Museum

New Museum

New York, United States

Address

  • 235 Bowery
  • New York
  • New York
  • NY 10002
  • United States

Regular hours

Monday
Closed
Tuesday
11:00 – 18:00
Wednesday
11:00 – 18:00
Thursday
11:00 – 21:00
Friday
11:00 – 18:00
Saturday
11:00 – 18:00
Sunday
11:00 – 18:00

Travel Information

Train: From the East Side of Manhattan Take the downtown 6 train to Spring Street. Exit the station and walk one block north on Lafayette Street to Prince Street. Turn right and proceed until Prince Street ends four blocks later at Bowery. From the West Side of Manhattan Take the downtown N or R train to Prince Street. Exit the station and proceed east on Prince Street for six blocks to Bowery. You may also take the downtown D or F train to Broadway/ Lafayette. Walk three blocks east to Bowery and turn right two blocks to Prince Street. From Brooklyn Take the Manhattan-bound F train to 2nd Avenue. Exit at Houston Street and walk one block west to Bowery. Turn left, and proceed two blocks south to Prince Street. From Queens Take the Manhattan-bound F train to 2nd Avenue. Exit at Houston Street and walk one block west to Bowery. Turn left, and proceed two blocks south to Prince Street.

The New Museum began as an idea in the mind of founding Director Marcia Tucker. As a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art from 1967 through 1976, Tucker observed firsthand that new work by living artists was not easily assimilated into the conventional exhibition and collection structure of the traditional art museum.


Portrait of Marcia Tucker The care and attention that these venerable institutions lavished on older, established artists and artworks was not yet being extended to art being made in the present. Interested in bringing the scholarly practices of these older institutions to younger artists and their work, Tucker imagined an institution devoted to presenting, studying, and interpreting contemporary art.

When Tucker officially founded the New Museum on January 1, 1977, it was the first museum devoted to contemporary art established in New York City since the Second World War. Positioned between a traditional museum and an alternative space, the New Museum’s stated mission was to be a catalyst for a broad dialogue between artists and the public by establishing “an exhibition, information, and documentation center for contemporary art made within a period of approximately ten years prior to the present.” The Museum presented the work of living artists who did not yet have wide public exposure or critical acceptance to a broader public.

The first New Museum exhibition was organized by Tucker at C Space, an alternative space not far from the Museum’s temporary offices on Hudson Street in Tribeca. Entitled “Memory,” the exhibition reflected on connections between personal and collective memory, a meditation on the function of the museum and the making of cultural history. This show—like every New Museum exhibition that has followed—was accompanied by a catalogue, documenting the exhibition for present and future audiences.

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Exhibiting artists