Global art on a student budget

If you are trying to find a way to escape the student bubble during Spring Term, and you want to allow yourself to travel – in the UK, around Europe or in America – here are three modern art galleries you don’t want to miss out.

A visit at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) of New York is a real life-changing experience: you can’t say you have properly experienced modern art if you have never walked through the doors of the MoMa. Situated in the heart of Manhattan, the most important museum of modern art in the world has been ideated by an extremely talented team, consisting of three amazing women: Abby Aldrich Rockfeller, Lillie P. Bliss and Mary Quinn Sullivan. It’s no coincidence they were known as “the Daring Ladies”. John D. Rockfeller, Jr., Abby’s husband and one of the richest men in New York, was a major opponent of the gallery and of the art in general, and refused to fund their project.

This evidently did not stop the ladies, because the Museum opened to the public on 7 November 1929 exactly nine days after the Wall Street Crash. Back then, it was one of the very few American museums dedicated integrally to modern and contemporary art. Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night is situated on the fifth floor of the museum: it’s breath-taking and absorbing as only a work of art can be. Whilst visiting the collection, it’s possible to listen to a free and well-structured audio-guide, available on their website. Showing both your ID card and your student card, you can access the museum for $14. Additionally, MoMa is free for all visitors every Friday evening from 4am-8pm, making this great body of art accessible to all.

A visit at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) of New York is a real life-changing experience

Rome is mostly known for its large collection of classical and Renaissance art, but if you’ve already seen the Forum and the Colosseum, been to the Spanish Steps, strolled on Via del Corso, and visited Piazza Navona, you may consider a visit to the GNAM, Rome’s National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art and the biggest museum of modern art in Italy. The Gallery holds more than four thousand works of art, paintings and sculptures, and thirteen thousand hand-drawings by Italian and foreign authors. In particular, Gustav Klimt’s ‘Three Ages of Woman’ is one of the unmissable pieces of the collection, and it’s totally worth the visit by itself. Tickets for EU and English students, aged between eighteen and twenty-five, are only €5.

When talking about modern art, it’s impossible not to mention the Tate Modern Museum in London: Britain’s national gallery of international modern art. Located in a former power station on the South Bank, it holds, among the many artworks, one of Monet’s famous Waterlifes and ‘Marilyn Diptych’ by Andy Warhol. The access to the museums permanent collection is free, whilst a ticket needs to be purchased to visit temporary exhibitions. Until 2 April, the museum is hosting an exhibition of Amedeo Modigliani’s paintings, with a main focus on his nude portraits: twelve on display, the largest group ever united in the UK. The Independent gave a five-star rating to the exhibition, and described it as inexhaustibly lovely”, so if you are in London, it might be the perfect way of spending your day. Students can buy a ticket for the exhibition for £15.90.