Local Galleries and Museums

ARTPARK is a park and a cultural institution located on the Niagara Gorge, USA. Established in 1974, Artpark is a collaboration between the New York State Parks and the cultural nonprofit institution Artpark & Company.

Artpark is currently programmed and managed by an independent nonprofit Artpark & Co. and is widely regarded as a summer outdoor music venue ranked one of the top 100 Amphitheaters Worldwide by Pollstar.  Artpark delivers 150+ events attended by 150,000+  visitors, on 150+ acres of land over 110 days of summer.  Ninety of these events are community & family programs delivered to over 50,000+ people at low or no cost. 

One of the oldest art institutions in the country, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum is renowned as the home of one of the most significant collections of modern and contemporary art in North America. Their collection is extensive and includes names like Picasso, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse, Gauguin, O'Keeffe, Pollock, Holzer, Warhol, Sherman, Kieffer, and Marisol. After a period of construction, the Buffalo AKG re-opened its doors to the public in 2023, with extensive renovations to the 1905 and 1962 wings, and 50,000 additional square feet of exhibition space in the new Gundlach wing, designed by OMA.

Buffalo Art Movement (BAM!) supports the development and works of emerging and established artists in Western New York. As an exhibition space and art incubator, we strive to foster collaboration among artists, patrons, students, galleries and art institutions within our community. We are a space free of commercial, political, religious, socioeconomic and ethnic bias, where ideas and new voices are celebrated. Our vision is to provide a platform for local artists to flourish beyond the borders of WNY.

Since 1991, Buffalo Arts Studio has provided local and regional artists with affordable studio space while offering a robust arts education program for both adults and youth. Housed on the fifth floor of the Tri-Main Center, the Buffalo Art Studio believes that everyone should have equitable access to the arts, and provides ample opportunities for engagement. This gallery is open later every 4th Friday of the Month, as part of "M&T Fridays". 

BOX Gallery is located within Hostel Buffalo & is committed to showing work by local artists further enriching & connecting the Hostel to the community.

Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art (BICA), has a mission "To sustain communities through focused, practical engagements with contemporary art." Located in the Buffalo West Side neighborhood, adjacent to the Essex Art Center, BICA is also BICA is the publisher of Cornelia Magazine, the only visual arts review for Western New York and Southern Ontario.

The Burchfield Penney Art Center is dedicated to collecting and exhibiting the work of artists from throughout Western New York, with a special emphasis on the work of famed watercolorist Charles E. Burchfield, who lived in nearby Gardenville for for many years. The exhibits and programming at the Burchfield are rich and varied, offering a visitor a consistently compelling visual arts experience.

Located in Niagara County, the Carnegie Art Center (CAC) has membership throughout Western New York. The CAC provides high quality and accessible artistic programming throughout the year including art exhibitions, classes for children and adults, concerts and other fine art activities, and artist-in-residence studio space. In summer months, the grounds serve as a destination for live music, fitness classes, and community partnerships.

An internationally recognized arts center with eight galleries, an open access darkroom and state-of-the-art computer imaging facilities, CEPA Gallery (Contemporary Photography and Visual Arts Center) curates exhibitions of contemporary photo-related art. CEPA also commissions artists to produce new work, offers youth and adult workshops in photography and digital imaging, and hosts changing exhibitions and multi-media public art installations.

Since its inception in 1991, Big Orbit Project Space has been an artist-run arts center dedicated to transcultural, multidisciplinary explorations of contemporary art issues, with its primary focus being the promotion of the art and artists of Western New York. Big Orbit Project Space relocated to CEPA Gallery’s venue in the Market Arcade building, located at 617 Main Street, in the Fall of 2020. 

The Crucible Art Gallery is part of the Crucible Art Collective, established in 2019 in Buffalo NY. The workspace houses a tattoo studio along with a fine arts gallery, bringing a wide range of artistic practices to the west side. Owned and operated by Taylor Heald.

The Czurles-Nelson Gallery is an academic space dedicated to supporting the scholarly and cultural mission of the visual arts programs at SUNY Buffalo State and providing a forum for the creative and critical expression of the students and faculty of the visual arts.

Dedicated in 2009, the Czurles-Nelson Gallery honors Stanley A. Czurles, the late SUNY Distinguished Service Professor of art education, who founded Buffalo State’s art education program in 1931. 

El Museo is a visual arts organization dedicated to the exhibition of contemporary work by diverse artists and cultures.

El Museo provides programming and supports Western New York in cultivating a future where our communities are stronger because of the presentation and support of diverse artists and cultures.

Created by artist Larry W. Griffis Jr. in 1966, Griffis Sculpture Park was the first sculpture park in the United States. It features more than 250 works of art created by over 100 artists, and also serves as a nature preserve, with 10 miles of trails.

In 2012, the Nancy Haberman Gacioch, William T. Gacioch & Family Center for Visual & Performing Arts (The Haberman Gacioch Center), opened on Daemen’s Amherst, NY campus.

The Center is home to two art galleries. The Peter and Elizabeth C. Tower Gallery consists of hanging walls and moveable structures that maximize versatility. The Karamanoukian Gallery (named for Trustee Emeriti Dr. Hratch Karamanoukian) is located in the walkway connecting the Center to Duns Scotus Hall. Both galleries are professionally curated, and house a rotation of shows by leading professionals, work by faculty (all studio faculty are professional artists) and exhibits of student work.

Hallwalls Art Center was established by Charles Clough, Robert Longo, Diane Bertolo, Nancy Dwyer, Larry Lundy, Cindy Sherman and Michael Zwack in 1974 at the Essex Art Center, an ice packing warehouse that had been converted into studios for artists.

Since its inception, the focus of Hallwalls has been to produce a space that will accommodate artists from diverse backgrounds. Works from varying mediums, which include film, video, performance art, music, painting, photography, and sculpture, have come together to confront the prevailing social issues in contemporary culture.

The C. Stuart and Jane H. Hunt Art Gallery, founded in 2022, is a commercial gallery space located in the historic Brisbane Building in downtown Buffalo. The gallery, founded by Peter Hunt of Hunt Real Estate, has formed a novel partnership with the Buffalo Society of Artists(BSA), and students from UB’s Arts Management program. Named in honor of Hunt’s parents, the gallery embodies the resurgence and revitalization of the Queen City. Hunt Gallery has a mission to support and represent Western New York (WNY) artists. Hunt Gallery provides a revolving studio space for six artists, free of rent.

K Art Gallery is unique — it is one of the only Native American-owned commercial art galleries with a primary and robust focus on the works of established and emerging Native American, First Nations and Indigenous contemporary artists.  

K Art’s mission is to elevate the work of Indigenous contemporary artists so that overlooked artists and their narratives receive the attention they deserve. It executes on that mission by working with established and emerging Indigenous contemporary artists to create exhibitions that explore, illuminate and challenge the Indigenous experience from both contemporary and historical perspectives.

Kingfish is a queer-focused project space directed by architect Adam Thibodeaux (and previously, artist Jacob Todd Broussard). Founded in 2020, it takes its name from a defunct dance club of the same name in their hometown. Supported in part by the Buffalo Institute of Contemporary Art.

The Raft creates connections between artists, collectors, critics, and the community in a welcoming environment which supports artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation. Raft of Sanity is located in Buffalo's West Side, Niagara Corridor.

"art has always been the raft unto which we climb to save our sanity…" ~Dorothea Tanning

Pine Apple Company is a small art gallery and gift shop located in Buffalo's Allentown at 65 Allen Street surrounded by restaurants, cafes, and other small shops. We feature a rotating gallery wall that changes at the beginning of each month in conjunction with Allentown's First Friday Gallery Walk as well as a gift shop offering locally made art, prints, and gifts.

Since opening in November 2016, Revolution Gallery (1419 Hertel Avenue) has hosted dozens of art opening receptions and exhibits, live music concerts, comedy shows, dj parties, burlesque shows, cultural events, paint nights, cheese and wine pairings, and fundraisers; attracting a diverse audience of dedicated followers both locally, and online.

This unique pop-surrealist gallery focuses on contemporary figurative art, is a hot spot for cutting edge music, and is an influential addition to the growing Hertel community.

RIVALRY PROJECTS, or RIVALRY, is a commercial art gallery and arts production space located at 106 College Street in Buffalo’s historic Allentown neighborhood.

Rivalry is founded on the competing motivations of artist and curator, Ryan Arthurs, to create an arts space that can function as both a site of exhibition and production of contemporary art. Rivalry exhibits emerging, mid-career and underrepresented artists working in all media.

The Western New York Book Arts Center promotes greater understanding of printing and book-related arts through education, creation, and exhibition for a broad and diverse community. The Center includes pritnmaking workspaces, a commission-based gift shop, and galleries. The galleries at the WNY Book Arts Center showcase contemporary explorations in the creative practice of the book arts. They are spaces that seek to promote, question, and advance on-going definitions of bookbinding, printmaking, papermaking, and more.

Starlight Studio and Art Gallery is a cooperative environment that supports adults with disabilities in their artistic development. Through technical assistance by professional artists, on-site and off-site exhibitions and other opportunities for representation and sales, the Starlight artists hone their artistic interests, become stronger advocates and better integrated citizens.