New Museum Getting a Fun New Slide

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Holler's slide at the Tate Modern.

The New Museum is getting a slide! A Belgian artist named Carsten Höller, who has already installed slides in other cities around the world, is putting a big plastic slide in the Bowery museum. Like, really big, at least for indoors: the slide is 40 feet high and 102 feet long. Its installation begins next week and the slide will be open for "business" October 26th.

Höller's slides sound semi-dangerous. Emphasis ours:

It's not the first time that the German artist Carsten Höller has installed a slide in a museum. He has put slides in art capitals like Berlin, Milan and São Paolo, Brazil. In 2006 the Tate Modern's cavernous Turbine Hall in London became a playground overrun with visitors shooting through five tubular slides like so many packages going through pneumatic tubes. For safety baseball helmets and elbow pads were issued by the Tate staff, but some who took the plunge reported they got bumps and bruises anyway.

A short video of a Höller slide at the Tate in London:

The museum will reportedly offer elbow pads and helmets for the sissies among you. Our proximity to the New Museum means we'll happily report back -- more than once, if you want! -- from our sliding excursions.

[rgray@villagevoice.com] [@_rosiegray]

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