MoMA PS1, the contemporary art museum in Long Island City, Queens, known for spotlighting rising talent, will be free to all visitors beginning in January, the museum announced on Tuesday.
The move, which removes admission fees for the next three years, was made possible by a $900,000 gift from Sonya Yu, a multidisciplinary creative entrepreneur and art collector. (Admission to the museum has been free for all New Yorkers since 2015 and suggested for everyone else, a policy that has been in place much longer.)
Yu, who sits on the boards of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Hammer Museum, said in a recent interview that her gift had been partly inspired by Connie Butler, the director of MoMA PS1.
That, and “the PS1 location, being in Queens, is really near and dear to me, given that it is an underserved community,” Yu said, adding that it was important to be engaged and create “porousness between the institution, building, program and exhibitions.”
Yu and Butler had been in talks for about a year over the best way they could work together, Yu said. They first connected several years ago at the Hammer Museum, where Butler was chief curator. She was appointed director of MoMA PS1 in 2023.
They quickly zeroed in on Yu’s interest in audience expansion and the museum’s work with local residents — like its language access initiative in English, Spanish and Chinese, and its partnerships with organizations like Little Manila Queens and the Fortune Society.
The new initiative is expected to bring more visitors. Annual attendance at the museum has reached prepandemic levels of about 150,000 a year, Butler said. The museum plans to reach 180,000 visitors by the end of 2026 and 500,000 in five years.
Yu, who lives in San Francisco and Los Angeles, hopes that by eliminating the cost of entry at MoMA PS1, it will alleviate any stress for those considering whether to visit.
“In today’s landscape, people have to constantly do math like, ‘Am I paying for my Netflix account, or am I paying for eggs’?” she said, also considering people who have some time to spare on a lunch break. That kind of “casualness in which to engage with art and culture, through PS1 now, is a kind of burden that we have the opportunity to alleviate.”
The initiative also coincides with MoMA PS1’s 50th anniversary in 2026. Throughout the year, the museum will present special programming. In April, it will exhibit Greater New York, a quinquennial survey of artists living and working in New York. A gala is planned for the summer and Butler said that the museum was also giving extra resources to Warm Up, its signature summer music series.
Derrick Bryson Taylor is a Times reporter covering breaking news in culture and the arts.
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