New Museum Is Wired for the Future

March 26, 2026

Here in New York, we’re making a conscious choice to imagine and reimagine the future, at the same time. In the heart of the East Village, the iconic New Museum has reopened with an expansion— a space dedicated to the museum’s cultural incubator program, New Inc. Hence, the opening is not only one that facilitates the spectation of art but the creation of it. With their inaugural exhibition, New Humans: Memories of the Future, guests are asked to not only nurture their preconceptions of the future, but to recognize how the fabric of the future is woven into the now.

On view now are visceral and bodily pieces like American transgender artist Greer Lankton’s Freddy’s Body (1988) and Sissy’s Body (1989). The works are a doll-like display of the before and after of gender-affirming surgery, under the emotional framework of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Andro Wekua’s Untitled (2014) is a human-like robot girl with wired hands that twitch eerily every so often. The piece, a commentary on sentience, reminds us that “aliveness” is a slippery slope, a belief system.

Ahead of the opening, we sat down with Salome Asega, Deputy Director of Strategy and Innovation at New Museum and Director of New Inc., to talk about what this expansion means for the art community in New York and the art world at large.

Words by Selena Aiyla

This is a place for people who celebrate their hybridity, their multidisciplinarity.

This reopening marks a new chapter for New Museum. What does this moment mean for the creative community?

New Inc. in the last decade plus, has really been a home and champion for incubating and supporting ideas at their early emergence, as they are trickling into culture and society. And what's exciting about New Inc. returning to the museum and having a purpose-built home is that it will be not just a place for community gathering and for incubating ideas, but also for starting to materialize those ideas. And now we have new production resources, including a fabrication lab and a media lab. So I'm excited to extend the already good work we've been doing through our professional development mentorship programming by offering this additional resource.

The new building’s inaugural exhibition is titled New Humans: Memories of the Future. How does that theme resonate with your work at New Inc.?

Yeah, a lot of the creative research that happens at New Inc. happens very early on in contemporary conversations we're having about technology. For example, in the early years of New Inc., we were supporting artists through a Nakia Bell Labs residency program, two artists of which, Stephanie Dinkins and Seguin Chun, were thinking about human machine relationships. And Stephanie was interviewing a humanoid robot that presented as a black woman, but was not designed right or coded by black women. And there were really interesting conversations about this humanoid robot, about algorithmic decision-making and biases embedded in the tools. And she has gone on to have a rich career, continuing to research and explore artificial intelligence, which obviously is now a big conversation. And this is a project we supported over 10 years ago. And that's just to give a sense of how early we are in engaging these ideas.

New Museum is focused on modernity, creating new spaces, and following novel ideas. What feels genuinely new to you at the moment?

Something that feels new to me at the moment is slowing down. Yeah, we're in the hustle and bustle of New York City, but I think finding time to slow down and be with each other and make time for the quiet work of relationship building is actually so important right now.

In a world that’s become increasingly commercial, how do spaces that encourage experimentation push humanity forward?

The special thing about New Inc. is that it welcomes a vulnerable cohort of people who are taking risks. And we often say in the program, the more hyphens you have in your practice, the more multi-hyphenate you are, the lonelier it can feel. And so this is a place for people who celebrate their hybridity, their multidisciplinarity, and I think it's within that working between silos that you actually identify new opportunities for change. Programs like New Inc. push us forward because they're drawing connections, unlikely connections that people don't often see.

You’re also an artist yourself. How has your personal approach and artistic practice influenced your philosophy as you direct New Museum and New Inc.?

So I have a really long history with New Inc., actually. I'm an alumnus of the program. I was in the third year when I was with a group of other artists, and we started a nonprofit organization called Power Plant. It used to have a physical presence in Bushwick, and we worked to establish digital artists to teach workshops to the next generation. There were so many things as a collective of artists we were passionate about and had great vision for, but didn't really know how to operationalize. And New Inc. was a place where we learned those skills, and I think I've continued to develop an operational muscle as I moved into this role as director of New Inc. I think a lot of what I can bring as an artist is just creative problem-solving.

What opportunities will come with the new physical space that weren’t otherwise present?

We’re excited to be a field-wide resource, right for artists, designers, and technologists who are thinking about not only how to sustain their careers, but also how to build and scale their projects. We're also excited about being physically back in the museum and continuing to do all of our public programming, which includes a demo festival or an annual festival that celebrates the cohort, but also brings in external guests to give further context of the kinds of ideas and questions we're asking in the program. You don't really see many institutions that have this kind of workspace embedded in them.

What do you hope visitors walk away with next weekend as they leave the reopening?

I hope when they’re leaving the reopening, that they’re thinking about when they're coming back! And, that they're thinking about bringing friends back. I hope they’re thinking about the museum as a place where they will always uncover something new that drives their career and drives their curiosity.

Art

Barbara Kruger: The Supreme Collager

April 30, 2026

Participating in the annual New York Antiquarian Book Fair, Harper's Books will exhibit acclaimed artists, including the legendary collager, Barbara Kruger. The collection of her original paste-ups encapsulates the artist's early transition from editorial design to contemporary art. As such, the collection feel more like an act of construction. Her blocky cut-outs of Futura are carefully assembled, tested, and positioned in order to simplify intense messages. Based on her time as a designer from both Mademoiselle magazine and leftist book publisher Schocken, Kruger masters how to strategically synthesize words and images in a way that is minimalistic yet riveting.

The work foregrounds her artistic methodology that defines her reputable portfolio today. This developmental phase reflects on how images circulate, how authority is established, and how meaning is shaped through the pairing of text and imagery. The pieces are from the 80s, when the voices answering these questions were still forming, meek and fluid. There's something so compelling about artwork from that past that so accurately portrays the present, reminding us that time exists on a spiral rather a linear line.

From April 30th to May 3rd, visit booth C23 at Park Avenue Armory to catch her work on display and for sale.

Art

Paul McCarthy: Power in the Provocative

I do what I want—what I believe in. We’re living in a pretty extreme time, and when people say my work is getting more extreme, I think that just reflects the world around us. I’m simply moving with the current.

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, McCarthy’s beginning in the art world stems from proximal radicalization. After moving from Salt Lake City to study in San Francisco, McCarthy's work as an artist has always embodied this radicalization. Street-wise, known for being one of the most

“dangerous” artists in Los Angeles, this exhibit encapsulates that at its forefront. The artworks present provocative, scattered drawings and paintings that promote freedom from systematic censorship in the exchange between creator and receiver. His art style is distinctive in its intention of visibility over technicality, as seen in his limited color palette and intentionally imperfect techniques, but radical imagery.

McCarthy speaks about his artistic process as though the outcomes are inevitable and incredibly natural to him, given the current state of the world. Living in times of constant uncertainty has blurred the lines of media censorship; almost everything we consume is shaped by it, raising questions such as: Why was this said? Why was this created? Who is this for? Paul McCarthy’s work deconstructs this. His drive to create authentically and follow what feels natural to him results in art that inhabits the visual extremes of human experience, with the spirit of contestation serving as an added layer to the experience.

Art

The Wedding Written In Stone

April 27, 2026

Sten Studio walks down the aisle to couple with Alcova for Milan Design Week. Set within an abandoned cathedral where vows once echoed, The Wedding is a sculptural installation hosting a symbolic marriage between feminine and masculine, soft and stone, fluidity and structure. Rocks are fossilized fusions of their own ancient surroundings, built from eons of crashing waves or explosive magma. Love is based on divine circumstances, built through trials and tribulations. Love is much like stone in the way it takes form through time and pressure, relying on the invisible higher powers forcing the gravity of unity. The Wedding reflects on this permanence. The space materializes elements that are usually fleeting - light, flowers, ceremonies, romance. Registry gifts include a custom carpet courtesy of Verdi, floral arrangements from Hamish Powell, and scents brewed by Penhaligon’s, all coming together to build the intimate world.

Photos Courtesy of Ramona Balaban

Sten Studio specializes in stones and crystals as decorative interiors, expanding on natural, Earthly beauty in man-made environments. Alcova temporarily transforms raw, abandoned, and unique urban spaces into immersive hubs of design, innovation, and heritage. The featured collection revitalizes the cathedral for a final reception celebrating life and all its momentary yet abundant bursts of joy.