Mission and Values

The Grey Art Museum, New York University’s fine arts museum, enables and encourages transformative encounters with works of art. Engaging with challenging issues in the study of material culture, the Grey serves as a museum-laboratory, sparking interdisciplinary scholarship. Uniquely positioned to cultivate visual literacy and critical thinking, the Grey shares NYU’s fundamental commitment as a global research university to advance knowledge of different cultures, contexts, and histories across time. The Grey also fosters experiential learning through its collections and participates in the cultural, intellectual, and environmental spheres of NYU’s Global Network, of New York City, and of the broader world.

The Grey Art Museum and its staff promote the following values:

Innovative scholarship—we are dedicated to producing rigorous scholarship that expands the art historical canon and presents new ideas, both to strengthen the academic community and to enrich learning for our broader audiences.

Inclusion—we actively address inequity and injustice, and seek to empower staff, students, faculty, and community members of all backgrounds, perspectives, and skills.

Access—we strive to create a culture of mutually beneficial engagement that provides opportunities for all students and viewers to build cultural capital, learn about careers in the arts, and inform the museum’s goals and vision.

Interdisciplinary learning, engagement, and community outreach—we cultivate encounters with a range of disciplines, time periods, and global perspectives, and foster collaborative relationships across NYU as well as with peer institutions and community-based organizations, providing opportunities for multifaceted education.