On the celebration of her 2016 retrospective at the New Museum, Nicole Eisenman got me by the shoulders and pleaded, “Get me out of here!” One didn’t take a look at art in the old, claustrophobic version of the structure; one sustained it. Now, the snazzy stacked boxes on Bowery have actually added 10,000 brand-new square feet of gallery area. The art world had actually been holding its breath, and after the reveal it could finally breathe out.
Yes, the museum is filled with angles and sharp corners. More than a few individuals feared for the security of their fingers as they negotiated the jagged staircase banisters. The slippery floors had others strolling gingerly. But it flows. The creative director, Massimiliano Gioni, has for years staged sprawling, mind-bending exhibits inside a vault that choked them. His inaugural outing in the revamped area, “New Humans: Memories of the Future,” on view through the summertime, is a complete release: 700-plus objects spanning art, artifacts, images, and visual culture by more than 200 artists, whatever bleeding into everything else. “Massimiliano can actually spread his wings now,” said Tschabalala Self, whose outdoor sculpture of a smooching couple recommendations the neighboring architectural “kiss point” where the old and brand-new structures combine. (Francesco Clemente, Joan Jonas, Valuable Okoyomon, and WangShui were amongst the artists who attended one of a number of opening parties.)
The inaugural show is packed to the rafters and overhung, however that’s the point: It’s expected to be excessive. You couldn’t finish it in a single walk-through. You’re implied to wander, to loop, to get lost, to come back. You survive it– and perhaps it changes you a little. Lisa Phillips, the outbound director of the museum, called the reconfigured building “a spaceship.” It seems to me more like an ark, something constructed to bring art through an unsure future.
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