{"id":261937,"date":"2025-11-14T07:03:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T07:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/261937\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T07:03:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T07:03:17","slug":"studio-museum-in-harlem-reopens-in-a-stunning-new-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/261937\/","title":{"rendered":"Studio Museum in Harlem Reopens in a Stunning New Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAfter a closure that lasted more than seven years, the Studio Museum in Harlem<\/a> is finally reopening in a new building. The museum is returning to a vastly different political and cultural climate, not just nationally but also locally. (One of its neighbors is now a Trader Joe\u2019s, which shares the gentrifying block with a Whole Foods and a Target.) That\u2019s to say nothing of the pandemic, which hit Harlem harder<\/a> than other Manhattan neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

\n\tUndaunted by all this change, longtime Studio Museum director and chief curator Thelma Golden<\/a> has labored tirelessly to bring the institution to its new home, spending most of her days on site while the museum was under construction. The fruits of her labor have paid off.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\n\tTo efficiently use its relatively small plot of 125th Street, the Studio Museum previously had to host parties in a tiny garden and cram exhibitions into modestly scaled galleries. Now, the museum has expanded its indoor spaces, nixing the garden and putting a large set of stairs inside the museum in its place. Those stairs, officially called the Stoop, are free to the public, though you do have to pay to visit the museum\u2019s remaining outdoor area, a rooftop with views of the city.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe starchitect David Adjaye designed the new building, which he began conceiving eight years ago. He had recently completed the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, so it was no wonder than that the Studio Museum would tap him. But in 2023, Adjaye faced allegations of sexual misconduct<\/a>, leading museums to begin distancing<\/a> themselves from the architect, who has denied the allegations. (The Studio Museum said that Adjaye handed over the project to Pascale Sablan, the CEO of Adjaye Associate\u2019s New York office, though Adjaye is still listed as founder and principal on the firm\u2019s website<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tInterior view of the Studio Museum in Harlem\u2019s new building featuring the Grand Stair (foreground) and the Stoop (background).<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Albert Vecerka, Esto\/Courtesy Studio Museum in Harlem<\/p>\n

\n\tSquaring the allegations against Adjaye and the brilliance of the new building is tough to do, but one must admit the Studio Museum\u2019s new home is a success. The new concrete building is delicately sandwiched between its neighbors, rising in a gray concrete that handsomely contrasts with the buildings of old and new Harlem that surround it. David Hammons\u2019s red, black, and green Untitled Flag (2004) hangs outside as it did in the past, signifying that you\u2019ve arrived.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe elegant stoop-like stairs indoors serve as a place for talks and performances and as a space for folks to just sit and chat. In the back corner is a marvelous terrazzo-clad staircase that rises up to the upper floors. Throughout the building is a light wood paneling detail that gives the building a sense of warmth.<\/p>\n

\n\tUpon entering, take the elevator to the top. Up there, the sixth-floor rooftop terrace provides a clear, nearly 360-degree view of New York. (I wish the museum had also offered a nice view of large-scale outdoor sculptures, too, perhaps in the form of new commissions. No artworks are here, though that will hopefully change soon.) The Studio Museum has never felt closer to the surrounding city.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Studio Museum in Harlem\u2019s new terrace, with views to the south.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Albert Vecerka, Esto\/Courtesy Studio Museum in Harlem<\/p>\n

\n\tFor decades, the opposite was true\u2014the Studio Museum was almost invisible to the mainstream New York art world, whose scenes to the south never paid quite enough attention to what happened up here. After decades of putting in the hours, day in and day out, that is no longer the case. Despite its size, the Studio Museum has had a grand influence, not just in the New York art world but also nationally and internationally. It has achieved its tagline as \u201cthe nexus for artists of African descent\u00a0locally, nationally, and internationally,\u201d rewriting the canon and spurring many others to take up the work of spotlighting Black artists.<\/p>\n

\n\tA visual timeline inside, in the form of an exhibition titled \u201cTo Be a Place,\u201d attests to all that the museum has done since its founding in 1968. You get a sense of the constellation of Black artists it has supported\u2014and been supported by\u2014from Romare Bearden to Elizabeth Catlett, from Camille Billops to David Driskell, from Al Loving to Jack Whitten, from Melvin Edwards to William T. Williams, who laid the ground work for the Studio Museum\u2019s famed artists-in-residence program, which has had 158 participants to date.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll of this was \u201cnot inevitable,\u201d as Raymond J. McGuire<\/a>, the museum\u2019s longtime board chairman, reminded reporters during the press conference. In fact, the road to get here was not easy. For years, the museum didn\u2019t have an endowment; until recently, it had a small one compared to other New York institutions. When the Studio Museum announced that it would construct a new building, many doubted<\/a> that a Black institution could raise the necessary funds to actually realize the project. Now, the museum is in a very different place: \u201cWe have met and exceeded a $300-million goal for a holistic campaign to construct our building, increase our endowment, and create an operating reserve,\u201d McGuire said.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCamille Norment, Untitled (heliotrope), 2025, installation view, at the Studio Museum in harlem.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Albert Vecerka, Esto\/Courtesy Studio Museum in Harlem<\/p>\n

\n\tConstructed at a cost of $160 million, the new building makes the art its star. Installed adjacent to the stairwell that connects the rooftop level to the lower floors is Camille Norment\u2019s 2025 brass sculptural installation\u00a0Untitled (heliotrope), which resembles a pipe organ. The work emits a low droning that sounds like a choral performance, creating the sense that this building is a spiritual space.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe core of its inauguration is a permanent collection display spread across two floors of the museum and some of the surrounding walls. (The hang is intentionally maximalist\u2014an attempt, perhaps, to make use of the fact that the museum can show three times as many works as it used to, as Golden told me in an interview.) Many of the pieces included have never been seen together, especially not like this. The only drawback is that the galleries feel a bit sterile\u2014a bit too much like your average white-cube spaces for a dynamic collection that requires a less clinical treatment.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"View<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of the \u201c1968\u201d section in \u201cFrom Now: A Collection in Context,\u201d showing Al Loving\u2019s Hex 4 (1968) in the upper left corner. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Maximil\u00edano Dur\u00f3n\/ARTnews<\/p>\n

\n\tThe permanent collection display, titled \u201cFrom Now: A Collection in Context,\u201d is split into 11 thematic sections, the best of which is \u201c1968,\u201d a portion that primarily features work produced between 1968 and 1970, the first years of the Studio Museum\u2019s existence. In this hang, you get the sense of the varied artistic approaches required to deal with the tumult of the late 1960s that necessitated a museum for Black art.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the center of this section is Al Loving\u2019s geometric abstraction Hex 4 (1968), a hexagonal prism incised in a cube all in vivid colors. Flanking it is LeRoy Clarke\u2019s Now (1970), a figurative painting showing Black people breaking the chains that enslave them, and a silkscreen collage synthesizing the 1960s, by Robert Rauschenberg, one of the few white artists represented in the collection. Elsewhere are excellent works by Bearden, Betty Blayton, Beauford Delaney, David Driskell, Sam Gilliam, Mavis Pusey, and Hale Woodruff.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"View<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLorraine O\u2019Grady, Art Is\u2026, 1983\/2009, installation view, at Studio Museum in Harlem. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Maximil\u00edano Dur\u00f3n\/ARTnews<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Studio Museum was founded to be more like a Kunsthalle dedicated to the art of the now. But it was the artists who insisted that the Studio Museum build a collection. They needed a permanent repository for their art at a time when few mainstream institutions would bother to collect their work.<\/p>\n

\n\tMany of those initial acquisitions entered the collection via donations, usually from artists. But the museum has been active in seeking out art through a combination of donations and purchases. \u201cFrom Now\u201d makes clear that, even during its closure, the museum was actively making acquisitions, the most important of which is no doubt Jean-Michel Basquiat\u2019s Bayou (1984), which was gifted in 2023. That acquisition makes the Studio Museum one of the few US museums<\/a> to own a Basquiat. Not even the Museum of Modern Art, some 70 blocks downtown, can make that claim.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile many of the other works surrounding the Basquiat are important, few are well-known attractions. That\u2019s a good thing\u2014there isn\u2019t one main draw here. The display is much like the Norment sculpture, a chorus in which many voices harmonize with one another.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"An<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tNorman Lewis, Bonfire, 1962. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto John Berens\/\u00a9Estate of Norman Lewis\/Courtesy Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York\/Studio Museum in Harlem<\/p>\n

\n\tEmma Amos\u2019s sublime Baby (1966) hangs not far from an equally vibrant and alluring abstraction, Norman Lewis\u2019s Bonfire (1962). Barkley L. Hendricks\u2019s majestic gold-leaf portrait, Lawdy Mama (1969), shares a room with Betye Saar\u2019s altar-like assemblage Indigo Mercy (1975). A David Hammons sculpture of a pink porcelain piggy bank split in half to reveal a pile of cowrie shells acts as a powerful commentary on the links between currency and the enslavement of Black people.<\/p>\n

\n\tDownstairs, the second floor-galleries open with a grid of 40 photographs documenting Lorraine O\u2019Grady\u2019s iconic performance Art Is \u2026, staged at the 1983 African American Day Parade in Harlem. For that work, O\u2019Grady brought several gold frames to the street parade and placed Harlem\u2019s residents in the frame. Black people like those celebrating in Harlem rarely figured in portraits shown by most museums. No more, O\u2019Grady said. Nearby is a genius grouping of cityscapes by an intergenerational group of artists: Bearden, Hughie Lee-Smith, Martine Syms, James Van Der Zee.<\/p>\n

\n\tA section titled \u201cIn\/Visibility,\u201d focusing on the ways in which Black artists have considered \u201cthe hypervisibility and invisibility of African Americans in the United States,\u201d per a wall text, features some of the Studio Museum\u2019s most potent works. There\u2019s Kerry James Marshall\u2019s Silence is Golden (1980), in which a smiling Black man seems to fade into a dark background, and Lorna Simpson\u2019s Necklines (1989), showing three views of the artist\u2019s neck and eight neck-related words, implying a lynching without representing it.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Three<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLorna Simpson, Necklines, 1989, installation view, at Studio Museum in Harlem. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Maximil\u00edano Dur\u00f3n\/ARTnews<\/p>\n

\n\tThe collection is weighted heavily toward medium-size painting and sculpture. Few videos or fiber works figure in \u201cFrom Now\u201d; no performances or dance pieces are planned for the public opening on November 15. A section devoted to sound-oriented art is noticeably quiet. These gaps are ones the museum should be sure to address in the near future. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the whole, the new Studio Museum feels more like a gathering of people than a structured convening\u2014which may even be a point, as evidenced by the dense section devoted to the residency program. There are some big names represented here\u2014Hammons, Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Mickalene Thomas, Adam Pendleton, Simone Leigh, to name just a few\u2014but some of the best work on view in this exhibition is from artists who have yet to achieve their level of fame.<\/p>\n

\n\tTake Conflict (1990) by Paul C. Gard\u00e8re, part of the 1989\u201390 cohort, a watercolor of a young Black boy that is framed by cracked dirt, over which the artist has affixed a red-and-blue spike to the composition by rope. Or an assemblage by Grace Williams, from the 1974\u201375 group, that features two black-painted baseballs and a Coca-Cola bottle atop green turf; behind is a mosaic of the US flag, to which an archival photograph of an all-Black men\u2019s baseball team covers most of the blue-and-white-stars rectangle. The work\u2019s title is simple yet poignant: Black Balled (2005). The mosaics in the piece represent the fracture of this country\u2019s history and how even in the worst of circumstances Black people have found ways to refract the light and shine.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"An<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGrace Williams, Black Balled, 2005, installation view, at Studio Museum in Harlem. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto Maximil\u00edano Dur\u00f3n\/ARTnews<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen taken together, no clear narrative emerges from the art on view; the museum insists there are many diverse stories all worth closer study. Years ago, when I was reporting<\/a> on the role of culturally specific museums at a time when mainstream institutions were only just embracing diverse programming, I asked past and present Studio Museum leadership about the museum\u2019s role at a time like this, often by posing the question: \u201cIs the Studio Museum in Harlem still relevant?\u201d Sandra Jackson-Dumont, who worked at the Studio Museum from 2000 to 2005, responded, \u201cThe moment I entered the field, this was the question \u2026 I think \u200aless about whether or not they\u2019re still relevant, but what are the ways in which they\u00a0are?\u201d McGuire, the museum\u2019s chairman, put it more directly: \u201cbut for the Studio Museum\u2019s existence over the past 50 years,\u201d we would not be witnessing our current moment in which the margins have come to the center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Studio Museum\u2019s role feels even more crucial now. Its influence now established, there is no time for it to rest on its laurels. There is still so much work to be done, not just in terms of expanding the canon but in terms of expanding our minds and our hearts when it comes to what art and life can be. Now, the work begins anew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a closure that lasted more than seven years, the Studio Museum in Harlem is finally reopening in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,26509,26510,26511,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-261937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-raymond-j-mcguire","14":"tag-studio-museum-in-harlem","15":"tag-thelma-golden","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}