The reinstallation of the three areas designed by WHY Architecture of the collection - Arts of Africa, Ancient America and Oceania - will also contain the new studies carried out in collaboration with international experts and researchers. Digital elements and new wall texts will allow the objects to be better contextualised.
Highlights from the collections will be innovatively displayed in a completely new gallery design, incorporating natural light filtered through a custom-designed, state-of-the-art sloping glass wall on the south façade, adjacent to Central Park.
"The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing affirms WHY's belief that museums are true sites of empathy. Spaces where visitors from many different places can encounter and appreciate the artworks from other cultures around the world. Through our design with The Met, we hope to highlight the diversity and distinction within these rich collections while providing a welcoming and memorable sense of place. Natural light and visual connections to Central Park are essential to the reimagined wing, and moments of discovery are so crucial when we design art spaces. We hope that visitors remember what they experience and where that happens".
Kulapat Yantrasast, Founder and Creative Director of WHY Architecture.
In-progress installation of Arts of the Ancient Americas Galleries in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photograph by Paula Lobo.
In addition, all collections will feature first-time exhibits, including major new acquisitions of historical and contemporary art in the African Arts galleries; a gallery dedicated to ancient Andean light-sensitive textiles, which will be the first of its kind in the United States; and several new commissions by indigenous artists for the Oceania galleries and a series of new digital elements that will present contemporary perspectives.
"The primary goal of this considerable institutional project is to deepen appreciation for the greatness of the art displayed within. While the creation of the wing asserted the place of the arts of sub-Saharan Africa, the Ancient Americas, and Oceania in the world's leading museum, the edition you will soon experience underscores their autonomy from one another and foregrounds the artists responsible for those achievements. The new galleries devoted to three major collections presented in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing allow us to reintroduce them with to the public enriched with a wealth of contextual detail. Those layers of information range from artist bios to interviews with experts in the region that relate the works presented to specific historical sites in the form of audioguide commentary and documentary films produced as an integral part of the experience".
Alisa LaGamma, Ceil and Michael E. Pulitzer Curator of African Art and Curator in Charge of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing.
Rendering of Arts of Africa Galleries, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rendering by WHY Architecture.
Arts of Africa Galleries
The reenvisioned installation will reintroduce visitors to The Met's collection of sub-Saharan African art through a selection of some 500 works organized to survey major artistic movements and living traditions from across the subcontinent. The new galleries will present original creations spanning from the Middle Ages to the present.
The reconceived galleries anchor this extraordinary collection within regional architectural vernaculars and pay tribute to Africa's distinctive cultural landmarks—such as a soaring ceiling spanned by a succession of horizontal baffles that suggest ribbing to pay homage to one of Africa's most celebrated structures: the Great Mosque of Jenne in Mali—while highlighting connections to other major world traditions.
Rendering of Arts of the Ancient Americas Galleries, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rendering by WHY Architecture.
Arts of the Ancient Americas
The reinstallation is organized around some 700 works selected to foreground the artistic legacy of Indigenous artists from across North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean prior to 1600 CE.
Drawing inspiration from ancient American architectural traditions, the design incorporates stone platforms that echo the layout of landmarks from Mesoamerica and the Andean region, from the rectilinear plazas of Central Mexico to the U-shaped, enfolding arms of sacred architecture of Peru's North Coast.
Rendering of Arts of Oceania Galleries, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rendering by WHY Architecture.
Arts of Oceania Galleries
The new galleries will feature over 650 stellar works from the Museum's remarkable collection of Oceanic art, drawn from over 140 distinct cultures in a region of astonishing diversity, which covers almost one-third of the earth's surface and continues to capture the global imagination.
The galleries for the Arts of Oceania are organized around a stunning new diagonal trajectory through the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing designed to foreground ancestral connections and Indigenous temporalities, offering perspectives on art that reach deep into Oceania's past while also acknowledging ongoing manifestations of its agency in the present. The newly designed layout establishes visual sightlines that emphasize the dynamic interactions between adjacent Island groups, which have paved the way toward innovation and creativity in the artistic sphere.
