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When Brooklyn Museum director Anne Pasternak met with Mayor Bill de Blasio in June, she knew the multimillion-dollar proposal for additional funding for the museum was a huge request.
“I am truly grateful to the mayor and the Cultural Affairs commissioner,” he said in a phone call. “When I came to them with this very big idea, they really took the meeting and took it seriously.”
His insistence paid off: On Monday, Mayor de Blasio will announce that the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs will award the museum $50 million in capital funding, the largest gift in the museum’s nearly 200-year history.
“I’ve been dreaming of this ever since I joined the museum a little over five years ago,” Pasternak said. “Our exhibits and public programs embrace ideas for 21st century museums, but our building is definitely 19th century sunk. So it’s time to catch up. ”
Pasternak said the funding will enable the museum to launch a new list of initiatives: modernizing 40,000 square feet of existing gallery space, creating a permanent gallery devoted to Brooklyn history, and supporting energy efficiency upgrades in the city’s landmark building. The fourth and fifth floor galleries for European, decorative and American arts, including Native art and design, will all feature new interiors and climate control systems. Installations from the museum collection will also be re-evaluated within the scope of the project.
“We hope to be able to significantly expand our contemporary art galleries and design spaces,” he said. “We have one of the great collections of American design, and we have absolutely insufficient space to show it.”
Pasternak said the investment will not only allow the museum to further showcase its permanent collection, but will also engage visitors in new ways.
“People want more immersive, participatory experiences in addition to beautiful galleries with natural light,” he said. “You want to have a voice; You want to have projection. You want to surround people with the many ways to tell stories.”
The Brooklyn Museum is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States, and the second largest in New York after the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It has a permanent collection of over 500,000 objects, including one of the finest collections of Egyptian art in the world.
In addition to serving as a gallery space, the museum attracts thousands of young adults to its free monthly First Saturday events, where it stays open until 11 every month and becomes a sort of dance club with wine, food, and live music.pending for now).
But the institution, which has a large building away from Manhattan’s Museum Mile, has been in financial trouble for a long time. Last year, it faced backlash from art critics and curators when the Association of Art Museum Directors became the first major U.S. arts organization to benefit from a two-year window in which institutions hit hard by the economic crisis were allowed to leave or sell. , working to pay for the maintenance of the existing collection.
The city gives the museum about $9 million each year for operating expenses — or about 20 percent of its $43 million operating budget. The mayor said on Monday that the latest investment will “ensure the Brooklyn Museum remains an iconic place for generations to come.”
Pasternak said that although there is no timeline for the renovation yet, many more announcements are to come.
We have dreams for many projects,” he said. “We are excited to finally give Brooklyn the museum it deserves.”
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