A 13-foot-tall embrace now leans over the Bowery like a billboard for tenderness. Tschabalala Self’s new public work, Art Lovers, pins an oversized Black couple in mid-hug at the precise spot where the New Museum’s original SANAA building meets its new OMA-designed expansion, turning a private moment into a downtown landmark. The museum’s skin becomes part of the scene, a public stage for intimacy in the middle of lower Manhattan traffic.
Placement and Commission
The piece is the latest chapter in the New Museum’s long-running facade-sculpture program and was announced in 2025 for the institution’s expanded campus. Installed at the architectural “kiss point” that hinges the two structures together, the work is carefully sited to be legible from both Bowery and Prince Street. The commission was confirmed in an announcement by the artist’s gallery, Pilar Corrias.
Material and Form
According to The New York Times, Art Lovers is a hinged relief made from aluminum, a material Self had not previously used at this scale, and it stands at roughly 13 feet tall. Mounted to the museum’s third-floor facade, the work reads as both sculpture and mural, its painted surfaces and outsized limbs stretching into view for pedestrians below.
Where She Comes From
Self’s broader practice fuses painted fabric collage with oil paint, and her three-dimensional works have often been cast in bronze with worked patinas, according to her gallery biography. That history of layering materials and playing with the figure, including comically exaggerated limbs and scenes of rest and play, makes this pivot to an industrial metal for a municipal-scale portrait all the more striking, Galerie Eva Presenhuber notes.
Reopening Agenda
The New Museum reopened its expanded campus on March 21, 2026, with a building-wide exhibition and a cluster of long-term commissions that are set to reshape the Bowery streetscape. The project doubles the museum’s gallery space and creates new public-facing areas and programming, with free admission offered during the opening weekend, as reported by The Art Newspaper. Self’s facade work joins new pieces by Sarah Lucas and Klára Hosnedlová in the museum’s growing public orbit.
Artist Intent
Self told The New York Times that she wanted the sculpture to function as an optimistic public gesture, a visible affirmation of tenderness and connection rather than a provocation. In that spirit, Art Lovers turns an intimate act into something legible at the scale of the city.
On the Street
Event listings indicate that Art Lovers is on view from March 21 through December 31, 2026, remaining a long-term presence on the museum’s facade. The commission is designed to be read from the street, effectively turning passersby into an audience and folding the Bowery itself into the work’s choreography, per listings at Artrabbit.
