New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art has raised its admissions prices to $30 for adults (previously $25) and $24 for students and seniors (previously $18). The new adult fees now match those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (which increased from $25 to $30 last year), while the Whitney’s student and senior prices are now a few dollars higher than those at the Met.
The new rates went into effect today, July 13, coinciding with the beginning of the museum’s fiscal year, according to a press release, which also notes that this is the first price increase since 2016—a year after the museum moved out of its historic Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue and into its current Renzo Piano-designed home in the Meatpacking District. As for the reasoning behind the price hike, the press release cites “inflation, rising costs, and still-recovering attendance”, noting that the museum’s membership fees and free and discounted programmes remain unaffected.
Sotheby’s will pay $100m for the Whitney Museum’s Marcel Breuer building
This news comes a little over a month after the Whitney agreed to sell its Breuer building to Sotheby’s for around $100m. It has been four months since almost 200 museum workers ratified their first union contract with the Whitney and, around the same time, it was announced that Scott Rothkopf would take over as the institution’s director. (Adam D. Weinberg is still the Whitney’s director through the end of October.)
Admissions prices to museums and other cultural institutions have been fluctuating recently, with notable increases in Europe in the past few months at the Pantheon and Uffizi Galleries in Italy, and throughout the UK. Meanwhile in the US, the Harvard Art Museums announced in June that they had done away with entry fees altogether, and a number of museums in Los Angeles have been experimenting with free admission.