NEW YORK, NY.- Following its temporary closure on March 13, 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Whitney Museum of American Art today announced its plans to reopen to the public on September 3, 2020. Prioritizing the health and safety of its visitors and staff, the Museum will operate at no more than twenty-five percent of its total capacity to ensure proper physical distancing.

The Museum also announced that pay-what-you-wish admission will be offered to all through September 28, 2020. Due to limited capacity and to facilitate contactless entry into the Museum, all visitors and members will need to reserve timed-entry tickets in advance on whitney.org.

“Cultural institutions like the Whitney are an essential part of the fabric of New York and are integral to its successful and safe reopening,” said Adam D. Weinberg, Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney Museum. “Our priority is the health and safety of our staff and visitors. Over the past few months, our internal team has carefully developed safety protocols with guidance from health experts and collaboratively working with peer institutions across the city through the NYC Museums Reopening Task Force. We look forward to welcoming visitors back to the Museum with confidence that they can safely engage with our exhibitions and collection. I am especially pleased that we will be able to offer pay-what-you-wish admission during the month of September, making the Museum more accessible to New Yorkers.”

Enhanced sanitizing and cleaning protocols, state-of-the-art air filtration systems, one-way directional signage, and ground markings are among the new safety measures that have been implemented throughout the building. In accordance with city and state guidelines, all staff, volunteers, and visitors will be required to wear face coverings and practice physical distancing while in the Museum.

The Whitney also announced today the extension of critically acclaimed exhibitions. Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945 and Cauleen Smith: Mutualities have been extended through January 31, 2021. Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist, which originally opened on March 13 when the Museum’s temporary closure began, has been extended to November 1, 2020. The Museum’s billboard project at 95 Horatio featuring Jill Mulleady’s We Wither Time into a Coil of Fright has been extended through January 2021. The collection installations, Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019 and The Whitney’s Collection: Selections From 1900 to 1965 will also welcome visitors back to the Museum.




Scott Rothkopf, Senior Deputy Director and Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator said, “When the Whitney closed in March, we were in the midst of some of our most popular and critically acclaimed exhibitions ever. I’m thrilled that audiences will have another chance to connect with Vida Americana. The themes of social, racial, and economic justice that the artists in this exhibition were addressing in their art nearly a century ago remain relevant today. Cauleen Smith’s videos also feel especially timely in their beautiful meditations on Black feminist and spiritual histories, while resonating deeply with Agnes Pelton’s transcendent abstractions. We can’t wait to welcome visitors back to these shows and to our collection, and we remain as committed as always to supporting artists and providing a dynamic platform for their work and ideas."

Additionally, on September 17, the Whitney will debut Collective Actions: Artist Interventions in a Time of Change. The exhibition, drawn entirely from the Museum’s Special Collections, showcases the critical role of artists in documenting moments of seismic change and protest and brings together prints, photographs, posters, and digital files that have been created this year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement. The majority of the works in Collective Actions were initiated by artist collectives to raise funds for anti-racist initiatives, including criminal justice reform, bail funds, Black trans advocacy groups, and other mutual aid work. The Whitney acquired the works on view as the projects were launched and distributed.

David Hammons's Day’s End, a new public art project commissioned by the Whitney, is scheduled to be completed in late fall 2020 in Hudson River Park directly across from the Museum. A related exhibition, Around Day’s End: Downtown New York, 1970–1986, will debut on September 3, and remain on view through October 25. The exhibition considers the artwork that inspired Hammons's sculpture, Gordon Matta-Clark’s Day’s End (1975), as well as artworks from the permanent collection that explore downtown New York as site, history, and memory. In 1975, Matta-Clark cut five openings into the original Pier 52 shed on Gansevoort Peninsula. Hammons’s artwork, developed in collaboration with the Hudson River Park Trust, will be an open structure that precisely follows the outline, dimensions, and location of the original Pier 52 site.

“We are honored to be realizing David Hammons’s public art installation Day’s End this fall following the Museum’s reopening. Hammons imagined this public artwork before the current pandemic crisis but its message is even more resonant today. It’s an ode to memory, loss, and yearning. The open form alludes to the history of the site, asks us to consider the passage of time, and celebrates New York’s creativity and resilience. It represents a commitment to community, open dialogue, and civic good,” said Weinberg.

To protect the health and well-being of staff and visitors, the Museum has made the difficult decision to cancel all on-site public and education programs, including guided tours and school visits, for the rest of 2020. The Whitney will continue to engage with audiences online via whitney.org and its social media channels. #WhitneyFromHome, the Museum’s expanded digital experience, provides an intimate lens into stories behind the Whitney’s art and artists and features programs such as Artmaking From Home and Art History From Home. Artport, the Whitney's portal to Internet art, recently debuted American Artist's online project Looted, which temporarily replaces all of the images on whitney.org with textures of wood, effectively boarding up the Museum's website, while the backgrounds of the web pages change to black and the text on them fades.

On reopening, the Whitney will operate with new hours on Mondays, and Thursdays through Sundays. Member Days will take place from August 27–August 31 in advance of the public opening on September 3. Member-only hours will also be offered on Monday and Thursday evenings and weekend mornings throughout the initial reopening phase.