This Saturday, the New Museum of Contemporary Art will officially open its new building on the Bowery between Stanton and Rivington.  If you’ve been around the area you may have noticed the rising stack of icy white boxes—designed by Tokyo-based architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa/SANAA—that seem as if they’re about to topple over into Nolita.  You may have even confused them for condos and shaken your head at the imminent Soho-ifying of the Lower East Side.

      Instead, the New Museum exhibits contemporary artwork from all around the world.  On Saturday, the opening exhibits include a performance piece by New York artist Sharon Hayes about communication, as well as an expansive thirty artist exhibit called Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century, which examines new methods of sculpture and creation.  The Seoul collective Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries has also created Black on White, Gray Ascending, a complex, multi-faceted film noir narrative combining text, animation, and music.

      In celebration of its opening, the New Museum will be open for 30 free hours starting at noon, meaning that you can walk in at 11:30 p.m from a bar—the New Museum may seriously regret this. 

    Tickets can be found on the New Museum website, but they are close to being (if not already) sold out.  In any case, you should head downtown Saturday and try to get your hands on unused or extra tickets, or pry them from someone’s unwitting, skinny little fist.  Nighttime may be the best time to go; even if you can’t get a ticket you’ll be within walking distance to bars in the area like Max Fish or Good World, which will probably be packed with New Museum refugees.

– James DeWille