Flash flooding in New York City this weekend has presented a new test for the New Museum, which experienced a significant water leak on Saturday in a gallery housing work by WangShui. Video footage shared with ARTnews and confirmed by the museum as accurate shows water pooling on the gallery floor as staff members move quickly to place buckets beneath active leaks, as well as water streaming down the didactic for “New Humans: Memories of the Future”.
The incident comes months after the opening of the museum’s $82 million expansion, which faced scrutiny after its debut over reported faulty construction and facilities, including unfinished details and concerns raised by contractors and observers about the building’s final stages. The museum closed early on Saturday and will remain closed Sunday due to the flash flood warning, according to a statement posted on Instagram.
A spokesperson for the New Museum told ARTnews via email statement: “As soon as this leak was discovered, immediate steps were taken to address it and no artwork was harmed. Out of an abundance of caution, the Museum will remain closed tomorrow, Sunday 7/19, and all ticket holders for tomorrow have been refunded.”
WangShui’s oppose the serpent (2024), on view at the New Museum as part of “New Humans,” is a monumental entry from a series created for the 2024 Venice Biennale. Composed of hand-anodized aluminum panels colored with cochineal—a natural dye traditionally derived from insects—the work features intricately etched imagery inspired by marine life, smoke, and earthworms. ARTnews has asked WangShui’s gallery representation, kurimanzutto, for comment.
The New Museum’s $82 million expansion, designed by OMA partners Rem Koolhaas and Shohei Shigematsu, opened to the public in March after high anticipation—and several postponements. While the building initially drew praise for its architecture and ambitious curatorial direction, a subsequent Curbed investigation introduced a more complicated picture of the project. Visitors reported visible signs of unfinished construction, including packing tape on stair railings and paint splatters beneath glass panels. In its reporting, Curbed attributed many of those conditions to what contractors described as a compressed timeline leading up to the museum’s opening.
Multiple subcontractors quoted in the story said that general contractor Sciame Construction was overseeing several high-profile cultural projects simultaneously—including work on the Frick Collection and the Studio Museum in Harlem—which they said left the New Museum understaffed. One subcontractor claimed the company had “put the B-team on the New Museum,” while others alleged a frantic final phase of construction, with walls being removed and rebuilt while construction continued near finished areas.
Sciame disputed those characterizations, telling Curbed that it routinely manages multiple projects concurrently and that the importance of the New Museum expansion “was never in question.” Sciame added that some construction continued after the opening, which it described as typical for a project of this size, and that the issues observed during previews had since been resolved.
Another subcontractor involved in the project echoed Sciame’s assessment, telling Curbed that most large-scale construction projects involve a rush toward completion. An architect unaffiliated with the project similarly characterized the reported issues as largely cosmetic rather than structural, noting that more serious concerns would include inadequate accessibility or “leaks in the roof or envelope.”
