After a two year closure, the museum doubles its gallery space with a 700-plus object show examining how humans and technology shape each other
Right now on the Bowery, a busy Manhattan thoroughfare, two supersized lovers embrace several stories up into the blue spring sky. Strapped against the New Museum’s industrial mesh exterior, the pair are frozen in a state of plasticized affection. Their grinning, almost smooching heads are pressed close and glossy torsos entwined. A massive hand, safe as a catcher’s mitt, encases them both, splaying wide across their waists as though to stop them crashing to the sidewalk.
The site-specific sculpture is titled Art Lovers, a work by Harlem-born artist Tschabalala Self, and marks the architectural “kiss point” between the New Museum’s original building and a new expansion. Today, 21 March, the New Museum publicly debuts its enlarged architectural anatomy after two years of being closed to the public. Designed by Rem Koolhaas, the OMA founder, and partner Shohei Shigematsu, the $82m project affixes a jagged, glassy jewel to the original building, effectively doubling the footprint to 119,700 sq ft. At a media preview this week, Shigematsu likened the alignment of the two distinct buildings – one he called more “vertical and introverted”, the other “more horizontal and extroverted” – to the search for a romantic partner. “You know how difficult it is to find a perfect pair,” he said. “Very difficult.”
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