NEW YORK.- The New Museum of Contemporary Art announced today that the ground floor public space of its new building at 235 Bowery, to open in late 2007, will be known in perpetuity as The Marcia Tucker Hall in honor of the Museum’s Founding Director.

The ground floor space -- described by architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA as "the very the heart of the building" -- was named in Tucker’s honor through major support provided by The Henry Luce Foundation, the late Allen Goldring, Founding Trustee, and his wife Lola, Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, and current Board President Saul Dennison and his wife Ellyn. The Marica Tucker Hall will be a dynamic, multi-purpose space, transparent to the street, and will incorporate an information area, an open-plan book and gift shop, a café/bar, and a glass-walled exhibition space washed with daylight from a sky-lit structural setback above.

Tucker, who died in October, founded the New Museum in 1977 at age 37. She was a visionary curator without resources or a collection of her own. Her model for a museum dedicated to exhibiting the work of emerging and under-recognized artists defied conventional practices of the art world at that time, and launched a potent and enduring international model for the exhibition of contemporary art in a museum context.

"It is particularly fitting that this free, open and light-filled space, which will connect the Museum directly to its neighborhood, its city and its community, is named for Marcia Tucker," stated Saul Dennison, President of the Board of Trustees of the New Museum. "Marcia was a passionate pioneer with an unswerving dedication to the mission of bringing the art of our moment to a public stage. Her impact was enormous and continues to be felt in our programs and across the art world. We are honored to pay tribute to her great spirit with a space that is both a destination and an intersection, and a point of departure for exploring the many great programs to be housed at the new New Museum."

The Museum is also organizing a Memorial Tribute to Marcia Tucker on January 12, 2007, from 3-5PM in association with the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, which will take place at the Tishman Auditorium at The New School.

As Director of the New Museum from 1977-1999, Marcia Tucker organized such polemical exhibitions as Bad Painting (1978) and Bad Girls (1994), and presided over the first museum exhibitions of John Baldessari, Christian Boltanski, Barry Le Va, Ana Mendieta, Carolee Schneeman, and David Wojnorowicz. She was the series editor of Documentary Sources in Contemporary Art, influential books of theory and criticism published by the New Museum. She was Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Whitney Museum of American Art from 1969 - 1977, where she organized solo exhibitions of Bruce Nauman, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell and Richard Tuttle, among others. Ms. Tucker was the 1999 recipient of the Bard College Award for Curatorial Achievement, and received the Art Table Award for Distinguished Service to the Visual Arts in 2000. She was a dedicated lecturer, teacher and writer. Most recently, Ms. Tucker led a secret life as stand-up comic Mabel McNeil and her alter ego "Miss Mannerist."