The Milwaukee Art Museum is due to reopen on 24 November after a 14-month, $34m renovation that brings the institution back from the brink. When the museum made the unorthodox decision to begin planning an expansion at the height of the recession in 2009, mould flourished, floors buckled and ceilings leaked in the two buildings that housed the permanent collection. “We really had reached a breaking point,” says Daniel Keegan, the museum’s director.
Keegan’s bet to secure $10m from the county of Milwaukee, which owns and maintains the two buildings, and raise the rest of the project funding “in the [economic] up-cycle” paid off. The museum is now able to show 1,000 more works from its 30,000-strong collection thanks to 25,000 additional square feet of exhibition space and refurbished public spaces with sweeping views of Lake Michigan.
“We knew this was the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and really think about the best way to present the collection,” says the museum’s chief curator Brady Roberts, who led a new curatorial team in a complete rehang.
One highlight is the new Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts, which brings together photography, video installations and light installations, including Walk-in Infinity Chamber (1968) by Stanley Landsman. Another is a space dedicated to 20th and 21st-century design—a “growing part of the collection”, says Roberts—from early industrial objects to a 3D-printed chair. The museum will also show a comprehensive history of American art for the first time, from the Colonial period to the 21st century, with 14,000 square feet of dedicated gallery space.
Roberts says: “People who know our museum will not believe that this is the same museum.”
Keegan plans to retire in May after eight years at the institution. Under his leadership, its endowment grew from around $26m to $65m.