Brooklyn Museum Upgrade
The Brooklyn Museum announced new permanent galleries dedicated to African art, reworking display space to blend historic and contemporary narratives. The redesign—handled by Peterson Rich Office—aims to give African art a lasting, integrated presence in the museum’s core galleries. (archdaily.com)
The museum is moving forward with an approximately $13 million renovation to create new permanent Arts of Africa galleries totaling about 6,400 square feet on the third floor next to the landmark Beaux-Arts Court. (brooklynmuseum.org) Renovation work is slated to start in summer 2026 and the galleries are expected to open in fall 2027, with Zubatkin Owner Representation (a Cumming Group company) named as the project’s owners’ representative. (brooklynmuseum.org) The inaugural installation will present more than 300 works from the collection, drawn from the museum’s Arts of Africa holdings of roughly 4,500 objects. (artnews.com) The project converts previously underused on-site storage on the third floor into public galleries and will physically link those new rooms with the museum’s existing Egyptian galleries to present North Africa alongside sub‑Saharan collections. (brooklynmuseum.org) Funding comes from the City of New York and federal grants, supplemented by the Ford Foundation, the Sills Family Foundation, and individual donors as part of the roughly $13 million budget. (brooklynmuseum.org) Ernestine White‑Mifetu (curator) and Annissa Malvoisin (associate curator) are directing the reinstallation and the new display will span works from antiquity to contemporary practice. (artnews.com) The announcement arrives after the museum cut about 40 positions amid a roughly $10 million budget deficit and follows a 2025 acquisition push that added nearly 600 works to the collection for the institution’s 200th anniversary. (artnews.com)
