We expected it to open last fall. Then there was silence for months. Now, finally, the delayed reopening of the New Museum has an official date: March 21. The 60,000-square-foot expansion—designed by OMA (Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas) in collaboration with executive architect Cooper Robertson—will integrate seamlessly with SANAA’s existing Square-designed flagship on the Princess of Bowery street. The project doubles the museum’s exhibition space and dramatically improves accessibility and mobility using three new elevators, a sweeping Atrium Stair and a redesigned entryway—first revealed by the museum’s artistic director, Massimiliano Gioni, in a previous interview with the Observer. The expansion also adds major new public spaces, including an expanded seventh-floor Sky Room and a 74-seat Forum for talks and events. On the ground floor, guests will enter through an expansive lobby with a large bookstore and a full-service restaurant operated by the Oberon Group.
When we spoke with Gioni, he shared the plans for the reopening of the exhibition, “New People: Memories of the Future,” which brings together more than 150 artists, writers, scientists, architects and filmmakers in an ambitious, cross-disciplinary, multidisciplinary, encyclopedic presentation—especially in the style of examining Gioni’s signature, and what it means in its signature. being human in the midst of rapid technological change. “This exhibition will ask how artists have seen the future, often predicting or dealing with technological changes while investigating how those changes have changed our perception and representation. It looks at the changing definitions of people in the 20th and 21st centuries,” he said.
The list of participating artists ranges from 20th century historical figures such as Francis Bacon, Salvador Dalí, Ibrahim El-Salahi, HR Giger, Hannah Höch, Tatsuo Ikeda, Gyula Kosice, El Lissitzky, and Eduardo Paolozzi to the latest works by artists who have emerged in recent decades, Art, Mekariem, Meekariem, Meekariem, Lucy Gaillard, Pierre Huyghe, Tau Lewis, Daria Martin, Wangechi Mutu, Precious Okoyomon, Berenice Olmedo, Philippe Parreno, Hito Steyerl, Jamian Juliano-Villani and Andro Wekua.
Described by Gioni as “diagonal history,” one of the exhibition’s starting points is Karel Čapek’s 1920 fictional play. Rossum’s Universal Robots-the first project to introduce the concept of a robot. Today, as artificial intelligence, robotics and digital technology dominate public discourse, the show feels incredibly informative. “I think we live in a world full of information and images that can deal with a large amount of information and images. Then, we have the unpleasant idea that the museum is a place of peace and quiet. This exhibition, instead, is very crowded. We want to see what happens when the experience of viewing art is concentrated, like when we take pictures on our cell phones in our daily life.”
According to Gioni, the New Museum will be the first institution in New York to hold exhibitions that directly address the most pressing issues of our time. Despite the delay of several months—and the fact that related themes have since appeared elsewhere (notably Lu Yang’s premiere at the Amant Foundation)—the New Museum’s reopening exhibition still promises to be the most comprehensive survey of these questions, bringing a dynamic and disciplinary perspective to the works of art, architecture, photography and photography of the last century. “We have always been at the forefront of artistic practices and cultural issues. This exhibition continues this idea of the exhibition as a tool for understanding the world outside the museum,” said Gioni, describing this transhistorical approach as important at a time when the dangerously spreading amnesia of history threatens our ability to understand the present and think about the future.
The new building allows the museum to expand on its production-driven work. The top floor now includes a dedicated studio for artists-in-residence and a purpose-built home for the museum’s cultural incubator, NEW INC. “As a non-collecting institution, we can put a lot of our energy into really supporting artists by working with them, producing jobs and finding resources to make that happen,” he said. As part of this effort, the museum will present a new commission, VENUS VICTORIAby British artist Sarah Lucas in the entryway. Lucas is the inaugural recipient of the Hostetler/Wrigley Sculpture Award, a newly established biannual award that supports the production and presentation of new work by women artists in the museum’s public space. Additional long-term commissions include Tschabalala Self’s work for the museum’s facade and Klára Hosnedlová’s sculpture for the new Atrium Stair.
To celebrate the expansion, the museum will offer free admission on opening weekend. Starting after that, the New Museum will increase ticket prices: admission for adults will increase from $22 to $25, tickets for seniors and visitors with disabilities will increase from $19 to $22 and student tickets will go from $16 to $19. Admission will remain free for guests 18 and under, and SNAP/EBT benefit recipients.
More in museums
