Marcia Tucker founds the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and, with the support of Trustee Allen Goldring, opens an office in New York's Fine Arts Building at 105 Hudson Street in Tribeca on January 1. Early exhibitions are held offsite. Tucker conceives the New Museum as a place with a scope lying somewhere between grassroots alternative spaces for contemporary art and major museums that show only artists of proven historical value. Prior to founding the New Museum, Tucker was Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Whitney Museum of American Art from 1969 to 1977. With the help of Trustee Vera List, the New Museum moves after half a year into office quarters and an exhibition space at the Graduate Center of the New School for Social Research at 65 Fifth Avenue at 14th Street.

In November the New Museum presents its first exhibition at the New School, "Early Works by Five Contemporary Artists," which revisits the early careers of Ron Gorchov, Elizabeth Murray, Dennis Oppenheim, Dorothea Rockburne, and Joel Shapiro, organized by curators Susan Logan, Allan Schwartzman, and Marcia Tucker.

During its first five years the New Museum presents the first retrospectives of artists Alfred Jensen (1978), Barry Le Va (1979), Ree Morton (1980), and John Baldessari (1981). These exhibitions begin the long tradition of showing important contemporary artists before they become widely recognized. Other artists show their work at early points in their career, including Keith Haring (1980), Richard Prince (1980), Jeff Koons (1980), David Hammons (1980), Adrian Piper (1981), Robert Colescott (1981), Mark Tansey (1981), Tony Oursler (1981), and Bill Jensen (1983).

In 1978, the New Museum initiates the "Semi-Permanent Collection," a concept that allows the Museum to rotate and "review" its collection by deaccessioning works after ten years. The idea is never fully implemented, however. The same year, the New Museum mounts the seminal exhibition "'Bad' Painting," which posits a notion prescient to the intense theoretical debates then crystallizing around the concept of "postmodernism": that ideas of good and bad are flexible and subject to both the immediate and the larger context in which the work is seen.

In 1980, the New Museum launches the High School Art Program (HSAP), one of the first museum education programs in the country to engage at-risk teenagers in contemporary art. The HSAP is renamed the Visible Knowledge Program (VKP) in 1984. It pairs high school students with high school teachers on a semester-long basis with the goal of integrating contemporary art with social studies, language arts, and studio art curricula. The initiative also expands these curricula through a multicultural and interdisciplinary approach that encourages students to explore connections between contemporary art practices and broader cultural and social issues.

With help from Trustee and counsel Herman Schwartzman, Board President Henry (Hank) Luce III negotiates a major donation of space to the New Museum in The Astor Building in SoHo. On September 1, 1983, the New Museum moves in as the first tenant at 583 Broadway, a historic building between Houston and Prince Streets.

During the first year in SoHo, the Museum’s curatorial staff—Lynn Gumpert and Ned Rifkin, along with Marcia Tucker—organize “Paradise Lost/Paradise Regained: American Visions of the New Decade” for the American Pavilion at the 41st Venice Biennial.

In 1984, the New Museum begins commissioning and producing exclusive Limited Editions by prominent American and international artists as part of the Museum’s fundraising efforts. Claes Oldenberg’s Tipsy Tilting Neon Cocktail is the first in the series. Since then, artists such as Bruce Nauman, Jenny Holzer, Louise Bourgeois, William Kentridge, Tom Friedman, and Olafur Eliasson—among many others—participate in the series.

The New Museum continues to present groundbreaking solo exhibitions by artists including Joan Jonas (1984), Martin Puryear (1984), Leon Golub (1984), Linda Montano (1984), Allen Ruppersberg (1985), Kim Jones (1986), Hans Haake (1987), Pat Steir (1987), Bruce Nauman (1987), Ana Mendieta (1988), Christian Boltanski (1989), Robert Colescott (1989), Nancy Spero (1989), Annette Lemieux (1990), Mary Kelly (1990), Thornton Dial (1994), and Andres Serrano (1995). Additionally, throughout this period, the New Museum introduces many ambitious, thematic group shows such as “Art and Ideology” (1984), “Damaged Goods: Desire and the Economy of the Object” (1986), “The Rhetorical Image” (1991), and “Bad Girls” (1994), which solidify the New Museum’s reputation as a stronghold for progressive art and concepts.

In 1985, Larry Aldrich donates The SoHo Center for the Visual Arts Library to the New Museum. More than 48,000 volumes, including artist’s monographs and books, works of art history and theory, catalogues from American and international exhibitions, and current art periodicals are included. In 2006, the Museum regifts this library to NYU Libraries, where it currently resides under the name New Museum Library.

“The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s” is co-organized by and co-presented by the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. The exhibition is conceived and realized by three institutions with different racial and cultural constituencies, and included art by African Americans, Asian Americans, Latin Americans, Native Americans, gays, women, and more, helping to frame the emerging debate on multiculturalism.

In 1994, the Astor Building at 583 Broadway is purchased and developed into luxury condominiums. The building is renamed “The New Museum Building.” Saul Dennison, who becomes President of the Board in 1998, negotiates the acquisition of the second floor as part of a plan to increase the Museum’s exhibition and office space.

The New Museum, in collaboration with Routledge, publishes Contemporary Art and Multicultural Education—also known as the CAME guide—by Susan Cahan and Zoya Kocur. The book connects everyday experience, social critique, and creative expression with classroom learning, and includes color reproductions of artworks; statements in English and Spanish from more than fifty contemporary artists; lesson plans for using art to explore subjects such as American identity, changing definitions of the family, AIDS, discrimination, racism, homophobia, mass media, and public art; and resources, including annotated bibliographies for further study.

In November of 1996, the New Museum launches its first capital campaign. Within one year, it raises $3.79 million, enough to pay for the first phase of the renovation and expansion on Broadway, almost doubling the size of its exhibition space and providing offices above ground.

Following a renovation by Kiss and Cathcart, the New Museum reopens with space increased from 23,000 to 30,000 square feet. The New Museum Store is also established in the renovated Museum, and quickly becomes a premier destination for those seeking a comprehensive and international selection of contemporary art book titles. Guided by a team of renowned curators and book buyers, the Store stocks the most stimulating and rare monographs, critical texts, and visual reference volumes from galleries, museums, small presses, artists, and commercial publishers the world over.

The New Museum concentrates on expanding its global scope and presenting a series of provocative one-person exhibitions of under-recognized contemporary artists, including Carolee Schneemann (1996), Mona Hatoum (1998), Doris Salcedo (1998), David Wojanarowicz (1999), Martha Rosler (2000), Adrian Piper (2000), Cildo Meireles (2000), Paul McCarthy (2001), William Kentridge (2001), Tom Friedman (2001), Marlene Dumas (2002), Hélio Oticica (2002), Wim Delvoye, and Carroll Dunham (2003), many under the curatorial leadership of Senior Curator Dan Cameron.

In 1999, Lisa Phillips becomes Director of the New Museum, succeeding Marcia Tucker. Prior to joining the New Museum, Phillips, like Tucker, was a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art. While remaining true to the New Museum’s mission, Phillips begins to formulate a bold vision for the institution—one that includes collaborative partnerships, continuing a focus on important one-person exhibitions (see above); and the construction of the Museum’s first dedicated, freestanding building.

On November 16, 2000, the New Museum launches the Media Lounge, New York’s only museum space dedicated to new-media exhibitions. Designed by LOT/EK, the Zenith Media Lounge integrates art, technology, and architecture to create a unique visitor experience.

In December 2002, the New Museum announces it will construct a new, state-of-the-art facility on a parking lot at 235 Bowery. Plans call for a 60,000-square-foot building twice the size of the Museum’s Broadway facility. An international architectural search is conducted, and by the year’s end, five firms are selected as finalists from an initial pool of thirty for a design competition: Abalos & Herreros (Spain), Adjaye Associates (England), Gigon/Guyer (Switzerland), Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa/SANAA Ltd. (Japan), and Reiser + Umemoto RUR Architecture P.C. (U.S.).

On May 15, 2003, the New Museum publicly announces that Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa/SANAA Ltd. have been selected to design its new building, and the capital campaign is launched. The design—a unique approach consisting of stacked boxes shifting off a central core—is unveiled in November 2003. Lisa Roumell is hired as Deputy Director to help oversee the capital project and construction of the New Museum building.

The New Museum and Rhizome announce that Rhizome will become an affiliate of the New Museum. Rhizome, a leading online platform for the global new-media art community, operates its programs in accordance with its mission and core principles, and retains its identity as a separate organizational entity. The New Museum provides office space and administrative support for Rhizome.

The New Museum inaugurates 3M, an innovative collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Working cooperatively, the three museums combine their resources to commission and exhibit major projects from leading contemporary artists that are then jointly acquired by the museums. In the vanguard of a new era of cooperation between key cultural institutions nationwide, the 3M initiative represents a timely and effective allocation of resources towards the support of living artists. The first cycle of commissions were awarded to Patty Chang, Fiona Tan, and Aernout Mik. Their subsequent individual exhibitions at all three venues represent the first major museum exhibitions in the U.S. for each of these artists. In 2007, the 3M initiative embarks on its second cycle of commissions/exhibitions, and features Mathias Poledna, Daria Martin, and Urban China.

The New Museum sells 583 Broadway and moves to temporary quarters at the Chelsea Art Museum.

In fall of 2005, the New Museum breaks ground for its new building at 235 Bowery. The New Museum at 235 Bowery is the first new art museum ever constructed from the ground up below 14th Street in Manhattan.

The Visible Knowledge Program expands to a national and international level in 2005, and since then has been known as G:Class (the Global Classroom). This innovative interdisciplinary arts education program for high school students teaches visual literacy and critical thinking skills. G:Class emphasizes inquiry-based education grounded in real-world contexts, self-expression, and problem solving through the exploration of contemporary art. Through G:Class, artists and education professionals conduct workshops in which teachers learn how to utilize contemporary art in the classroom. Current partners include New Design High School, Pace High School, City-As-School, and the Beacon School.

Richard Flood, Chief Curator; Laura Hoptman, Senior Curator; Massimiliano Gioni, Director of Special Exhibitions; and Eungie Joo, Director and Curator of Education and Public Programs, join the New Museum’s program staff.

New Museum Founding Director Marcia Tucker dies at her home in Santa Barbara. She was 66.

In July of 2007, the New Museum announces the launch of Museum as Hub, a major new initiative exploring art and ideas through an international partnership with Insa Art Space, (Seoul, South Korea), Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City, Mexico), Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art (Cairo, Egypt), and Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven, The Netherlands). Together the partners program a dedicated space in the New Museum’s new facility on the Bowery as well as a dedicated Hub Web site. Museum as Hub will be a 21st-century cultural laboratory, an educational/curatorial hybrid that will be a platform for global dialogue and serve as a new model for institutional collaboration across cities and cultural institutions. Above all, Museum as Hub will be an important resource for the public to learn about what’s going on in contemporary art around the world.

The Altoids Award is established. A first of its kind, the prize is awarded biennially to four emerging artists nominated and selected by a panel comprised entirely of other artists, and includes a cash prize and joint exhibition.

Creative Link for the Arts (formerly the Penny McCall Foundation) selects the New Museum to serve as the official host for the Ordway Prize, one of the largest international biennial awards for one midcareer artist and one midcareer arts writer and/or curator who have made important contributions to the field of contemporary art.

On December 1, 2007, the New Museum opens its first freestanding, dedicated building. Conceived as a sculptural stack of rectilinear boxes dynamically shifted off-axis around a central steel core, this innovative structure has a variety of open, fluid, and light-filled spaces, with skylights created by the setbacks between floors. The exterior is clad in a seamless, anodized aluminum mesh, which emphasizes the volumes of the boxes while dressing the whole building in a delicate, softly shimmering skin. The elegantly rough structure suits both the New Museum’s character as well as its neighborhood. The edifice appears as a shimmering beacon, visually mutable and dynamic, animated by the changing light of the day—a perfect metaphor for the ever-changing nature of contemporary art. Inaugural exhibitions include “Unmonumental,” an international group show in four parts, as well as exhibitions and special projects by YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES, Ugo Rondinone, Jeffrey Inaba, and Sharon Hayes.