At left, Martha Stewart; at right, a bundle of old clothes. Both were at the New Museum of Contemporary Art. Stewart attended the grand reopening celebration in its new building on the Bowery in Manhattan. The clothes were fashioned into a sculpture entitled "Bale Variant No. 0011" by Brooklyn artist Shinique Smith. It is one of 75 works of art in the museum's inaugural exhibition, entitled "Unmonumental".
Beauty/Beast
At left, actress Ashley Olsen. At right, "Liberator's Retreat," a sculpture in wax, foam, pigment, wood and drywall by Los Angeles artist Matthew Monahan, one of 30 artists mostly from the U.S. and Europe whose work is in the show. Olsen was one of the well-known figures who attended the "First Look" party at the museum on Nov. 28, 2007.
Celebrity Meets The Cutting-Edge
Also attending the First Look were actresses Julianne Moore, left, and Maggie Gyllenhaal. The party was sponsored by the Calvin Klein collection.
Stack Of White Boxes In The Bowery
The new building, a stack of white boxes, towers over neighboring buildings on the Bowery, and is the first downtown museum built from scratch. The New Museum was launched in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, who reportedly had lost her job just 24 hours earlier at the Whitney Museum because she had curated a controversial exhibition. The museum moved several times, staying for 20 years at 583 Broadway.
Dizzying Difference
The new Bowery building doubles the space, and almost triples the number of floors (here is a dizzying view of the staircase). The building is seven stories and 174 feet tall (plus a floor below ground). There is a theater, a cafe, a museum store, and "a multi-purpose event space" on the top floor.
Just The Beginning
The new museum has four public galleries. Three of them each take up an entire floor. If the inaugural exhibition doesn't seem to fill up these galleries, this is just the first part of the show. Subsequent openings will add collages, works involving sound, and Internet-based art.
Bicycle/Bicyclist
Famed cyclist Lance Armstrong attended the "Unmonumental" exhibition at the New Museum, which included a sculpture by New York artist Rachel Harrison entitled "Huffy Howler", which includes a Huffy Howler bicycle, and, pasted to the back of an artifical fur, a publicity shot of Mel Gibson in the movie "Braveheart".
This Is Not An Artwork
Rachel Harrison has another sculpture in the show (shown front and back); the materials listed include polystyrene, cement, artificial potatoes, "X-Tensions Tony G-Fire wig with label," and a surveillance camera. She calls it "This Is Not An Artwork." As New Museum director Lisa Phillips writes: "While we now have a beautiful new building, we are also keenly aware of not becoming too proper, polite or institutional."
Melting (Un)Monuments
Swiss-born artist Urs Fischer has created a sculpture of a life-sized nude woman made out of wax, which is lit at the top and will slowly melt over the course of the exhibition. His piece, like other sculptures in "Unmonumental," the curators suggest, reflect current-day uncertainty about how long anything can last, in the face of global warming, terrorism and other 21st century threats.
Monolithic Myth, aka Chairs
Many of the sculptures in the exhibition are assemblages of everyday objects, such as Andre Marc Robinson's "Myth Monolith." In the show's catalogue, co-curator Massimiliano Gioni writes that many of these sculptures offer a deliberately "modest" art, as if they could be put together "even in the most dismal apartment" -- products "of a dysfunctional century," but at the same time beautiful.
A Bunch Of Buoys
Abraham Cruzvillegas, an artist who lives in Mexico City, created this giant bunch of grapes out of Buoys.
An Elephant of Vertical Blinds And Bubble Wrap
Isa Genzken, an artist who lives in Berlin, created this sculpture, entitled "Elefant," from wood, plastic tubes, plastic foils, vertical blinds, plastic toys, artific ial flowers, fabric, bubble wrap, lacquer and spray paint.
Found And Refashioned Objects
At left, "The Wreck" by Elliot Hundley, made mostly out of paper. At right, top to bottom: "Not Sorry" by Nate Lowman; an untitled work by Manfred Pernice made up of ceramics, bottles, plastic flowers, buckets, wood and metal table, carpet; an art piece by Sarah Lucas with an obscene title, made up of a sofa bed with fluorescent lights, a wood box and light bulbs.
Other "First Look"ers
Among those who attended the "First Look" on Nov. 28 included, clockwise from left: Thandie Newton (best known as the female lead in "Mission Impossible II"), New York Rangers' Sean Avery; actress Ali Larter (a star of the TV series "Heroes"; artist Chuck Close (best known for his huge painted portraits that look like photographs); model and British rock musician Jamie Burke (best known for whom he's dated).
Art Owls
Three days after the "First Look" for invited guests, the museum had its official opening for the public, Dec. 1, 2007. Sponsored by Target, the first 30 hours were free, though demand was great enough that museum-goers had to reserve time-slots in advance (and then wait on line anyway). Even Sunday morning at 3:30 a.m. was completely booked.
Viewing The Bowery
A view from the top floor of the New Museum onto the neighborhood. For many years, The Bowery was famous as a dead-end street for dead-beats and drunks. But it was a cultural and entertainment center of New York and the nation in the nineteenth century, and it seems destined to return to this status (plus condos) in the twenty-first century.