New, exciting cultural offerings in New York City and the price was right…free.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened The Met Breuer in the iconic Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue last Friday.

This building was the former home of the Whitney Museum.

The museum inaugurated the new space dedicated to modern and contemporary art of the 20th and 21st centuries.

We dropped in Friday night which was Opening Night and took in the fascinating exhibit, Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible of unfinished works of art from the Renaissance to the present day.

It was very interesting to view the unfinished artwork by such masters as Picasso, Degas, Van Gogh, Freud and Titian.

This exhibition addresses a subject critical to artistic practice…the question of when a work of art is finished.

Beginning with the Renaissance masters, the innovative exhibition examines the term “unfinished” in its broadest possible sense, including works left incomplete by their makers which offers insight into the process of their creation.

We roamed the five floors of The Met Breuer.

The top floor of the former Whitney Museum is now a leisure center serving Blue Bottle coffee.

A lovely lounge decorated with artwork for sale is a relaxing place to have a cup of coffee..

There is also a very eclectic bookstore, sponsored by Phaidon Publishing.

The first painting you see when enterering the exhibit is a naked male body hanging upside-down from a tree. It’s surrounded by a group of men, some with very sharp knives.

It is Titian’s dark masterpiece, The Flaying of Marsyas. Valued at $150 million, the brutal life-size scene is among the most prized artworks on view at this new branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Join the tour…

Vincent Van Gogh: The passages of unpainted canvas in the sky suggests that the artist was unable to finish this painting before he took his own life in late July 1890.

It will cost $17 million each year to run the Met Breuer and renovations for the building was estimated to have cost about $15 million.

The Met is projecting to fall short this year by $8 million, but museum officials believe that the investment will be worth it.

Estela, the acclaimed SoHo restaurant, will open this summer in the former Untitled restaurant space on the lower level.

Head to The Met Breuer…you have “Unfinished” business to attend to.

The Met Breuer 945 Madison Avenue New York City. Open Tuesday and Wednesday: 10 am–5:30 pm, Thursday and Friday: 10 am–9 pm, Saturday and Sunday: 10 am–5:30 pm. Closed Monday. Suggested Admission $25.