AFTER DARK ARTS
Many of the city’s museums stay open late for cocktails, music and more
WHY not enjoy your next night out with a side of art? Museums are getting down after hours this summer with live music, dance, movies and themed cocktails. Here’s where the fun is.
The Morgan Library & Museum is ready to party like it’s 1750. It’s celebrating its “Hogarth: Cruelty and Humor” exhibit tonight with snacks and gin cocktails inspired by the British artist’s sardonic 18th-century cartoons, drawn when there was a gin craze in London. Check out his preparatory drawings for “The Four Stages of Cruelty” and other works and have a cocktail ($6 and up) at the café. At 7 p.m., there’ll be a screening of the 1946 film “Bedlam,” starring Boris Karloff and modeled after Hogarth’s “A Rake’s Progress” series of paintings. 6 to 9 p.m., $22 for museum admission or free entry after 7 p.m. TheMorgan.org
While MoMA’s away — or, at least, closed during its Midtown renovations — its Queens satellite will play. Free Friday nights at PS1 take place 4 to 8 p.m. throughout the galleries and in the garden, which was recently transformed into a 40-foot “jungle” of metal scaffolding and wood. Saturdays, noon to 9 p.m. through Aug. 31, the museum’s Warm Up music series ($18 in advance, $22 day of show) presents emerging artists — Lizzo and Cardi B played at Warm Up before they became famous. Fuel up and chill out with cocktails ($8 and up) and tzatzikitopped hot dogs ($12). MoMAPS1.org
Every Thursday this summer at 5 p.m., the Cooper Hewitt closes its doors — then opens its terrace and garden for cocktails al fresco. There’s live music every week, and July 25 an ecodance troupe will perform, perhaps becoming one with the earth. Drink in the outdoor art — the living “Tree of 40 Fruit” (a grafting of 40 different species) and the 40foot-long sculpture of a river — while sipping a specialty cocktail ($7 and up), such as the Dancing Barefoot (green apple, elderflower, pineapple, prosecco). Snacks are available, too. $14 online ($16 at the door); CooperHewitt.org
The Museum of the City of New York is hopping all summer long. Its series “Unexpected Pairings” winds up Aug. 8 with Gin Fizz à La Mode at which museumgoers 21 and up are invited to taste what happens when two Harlem businesses, Sugar Hill Creamery and HH Bespoke Spirits, work together ($20). On Aug. 21, Moonlight and Movies ($15) continues on the first-floor terrace with a screening of Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times,” which riffs on the museum’s “City of Workers, City of Struggle” exhibit. On Wednesdays through Aug. 14, the museum joins forces with El Museo del Barrio for their annual Uptown Bounce, an exuberant — and free — block party with live music and dance. MCNY.org
The New Museum caps off its Sunset Series by joining forces with Maison Kitsuné, an electronic-music fashion brand. DJs Young Franco and Penguin Prison will hold forth in the museum’s window-wrapped Sky Room, where you can dance and have a beer or two ($5 each) surrounded by dazzling views of downtown Manhattan as the sun sets. On a hot summer night, can there be any better art than that? $10, Aug. 23, 6 to 9 p.m.; NewMuseum.org