Over four decades, the Swiss Institute has built a reputation as one of New York's most experimental, research-driven institutions, having introduced many international artists to US audiences. Earlier this week, the center announced its move from its beloved home in St. Marks Place in the East Village, following the purchase of the ground floor and lower level of 250 Bowery. The move marks the first time in its 40-year history that the center has its own location, which will allow for more long-term thinking and relevance. With renovations led by Johnston Marklee—the world-renowned architecture firm already behind the Menil Drawing Institute, MCA Chicago renovations and the Marian Goodman Gallery in Los Angeles—SI's new location will expand its space from approximately 7,000 square feet to 11,000 square meters. “Increasing square footage will allow us to better serve artists, and the renovation with Johnston Marklee will transform the space into a dynamic, sustainable platform for artistic exploration,” director Stephanie Hessler told the Observer.
In moving to the Bowery, the Swiss Institute joins a growing local ecosystem of cultural institutions based on the recently reopened New Museum, along with Giorno Poetry Systems, Particiant Inc. and other exhibitions and organizations. “As we approach the scene of the incident in the center of the city, we will continue to work with our partners and local communities,” said Hessler. The move will also place SI in the rich artistic history unfolding in the Bowery, where artists including Eva Hesse, Mark Rothko and Wade Guyton lived and worked. “For David Hammons Bliz-aard Ball Sale (1983) performed at the Bowery; Nan Goldin, Martha Rosler, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and many others have done work in the area.”
SI's first exhibition after the reopening will revisit a locally based art project from the 1960s through newly created works by international artists. Called “Environment,” the exhibition takes its first place in the Lower East Side art history project. “In the 1960s, filmmaker Bud Wirtschafter gave local communities 16-millimeter cameras and asked them to document themselves,” Hessler explains. “At that time, few people had access to cameras. The resulting films were shown on the facades of buildings, allowing people who were often underrepresented to see themselves and their films displayed en masse in the public space.”
Through seven new commissions by contemporary artists, the exhibition will revisit some of the questions raised by that early work of public engagement and co-production, including some of the most important of social well-being. Some of the works will be moving image pieces; others will take the form of installation, performance and video game. “Today, when more people have access to cameras on our phones, the media is not committed to better representation or democratization in the public sphere,” Hessler noted. “This exhibition focuses on the methods of discussion and negotiation as parts of society at a time of deep social, political, environmental and technological ruptures.” The program will be locally inspired and shaped by an international list of artists, each contributing new work and interpreting the global perspective required by today's complex world.
The first exhibition continues the Swiss Institute's close engagement with the place and community in which it resides, while linking those concerns to broader global discussions—something the institute already explored last year with “Energies,” a multi-level conceptual exhibition that revisits the important history of community-driven sustainability action. During the oil crisis of 1973, one of the first equity partners in New York City, at 519 E. 11th Street, installed a two-kilowatt wind turbine combined with solar panels. Bringing together archival materials and the works of various artists exhibited at the Swiss Institute and in non-local spaces, the exhibition encouraged an open dialogue about possible solutions to current environmental and energy problems. On the rooftop platform, Haroon Mirza's giant solar panel sculpture echoes the 1970s energy experiment by powering other works in the exhibition, while Otobong Nkanga's landmark painting directly engages the current residents of the building where the first co-op community once stood. A rich, comprehensive community program that complements the show and related programs.
The main goal of the move, Hessler explains, is to continue to offer a broad public and educational program—always free—in addition to the exhibits. The Swiss Institute was founded in 1986 as an independent non-profit contemporary art center with international principles, aiming to build a bridge between Switzerland and the United States. From its original location in a townhouse on West 67th Street to 495 Broadway in SoHo in 1994, 18 Wooster Street in SoHo in 2011, 102 Franklin Street in Tribeca in 2016 and most recently 38 St. Marks Place in the East Village in 2018, each chapter changed SI's.
In recent years, the Swiss Institute has served as a global platform for exploration and research, introducing many international artists to US audiences while engaging with some of the most pressing issues of our time. “Since we were founded as an independent institution, the campaign has expanded, showing more and more of the world and the arts,” Hessler admits, emphasizing how SI's international identity and its work to support emerging and underrecognized artists has become stronger and will be more important in the future. “While we remain faithful to our history of founding by Swiss sponsors in 1986, we also look at the collective world and discuss important questions,” he adds, pointing as an example to their critical examination of world affairs through the public program series These Times, and questions of public space spread here in New York and abroad.
For Hessler, the fact that the Swiss Institute was founded from the beginning as an international institution puts us in a “unique position to foster international dialogue while focusing on the New York art scene.” It also aims to increase its relationships with like-minded institutions, small and large, as an important strategy to support artistic production while maintaining sustainability. SI's artist-in-residence programs also have a major impact on international engagement, offering artists a three-month residency in the city that often results in future opportunities. “We will continue our artist-focused work and invite artists to shape the center in the same way we did with the Spora conservation project, which asked artists to change SI's infrastructure to make it more environmentally conscious,” Hessler said. “SI is a creative institution, and this new building will give us a sustainable framework to respond to artists and their ideas.”
Hessler envisions the center's new chapter as placing greater emphasis on timely themes such as environmental questions, while exploring their intersection with social and technological change. “Artists respond to the pressures they encounter, and as a current institution, we will continue to support their work,” he said, pointing to the recently closed exhibition by SoiL Thornton, “Metabolizing eviction try, work_mp3 and other topping games,” which focuses on the artist's experience of dealing with eviction and dealing with questions of affordability in that city. “SI will remain true to its core and our mission of following the vision of artists and promoting international dialogue, while we adjust our priorities for the future,” emphasized Hessler.
The plan is to open the new location in the spring of 2027. Although under construction, SI will continue its programs with off-site shows in New York and other countries. In the fall of 2026, SI will present an off-site exhibition Kino East by Rafał Skoczek, transforming a disused commercial space into a place of collection and exchange—part cinema, part bookstore, part space. The recently opened Regift exhibition, organized by John Miller at Luma Westbau in Zurich and a fundraiser for SI's 40th anniversary, will be on view until September 6.
At a time when many art institutions are forced to rethink their role while operating from a very fragile environment—financially and politically, especially in the United States—Hessler still believes that a kunsthalle like the Swiss Institute, long characterized by a global spirit, needs to remain a space for open exploration, conflict and exchange: “This freedom is important for artists, always but especially at this time.”
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