Courses

Expand your perspectives through innovative courses offered every fall, winter, and spring. 

Please email us with any questions: courses@whitney.org.

In-Depth

Get an in-depth view of current exhibitions through our exhibition courses, which feature discussion with curators and artists and special access to the Museum galleries during the evening sessions.

How to Look

An educator leads a talk with prints.

Develop your powers of attentiveness by learning simple tools for observing and describing works of art. Course participants will have special access to the Museum galleries after hours.

Crash Courses

In these intensive, single-session courses, noted experts provide an overview of key topics in modern and contemporary art.

Get updates about lectures, talks, and courses

Past Courses

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2018

Ink drawing.

Crash Course on Contemporary Art: Painting’s Environments

Sat, May 19, 2018

 

Ink drawing.

Crash Course on Contemporary Art: The Moving Image, Between Documentation and the Imaginary

Sat, May 12, 2018

 

Ink drawing.

Crash Course on Contemporary Art: The Politics of Performance

Sat, May 5, 2018

 

Charcoal drawing.

How to Look: Prints and Drawings

 

A yellow poster of a person in a gorilla suit siting on a stool.

Art As Activism, Activism as Art

2017

Painting Today

 

Artist Andrea Geyer speaks with a course attendee in the Whitney’s galleries

Work in Progress: Calder and Performance

October 5, 12, 19

 

semi-abstract landscape in bright green, orange, and red

Crash Courses on Contemporary Art

Sat, May 6, 2017

 

Esparza standing over fire in dirt trench

Inside Whitney Biennial 2017

Wed, Apr 5, 2017

 

A painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Decade in Focus: Painting in the 1980s

Wed, Feb 8, 2017

 

A work on paper by Jasper Johns. Artists' tools are arranged in a coffee tip with the label that reads: Savarin

How to Look: Prints and Drawings

Thu, Jan 19, 2017

2016

A work by Barkley Hendricks. A portrait of a man dressed head-to-toe in a suit wearing sunglasses

How to Look: Portraiture

Tue, Nov 29, 2016

 

A work by Hito Steyerl. Visitors sit and recline in lawn chairs viewing a screen

Beyond the Visible: Photography and the Moving Image

Wed, Oct 19, 2016

 

A work by Catherine Opie. Performance artist Ron Athey stands posing for a portrait

Performing Identity: Place, Space, and the Body in portraiture

Wed, Jun 8, 2016

 

Why Contemporary Art Matters: Politics and Aesthetics Today

Thu, Feb 18, 2016

 

How to Look: Abstraction

Wed, Jan 13, 2016

2015

“What You See Is What You See”: Frank Stella

Thu, Nov 5, 2015

 

Crash Courses on Contemporary Art

Sat, Oct 17, 2015

 

Jazz Age Modernism: Archibald Motley in Context

Thu, Oct 15, 2015

 

Summer 2015 Course:
How to Look

Mon, Jun 8, 2015

2014

Art In the Age of Koons

Thu, Sep 18, 2014

 

Fall 2014 Course: How to Look

Wed, Sep 10, 2014

 

Two black and white portraits by Dawoud Bey of two woman sitting in chairs.

Inside the Whitney Biennial

Thu, Apr 3, 2014

2013

Black and white still of a performance by Sylvia Palacios Whitman.

Between Bodies and Objects: Performance in Contemporary Art

Thu, Oct 17, 2013

 

Black and white print by David Wojnarowicz. Black and white image of a young boy with text on either side of him.

Insiders/Outsiders

Thu, Feb 28, 2013

2012

Eight panels of black inkjet prints by Wade Guyton. Each panel consists of black rectangles in a grid pattern.

Painting Now

Thu, Oct 18, 2012

 

Still from Jerome Hiler film. Image of grass and dandelion flowers.

Inside the Whitney Biennial

Thu, Mar 8, 2012

2011

Sculpture by Sherrie Levine that resembles a billiards table.

Artists’ Communities

Thu, Oct 13, 2011

2010

Painting by Edward Hopper. Painting of a woman in dress facing away from the viewer.

Inside Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time

Wed, Nov 3, 2010

 

A sculpture by Paul Thek. Meat in Plexiglas box.

Beyond the Artist’s Hand: Contemporary Art Methods and Practices

Thu, Oct 7, 2010

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