New in 2020

First Floor

Get up close and personal as you assemble, create, peek into, crawl under, and walk through one of a kind sculptures and installations.

Featuring the work of eleven contemporary artists, Inside Art will help you connect with art, space, and design in a whole new way. Explore larger-than-life art installations and giant sculptures by visual artists including Adrienne Elise Tarver, Borinquen Gallo, Carlos Jesus Martinez Dominguez, Damien Davis, Joiri Minaya, Julie Ann Nagle, Leah Tinari, Roberto Visani, Tamara Kostianovsky,  and Yeju & Chat.

In addition to engaging with works of art you’ll also:

• Meet CMOM’s newest artists‐in‐residence in their studios located in the gallery
• Create your own sculptures and installations in our Maker Space and Family Art Studios with our lead visual arts educators
• Connect to place and your community through pop‐up performances in dance, theater, and music performed directly in the gallery.

Inside Art featured interactive artworks include:

• A cylindrical sculpture by Adrienne Elise Tarver that encourages pint-sized visitors to crawl under and peek through a panorama of three-dimensional leaves
• A hanging imaginary beehive by Borinquen Gallo that asks kids to think about how they can better care for our environment
• A new mural by Carlos Jesus Martinez Dominguez that draws upon techniques in graffiti art and painting while incorporating elements of his identity as a Dominican-Puerto Rican, a New Yorker, a dad, an artist and an educator
• A massive tabletop mystery puzzle that challenges kids to decode icons, shapes and patterns by artist Damien Davis
• Joiri Minaya’s installation encourages children to break through, stretch through and jump through holes in her spandex wall of tropical patterns that challenge preconceived ideas of the Caribbean
• A sculpture that invites children to move like a groundhog as they dwell in one of two burrows built to human scale by artist Julie Ann Nagle
• Leah Tinari’s over 30 illustrative portraits will inspire visitors to remember the impact made by extraordinary U.S. women of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries
• An assembly of die-cut figures by Roberto Visani encourages you to explore community, color and reflection with an opportunity to build a life-sized replica in the exhibit
• An enormous fallen tree stump made of fabric by Tamara Kostianovsky invites children to crawl beneath it and explore its textures, surfaces and its scale
• Giant clusters of colorful cylinders that encourage peeks into mirrored tunnels of light, rainbows and reflections by artist duo Yeju & Chat

Curated by David Rios, Director, Public Programs & Curator of Contemporary Art.

Funding for Inside Art and programs is provided by the Ford Foundation and by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Lower Level

Superpowered Metropolis: Early Learning City™ is a hands-on, interactive, and colorfully, immersive exhibition where you are the heroes!  Step into a playful, comic book version of New York City where a lively team of pigeons, Zip, Zap, and Zoom, serve as your guides to superpowered fun and learning.

The 1,500 square-foot exhibit invites children from birth to 6 and their grown-ups to feel like heroes, building their superpowered early learning brain skills together. These skills, known as executive functions, include self-control, working memory, and mental flexibility. Children practice these learning “superpowers” with Zip, Zap, and Zoom, who guide families on a series of NYC adventures exploring the subways, parks, music, travel, treehouses, and more.

• Climb to the top of a magical two-story Treehouse Headquarters equipped with a map, telescope, periscope, and slide to plan your adventures
• Navigate colorful tunnels, tracks, and waterways at a multi-level Supercharged NYC Train Table
• Create original city sounds with one-of-a-kind instruments in the Musical Subway Car
• Chase the floating scarves at the Whimsical Wind Blowing Fountain
• Get a call from Zip, Zap, and Zoom at the Superpowered Phone Booth and head out on a Metropolis mission
• Enter Baby Central Station, a mini learning hub inspired by Grand Central Station and specially designed for birth to 2 year-olds with climb-on trains, a starry sky, and sensory stations
• Play three digital Brain Building Games designed by NYU’s CREATE Lab
• Explore the sounds and smells of NYC while driving in the Pigeon Mobile

The exhibit is designed to help children develop, enhance, and practice their executive function skills, which are critical for the early development of both cognitive and social capacities. Executive functions are essential for social-emotional well-being and academic success. Every child is born with the ability to strengthen these skills, and it is the daily interactions with adults that help the skills develop. The exhibit shares tips, games, and activities for the adults and children to play together at the Museum, at home, and around the city.

Stepping into the comic-book-inspired NYC world, families meet the team of Superpowered Pigeons™ that embody the learning superpowers:

• ZIP, Self-Control Champion – A calm coach who encourages ‘power pauses’ before acting, thinking things through, resisting distractions, following directions, and taking turns.
• ZAP, Working Memory Master – A witty thinker who juggles information in mind, and is always at the ready, remembering instructions, and skillfully organizing and sorting information.
• ZOOM, Mental Flexibility Guru – A curious inventor who sees things from multiple perspectives, switches gears easily and solves problems creatively.

Support for Superpowered Metropolis: Early Learning City is provided by the Bezos Family Foundation and its early learning program, Vroom, which provides science-based tips and tools to inspire families to turn everyday moments into Brain Building Moments®.

A temporary inset in the Inside Art exhibition on the 1st floor

To commemorate the centennial of women’s suffrage, and the upcoming presidential election, the installation explores what voting is and why it matters, how people effect change by working together, and the role of the president of the United States. Underlying the installation messaging is the importance of thoughtful decision-making and open-minded listening, reiterating that voting and community movements are ways we work together for the greater good.

Area 1-Your Vote Counts

Visitors “vote” for one of three options by placing a ballot in one of three voting cases. Topics change, and examples include: clean water for all, more parks and pools, free food at schools.

Area 2- If I Were President

Children pretend play in the Oval Office, taking calls, making decisions, and signing important documents.

Area 3- Moving Forward Together- Suffragists

Visitors explore a wall-mounted finger maze to see which suffragist they are most like, and learn more about the suffrage movement.

Area 4- Share your voice!

Visitors can create their own posters, sashes, ballots, and more! By exploring methods used by women to attain the right to vote over a century ago, we see that these same skills and tactics are still relevant today when we want to make our voices heard. Art materials and CMOM educators are available to engage visitors.