Tschabalala Self to Unveil Sculptural Embrace on Façade of New Museum

Spotlight Tschabalala Self in the Studio

New York City’s New Museum will reopen this autumn with a new façade, crowned with a sculpture by American figurative artist Tschabalala Self.

The sculpture, Art Lovers, depicts a couple embracing at the intersection of the museum’s newly connected buildings, nodding to the joining—or ‘kiss point’ in architectural terms—of the first SANAA-designed structure with the new OMA-designed expansion.

This comes after close to three years of construction and a $82 million USD buildout.

The sculptural relief is the latest commission from New Museum’s façade sculpture programme, which since 2017 has enlisted large-scale work from artists like Chris Burden, Isa Genzken, and Glenn Ligon.

New Museum director Massimiliano Gioni said the institution is thrilled to work with the Harlem-born artist again after she was featured in the museum’s group exhibition Trigger: Gender as a Tool and Weapon.

‘Her sculpture is like a giant lapel pin placed on our facade,’ he said. ‘An insignia of love that we can’t wait to share with New York and visitors from around the globe as we open our expanded museum.’

Self is known for paintings of the Black female body, often inspired by people she has encountered in New York, as the artist told Ocula in 2020.

Her first public commission—Seated, a sculpture of a Black woman sat in a chair, looking out to sea—was vandalised with white spray paint at De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea, U.K., in 2023. Over 300 locals later volunteered to help the artist clean the statue, ending the story on a positive note.

On her latest commission, Self told The Art Newspaper: ‘​​Artists are rightfully tasked with the responsibility of showing what is truly happening in our present moment but also what the future can be.’ 

‘I wanted to show an aspiration for better times to come,’ she said. —[O]

Main image: Tschabalala Self (2025). Photo: Christian DeFonte.