The Museum of Modern Art completed the final phase of its multi-year, multi-million dollar expansion and renovation project, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler.
Take a look inside….
MoMA describes its goal as being three-fold ~ increasing gallery space and allowing the Museum to exhibit significantly more of its diverse collection in deeper and more interdisciplinary ways; to provide visitors with a more welcoming and comfortable experience; and to better connect the Museum to the urban fabric of midtown Manhattan.
Up close, Faith Ringgold: American People Series #20: Die, 1967, below, an abstraction of what street riots that took place in the 1960s were really about ~ race and class, and no one was left out. Her composition was based on Picasso’s Guernica (1937).
The now completed east section enhances galleries and public spaces on three floors. It reconfigures 15,000 square feet to create two spacious galleries on the third floor that allows more flexibility for installing the collection and special exhibitions.
The extension of the historic Bauhaus staircase to the ground level restores and enhances access to the second-floor galleries., and an addition of a new first-floor lounge facing The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden.
member:Pope.L., 1978-2001, above and below, focuses on a group of landmark performances. the title, member, ponders the terms and stakes of membership for a provocateur who constantly strives “to reinvent what’s beneath us, to remind us where we all come from.”
member: Pope.LImprovements also include renovations of restrooms, an additional coat check at street level, and the renovation of Cafe 2 on the second floor, now adjacent to a new museum store and espresso bar overlooking the Sculpture Garden.
The overall expansion will yield a net increase in MoMA’s gallery space of one-third, to 175,000 square feet. The 30 percent increase in exhibition space includes a stack of vertically interlocking galleries of varying heights. The 40,000 square feet of gallery space being added in the western portion of the building will be devoted to realizing long-held aspirations of presenting significantly more of its collection.
Located in MoMA’s Marron Atrium, Haegue Yang: Handles, above and below features six sculptures with distinctive shapes. Some are inspired by the work of early 20th century figures such as artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp and mystic philosopher G. I. Gurdjieff, and others use open-source designs for door handles to produce freestanding bodies at once futuristic and prehistoric. Mounted on casters, they are activated daily.
“The Museum of Modern Art’s renovation and expansion project will seek to reassure and surprise,” Glenn D. Lowry, Director of MoMA said. “Our curators and the architectural team have spent more than two years in conversations about the nature of our collection, the history of our installations, the continually changing nature of art, and our opportunities and responsibilities for engaging our audiences. The outcome of these discussions is a design that accommodates a global view and new perspectives on modern and contemporary art, and that embodies the metabolic and self-renewing nature of our institution.”
Above, Boris Bućan (Croatian, born Yugoslavia 1947), From L-R, Poster for a Radio-Television Zagreb broadcast of “Musical Experiences” performed by the Zagreb Symphony Orchestra at Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall, Croatia 1988 ~ Poster for a Radio-Television Zagreb broadcast of “Musical Experiences” performed by the Zagreb Symphony Orchestra at Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall, Croatia 1989 ~ Poster for a performance of the Miroslav Krleza play Aretaeus at the Croatian National Theater, Split 1983. Silkscreens.
We were pleased to find the helicopter still on site, however only in view from the first, second and third floors.
MoMA will reopen to the public on October 21, 2019. The Museum of Modern Art is located at 11 West 53rd Street, enter at 18 West 54th Street, NYC. Check out more from the architectural design by Diller Scofidio + Renfro ~ The Shed.