TRAVELER’S DIARY: The Nights at the Whitney Museum

The Museum’s light-filled building offers α perfect σποτ for viewing the sunset, from the shop on the ground floor to the floor to ceiling, west-facing windows on the fifth. A place with special interest is the Studio Café in the 8th, which offers outdoor seating along with 300-degree views of the city…

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Whitney Museum Archive

Meantine in the 5th floor, we see the sky change from one of Mary Heilmann’s colorful chairs, part of her installation “Sunset”. In the galleries the night-themed works from the exhibition “America Is Hard to See”, depict the sunset or stars, or show instances of New York City at night. Start with Joseph Stella’s Luna Park on the eighth floor, Edward Hopper’s Railroad Sunset on the seventh, or Peter Hujar’s photograph West Side Parking Lots, NYC on the fifth. Watch an evening film screening in the new Susan and John Hess Family Theater. Highlights include rare presentations on celluloid of works by Andy Warhol, Jonas Mekas, Walter De Maria, and Luis Recoder. On a clear night, stargaze from any of the Museum’s terraces to spot the constellations Ursa Major and Usra Minor (Big Dipper and Little Dipper), Leo, and planets Venus and Jupiter, visible in the NYC night sky only during these summer months. Leaving the Museum the best art epilogue is in the 1st floor, at the Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s Studio Club by browsing works by Mabel Dwight, Edward Hopper, Yasuyo Kuniyoshi, all part of a single chapter within “America Is Hard to See”, with free and open to the public…