{"id":813147,"date":"2026-07-20T22:58:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T22:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/813147\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T22:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T22:58:13","slug":"new-museums-shiny-new-building-leaks-during-flash-floods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/813147\/","title":{"rendered":"New Museum’s Shiny New Building Leaks During Flash Floods"},"content":{"rendered":"

News<\/a><\/p>\n

No artworks were harmed, but extreme weather shuttered the Lower Manhattan museum for a full weekend. <\/p>\n


\n \"Anna
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\"New
\n A view of the new New Museum on the Bowery in Manhattan (photo Hakim Bishara\/Hyperallergic)<\/p>\n

Just a few months after the reopening of the New Museum’s expanded building, a water leak shut down the Manhattan institution for a full weekend. <\/p>\n

According to Artnews<\/a>, museum workers scrambled to address a “significant” leak during the flash floods of July 18, using buckets to catch water that streamed into a gallery housing artist WangShui’s piece “oppose the serpent” (2024). <\/p>\n

In an email to Hyperallergic, the New Museum said that “immediate steps were taken to address the leak,” and that no artwork was harmed. <\/p>\n

In an Instagram post<\/a> on Saturday, the museum announced that it would be closing for the weekend due to “extreme weather\u00a0in\u00a0New York City.”<\/p>\n

\"\"Fourth-four gallery installation view of New Humans: Memories of the Future (photo Valentina Di Liscia\/Hyperallergic)<\/p>\n

The Lower Manhattan museum unveiled<\/a> its $82 million OMA-designed expansion in March after two years of closure. The 60,000-square-foot expansion doubled the institution\u2019s exhibition space, adding much-needed breathing space, but as Aaron Short reported<\/a> for Hyperallergic, “bits of masking tape were still stuck to the stairway railings, and a handful of missing wall panels revealed internal wires, rebar, and insulation.”<\/p>\n

WangShui’s work is included in the inaugural exhibition\u00a0New Humans: Memories of the Future<\/a>, which explores what it means to be human amid the cataclysmic technological changes of the 20th and 21st centuries through the work of more than 150 artists. <\/p>\n

The new building received mixed reviews from Hyperallergic’s critics with Editor-at-Large Hrag Vartanian calling it a “mishmash of Obama-era startup culture, dated by the lime green and perforated metal.” <\/p>\n