The Beaux Arts building at 58 Bowery has been an anchor of Chinatown for a century, owned for most of that time by the Citizens Savings Bank. Designer Alexander Wang and his mother, Ying Wang, purchased the landmarked building in 2025; this month, the pair will launch their dream of a hub for Asian and Asian-American creativity in the neighborhood with the opening of The Wang Contemporary (TWC). The center’s inaugural exhibition, “20,000 Variations On A Paper Plane In Flight,” by Asian-American art collective MSCHF, will be on view from February 20-22.
The new center and cultural organization was founded by Ying and Alexander Wang “to support and present Asian and Asian-American creativity across generations and disciplines.” With exhibitions, performances, and public programs, TWC will to serve as a platform for creatives to experiment and engage with culture, rooted in history while looking toward the future.
Alexander Wang and his mother, Ying Wang, design partners since the launch of the former’s eponymous label in 2005, purchased the building for $9.5 million in 2025, as Crain’s reported, putting it under Chinese-American ownership for the first time in its history.
As reported by Artnet, the pair’s dream for the space was to create a cultural destination to support creative Asian talent, at a time when the Asian population is being priced out of the neighborhood, and immigrant communities feel especially vulnerable. The Wang Contemporary has also allowed the designer an opportunity to reclaim his Asian-American heritage.
Looking forward, the newly-restored space has programming in the works for AAPI Month in May. Some events will be free as part of the center’s arts affordability agenda.
The inaugural exhibition, on view February 20–22, will feature art collective MSCHF; two of the group’s founders are half-Korean.
The group will present “20,000 Variations On A Paper Plane In Flight,” a three-day durational performance installation relating to the Lunar New Year, accompanied by an evolving piano score by Yeonjoon Yoon.
Once each hour, a flock of red and gold paper planes will descend from the building’s central oculus. Each will feature a one-word invocation taken from the 5,000 most common English nouns. The artists offer in a statement, “By the fact of their ubiquity, this set of words en masse forms a loose reflection of the world. Dispersed onto viewers at random as they fly, MSCHF invites visitors to pick up and unfold a plane to discover the inscription within.”
RELATED:
Get Insider Updates with Our Newsletter!
Source link
