with free admission, extended hours, and a series of artist talks
December 2–3, 2017
On December 2 and 3, the New Museum will celebrate its fortieth anniversary with free admission for all visitors and extended museum hours from 10am to 8pm each day. Visitors will be able to visit the Museum’s celebrated lineup of exhibitions, including Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon, Kahlil Joseph: Shadow Play, Petrit Halilaj: RU, Helen Johnson: Ends, Alex Da Corte: Harvest Moon, and Pursuing the Unpredictable: The New Museum 1977–2017.
As a highlight of the weekend, an intergenerational group of 40 artists will come together in conversation for “Who’s Afraid of the New Now? 40 Artists in Dialogue to Celebrate the New Museum’s Anniversary.” Borrowing its title from an artwork of the same name by Allen Ruppersberg—who had his first New York survey at the New Museum in 1985—the event features a selection of artists whose exhibitions, works, and interventions have shaped and transformed the identity and history of the New Museum. Engaging in dialogue with each other, the forty artists will discuss an array of topics related to their practice, their history with the Museum, and beyond. On the occasion of “Who is Afraid of the New Now?,” Pipilotti Rist has realized a new video which will be shown in the New Museum Theater as an intermezzo between talks. The event is organized by Natalie Bell, Assistant Curator; Gary Carrion-Murayari, Kraus Family Curator; Helga Christoffersen, Assistant Curator; Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director; and Margot Norton, Curator.
On the occasion of the anniversary, the New Museum will also reinstall Bruce Nauman’s iconic video No, No New Museum (Clown Torture Series) (1987) in the Museum’s window, just as the work was originally presented during Nauman’s solo exhibition at the Museum in 1987.
Each conversation will be a ticketed event, with tickets available for purchase via the New Museum website. The full schedule of talks is as follows:
Saturday, December 2
10am: Judith Bernstein & Linda Montano
11am: Paweł Althamer & Cally Spooner
12pm: Ragnar Kjartansson & Carolee Schneemann
1pm: Hans Haacke & Carsten Höller
3pm: Donald Moffett & Nari Ward
4pm: George Condo & Jeff Koons
5pm: Paul Chan & Carroll Dunham
6pm: Thomas Bayrle & Kerstin Brätsch
7pm: Raymond Pettibon & Kaari Upson
8pm: Simone Leigh & Lorraine O’Grady
Sunday, December 3
10am: Cheryl Donegan & Mary Heilmann
11am: Jeremy Deller & Martha Rosler
12pm: Paul McCarthy & Andra Ursuta
1pm: Elizabeth Peyton & Allen Ruppersberg
3pm: Nicole Eisenman & Neil Jenney
4pm: Howardena Pindell & Dorothea Rockburne
5pm: Bouchra Khalili & Doris Salcedo
6pm: Camille Henrot & Anri Sala
7pm: Sharon Hayes & Faith Ringgold
8pm: Carol Bove & Joan Jonas
The same weekend, the Museum will release the book 40 Years New, co-published by the New Museum and Phaidon and edited by Lisa Phillips, Toby Devan Lewis Director, with contributions by Johanna Burton, Lauren Cornell, Massimiliano Gioni, Joseph Grima, Julia Kaganskiy, Phillips, Ned Rifkin, Lynne Tillman, and Brian Wallis. A rich illustrated history of the New Museum, 40 Years New captures the New Museum’s legendary firsts, major milestones, groundbreaking exhibitions, and prescient curatorial thinking. This book will provide the first history of the bold and experimental spirit that makes the New Museum a model twenty-first-century art museum, tracing the Museum’s growth from its humble beginnings in a loft in Tribeca to its present-day international influence. An anthology of selected writings by Marcia Tucker, the New Museum’s founding director, will be released in 2019.
In celebration of the Museum’s anniversary, Lynda Benglis has created ELEPHANT NECKLACE (2017), a limited edition sculpture of polished nickel bronze, which will also be on view over the anniversary weekend.
About New Museum
The New Museum is the only museum in New York City exclusively devoted to contemporary art. Founded in 1977, the New Museum is a center for exhibitions, information, and documentation about living artists from around the world. From its beginnings as a one-room office on Hudson Street to the inauguration of its first freestanding building on the Bowery designed by SANAA in 2007, the New Museum continues to be a place of experimentation and a hub of new art and new ideas.
