Celebrate the New Whitney Museum With a Block Party

Looking for something to do this weekend? The Whitney Museum of American Art is finally opening at its new location in the Meatpacking District (99 Gansevoort Street) and they want you to come check them out!

The Whitney will offer free admission from 10:30 am to 10 pm on Saturday, May 2 and host a block party on Gansevoort Street sponsored by Macy's. You can check out the inaugural exhibition America Is Hard to See as well as enjoy hands-on activities and participatory events. Throughout the day, booths designed by a diverse group of contemporary artists and community organizations will offer activities for a range of audiences, including karaoke, map making, and performance workshops. Large-scale acts on the main stage will include all-ages performances, including puppetry, dance, music, and poetry.

No tickets are required for the Block Party. Free admission tickets to the Museum for May 2 may now be reserved online and reservations are recommended.

Free Memberships at 33 NYC Cultural Institutions with IDNYC

Joining museums in NYC can run you hundred of dollars. Heck, just paying admission to a few can cost you half a paycheck. So what if I told you that there's a way to not only get free admission but a full-fledged free membership to 33 cultural institutions throughout the 5 boroughs as well as receive discounts for Mets and Yankees tickets and even grocery stores?

IDNYC is a new program sponsored by the city of New York to provide a new form of identification for all New York City residents. Using it will give you access to city services, allow you to enter public buildings, and enable you to open a checking account. You can also link it to your Brooklyn, New York, or Queens library account--the first time one card has ever been recognized by all 3 systems.

As an incentive for people to sign up, you will be able to apply for free memberships at museums, zoos, botanic gardens, and concert halls throughout the city. All you do is present your card at the box office of your desired institution by 12/31/15, and you receive a gratis one-year membership. Examples of membership options include, but are not limited to:

• Wildlife Conservation Society/Bronx Zoo: Free general admission for one adult to the Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo with discounts at select gift shops and restaurants. Invitations to Members' Evenings and free e-newsletters.
• Brooklyn Botanic Garden: Unlimited free admission for 1 and 2 single-time-use guest passes. Admission for member plus 1 guest to all members-only summer events and 10% discount at Garden Shop and Cafe. Library borrowing privileges.
• Carnegie Hall: "Friends Membership" includes 4 complimentary rehearsal passes; early access to the best seats available; half-price ticket offers on select Carnegie Hall presentations; and invitations to cocktail parties, discussions, & member-appreciation events.
• Metropolitan Museum of Art: Free admission for 1 to the Main Building and The Cloisters museum and gardens; members-only emails with advance notice of exhibitions, programs, events, classes, and festivals; special offers on select ticketed programs; discount on Audio Guide rentals in nine languages; and complimentary guided tours of the collection in 10 languages.
• MoMA PS1: Unlimited free admission; exhibition opening invitations; special offers for select ticketed events; conversations with MoMA PS1 curators and artists; private receptions at MoMA PS1; and a 10% discount at the M. Wells Dinette and the ARTBOOK @ MoMA PS1 Book Store.

As you can imagine, demand for IDNYC is pretty high. I signed up for an appointment in January, and had to wait until April to snag an appointment. My shiny new ID came in the mail just this week.

To get your IDNYC, check here that you possess the right qualifying documents, and schedule an appointment at one of the several appointment centers throughout the 5 boroughs. You might have to wait a while, but that's ok--you will be able to claim your free memberships through the end of the year and they will begin the day you claim them. Then you go in and go through a short and sweet interview (just like at the DMV), they take your picture (but oddly you can't smile with teeth), and you should receive your new ID within 2-3 weeks.

The IDNYC website has a thorough list of helpful FAQs that I'd highly recommend you check out if you have any specific questions. So what do you think, will you apply?

Dance Your Artist Heart Out

It's time to party, Brooklyn style. The Brooklyn Museum is hosting the Brooklyn Artists Ball Dance Party next Wednesday April 16 from 10-1, and you are not going to want to miss it.

The event will feature a performance by LE1F and later DJ Brenmar will be spinning some tunes. There will also be a silent auction powered by Artsy and dessert prepared by Amirah Kassem of Flour Shop. Tickets are $100 ($90 for museum members) and today is the last day to buy them!

Increase Your Cultural Heart Rate at The Pulse Party

Need something to do tonight? The Rubin Museum of Art is throwing a pretty awesome party featuring electronic music and multimedia from 6-11pm.

In traditional Tibetan medicine, pulse reading is a complex form of diagnosis which requires physicians to listen deeply to the sound waves and vibrations of one’s heartbeat. In collaboration with Warper Party, the Rubin Museum presents PULSE, a museum-wide multimedia event  that invites electronic musicians and video artists to listen deeply and explore their own beats through inspiration from the new exhibition, Bodies in Balance: The Art of Tibetan Medicine.

There will be a happy hour from 6-7pm with 2-for-1 specials on all beer, wine, and well drinks. Also there will be a combination of free and ticketed events throughout the night (see the full schedule here), including a free tour of the new exhibition and tunes mixed by several DJs.

Warm Up Your Summer

Summer is in full swing and there's nothing I love more than outdoor parties this time of year. Thankfully, MOMA PS1's annual Warm-Up series kicks off it's 2012 party scene and 15th year this Saturday July 7 from 2-9pm.

This year's courtyard artwork will be a temporary urban landscape by HWKN called Wendy, the winning design of MoMA PS1's 13th annual Young Architects Program. In addition to lots and lots of beer, delicious eats will also be served up by the famed M. Wells all summer long.

Warm-Up will feature both local and world-renowned musicians and DJs for an energetic, insanely fun party every Saturday until September 8. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased in advance (highly recommended) or at the door. Entry includes admission to the party as well as all PS1 exhibitions. MOMA members can receive one free ticket for themselves with a valid membership card and Long Island City residents get free entry by showing proof of residency at the door.

Go to the Guggenheim

Sometimes, I just need a good dose of art. And living in NYC, I have no excuse not to get one at a major cultural institution known round the world. A couple of Saturday's ago, I went to the Guggenheim for one of their Pay-As-You-Wish evenings. If you don't know about this promotion, you should definitely check it out. Every week, the museum, known for it's modern and contemporary collection and special exhibits and housed in one of the most unique Frank Lloyd Wright buildings I've ever seen, opens it's doors to the public from 5:45-7:45 p.m. While you still have to wait in line and get a ticket, you can hand the cashier anything from a $20, to a nickel, to zero and everything in between. Even on a cold, rainy evening, the museum drew quite the crowd, but as soon as the clock hit 5:45, the line practically dissolved. (Note to self: don't get there early next time!).

I handed the cashier $2, checked my coat (the Guggenheim is one of those check it or wear it institutions when it comes to coats) and headed up the spiral ramp. One thing I love about this museum is that you can completely go through everything in two hours and feel content and not rushed. The architecture of the building is also very innovative for an art museum.

The current exhibition is called "The Great Upheaval: Modern Art from the Guggenheim Collection 1910-1918." It is arranged chronologically and as you go up the ramp, each spiral encompasses another year. Prominent artists in this exhibit are mostly from Germany, Austria, France and Italy and include Franz Mark, Vasily Kandinsky (one of my favorites), Pablo Picasso, Henri Rousseau, Umberto Boccioni, among others. With more than 100 works spread throughout the exhibit, it provides an interactive and comparative view of the art world around the time preceding and during World War I.

A side exhibit, if you hadn't seen enough of him yet, "Kandinski at the Bauhaus, 1922-1933,"  showcases many of the artists geometrical and flat planed paintings from the time period in which he taught at the renowned German school of art.

Vasily Kandinsky, Decisive Rose (Entscheidendes Rosa), March 1932. Courtesy of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

So the next time you find yourself with an itch for culture and nothing to do in the pre-dinner hours on a Saturday, head over to the Upper East Side for some awesome art at the Guggenheim. Your brain and your wallet will thank you.

A Neue Experience

I'm constantly amazed by the selection of museums in this city. It's easily to get overwhelmed in the Metropolitan Museum, and though I love it there, I've been making a conscious effort to get to know all of the smaller, more specialized institutions scattered across a relatively small patch of land.

The Neue Galerie is one of those museums that I've walked by several times and didn't even know how to pronounce it correctly (it's German so "noy-yah" instead of "new" as I was saying). After being alerted to the museum's First Fridays program, when the museum opens up to the public for free from 6-8 p.m. on the first Friday of every month, I decided to give it a go and start my weekend off with some culture.

Another awesome thing about smaller art museums in the city is that they all seem to inhabit remarkably interesting buildings. The Neue Galerie is housed in a Beaux-Arts style mansion built in 1914 and last inhabited by Grace Wilson Vanderbilt in the 1950s. After serving as the offices of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, it was purchased by Serge Sabarsky, an art dealer, and Ronald Lauder, of Estee Lauder, in 1994 and restored to its original state. Celebrating its ten year anniversary this year, the museum opened as a center for German and Austrian art in 2001. Walking into the building, I like to imagine myself living in a mansion like that and what it must have been like. The architects who restored the Neue Galerie took great pains to keep everything original, even converting the dining room into a fully-functioning restaurant, Cafe Sabarsky, that packed quite the crowd on Friday night.

Sadly, after arriving and checking my coat, I learned that the museum was in installation and only had two rooms open for viewing of their permanent collection. However, I thankfully arrived right when a curator-led tour began and I learned a lot of interesting factoids. The main artists featured are from the early 1900's Germany and Austria -- including Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimpt and Oskar Kokoschka. Schiele has this thing for bony fingers which is quite disturbing, but did some really interesting landscapes. Klimpt's infamous painting Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (infamous because it was stolen by the Nazi's, restituted to it's proper heirs, but then sold to the museum in 2006), is beautiful and on display with sculptures it was presented alongside with a hundred years ago. The gallery also displays three gorgeous clocks made with precious materials and intricate decoration.

After leaving the museum, my friends and I decided to make it a theme night and had dinner at Heidelberg on 2nd Avenue. Between the bratwurst, sauerkraut, spaetzle and mug of beer, dinner was delicious and a definite new experience. I would highly recommend combining the two activities for a date-night or casual friends outing. 

The schedule of First Fridays is on the Neue Galerie website. For March, the museum will be fully open and attendees will get to tour the latest exhibition Birth of the Modern: Style and Identity in Vienna 1900. I plan to go back and see what the rest of the museum has to offer. Have you been to the Neue Galerie? What do you think?