Chelsea is known as THE neighborhood to go to for art galleries since the 90s. Gagosian, Lurhing Augustine, Mary Boone, Paula Cooper, Marlborough, Paul Kasmin: all the biggest international art dealers are crammed between the 20th and the 25th Streets.
It’s therefore unnecessary to give you a list of the shows on view in Chelsea. Instead, I will urge you to go Downtown to pace up and down the Lower East Side streets. Traditionally known as an immigrant, working class neighborhood, the LES has recently become home to numerous contemporary art galleries settling between leather shops and Chinese deli.
The relocation of the New Museum of Contemporary Art on Bowery Street in 2007 and the opening of a new space by Lehmann Maupin few months later in the same area have reinforced this trend. Galleries thus popped up on Eldridge, Orchard, Chrystie and Bowery Streets, exhibiting young emerging artists and curating much more impudent shows than in Chelsea...

Should you come to New York City for a long weekend or if you live there and decide not to leave the Big Apple on the weekend, take the time to head up the Hudson, one hour and twenty minutes from the city . Leaving from Grand Central Station, the trip heading out of the city towards Beacon has some wonderful scenery…The Dia Foundation in Beacon houses one of the most incredible collections of contemporary art. Located in an old print shop, built in 1929, it is overflowing with gigantic pieces produced by Sol LeWitt, Dan Flavin, Louise Bourgeois, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, Andy Warhol... and many others. Each room is dedicated to a singular artist and many original works were created to make this magical place sacred. For more information visit : http://www.diabeacon.org/

For those who stay more than a week and who are brave enough to rent a car, not to be missed is the excellent Storm King sculpture garden...For more information visit : http://www.stormking.org/