New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York is the avant-garde of the avant-garde. It features not only paintings, but also completely new forms of art: video art, installations, and technology-based projects. This is a place where you can see things that are not exhibited anywhere else.
The museum building itself is already a work of art! It was designed by the Japanese architecture firm SANAA, and it looks like several glass boxes stacked on top of one another. There is also a beautiful observation deck on the seventh floor of the museum, which is a plus for those who run an Instagram account.
History of New Museum’s Founding and Development
The museum was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, a curator who was fired from the Whitney Museum of American Art for having an overly adventurous taste in experimental art.
New Museum became the first contemporary art institution to open in New York since World War II. From the very beginning, it focused not on a permanent collection, but on living artists who had not yet achieved widespread recognition.
In the mid-1990s, its focus expanded to include international and older artists. After the AIDS epidemic, the museum also took on the task of preserving the legacy of artists who had died prematurely.
The museum did not have its first permanent building until 2007. Between 2022 and 2026, the adjacent OMA extension was built, doubling the institution’s floor area.
Architecture of the Building Housing the New Museum
The original SANAA building (2007) consists of several glass boxes shifted relative to one another, creating one of the most recognizable silhouettes in Lower Manhattan.
In 2026, it was joined by a building designed by OMA (Rem Koolhaas and Shohei Shigematsu), with approximately 5,570 square meters of space, named after curator Toby Devan Lewis.
Interesting fact: this is one of the few museum complexes in the world that brings together buildings designed by two living Pritzker Prize laureates. SANAA received the prize in 2010, while Koolhaas received it in 2000.
The new building features an atrium staircase connecting all floors, an expanded Sky Room with terraces on the seventh floor, a 74-seat Forum, a home for the NEW INC art incubator, a restaurant, and an enlarged bookstore.
Exhibitions at the New Museum
New Museum deliberately does not maintain a permanent collection in the traditional sense. Its exhibitions focus on emerging, underrecognized, or artists being shown in the United States for the first time, including artists from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.
The museum has exhibited works by Kara Walker, Pipilotti Rist, Chris Ofili, Paul Chan, Wangechi Mutu, Danh Vo, and many others. For many artists, an exhibition at the museum became a starting point for international recognition. The format goes beyond painting and sculpture to include installations, video art, digital art, and performances.
