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Museums & Galleries in Ljubljana
Joze Plecnik's riverfront capital, where market arcades, a castle hill, and the Metelkova art quarter fit inside one walkable hour.
Why here
Ljubljana's two national art institutions stand a few hundred meters apart: the National Gallery of Slovenia holds the country's largest fine-art collection, around six hundred works on permanent display from medieval gold grounds to early modernism, while Moderna galerija carries the national twentieth-century collection of 1,301 paintings, 502 sculptures, and over 11,000 drawings across two sites, including the +MSUM contemporary wing in the Metelkova quarter. Moderna galerija's Arteast 2000+ holdings make it the reference collection for the ex-Yugoslav avant-gardes, art history you cannot see assembled anywhere else. The whole circuit sits inside Plecnik's compact riverfront capital, itself a walkable architecture museum.
Best months
Year-round; October to April gives the galleries to you nearly alone. Both institutions close Mondays. Pair +MSUM with an evening in the Metelkova alternative quarter next door.
Getting there & around
Everything is walkable from the old town; Ljubljana airport is thirty minutes away. Combine with the food-walk row for a full capital day.
Skill levels: beginner
Schools & guides (2)
Moderna Galerija
OrganizerModerna galerija is Slovenia's national museum of modern and contemporary art, operating since 2011 on two sites: the original MG+ building at Cankarjeva 15 in the centre of Ljubljana and the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (+MSUM) at Maistrova 3. It houses the national collection of twentieth-century Slovene art across painting, sculpture, prints and drawings, photography, video and electronic media. It also holds the international Arteast 2000+ collection of Eastern European artists in dialogue with the West, inaugurated in 2000, and was the first institution in Europe to systematically collect Eastern European postwar art.
National Gallery of Slovenia
OrganizerNarodna galerija, the National Gallery of Slovenia, is the main art museum in Slovenia, holding the country's largest visual arts collection from the late medieval period through the twentieth century, with around six hundred works on permanent display. The permanent collection runs chronologically from 1200 onward, with a dedicated Zoran Music section, in a complex of three integrated wings at Puharjeva ulica 9 covering 12,670 square metres. The founding National Gallery Society dates from 1918, and the gallery's Narodni dom palace was declared a cultural monument in 1993.
Also good for museums & galleries in September:
Torn between Ljubljana and Humlebaek for September?
A plan settles it for your skill and budget, same-day.