New Museum

As the city thaws and the sun shines longer, the New Museum is in full bloom. ☀️ Join us this month for a special lineup of firsts at our reopened building—from talks with “New Humans” artists to the launch of new and renewed programs for families and teens.   🌟 Family Day 🗓️ Sunday May 3, 2026, 11am–3pm 🎟️ FREE admission for families   🐈 ¿Está viva el arte?: Un Tour de “Animacies”  🗓️ Wednesday May 6, 2026, 3–4pm   🎤 Yun Choi in Conversation (@ycuhnoi ) 🗓️ Thursday May 7, 2026, 6:30–8pm   📚 Sci-Fi Book Club: New Humans Origin Stories 🗓️ Saturday May 9 2026, 3–4:30pm   🎨 Bowery Art Space 🗓️ Friday May 15, 2026, 4–6pm 🎟️ FREE drop-in program for teens   ✖️ Seven on Seven (7x7) (@rhizomedotorg ) 🗓️ Saturday May 16, 2026, 1:30–6pm   🌎 Bid for the Future: Steffani Jemison, Cannupa Hanska Luger, and Precious Okyomon in Conversation 🗓️ Thursday May 21, 2026, 6:30–8:30pm   🎤 On AI, Labor, and Power: Hito Steyerl and Trevor Paglen in Conversation 🗓️ Thursday May 28, 2026, 6:30–8pm   🎬 New Museum x Metrograph: “La Jetée” preceded by “How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File” 📍 Off-site at @metrograph 🗓️ Friday May 29, 2026, 6:30–8pm   📚 Sci-Fi Book Club: Future Desires 🗓️ Saturday May 30, 2026, 3–4:30pm   For tickets, visit newmuseum.org/events or the link in bio 🔗

Sneak peek 🫣 Just a couple more days until we're open to the public again! See you back on the Bowery soon! Free tickets for opening weekend are SOLD OUT! Don't have a ticket? 🎟️ Plan your visit today and secure your tickets to explore the New Museum later this Spring! 💐 Pay-What-You-Wish Tickets are available every Thursday from 7-9pm. For tickets, visit newmuseum.org/tickets P.S. 🫣 New Museum Members get free year-round access to the Museum, including special Member hours from 10-11am during our reopening weekend. To learn more about membership, visit newmuseum.org/join 🔗 — 📸: (1,3,4) Courtesy New Museum. Photo: Jason O’Rear (2) Courtesy New Museum. Photo: Jason Keen

What does it mean to be human? 🤖“New Humans: Memories of the Future,” our inaugural exhibition spanning the entirety of the expanded Museum, opens on March 21, 2026. Featuring the work of more than 200 international artists, writers, scientists, architects, and filmmakers, New Humans will highlight key moments from the past 100 years when dramatic technological and societal changes spurred new conceptions of humanity and expanded visions for its possible futures. Learn more about the exhibition and read the full list of 230 artists by visiting the link in bio 🔗

Do you know where the word “robot” comes from? 🤖 Hear from New Museum Senior Curator Gary Carrion-Murayari about one of inspirations for the exhibition “New Humans: Memories of the Future.” — Scene from Karel’s Čapek’s R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots),Theater am Kurfürstendamm, Berlin, 1923. Stage design: Frederick Kiesler. Courtesy Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation, Vienna

In this second iteration of New Humans: From Museum to Screen, Chris Marker's LA JETÉE (1962) is paired with artist Hito Steyerl’s short film HOW NOT TO BE SEEN: A FUCKING DIDACTIC EDUCATIONAL .MOV (2013).⁠ ⁠ LA JETÉE, a photo-roman composed almost entirely of still images, portrays a man in a dystopian future who is forced to time-travel through his memories to unlock the key to humanity's survival. ⁠ ⁠ HOW NOT TO BE SEEN, a satirical instructional video shot against the backdrop of US Air Force aerial-photography calibration targets, teaches its viewers techniques for becoming invisible within a culture of hypervisibility. ⁠ ⁠ This screening at Metrograph is followed by a Q&A with artist Hito Steyerl on Friday, May 29th.⁠ ⁠ Hito Steyerl’s "Mechanical Kurds" (2025) is on view now at the New Museum⁠’s exhibition "New Humans: Memories of the Future.”⁠ ⁠ Tickets available via link in bio! 🔗 ⁠

This city-like maquette "Ville fantôme [Ghost town]" (1996) created by the late Congolese artist Bodys Isek Kingelez features marvelous futuristic buildings bearing the names of countries and cities around the world. Come see it in person within the "Future Cities" section of the exhibition "New Humans: Memories of the Future." 🤖

Now on view in the New Museum’s plaza! ✨ “VENUS VICTORIA” (2025) by artist Sarah Lucas. Recognized as one of Britain’s most significant contemporary artists, Lucas’ work has consistently been characterized by irreverent humor and the use of everyday, readymade materials—furniture, food, tabloid newspapers, tights, toilets, and, in this instance, a washing machine! 🫧 Say hello to “VENUS VICTORIA” the next time you’re on the Bowery! 👋 Plus, hear more from Lucas with the digital guide on the Bloomberg Connects app via link in bio 🔗

Inspired by The New Yorker’s 1991 Mother’s Day cover, Shigeko Kubota's sculpture "Jogging Lady" (1993) depicts a robot jogging with dumbbells, while screens embedded in her torso display videos of a woman jogging on a track. The work serves as a humorous portrait—Kubota’s homage to “women who work very hard, like myself.” Happy Mother's Day from the "Jogging Lady" and the New Museum! 🏃‍♀️💐

Hear from artist Precious Okoyomon on her animatronic sculpture “When the Lambs Rise Up Against the Bird of Prey” (2024). 👁️👁️🐑 Named after a text by poet and essayist Anne Boyer in which the figure of a sacrificial lamb is portrayed as shrewd rather than vulnerable, the work presents the creature as resilient and resourceful. Uncanny in its subtle human-like motions and mute stare, the figure becomes a contradictory symbol of the lamb playing as the bird of prey, human and not quite human. Hear more from Okoyomon and other artists whose works are on view at the New Museum at the upcoming Bid for the Future event on Thursday, May 21 from 6:30–8:30pm. The evening will feature short presentations from artists Steffani Jemison, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Precious Okoyomon, and WangShui on future-related topics in their work, from utopias to dystopias, from repeating histories to cyclical time. For tickets, click the link in bio 🔗

The new commission "Mechanical Kurds" by artist and filmmaker Hito Steyerl considers how invisible labor fuels technological development. The title comes from Hungarian inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen's 'Mechanical Turk', a chess-playing automaton that won most of its games. However, years later, the machine’s collector admitted it was a hoax, manipulated by a human operator hidden inside the apparatus. In her film, Steyerl connects this history to Amazon Mechanical Turk, the online retailer’s crowdsourcing marketplace that allows users to outsource virtual jobs to microworkers around the world who remotely perform tasks like data validation and image tagging. Like the original Mechanical Turk, Amazon’s version is also manned by unseen labor, including a group of Kurdish workers based at Domiz Camp in northern Iraq, where they have lived as refugees since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Hear Steyerl and artist Trevor Paglen speak about AI, labor, and power on Thursday, May 28, from 6:30–8pm at the New Museum. For tickets, visit the link in bio 🔗

Have you read the short story that inspired the newly commissioned series of ink drawings by artist Wangechi Mutu? 📖 Her work presented in "New Humans" reinterprets one of science fiction author Octavia Butler’s most famous short stories, “Bloodchild.” Visitors can talk about Butler's "Bloodchild" and related texts at the upcoming Sci-Fi Book Club hosted by writer and scholar Lou Cornum on Saturday, May 9 from 6:30–8pm at the New Museum. Participants will be led through readings of short excerpts that will feed into group discussions—no advanced reading required. Reserve your spot for the upcoming Sci-Fi Book Club with the link in bio 🔗 P.S. 🫣 Copies of Butler's "Bloodchild" are now available for purchase in person at the New Museum Store! 🛍️

Meet Yun Choi (@ycuhnoi ), the first artist-in-residence to use the Artist Studio created through the New Museum’s OMA-designed building expansion! Join Choi and Taeyi Kim (@mikiyeat ), New Museum Curatorial Fellow, for a conversation on Thursday, May 7 from 6:30–8pm. Choi will present excerpts from selected video works and discuss new research developed during her residency, exploring image-making, identity, and psychology. For tickets, click the link in New Museum’s bio 🔗