Museum as "Hub" at the New Museum

Museum as Hub is a new programmatic initiative on the part of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, coinciding with the opening of their new home on the Bowery in NYC. The Hub concept reflects the recognition that contemporary art is defined globally, and that any organization devoted to it must find inventive ways to sustain the complex exchange between artists, institutions, and the public on an international level. Museum as Hub is therefore a cultural laboratory, exploring art and ideas through a new global partnership between the New Museum and other partners in Seoul, Cairo, Eindhoven, and Mexico City. 

 

Our solution distills the Hub concept to its essence.  Through a most reductive palette of table, chair, and curtain – and the interaction between them – Hub manages to operate at many scales, and accommodates (and contests) many different agendas. We created a shifting, flexible space for one and for many, where two people or twenty people (or twenty million, via computer screens) can engage in the exchange of ideas through a very simple act: coming to the table.