The MTA may no longer be selling MetroCards, but the iconic plastic rectangles will be on full display at an exhibit coming to the New York Transit Museum next month.
The free exhibition, “Inspired by MetroCard,” will dive into how the MetroCard became both an inspiration and a canvas for artists, designers, and cultural institutions over its 32-year lifespan, according to the museum. It will open at the museum’s Grand Central Gallery & Store on March 16 and run through October.
Regina Shepherd, the Transit Museum’s interim director, said in a statement that the MetroCard was one of the “most accessible design objects in New York history.”
“This exhibition captures how artists transformed that shared experience into works that are personal, inventive, and unmistakably New York,” she added.
Inspired by MetroCard will pull from both the museum’s own collection and pieces by a selection of contemporary artists. It will include special edition MetroCards that the MTA has rolled out over the years, as well as original art pieces using the cards as canvases for paintings, building blocks for sculptures, and elements for collages.
“It’s no surprise that the MetroCard has inspired artists across disciplines,” said Jodi Shapiro, the museum’s curator, in a statement.
“What is remarkable is the sheer range of ways artists have transformed it into something entirely new,” she added.
Among the special edition MetroCards the exhibit will include is a 2017 series featuring works by Barbara Kruger on the cards’ backs. Kruger’s work includes provocative questions in a white Helvetica font against a red background.
The exhibit will also include collages by artist Nina Boesch, whose pieces use cut-up expired MetroCards to create mosaic-like depictions of New York iconography. Her works depict the facade of Katz’s Delicatessen, a slice of pizza, and pigeons.
Artist Thomas McKean’s pieces on view use MetroCards to form sculptures. One of his works depicts the outside of one of the city’s tenement buildings with a fire escape jutting out.
Inspired by MetroCard is hardly the Transit Museum’s only current exhibit on the MetroCard. The museum’s central branch is still showing “FAREwell, MetroCard,” an exhibit that dives into the fare card’s origins and evolution over its lifespan.
The museum rolled out both exhibits as the MTA halted MetroCard sales at the end of 2025 in order to fully switch to its tap-and-pay system — OMNY. While MetroCards are still being excepted at fare gates throughout the system, there are few machines left where they can be refilled, rendering the fare cards nearly extinct.
