LOWER EAST SIDE — Demonic birds, found-object sculptures and films about painting and dance are on the way to the New Museum this spring.
The museum's just-announced May lineup features many New York firsts, including sculptor Klara Lidén's first major American exhibit and British sculptor Phyllida Barlow's first solo show in the city.
Perhaps the most disturbing offering will be "The Parade: Nathalie Djurberg with Music by Hans Berg," a multimedia installation that will feature more than 80 of Djurberg's posed bird sculptures, made of clay, wire and painted canvas, and described by the New Museum as "monstrous."
The display will also include five claymation videos in which humans and animals "act out upsetting scenarios of torture, humiliation, and masquerade," backed by Berg's eerie score, the New Museum said.
Another show that is sure to be provocative is a site-specific sculptural installation called "Klara Lidén: Bodies of Society."
Lidén is known for assembling spaces from discarded objects and for bringing the urban landscape indoors, as in a 2008 New York show in which she allowed pigeons to roost in a gallery.
"Her work demonstrates how an individual can navigate a constantly transforming urban landscape and carve out spaces of creativity to imagine new ways of living," according to the New Museum.
Another site-specific sculpture will rise in the New Museum this spring, for "Phyllida Barlow: Siege."
Barlow, a British sculptor who draws inspiration from scaffolding and security barriers, often disassembles her pieces after an exhibit ends and recycles the elements into new works, so viewers' one and only chance to see her new piece will be at the New Museum starting in May.
The final new exhibit is an eponymous display of four films by Tacita Dean, a British artist who delves into filmmaking's connection to other art forms, like painting and dance. The films shown at the New Museum will feature Merce Cunningham, Julie Mehretu, Claes Oldenburg and Cy Twombly.
"The Parade" will run from May 2 to Aug. 26 in the New Museum's Studio 231 space at 231 Bowery. At the museum's adjacent main galleries at 235 Bowery, "Klara Lidén: Bodies of Society" and "Tacita Dean" will run May 9 to July 1, and "Phyllida Barlow: Siege" will run May 3 to July 15.
