In the Field 04 - May 3rd 2013 - The next big thing in NYC

Most famous museums in New York are the Moma, the Metropolitan and the Gugenheim. But one of the most extraordinary museums I found is the "New Museum". It started in 1977 based on the critique that museums are only focussed on art that has already arrived.

New Museum NYC

To stretch your mind you could try to argue that once art arrives in a museum it's probably outdated. This is not bad, because good art has to be preserved. But if that is the only thing museums do then our attention might be fixed on the past and making us neglect the present and future. So what about a museum that tries to present art that is in development or yet to come?
Visionary founder Marcia Tucker gave the New Museum a head start with this mission. Now days many museums are thinking about a new position in a public domain that is also fed and led by new, social, media. They try to adapt their exhibitions to a more active and less docile audience.
Let's say that "only yesterday" culture was highly influenced by institutions and industries following a authority of merits or a logic of the market. The "old" media were "one to many" media, meaning that few people - those who were in control of the scarce media channels - were addressing a mass audience. The audience could either accept those few messages or turn away. Participation (reply, adaption, variation, alternation, etc.) was not a serious option.
Those days are gone and now we have all sorts of cultural constellations influenced by grass roots, peer groups and niche markets. The "old" media still exist but they are supplemented by the "many to many" (Youtube, Facebook) and "one on one" (WhatsApp, skype) social media. Slowly but irreversible there is a shifting power relation between the roles of "transmitter and receiver", "talker and listener", "maker and taker" and "producer and consumer" and we don't know if it will continue, bounce back or snap.

So museums as "presenters" might want to develop a new relation with their "receptors" and the New Museum is up front in this avant-garde. Producing traditional exhibitions is just a minor part of their activities. They step out of the frame, of the stage, the pedestal and out of the building. They organize workshops and events that concern contemporary living in New York.
I first got in touch with the New Museum on the Ideas City event. Part of the event was a market of ideas. Hundreds of bright New York minds presented their inventions and dreams on the streets around the New Museum. Another event was a public pitch of a handful of the most radical ideas to transform the city in one of the biggest churches of the city, Saint Patrick. After the pitches the public voted a winner. This was the so called "PlusPool". This installation would float in the waters around Manhattan island cleansing the water while at the same time offering a public swimming pool to the public.


I would say that at the moment the latest big thing happening in New York is the Highline. I don't have the impression that the next big thing in New York will be the Citibike project that was recently launched. So keep an eye on this plus pool project. New Yorks next big thing could be on the water.

Impression of Pluspool on Brooklyn side of the East River