The Rockefeller Wing prior to the renovations (photo courtesy of Tomás Fano)
With the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s European Paintings collection getting a recent rehang, it’s time for another section of the museum to reveal its new look.
The Michael D. Rockefeller Wing of the Metropolitan Museum is dedicated to the art of “sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific Islands, and North, Central, and South America”. While the Met has had ancient American art in its collection since its early years, the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas would not be established until 1969. In 1982, the Met officially dedicated the Rockefeller Wing. The museum closed the wing in late 2021 for renovations. Anyone who visited that part of the museum would probably agree that the Rockefeller Wing could have used some redesigning. The large room containing the painted ceiling from the Kwoma people of Papua New Guinea was very well-lit because of the large windows. However, the rest of the wing seemed like a dark movie theater, with bright lights illuminating the artifacts behind glass-lined walls.
WHY Architects are spearheading the current renovation efforts, working on what the Met called “a complete conceptual and physical overhaul”. The concept images of the new Rockefeller wing seem like a course correction of the ‘cloaked in darkness’ approach the old wing was going for. The designs for the new galleries seem bright and spacious, with visitors able to wander in a slalom-like fashion among the items on display. They also wanted to incorporate the galleries’ design into the collection, creating spaces with motifs that complement the displayed items. “Our buildings are works of art themselves, mediating the relationship between the environment, our collections, and the communities we host,” said the museum’s VP of capital projects, Jhaelen Hernandez-Eli. However, the Rockefeller Wing’s renovation also allows curators to reorganize their displays. They recognize that while Africa, the Pacific Islands, and indigenous America are grouped in a single department, it’s important to acknowledge the three areas as distinct. Having the chance to transform the entire wing from the ground up allows for a more modern curation, one that will “elucidate artworks’ aesthetic qualities, tether them to historical and cultural movements, highlight individual authors and the provenance of specific artifacts, introduce commentary by leading public intellectuals in diverse fields, and provide greater clarity and accessibility to visitors.”
Hopefully, the renovated wing will provide an alluring next step for Met visitors, leading them to continue on rather than turn back once they’ve hit the Greco-Roman sculpture garden. The Metropolitan Museum plans on opening the fully renovated and reorganized Rockefeller Wing on May 31, 2025.