The Studio Museum in Harlem reopens to the public on November 15th after closing its doors for renovations in January 2018. The opening marks the first time in the institution’s 57-year history that it will operate in a building designed specifically for its mission.
The new seven-floor, 82,000-square-foot facility was designed by Adjaye Associates, with Cooper Robertson serving as executive architect. Funded through a campaign that has raised more than $300 million to date, the building includes expanded gallery spaces, a dedicated Education Workshop, and significantly enlarged areas for public programs. Indoor and outdoor spaces increased by 60 percent, and facilities for exhibition and the Artist-in-Residence program have more than doubled.
“This magnificent building says to the world: Harlem matters. Black art matters. Black institutions matter,” said Raymond J. McGuire, chairman of the museum’s board, in a statement. “This new chapter was not inevitable. It was earned through decades of vision, stewardship, and belief…”
Four exhibitions open to the public on November 15th. A major solo presentation of Tom Lloyd revisits the artist whose work formed the museum’s inaugural exhibition in 1968. Lloyd’s colorful, geometric sculptures, created with electrically programmed lights, are featured in a lofty, chapel-like room on the third floor. Meanwhile, the Studio Museum’s robust permanent collection will be foregrounded in the first edition of “From Now: A Collection in Context,” which brings together works from the 1800s through the present, including works by Jack Whitten, Faith Ringgold, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and other leading contemporary artists.
On the fourth floor, the museum presents “From the Studio: Fifty-Eight Years of Artists in Residence,” which features new works by more than 100 alumni of the Artist-in-Residence program. This residency program, founded in 1968, has supported the careers of some of today’s leading artists, including Lauren Halsey and Adam Pendleton. This space is currently hung with works by former artists in residence, such as Jordan Casteel and Sanford Biggers, and will soon host the incoming residents. Lastly, the museum’s history will be explored through photographs and archival material in “To Be a Place,” spotlighting six decades of public programs and exhibitions.
The museum also unveils several new commissions for the new building. Camille Norment’s Untitled (heliotrope) (2025) is an installation of brass pipes that emanate an ambient soundscape, hung above the staircase to the rooftop terrace. In the educational workshop on the third floor, Christopher Myers’s Harlem Is a Myth (2025) features mythologized historical figures along the wall.
Works long associated with the museum—including David Hammons’s Untitled flag (2004), Glenn Ligon’s Give Us a Poem (2007), and Houston E. Conwill’s The Joyful Mysteries (1984)—have also been reinstalled.
“Our mission as champions of artists of African descent and their practices is as urgent today as it ever was and is made all the more possible because of our remarkable new building,” said Thelma Golden, director and chief curator of the Museum, in a statement.
