The last time I visited the MoMa I wasn’t legally able to drink nor purchase cigarettes! It was a field trip in my teen years during highschool for an art history class, so my memory of the exhibitions and the museum itself was very vague. The MoMa is located in midtown Manhattan, right below the beginning of Central Park, and several blocks away from Radio City Music Hall & The St. Patrick Cathedral. The museum was closed for renovation from June 15th to October 21st 2019. Upon its completion of $450 million of renovation, the MoMa fully opened to the public on October 21st 2019. MoMA has added 47,000 square feet of gallery space, bringing the museum’s total art-filled space to 175,000 square feet spread across six floors. The expansion has allowed for even more of the museum’s collection of nearly 200,000 works to be displayed. They stated that the goal of this renovation is to “help expand the collection and display of work by women artists, Latinx artists, Black artists, Asian artists, and other artists from marginalized communities.”
Upon reaching the MoMa, one of the new and most surprising additions that came out of the renovation is that MoMA now offers a free art space on the first floor, open to the public. Two exhibitions are currently on view, “Energy” and a solo exhibition from painter Michael Armitage. They kept all the classic art works fro 1880s-1940s on the 5th floor of the museum. Some examples would be Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night”, and “The Olive Trees”, Pablo Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”, and Claude Monet’s “Water Lilies” are all on display on the same floor.
In my views, the renovation of the museum was a successful one. The art space expanded even with its limited space available. The free exhibition on the ground floor will definitely help attract larger crowds, and with a new flagship store, dining options (The Modern, Terrace Cafe, and Cafe 2), and expanded hours, there are even more ways to make the most of your visit. With the addition of the interactive “The Paula and James Crown Creativity Lab”, which is a new and experimental space to explore ideas, questions, and art processes that arise from our collection and exhibitions. You can drop in anytime to participate in lively conversations, engage with artists, make art, reflect and relax, and find suggestions for exploring the Museum. Overall I will assess MoMa’s new architectural identity as both a cultural and architectural landscape.
