NEW YORK, NY.- The Grey Art Gallery at New York University, which has been closed to the public since March 14, 2020, in accordance with NYU’s plan to limit the spread of COVID-19, will remain closed until fall of 2021. The exhibition Taking Shape: Abstraction in the Arab World, 1950s–1980s, which opened January 9, 2020, and was on view when the museum closed, will not reopen to the public. Rather, this fall, the upper level of the Grey Art Gallery will be transformed into a temporary study center for NYU students. Fortuitously, the Grey had previously decided to cancel all exhibitions for the 2020–21 academic year in order to implement infrastructure updates.




This is not the first time that this corner of the Silver Center for Arts and Science at NYU has functioned as study hall and art institution. From 1927 to 1943, the space housed both NYU’s South Study Hall and A. E. Gallatin’s Gallery (later Museum) of Living Art. The great-grandson of Albert Gallatin, who founded NYU in 1831, A. E. Gallatin (1881–1952) was an artist who also amassed an impressive collection of artworks, including paintings by Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, and Joan Miró. Decades after closing in 1943, the space reopened in 1975 as the Grey Art Gallery, caretaker of the New York University Art Collection and the Abby Weed Grey Collection of Modern Asian and Middle Eastern Art.

With its emphasis on experimentation and interpretation, the Grey—like Gallatin’s Museum of Living Art—serves as a laboratory for the exploration of art in its historical, cultural, and social contexts. The Gallery is pleased to provide NYU students with a place to study and participate in online classes during the pandemic. Grey Art Gallery Director Lynn Gumpert notes, “These are extremely difficult times on many levels, and we at the Grey are pleased to work with our colleagues to ensure the well-being of NYU students as they continue to adapt to new learning challenges.”