Harlem’s renowned Studio Museum is set to reopen in 2025
In one year, the Studio Museum will reopen in Harlem in a new home custom-built for the arts institution. It’s the first facility conceived and designed for the museum since its founding 56 years ago.
When it opens in fall 2025 after being closed for construction since 2018, the building along West 125th Street will house art exhibitions, educational opportunities, program spaces and public amenities. For its first show, the Studio Museum will present the work of the late sculptor Tom Lloyd; it’s a full-circle moment as his work was part of the institution’s opening back in 1968. Another debut show will draw from the museum’s vast collection, underscoring the museum’s role as a steward of art by artists of African descent.
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Back when the museum first opened in the late 1960s, it was housed in a rented loft on Fifth Avenue. It showed Lloyd’s colorful, abstract sculptures in an exhibition called “Electronic Refractions II.” Inspired by everyday urban sights like traffic signals and theater marquees, the artist used common objects, including Christmas lights, Buick light covers and other pieces sourced from RCA. Now, decades later, the museum will show 20 works by Lloyd, including wall-mounted sculptures created with found metal parts.
“The Studio Museum in Harlem will move forward decisively while honoring our past with these revelatory exhibitions,” Thelma Golden, the museum’s director and chief curator said in a press release. “Through the life and career of Tom Lloyd, whose solo exhibition inaugurated our Museum in 1968, we reencounter an artist who was years ahead of his time in both his ideals and artistic practice. Now, thanks to other artists, scholars, and our Curator, Connie H. Choi, his work is coming to light.”
As for the survey of the museum’s collection, it will pull from the archive of nearly 9,000 artworks, which contains pieces by acclaimed artists such as Romare Bearden, Dawoud Bey, JordanCasteel, Barkley L. Hendricks, Rashid Johnson, Seydou Keïta, Norman Lewis, Wangechi Mutu, Lorraine O’Grady, Faith Ringgold, and many more.
Our collection traces, as few institutions can, a history of creativity by artists of African descent that we will continue to nurture far into the future.
“Taken in its entirety, our collection traces, as few institutions can, a history of creativity by artists of African descent that we will continue to nurture far into the future,” Golden added.
In addition to the gallery shows, public spaces throughout the building will also become showcases for artworks. David Hammons’s “Untitled flag” (2004) will hang from the Museum’s facade; Glenn Ligon’s neon sculpture “Give Us a Poem” (2007) will be displayed in the lobby; and Houston E. Conwill’s seven time capsules “Joyful Mysteries” (1984) will be installed on the second floor.
To fund the project, the museum set a fundraising target of $250 million. They’ve now secured $285 million and increased the target to $300 million.
The Studio Museum dates back to 1968 when it was founded by a diverse group of artists, community activists, and philanthropists who sought to address the near-complete exclusion of Black artists from mainstream museums, commercial art galleries, academic institutions and scholarly publications. It continues that mission today as a nexus for artists of African descent locally, nationally, and internationally and for work that has been inspired and influenced by Black culture.
200 Route 94, Vernon, New Jersey 07462
~1.5 hours by car
