After seven years of renovations, the Studio Museum in Harlem will lastly reopen to the general public on Saturday, November 15, as introduced this week.
The establishment will mark the event with a significant present centering on the late sculptor, arts employee, activist, and neighborhood organizer Tom Lloyd, whose solo exhibition Digital Refractions II inaugurated the Studio Museum in September 1968. Tom Lloyd will span 20 years of the artist’s profession, delving into his pioneering use of electrical mild and contributions to the intersecting landscapes of expertise and artwork.
Tom Lloyd and apprentices, together with his son Omar, within the artist’s Queens studio, circa 1968 (picture by Reginald McGhee, courtesy Studio Museum in Harlem)
The Studio Museum’s reopening can even function a rotating, thematic set up of artworks from its everlasting assortment; an exhibition of works on paper by greater than 100 alumni of its Artist-in-Residence program; and a present of archival pictures and ephemera exploring the museum’s practically six-decade historical past. New commissions by Camille Norment and Christopher Myers will probably be displayed all through the museum’s public areas alongside reinstallations of iconic works, equivalent to David Hammons’s “Untitled (African American Flag)” (2004), first raised exterior the establishment in 2004.
Established in 1968 by a bunch of artists, activists, and philanthropists looking for to confront the near-total exclusion of Black artists from mainstream artwork establishments and cultural institutions, the Studio Museum serves as a website devoted to platforming artists of African descent on native, nationwide, and worldwide scales.
Set up view of David Hammons’s “Untitled (African American Flag)” (2004) (picture by Ray Llanos, courtesy Studio Museum)
Beset by development interruptions and financed by an intermittently raised $300 million capital fundraising marketing campaign, the long-awaited opening of its seven-floor, 82,000-square-foot constructing comes seven years after the New York museum first closed its doorways to the general public.
The Studio Museum’s new dwelling, situated at its longtime West a hundred and twenty fifth Avenue tackle, contains a important enlargement of its programming venues, artist studios, and indoor and outside areas. The renovation was led by the New York-based agency Adjaye Associates, with Cooper Robertson serving as govt architect. (British-Ghanaian architect David Adjaye left the venture after the museum minimize ties in 2023 following a number of allegations of sexual assault and harassment in opposition to him, which he denied. His agency continued to work on the constructing.)
Exterior of the museum’s new constructing (© Dror Baldinger FAIA, picture courtesy Studio Museum in Harlem)
All through its opening day, the Studio Museum plans to host a collection of community-centered programming, together with art-making workshops and performances. Whereas all tickets are priced at a “pay-what-you-wish” fee, the advised charge for adults is $16. Admission is free for youngsters beneath 16 and care companions, and the museum can even waive entry charges on Sundays as a part of its weekly Studio Sunday programming.
The Studio Museum will probably be open Wednesdays by Sundays with prolonged hours on Fridays and Saturdays, when it can welcome guests till 9pm.
Norman Lewis, “Bonfire” (1962) (© Property of Norman Lewis, picture by John Berens; courtesy Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY)
Cynthia Hawkins, “Untitled” (2025) (© Cynthia Hawkins, picture by John Berens; courtesy Studio Museum in Harlem)
Wangechi Mutu, “Hide ‘n’ Seek, Kill or Speak” (2004) (picture courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro Gallery)
