You can’t talk about art in New York City without talking about the Metropolitan Museum of Art—or the Met, as New Yorkers know it. The largest art museum in North and South America (and one of the most-visited art museums in the world, full-stop), this cultural colossus has stood proud on Fifth Avenue since 1880 and is easily one of the best things to do in New York City. You can explore 5,000 years of art history within its walls, from Egyptian sarcophagi to paintings by Picasso and Kandinsky.

Once you’ve dedicated time to New York’s art-world bigshot, head straight to the Museum of Modern Art, another of the best museums in New York City. MoMA rivals the Met for scale—it sprawls across 708,000 square feet (65,775 square meters) and seven stories—but where the Met offers a vast survey, MoMA goes deep on the period from the mid-19th century to the present day. On a guided tour, look for iconic works by artists like Jackson Pollock, Marcel Duchamp, and Frida Kahlo.

The Whitney is a showstopper. In 2014, the American art museum relocated from its stuffy Uptown digs to a soaring Meatpacking District landmark designed by Renzo Piano. Today, the Whitney overlooks the High Line and offers some of the best views of the Downtown Manhattan skyline. Once you’ve seen its open-air terraces and floor-to-ceiling windows, explore temporary and permanent exhibitions featuring American luminaries like Georgia O’Keeffe, Lee Krasner, and Edward Hopper.

Described as “a home for contemporary art and an incubator for new ideas,” the New Museum is aptly named and always on the cutting edge. That begins with its distinctive look: The museum occupies a seven-story structure that looks like a series of boxes stacked on each other. Technically the only dedicated museum of contemporary art in New York City, its boundary-pushing exhibitions chime with its hip Lower East Side location—and showcase artists overlooked by more traditional institutions.

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum—known as the Guggenheim to its friends—is as notable for its exterior as for what’s found inside. Designed by American starchitect Frank Lloyd Wright, the spiral shape makes it an instant standout among the other cultural institutions lining the “Museum Mile” of Fifth Avenue. The landmark museum hosts several prominent art exhibitions each year dedicated to modern and contemporary artists.

Founded in 1969 to showcase work from Puerto Rican artists in East Harlem, El Barrio, El Museo del Barrio has expanded to be the center for art by Latinx artists in New York. It’s now home to more than 8,500 pieces that span from Pre-Columbian Taíno art to modern works from the Latinx community in New York City and beyond. located just across the street from Central Park’s Conservatory Gardens and is a perfect way to explore the neighborhood around the gardens.

Its name may translate to “the New Gallery,” but don’t confuse it with the New Museum. The Neue Galerie, housed in an elegant Upper East Side mansion, is one of New York City’s lesser-known (but no less worthy) art museums. Dedicated to arts and crafts from turn-of-the-century Germany and Austria, it’s home to Gustav Klimt’s landmark Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, though its permanent collection also features masterpieces from Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, and Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius.

You can’t talk about art in New York without talking about the street art. While colorful graffiti and murals aren’t exactly in short supply in New York—and can be viewed all over town—it’s worth going out of your way to visit the Bushwick Collective’s “gallery” in Brooklyn. Its collection has been steadily growing and changing since 2011. Head to the intersection of St. Nicholas Avenue and Troutman Street and start wandering to see what’s currently on display.