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On the occasion of her 2016 retrospective at the New Museum, Nicole Eisenman grabbed me by the shoulders and pleaded, \u201cGet me out of here!\u201d One didn\u2019t look at art in the old, claustrophobic version of the building; one endured it. Now, the snazzy stacked boxes on Bowery have added 10,000 new square feet of gallery space<\/a>. The art world had been holding its breath, and after the reveal it could finally exhale.<\/p>\n Yes, the museum is filled with angles and sharp corners. More than a few people feared for the safety of their fingers as they negotiated the jagged staircase banisters. The slippery floors had others walking gingerly. But it flows. The artistic director, Massimiliano Gioni, has for years staged sprawling, mind-bending exhibitions inside a vault that choked them. His inaugural outing in the revamped space, \u201cNew Humans: Memories of the Future,\u201d on view through the summer, is a full release: 700-plus objects spanning art, artifacts, images, and visual culture by more than 200 artists, everything bleeding into everything else. \u201cMassimiliano can really spread his wings now,\u201d said Tschabalala Self, whose outdoor sculpture of a smooching couple references the nearby architectural \u201ckiss point\u201d where the old and new buildings merge. (Francesco Clemente, Joan Jonas, Precious Okoyomon, and WangShui were among the artists who attended one of several opening parties.)<\/p>\n The inaugural show is packed to the rafters and overhung, but that\u2019s the point: It\u2019s supposed to be too much. You couldn\u2019t finish it in a single walk-through. You\u2019re meant to wander, to loop, to get lost, to come back. You survive it \u2014 and maybe it changes you a little. Lisa Phillips, the outgoing director of the museum, called the reconfigured building \u201ca spaceship.\u201d It seems to me more like an ark, something built to carry art through an uncertain future.<\/p>\n Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism.
\n If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the March 23, 2026, issue of
\n New York\u00a0Magazine.<\/p>\n