50 Years of Art in the Bronx

This article is part of our latest article Special section on museumsfocusing on new artists, new audiences, and new ways of thinking about exhibitions.

On a gray morning in March, Claudio Rodriguez He paced excitedly through the almost empty galleries. Bronx Art Museumis located in the middle of the southern reaches of the county’s famous Grand Concourse. Rodriguez, the museum’s executive director since late 2020, was laying out his vision of a Bronx Museum operating at maximum commercial and cultural potential.

The timing couldn’t be more meaningful than that. This year is the 50th anniversary of the museum. And like many museums in the country, it is emerging from the effects of a global pandemic that has hit small museums particularly hard.

As Mr. Rodriguez zigzags through a void of galleries, study rooms and studio spaces, he spoke of plans for a new restaurant run by Bronx-based chefs, a boutique selling Bronx-made goods, and enhanced communal spaces for the Bronx community to come together. Mr. Rodriguez muzzledly explained, the most ambitious of plans for an expanded South Wing, which he hopes will firmly herald the museum’s presence as the county’s premier cultural institution when completed in 2025.

“Our program appeals to all New Yorkers, but at our core it is always for bronx, about Bronx and by The Bronx,” said Mr. Rodriguez, who was born in Nicaragua and grew up in Miami. “We want to break the myth that museums are only for ‘certain’ kinds of people.”

Mr. Rodriguez arrived in the Bronx ten years later. Frost Art Museum at Florida International University It has stabilized its present while being at the forefront of planning for the future of Miami and the Bronx museum.

While no staff lost their jobs during the pandemic, the museum, which has been free to all since 2012, remained closed for six months, cutting a vital cultural lifeline for a borough often overlooked by the city’s larger arts institutions. With its strong focus on social justice and extensive programming for students and families, “the museum immediately feels like it belongs to anyone who walks through its doors,” Rodriguez said. “We see it as a truly transformative place.”

While planning for the expansion, the museum is focusing on its newest exhibition, “Jamel Shabazz: Eyes on the Street”, curated and executed by the museum’s Brazilian-born honorary curator, Antonio Sergio Bessa, is a celebration that spans the career of this seminal African American photographer.

Mr. Bessa said in a phone call that the exhibit “completely overlaps with the museum at the deepest levels”. “The way Shabazz’s work deals with urban culture speaks directly to how local communities contribute to city life and safety – conveying a sense of community and fellowship unique to New York.”

Running through September 4, “Eyes on the Street” focuses specifically on New York City’s children, with footage of teenage street scenes from neighborhoods like Harlem, the Lower East Side, Brownsville and of course the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. “There is a unique structure and diversity in the Bronx that is very different from East Flatbush,” said Mr. Shabazz, who was born in Brooklyn and lives on Long Island.

Almost all of the 110 images are from Mr. Shabazz’s extensive archive, apart from a few new photos, a portrait of a young man from Red Hook dressed in stern – what else – in pandemic-era full-face protection gear (vivid yellow fan). The directness of the painting is emblematic of Mr. Shabazz’s distinctive pictorial style. “I walk everywhere with my camera on and ready,” he said. “I feel very compelled to visually record my life.”

This commitment to urban kinship anchors the museum’s much larger transformation effort: the South Wing update, which will break ground in spring 2023 and replace its obsolete predecessor. Backed by a $21 million equity campaign, the new addition was designed by PR-based Manhattan and San Juan. Marvel Architects – His proposal outstripped more than 50 other applications to the New York City Economic Development Authority, which will oversee the expansion.

Once completed, the museum’s new wing will not only add much-needed new gallery space and space for Mr Rodriguez’s hoped-for restaurant and boutique, but will also better integrate its larger and somewhat discrete footprint.

“Many people know about the museum and recognize our work, but we still need to increase visibility,” said Shirley Solomon, the museum’s deputy director. “Maybe it’s time we brag a little more,” she added. “The new wing will go a long way in improving our physical visibility.”

Founded in 1971 by the Bronx Arts Council and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the museum was originally located in the roton of the Bronx County Courthouse before moving to its permanent location in the former Grand Concourse Synagogue in 1982. Two major expansions followed: the first created a much needed central triplex atrium/lobby in 1998 – then in 2006 three-story North WingDesigned by Miami-based firm arquitectonica

Mr. Rodriguez observed that while Arquitectonica’s effort was certainly eye-catching, it always felt awkward and flawed – especially its “accordion-like” façade.

Consisting of a series of seven vertical laths connected by fritted glass, the façade blocks the flow of natural light while lacking the sense of grandeur typically associated with major metropolitan cultural institutions. Most importantly, Mr. Rodriguez explained that the overhaul disconnected the museum from its core urban environment.

“Salsa, hip-hop, graffiti are key parts of the Bronx street life,” he said; The South Wing expansion will reduce the boundaries between the museum and human vitality just beyond its walls.

The current design firm Marvel is led by Puerto Rican founding director Jonathan Marvel and has an extensive portfolio of Bronx-based commissions that are both deeply familiar with communities of color and include a recent renovation of the Orchard Beach Pavilion and a renovation. Comprehensive master plan for Mill Pond Park, a short walk from the museum.

Marvel also spearheaded the last major overhaul of the Studio Museum of Harlem in 2006, and the performing arts institution in Brooklyn’s Dumbo area, St. He designed the new red brick home of Ann’s Warehouse. It is also one of the largest employers of architects and color designers in New York City. The diversity of both Marvel’s staff and the project’s history fit easily with the larger mission of the Bronx Museum.

“We also recognize the real historical need for the Bronx Museum to be directly connected to the communities it serves,” said Mr. Marvel. “Our responsibility as architects is to reconnect the museum with these communities by creating a sense of transparency, openness, and bringing the sidewalk to the galleries and the galleries to the sidewalk.”

To achieve this, Marvel will move the museum’s entrance to a much more visible and accessible corner of the Grand Concourse at 165th Street.

In addition to providing a new space for public art, Marvel’s addition will directly refer to previous expansions of the museum, which it says will play off each other “like a scroll of history.” The main materials are still being finalized, but Mr. Marvel says he hopes to build it “primarily from structured and engineered wood.”

The launch of the wing coincides with a couple of additional Bronx-based cultural openings. Bronx Children’s Museum and Universal Hip-Hop Museum. Like the Bronx Museum, both newcomers are emblematic of the Bronx – dynamic and ever-evolving, nodding to the future while greeting the past.

“The Bronx Museum sits at the intersection of culture and education, job creation and summer youth programs,” said Vanessa Gibson, Bronx county president. “They understand that culture can solve social problems and that art can be a catalyst for change.”