ART & DESIGN

Art for the Holidays: A New York Visitors Guide

By DANIEL McDERMON
“Frank Stella: A Retrospective” at the Whitney Museum of American Art.2015 Frank Stella/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times 
So you’re coming to New York City around the holidays, and you’d like to see some art?
No problem. We’ve got plenty.
But whether you’re heading for a big show at the Met or somewhere further afield, there are a few things to keep in mind.
— This is the busiest time of the year for many museums, with attendance rising steadily between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.
“From now until the end of the year over all we’d expect to see about 40 percent more visitors” than in a normal week, said Tina Vaz, a spokeswoman for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. In the week between Christmas and New Year’s, she added, average daily attendance is 60 percent higher than usual.
— Saturdays see the biggest crowds, year-round.
— Try going on Wednesdays, or after 3:00 p.m., when crowds begin to thin.
— New Year’s Eve afternoon is usually the least bustling during the busy holiday week.
— You will have an extra day at the Whitney Museum of American Art, which has seen a soaring number of visitors since opening in its downtown location in the spring. The museum is usually closed on Tuesdays, but it will be open on Tuesday, Dec. 29.The New Museum, usually closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, will be open on Dec. 28 and Dec. 29.
— The big museums are closed on different days: The Guggenheim is closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The Met is closed on Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. MoMA closes at 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve and is closed on Christmas Day. And the Whitney is closed only on Christmas Day.
— Many art galleries and smaller spaces will be closed or have limited hours in the last week of the year.
Now, what kind of art do you want to see? Here are some suggestions from The New York Times’s critics.
"Picasso Sculpture" at MoMA. Philip Greenberg for The New York Times 

Go Big

MoMA’s “Picasso Sculpture” has proved so popular that you need a timed admission ticket to get in. (Museum members can get in an hour early.) The Times’s Roberta Smith wrote, “Large, ambitious and unavoidably, dizzyingly peripatetic, this is a once-in-a-lifetime event.”
Downtown, at the Whitney’s new home, there’s “Frank Stella: A Retrospective.” Ms. Smith wrote that “the show provides an overdue update on the mythic, maligned artist who has adamantly done it his way.”
Both exhibitions run through Feb. 7.
“Jim Shaw: The End Is Here” at the New Museum. Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times 

Go Smaller (in Manhattan)

— “Philippine Gold: Treasures of Forgotten Kingdoms” at Asia Society through Jan. 3
— “Transmissions: Art in Eastern Europe and Latin America, 1960-1980” at MoMA through Jan. 3
— “Martin Puryear: Multiple Dimensions” at the Morgan Library through Jan. 10
— “Jim Shaw: The End Is Here” at the New Museum of Contemporary Art through Jan. 10
— “The Eye of the Shah: Qajar Court Photography and the Persian Past” at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World through Jan. 17
— “Superheroes in Gotham” at the New-York Historical Society through Feb. 21
— “Ebony G. Patterson: Dead Treez” at Museum of Arts and Design through April 3
— “Robert Ryman” at at Dia:Chelsea through June 18
“Martin Wong: Human Instamatic” at the Bronx Museum of the Arts.Philip Greenberg for The New York Times 

Go Elsewhere

— “What Border Have You Crossed?” at the Queens Museum through Dec. 31
— “Martin Wong: Human Instamatic” at the Bronx Museum of the Arts through Feb. 14
— “Coney Island: Vision of an American Dreamland, 1861-2008” at the Brooklyn Museum through March 13

Go Outside

Most everything is closed on Christmas Day. But there is more than enough art in public (authorized and otherwise) to fill a day’s wandering. Dozens of official installations and permanent works are on view. If you’re looking for street art and you need a guide, you can try the Geo Street Art app, which is regularly updated, but includes at least a few works that are now gone.
Correction: December 1, 2015 
An earlier version of this article misstated part of the title of an exhibition of work by Jim Shaw at the New Museum of Contemporary Art. It is “Jim Shaw: The End Is Here”; not “Jim Shaw: The End Is Near.” 
A version of this article appears in print on December 26, 2015, on page C7 of the New York edition with the headline: Art for the Holidays: A New York Visitors Guide. Order Reprints|  Today's Paper|Subscribe