Guggenheim Museum Ticket: Permanent Collection and Temporary Exhibitions

The building is the first thing anyone talks about, and for once the attention is earned. Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as a single spiral ramp wound around an open rotunda, and you see the art by walking it, one slow curve at a time, with a skylight overhead and the floors below falling away as you climb. It stands at 1071 Fifth Avenue, a few blocks up Museum Mile from the Met. This ticket covers the permanent collection and whatever temporary exhibitions are on during your visit. The collection is modern art from the late nineteenth century onward, and it has names people travel for: Manet, Degas, Cézanne, Gauguin, Picasso and Kandinsky, whose abstract paintings are closely tied to the museum's early history. The temporary exhibitions change through the year and often fill the ramp itself, which gives each show a different shape. Past exhibitions have looked at Kandinsky, Pollock and Robert Mapplethorpe, among many others. It is worth checking what is on before you pick a date, because the ramp can be given over to a single artist for months at a time. One practical note on the building: because the galleries follow the spiral, the route has a natural direction. Many visitors ride the elevator to the top and walk down, which is easier on the legs and still lets you take the whole ramp in. The Guggenheim is a compact visit compared with the Met down the street, so the two fit into one day if you want both. Keep in mind that this ticket is for the Guggenheim only, the Met sells its own admission, and the Met is closed on Wednesdays. Cancellation is free any time before the date of your visit.