, and February

This list is so last year. Click here for 2011-2012 listings.

For those of us who love the sounds of strumming, guitars are also objects of great beauty. Coming this February, the Metropolitan Museum of Art opens the exhibit, Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York (on view from February 9, 2011 - July 4, 2011), highlighting the aesthetic and craft of the popular instrument. In a harmonic convergence, or something in the way of museum serendipity, MoMA will open a new exhibit one week later titled Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914 (on view from February 13 - June 6, 2011.

Looking at the winter-time exhibitions, the museums seem to be reinforcing their own brands. Nothing wrong with that. MoMA is currently showing the success of this strategy with its vast Abstract Expressionist New York (on view through April 25, 2011). Coming this winter, the Frick Collection will feature an exhibit on Rembrandt drawn from its own collection as well as from the great collection of Dutch art historian and amateur collector Frederik Johannes Lugt (1884–1970). The Guggenheim will display a major exhibition of modern art based on its own collection as well. The Neue Galerie will certainly have the know-how to stage Birth of the Modern: Style and Identity in Vienna 1900.

Asia Society

Other intriguing exhibitions scheduled to open in the coming months include Brooklyn Museum's Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains, the International Center of Photography's Wang Qingsong: When Worlds Collide (large color photo works and videos by a Chinese painter-turned-directorial photographer) and a major exhibition of works by art revolutionary Lynda Benglis at the New Museum.

Often an exhibition based on just one or two paintings can make a big splash. Shakespeare fans can look forward to visiting the Morgan Library & Museum's exhibition of the Cobbe portraits of Shakespeare and Southampton (The Changing Face of William Shakespeare), their first appearance outside the British Isles. In this vein, the Met's A Renaissance Masterpiece Revealed: Filippino Lippi's Madonna and Child will showcase the beauty of a recently restored painting by one the great artists of 15th-century Florence.

I've added the Park Avenue Armory to this seasonal list of art exhibitions. Highly recommended is their current offering, Leonardo's Last Supper: A Vision by Peter Greenaway, through January 6, 2011. As the Armory is within walking distance of Asia Society, also visit the latter's wonderful Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody's Fool (ongoing through January 2, 2011), one of the most charming and wicked exhibitions you'll ever see. *

Upcoming exhibitions are noted in bold type.

Temporary exhibitions:

Will Ryman, The Roses
Through May 31, 2011
Park Avenue, between 57th and 67th Streets, Manhattan
Park Avenue Malls, Manhattan
Read about The Roses and see many pictures here on Walking Off the Big Apple.

American Academy of Arts and Letters, 633 West 155th Street (Audubon Terrace):

Annual exhibitions are held in the spring. See the nearby Hispanic Society, noted below.

• The Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts

March 2011 - April 2011

American Folk Art Museum, 45 W. 53rd St.:

• Eugene Von Bruenchenhein

Through October 9, 2011

• Quilts: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum

Through October 16, 2011

• Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts (at Park Avenue Armory)

March 25 - 30, 2011

American Museum of Natural History (Central Park West and 79th St.):

• exhibits include Race to the End of the Earth (tales of Antarctic exploration); Traveling the Silk Road; Mysteries of the Great Lakes, and more.

• Brain: The Inside Story

Through August 14, 2011

Asia Society (725 Park Avenue at 70th Street):

• A Prince's Manuscript Unbound: Muhammad Juki's Shahnamah
Through May 1, 2011

Brooklyn Museum

Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York:

• Sam Taylor-Wood: "Ghosts"

Through August 14, 2011

• Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera

Through April 10, 2011

• reOrder: An Architectural Environment by Situ Studio

Through January 15, 2012

• Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains

Through May 15, 2011

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, 2 East 91st St.:

• Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels

Through June 5, 2011

The Drawing Center, 35 Wooster St.:

• Drawn from Photography

Through March 31, 2010

El Museo del Barrio, 1230 Fifth Avenue at 104th Street:

• Arte # Vida

Through March 18, 2011

• Luis Camnitzer: A Retrospective

Through May 29, 2011

Frick Collection, 1 East 70th Street:

• Rembrandt and His School: Masterworks from the Frick and Lugt Collections

Through May 15, 2011
Read more about The Frick Collection at the post, The Frick Collection at 75: Plain Citizens in a Rich Man's Home.

Grey Art Gallery (NYU), 100 Washington Square East:

• Concrete Improvisations: Collages and Sculpture by Esteban Vicente

Through March 26, 2011
• Art•Memory•Place: Commemorating the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
Though March 26, 2011 and April 12-July 12, 2011

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue (at 89th St.):

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

• The Great Upheaval: Modern Art from the Guggenheim Collection

Through June 1, 2011
• The Deutsche Bank Series at the Guggenheim: Found in Translation
Through May 1, 2011

The Hispanic Society of America Audubon Terrace, Broadway between

155th and 156th streets, New York City

• The Sorolla Gallery has now reopened.

The Museum of Art and Design

International Center of Photography, 1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street:

• The Mexican Suitcase

EXTENDED through May 8, 2011

Reviewed on Walking Off the Big Apple. See The Spanish Civil War in the Lost and Found: The Mexican Suitcase at the ICP

• Wang Qingsong: When Worlds Collide

Through May 8, 2011

• Jasper, Texas: The Community Photographs of Alonzo Jordan

Through May 8, 2011

Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum, 3237 Vernon Blvd., Long Island City:

• On Becoming An Artist: Isamu Noguchi and his Contemporaries, 1922 - 1960

Through April 24, 2011

Jewish Museum

Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street:

• The Line and the Circle: Video bu Sharone Lifschitz
Through August 21, 2011

• Houdini: Art and Magic

Through March 27, 2011

MAD (The Museum of Art and Design), 2 Columbus Circle:

• Eat Drink Art Design

Through March 27, 2011

• The Global Africa Project

Through May 15, 2011

Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue:

(a selection of many exhibitions at the Met)

American Wing, the Metropolitan Museum of Art

• Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand

Through April 10, 2011
• A Renaissance Masterpiece Revealed: Filippino Lippi's Madonna and Child
Through April 25, 2011
• The Emperor's Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City
Through May 1, 2011
• Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York
Through July 4, 2011
• Cézanne's Card Players
Through May 8, 2011

MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art), 11 West 53 Street:

(a selection below)

MoMA sculpture garden

• Pictures by Women: A History of Modern Photography

Through March 21, 2011

• Abstract Expressionist New York

Through April 25, 2011 Read Walking Off the Big Apple's review of Abstract Expressionist New York here.

• Counter Space: Design and the Modern Kitchen

Through March 14, 2011
• Andy Warhol: Motion Pictures
Through March 21, 2011
• Seeing Red: Hungarian Revolutionary Posters, 1919
 ongoing
• Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914
Through June 6, 2011

Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street:


The Morgan Library

• The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives
Through May 22, 2011
• Mannerism and Modernism: The Kasper Collection of Drawings and Photographs
Through May 1, 2011
Read the reviews of The Diary and Mannerism and Modernism here on Walking Off the Big Apple (posted January 26, 2011)
• The Changing Face of William Shakespeare
Through May 1, 2011

Read more about the renovated McKim Building at the post Mr. Morgan's Library.

Museum of the City of New York

Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Avenue:

• Denys Wortman's New York: Portrait of the City

Through March 20, 2011

Museum of the Moving Image, 35 Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria:
• Virtual Reality
Through June 12, 2011
• Dolls vs. Dictators
Through April 10, 2011
• Chiho Aoshima: City Glow
• Behind the Screen
ongoing

National Academy Museum, 1083 Fifth Avenue:

• Closed for renovations from July 2010 to September 2011

Neue Galerie, 1048 Fifth Avenue:

• Birth of the Modern: Style and Identity in Vienna 1900

Through June 27, 2011

Read more about the museum at the post, A Visit to the Neue Galerie.

The New Museum of Contemporary Art

The New Museum of Contemporary Art, 235 Bowery:

• George Condo: Mental States

Through May 8, 2011
• Lynda Benglis
Through May 1, 2011

New York Academy of Art, 111 Franklin St.:

• Put Up or Shut Up, work by faculty of MFA programs in NYC
Through March 6, 2011

New York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West:

(Note: undergoing major renovations, scheduled to be completed November 2011)

New York Public Library (Stephen A. Schwartzman Building), 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue:

The NYPL maintains an extensive exhibition program, so check the website for what's on display at the various branches.
• Three Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam
Through February 27, 2011

Queens Museum of Art, New York City Building, Flushing Meadows, Corona Park:
• Luis Márquez in the World of Tomorrow: Mexican Identity and the 1939-40 New York World's Fair
Through March 6, 2011

Rubin Museum of Art

Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17th Street:

• The Nepalese Legacy in Tibetan Painting

Through May 23, 2011

• Embodying the Holy

Through March 7, 2011

• Grain of Emptiness

Through April 11, 2011

The Skyscraper Museum, 35 Battery Place:
• Vertical Urban Factory
Through June 26, 2011

South Street Seaport Museum, 12 Fulton Street:

• DecoDence:Legendary Interiors and Illustrious Travelers Aboard the SS Normandie

ongoing

The Studio Museum in Harlem

The Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 West 125th Street:

• Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Any Number of Preoccupations

• Mark Bradford: Alphabet

• VideoStudio: Changing Same

• The Production of Space

• Harlem Postcards: Kwaku Alston, Deana Lawson, Petra 
• Richterova and Lewis Watts

• StudioSound: Matana Roberts

Above exhibitions through March 13, 2011

Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Avenue At 75th Street:

• Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time

Through April 10, 2011
• Karthick Pandian: Unearth
Though March 27, 2011
• Singular Visions
ongoing
• Legacy: The Emily Fisher Landau Collection
Through May 1, 2011

Images by Walking Off the Big Apple.

* Many international cultural centers in New York showcase art work from their respective countries. Several are within walking distance of Asia Society and the Armory. Read more in the post New York as the Stage for the World: Walks Through the City's International Cultural Centers.

Visiting New York on a Monday and want to know which of these museums are open? See the list here. Clicking on museum names above will link to their respective homepages.