The Museum of Modern Art’s Sensational $450 Million Expansion Reimagines Recent Art History

The Museum of Modern Art’s newly expanded main campus in Midtown Manhattan is an ambitious reconceptualization of the ever-evolving, nonlinear interrelationship of painting, sculpture, architecture, design, photography, media, performance, film and works on paper.

Today’s press preview offered a sensational look at the $450 million expansion (including $50 million for renovation), developed by MoMA with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler. Adding some 47,000 square feet of gallery spaces that lend themselves to more innovative and interdisciplinary displays, the reimagined MoMA opens to the public on October 21.

Responding to criticism that the reimagined space dumbs down the experience for art lovers, Glenn D. Lowry, the David Rockefeller Director, defended the goal of creating a more inclusive experience.

The intent, he said, is “to try and speak as if we were speaking to a bunch of friends who were interested but didn’t know a lot about art.” The art world is “often a closed circuit speaking only to people who speak that language.”

Embracing the dynamic nature of modern art, MoMA will will exhaustively rotate and reinstall one third of its collection galleries every six months.

Rather than pretentiously fuss over the objective, I preferred to be awestruck by the massive galleries while viewing so many masterworks in a fascinating and new presentation. I especially delighted in seeing Norman Lewis’ Phantasy II (September 23, 1946) and Arshile Gorky’s Diary of a Seducer (1945) hung side by side.

Every gallery is an adventure. Take a sensorial journey through Artist’s Choice: Amy Sillman—The Shape of Shape, featuring nearly 75 works from MoMA’s collection selected by Sillman. The American artist, who expresses herself in painting, drawing, press, video, prints, zines, animation, architecture and writing, has incorporated many rarely seen works into an idiosyncratic shelving display on the fifth floor of the Jerry Speyer and Katherine Farley Building. The exhibition, on view through April 20, 2020, is organized by Sillman with Michelle Kuo, the Marlene Hess Curator, and Jenny Harris, curatorial assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture.

Enhancing the gallery experience is a new studio with live programming and performances that seek to examine histories of modern art and the latest developments in the art world. The second-floor boasts an educational creativity lab that will encourage visitors to explore the present, past and future of art. Street-level galleries will be free and open to the pubic, inviting passersby to engage, albeit briefly.

The fifth-, fourth-, and second-floor collection galleries, including the jaw-dropping new David Geffen Wing take over more than 30,000 square feet of new space encompassing installations across myriad mediums by artists spanning a wide array of geographies and backgrounds. Despite the nonlinear approach to redefining art history, the galleries are arranged chronologically to help visitors navigate the diverse range of art and artists.

Inaugural exhibitions opening October 21 include: member: Pope.L, 1978–2001, highlighting 13 trailblazing performances by the multidisciplinary artist; Surrounds: 11 Installations, 11 immersive installations by living artists from the past two decades spanning the sixth floor; Sur moderno: Journeys of Abstraction―The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Gift, a sweeping look at paintings, sculptures and works on paper donated to MoMA by the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros between 1997 and 2016; and Betye Saar: The Legends of Black Girl’s Window, delving into the relationship between the artist’s autobiographical assemblage Black Girl’s Window (1969) and her rare, early prints from the 1960s.

Upcoming special exhibitions include Just Above Midtown: 1974 to the Present in fall 2022, the first museum exhibition to focus exclusively on JAM, an art gallery and self-described laboratory for African American artists and artists of color led by Linda Goode Bryant from 1974 until 1986. JAM drew a bustling crowd at Frieze New York.

This post first appeared on Forbes.com. To see the original, click here.