Il
New Museum di New York festeggia ben due venti, il compimento di quarantanni di
attività e i dieci anni per la nuova sede sulla Bowery.
Nato
dalla forte volontà di Marcia Tucker di dare spazio alla contemporaneità ora è un punto di riferimento internazionale.
CS
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.
... history
