The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Two weeks ago I met my friends Katie and Jim at the Guggenheim Museum on a Saturday night. It is pay-what-you-wish from 5:45-7:45 every Saturday night and unlike other suggested donation museums like the MET or Natural History, the Guggenheim has a set admission price ($22/adults). The museum was under extensive renovation when I first visited, and the outside was completely covered in scaffolding (from 2005-2008). The building, of course, is the reason to go to the Guggenheim, so I was overdue for another visit.

I used to feel really guilty paying less than the suggested admission prices at museums, but being a resident and frequent visitor has almost cured me of that guilt. I've been slowly decreasing the price I'm comfortable paying, and finally had the courage to offer up a single dollar to the Guggenheim. Of course I love and appreciate all of the museums in the city, and I hope one day to be well-off enough that I don't have to be so cheap, but I figure that I go often enough to not feel that horrible about my measly contribution. Some museums (I'm looking at you, MET) will try to basically guilt you into paying the entire suggested amount but I'm a hardened New Yorker now, and I need all the money I can get so I can continue to be a New Yorker. The pay-what-you-wish line was so long, and the admission process so fast and hectic, however, that they just grabbed my dollar and threw me a ticket without any time to throw me the least bit of shade.

Any remaining traces of guilt were erased a few minutes later when we found out that all of the ramps were closed off due to an in-process show installation. The ramps are the main part of the museum, and really the best way to experience the building and its art.

There are few floors of side galleries that house the permanent collections, which is all we were able to see, unfortunately. It's not that the permanent collection is bad (it isn't), but the galleries themselves are nothing special. They are also quite small, and we saw everything in about an hour.

My favorite pieces were two from Picasso's early days: Woman Ironing and Fernande with a Black Mantilla, the latter of which I had never seen before. I'm not a huge Picasso fan as far as his more famous Cubism paintings go, and it's even more of a shame when you see where he began.

Fernande is one of the most hauntingly beautiful paintings I've seen in a long time, and it stuck in my mind long after I left. I guess my tastes trend more toward the dark and depressing (German Expressionism is probably my favorite art movement), which is why Fernande really struck a chord with me.

There wasn't much more in the permanent collections that really moved me, but as per my $5 rule, I can't complain considering I paid even less than that. The gorgeous lobby of the museum is worth a dollar alone, and there are a ton of fun, quirky building details that make the whole experience different than any other museum.

There is an Italian Futurism exhibit going on right now that looks interesting (even if it was the reason the ramps were closed for us), but I don't necessarily need to go back to the Guggenheim again for a while. I will always love walking by it on my lunch breaks now that I'm working on the Upper East Side, and it's even more breathtaking as seen through the snow-covered trees in Central Park. It's definitely worth checking out at least once (make sure the ramps are open though if you only plan on going once) and it's definitely one of the better things you can buy with a dollar.