The New Museum in New York has announced the artists who will participate in its 2015 Triennial exhibition.

Curated by Lauren Cornell (a curator at the New Museum) and the artist Ryan Trecartin, the theme for the third edition in 2015 is “Surround Audience”. For Cornell, this title is inspired in part by Trecartin’s own artistic practice. For her, his work “vividly manifests a world in which the effects of technology and late capitalism have been absorbed into our bodies and altered our vision of the world.” This Triennale exhibition aims in part to reflect on the relationship between freedom and threat which infects contemporary society.

Many of the works are specially commissioned for the exhibition, which is supported mainly by Friends of the Generational Triennial. The exhibition is also made possible by grants from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation.

***

The New Museum Triennial began in 2009. It is “the only recurring international exhibition in New York City devoted to early-career artists from around the world.” The Triennial offers an opportunity for the public there to see a wide range of work, including pieces from artists based outside the primary hubs of the global art scene—North America and Western Europe. The Triennial is relatively unusual in the US, where there are few such events marking the contemporary art calendar (Asia has many more).

***

The New Museum was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, provoked by the observation that work by contemporary artists was not easily assimilated into the existing structure of American art museums. The museum has made its name as a progressive institution, often involved in and reflecting in current critical debate. In 1978, the museum held the controversial exhibition “‘Bad’ Painting”, curated by Marcia Tucker, which questioned the concept of taste. More recently, exhibitions such as “Ghosts in the Machine” (Jul 18–Sep 30, 2012) and “Talking Back: The Audience in Dialogue” (Apr 23–Jul 6, 2014) 0have sought to engage the living contexts and voices of the museum’s public in a critical light. The first solo exhibitions in the USA by Ragnar Kjartansson and Pawel Althamer (who had a solo exhibition at UCCA in Beijing this year), were both held by the New Museum. The museum also aims to foster dialogue between artists and their audiences with broader initiatives such as the Triennial and  “Festival of Ideas for a New City” in 2011.

Following changes of address, the museum opened in December 2007 in new premises at 235 Bowery in Manhattan, where it currently stands. The striking seven-storey, eight-level building was designed by Tokyo-based architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa/SANAA. Its facilities include a theatre and five floors of gallery space. The inaugural exhibition curated by Richard Flood, Chief Curator, Laura Hoptman, Senior Curator, and Massimiliano Gioni, Director of Special Exhibitions, was “Unmonumental”—an international group show in four parts which examined the medium of sculpture in contemporary art practices.

The artist list is as follows:

Nadim Abbas
(b. 1980, Hong Kong, China. Lives and works in Hong Kong, China)

Lawrence Abu Hamdan
(b. 1985, Amman, Jordan. Lives and works in London, UK)

niv Acosta
(b. 1988, New York, NY, US. Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, US)

Njideka Akunyili Crosby
(b. 1983, Enugu, Nigeria. Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, US)

Sophia Al-Maria
(b. 1983, Tacoma, WA, US. Lives and works in Doha, Qatar, and London, UK)

Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili
(b. 1979, Tbilisi, Georgia. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany)

Ed Atkins
(b. 1982, Oxford, UK. Lives and works in London, UK)

Olga Balema
(b. 1984, Lviv, Ukraine. Lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Berlin, Germany)

Frank Benson
(b. 1976, Norfolk, VA, US. Lives and works in New York, NY, US)

Sascha Braunig
(b. 1983, Vancouver Island, Canada. Lives and works in Portland, ME, US)

Antoine Catala
(b. 1975, Toulouse, France. Lives and works in New York, NY, US)

Aslı Çavuşoğlu
(b. 1982, Istanbul, Turkey. Lives and works in Istanbul, Turkey)

José León Cerrillo
(b. 1976, San Luis Potosí, Mexico. Lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico)

Onejoon Che
(b. 1979, Seoul, South Korea. Lives and works in Seoul, South Korea)

Tania Pérez Córdova
(b. 1979, Mexico City, Mexico. Lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico)

Verena Dengler
(b. 1981, Vienna, Austria. Lives and works in Vienna, Austria)

DIS (Founded 2010, New York, NY, US)

Aleksandra Domanović
(b. 1981, Novi Sad, SFR Yugoslavia. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany)

Casey Jane Ellison
(b. 1988, Los Angeles, CA, US. Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, and New York, NY, US)

Exterritory
(Founded 2009, the Extraterritorial Waters)

Geumhyung Jeong
(b. 1980, Seoul, South Korea. Lives and works in Seoul, South Korea)

Ane Graff
(b. 1974, Bodø, Norway. Lives and works in Oslo, Norway, and Amsterdam, Netherlands)

Guan Xiao
(b. 1983, Sichuan Province, China. Lives and works in Beijing, China)

Shadi Habib Allah
(b. 1977, Jerusalem, Palestine. Lives and works in New York, NY, US)

Eloise Hawser
(b. 1985, London, UK. Lives and works in London, UK)

Lena Henke
(b. 1982, Warburg, Germany. Lives and works in New York, NY, US)

Lisa Holzer
(b. 1971, Vienna, Austria. Lives and works in Vienna, Austria, and Berlin, Germany)

Juliana Huxtable
(b. 1987, Houston, TX, US. Lives and works in New York, NY, US)

Renaud Jerez
(b. 1982, Narbonne, France. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany)

K-HOLE
(Founded 2010, New York, NY, US)

Shreyas Karle
(b. 1981, Mumbai, India. Lives and works in Mumbai, India)

Kiluanji Kia Henda
(b. 1979, Luanda, Angola. Lives and works in Luanda, Angola, and Lisbon, Portugal)

Josh Kline
(b. 1979, Philadelphia, PA, US. Lives and works in New York, NY, US)

Eva Kotátková
(b. 1982, Prague, Czech Republic. Lives and works in Prague, Czech Republic)

Donna Kukama
(b. 1981, Mafikeng, South Africa. Lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa)

Firenze Lai
(b. 1984, Hong Kong, China. Lives and works in Hong Kong, China)

Oliver Laric
(b. 1981, Innsbruck, Austria. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany)

Li Liao
(b. 1982, Hubei, China. Lives and works in Shenzhen, China)

Rachel Lord
(b. 1986, Washington, DC, US. Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, US)

Basim Magdy
(b. 1977, Assiut, Egypt. Lives and works in Cairo, Egypt, and Basel, Switzerland)

Nicholas Mangan
(b. 1979, Geelong, Australia. Lives and works in Melbourne, Australia)

Ashland Mines
(b. 1982, Pittsburgh, PA, US. Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, US)

Shelly Nadashi
(b. 1981, Haifa, Israel. Lives and works in Brussels, Belgium)

Eduardo Navarro
(b. 1979, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Steve Roggenbuck
(b. 1987, Harbor Beach, MI, US. Lives and works in Brunswick, ME, US)

Avery K. Singer
(b. 1987, New York, NY, US. Lives and works in New York, NY, US)

Daniel Steegmann Mangrané
(b. 1977, Barcelona, Spain. Lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Martine Syms
(b. 1988, Los Angeles, CA, US. Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, US)

Lisa Tan
(b. 1973, New York, NY, US. Lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden)

Luke Willis Thompson
(b. 1988, Auckland, New Zealand. Lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand, and Frankfurt, Germany)

Peter Wächtler
(b. 1979, Hannover, Germany. Lives and works in Brussels, Belgium, and Berlin, Germany)

Source: New Museum.