New York’s New Museum has a brand new extension | EUROtoday

The workers on the New Museum name the purpose the place the brand new and previous buildings meet “Kiss Point”. The Museum of Contemporary Art on New York’s Bowery reopened this weekend – the six-story extension is completed after two years of development. The “kissing point” is marked by a form of pedestrian bridge on the highest ground. From the glazed passage you look down on the metal mesh facade on the precise and the brand new glass wall on the left, with Prince Street straight forward. In addition to the offset stacked cuboids of the earlier constructing, a crystalline-looking, damaged form with slanting recesses now rises.

The new constructing must be “an addition, a counterpart,” stated Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, creator of the manifesto “Delirious New York,” in the course of the press tour. Koolhaas, whose firm OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture) realized the challenge, spoke through video message. His associate chargeable for the challenge, Shohei Shigematsu, stated that the brand new constructing shouldn’t solely exhibit artwork, but in addition invite individuals to fulfill and focus on. “Museums are among the last truly public spaces in the city.” When designing the brand new constructing, which doubles the museum’s house to greater than 11,000 sq. meters, he was impressed by the concept of ​​a pair – “similar, but different”.

Outside on the facade of the unique museum constructing, the place a crusing boat was situated, a sculpture by Tschabalala Self can now be seen: “Art Lovers” reveals a laughing, embracing, colorfully dressed couple of lovers. Founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, the New Museum started as a substitute exhibition house in Tribeca. In 2007, the museum, which was now primarily based in SoHo, moved to the constructing on the Bowery constructed by the Japanese workplace SANAA. The then solely artwork museum in downtown was considered critically on the time as a driver of gentrification in a nook that had lengthy been identified primarily for homelessness, punk and lamp outlets.

The purpose was all the time to find new artists and stimulate discussions, stated director Lisa Phillips, who will quickly be retiring, on the reopening. For this cause, the New Museum doesn’t gather artwork; its activity is to be near the up to date scene. An imposing staircase overlooking the Bowery and the encompassing homes is meant to represent the spirit of openness.

The reopening exhibition is unusually large. “New Humans: Memories of the Future” needs nothing lower than to indicate the contribution of artwork, but in addition different disciplines, to the definition of humanity in additional than 700 objects. It begins with historic portray, with images and objects from the First World War, reminiscent of prostheses. In the top you get to robots and concepts of utopian cities, in between there are births, deaths and precarious work. There are Lennart Nilsson’s endoscopic images of fetuses from the Nineteen Sixties, and there may be the larger-than-life, motherly but in addition eerie-looking sculpture “The Handle of the Axe” by Tau Lewis.

Or the spectacular video work “Mechanical Kurds” by Hito Steyerl: In the work from 2025, a drone takes the viewer to a refugee camp the place individuals do so-called “micro jobs”. They discuss how they assist AI corporations or producers of weapons, drones and video video games classify pictures: here’s a individual, there’s a automotive and so forth. People, animals and homes within the camp are framed within the video with the colourful markings that the individuals discuss off-camera. The focus additionally modifications between flooring: on the finish you encounter a steel stylization of ET and plenty of robotic figures. There is all the time the chance to admire the character of the brand new halls, typically industrial-looking with excessive ceilings, typically intimately embellished in crimson.

The transition between the 2 buildings usually appears seamless. At the highest, within the glass occasion rooms, there are new and acquainted views on the town. A small balcony gives a triangular-framed view of the World Trade Center – it’s lined throughout with a form of pink flokati. A blue “forum” has stair seats.

Initial reactions to the reopening are optimistic: the development is formidable, the present “mature” and critical, based on the reviewer from the “New York Times”. However, there was additionally criticism. Hrag Vartanian from the journal “Hyperallergic” described the aesthetics of the constructing as “commercial” and characterised by a form of neo-colonialism. The actors within the artwork world right now primarily wish to incorporate creativity and construct it ever bigger as a substitute of coping with the communities during which they’re at residence. The New Museum’s direct neighbor is the Bowery Mission, the place homeless individuals have discovered a spot to sleep for greater than 150 years. The museum maintains a cooperation with the house. For the residents, a minimum of the development noise from subsequent door is now over.