Facade: Tschabalala Self—Art Lovers at the New Museum

The New Museum, at 235 Bowery on the Lower East Side, is known for its stacked, white-boxed building. Its exterior serves as the stage for the Facade series, and the current installment is Art Lovers by Tschabalala Self. It opened on March 21, 2026 and remains on view until March 22, 2028, a run of two full years.

Self was born in 1990 in Harlem, New York, and earned her MFA at Yale. She is known for figures built from a mix of painting, collage, sewing and printmaking. Her subject is the Black female body, rendered with exaggerated forms and tactile fabric surfaces that turn attention to how bodies are looked at and who does the looking.

This commission lives outside the galleries. Anyone walking down the Bowery can see it without buying a ticket or stepping inside. The title, Art Lovers, points toward the people who fill museums and the culture around them, and it invites a reading of the relationship between the street, the passersby and the building itself.

The New Museum has focused on emerging and under-recognized artists since moving into its current building in 2007. The surrounding blocks hold galleries, cafés and small shops, which makes the facade an easy stop on a Lower East Side walk. Because the project stays up for so long, it rewards repeat visits: the exterior reads differently in daylight, at night, and across the seasons.

For visitors interested in Self's work, this is a low-barrier way to see it in a public setting in New York.