Reenvisioning The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing

Spring 2023:

The Met and Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments announce collaborative initiatives following Memorandum of Understanding. To learn more, please follow this link.

The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing has been joined by Eileen Musundi—Head of Exhibitions, Directorate of Antiquities, Sites and Monuments at the National Museums of Kenya—who has been appointed to a four-month residency program beginning March 2023. To learn more, please follow this link.

Winter 2022/2023: The installation of the new curtain wall began in late Fall 2022 and is expected to be complete by Spring 2023. Interior construction of the galleries continues.

Reinstallation of the new curtain wall

The Met names a new Research Associate in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing who will be instrumental in creating new digital and in-gallery content—a collaborative project with World Monuments Fund (WMF)—that will reframe the Museum’s African art galleries. Sosena Solomon, an award-winning social documentary film and multimedia visual artist from Ethiopia, will join the department for one year to research and design content relating to major cultural landmarks and heritage sites across Africa. To learn more, please follow this link.

Spring 2022: The Met and the World Monuments Fund (WMF) announce a collaboration to create digital resources that will be featured throughout the African Art Galleries in The Met’s new Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, which will reopen in 2025 after a complete renovation. The resources aim to provide gallery visitors and online audiences alike with a more expansive view of the richness of artistic and architectural expression on the continent and to provide deep context to the Museum’s collection of sub-Saharan African art. To learn more, please follow this link.

AECOM Tishman, in close consultation with Met Capital Projects, the Department of Parks and Recreation, and the Central Park Conservancy, erected a construction compound at the south end of the Museum’s exterior at 80th Street. This compound serves as the nerve center for the MCR Wing’s construction management team as well as the main staging area for materials and equipment.

With the compound in place, demolition of the existing 40-year-old glass curtain wall began. Over 500 glass panels and steel framing will be removed by a rotating team of workers over the next few months.

Winter 2021/2022: The galleries for African, Ancient American and Oceanic art, housed in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, have been fully deinstalled in preparation for the renovation and reenvisioning of these three collections. Over the course of nearly 18 months, a team of collection specialists, conservators, art handlers, photographers, and buildings staff meticulously deinstalled over 3000 objects, ranging from a monumental 49-foot Asmat canoe to resplendent gold and copper ornaments from the Moche civilization. 

In December 2021, The Metropolitan Museum of Art celebrated this project milestone and the successful funding campaign of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing renovation with a joyous groundbreaking ceremony. The ceremony recognized the partnership with City Council and New York state officials who have provided record support for the renewing of the Wing’s infrastructure. Distinguished guests included donors and supporters, members of the greater arts community, leading scholars from across the humanities, as well as elected officials from local, state, and federal offices.

MCR Wing groundbreaking ceremony, December 13, 2021 

Exhibitions at The Met

• The African Origin of Civilization  (Ongoing)

Touring Exhibitions

• Shape of Time: Art and Ancestors of Oceania from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Museum of Qatar (now through January 15, 2024)
  *Previously on view at The Museum of Art Pudong, Shanghai, China (June 1–August 20, 2023)

2025: Projected reopening of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing 

Spring 2022: Construction continues

Winter 2022: Selective demolition of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing begins

Summer 2021: Closure and deinstallation of the former galleries for African art and Ancient American art  

January 2021: Closure and deinstallation of the former galleries for Oceanic art  

 Galleries for Oceanic Art, design development rendering. Courtesy of wHY Architects, 2020

January 2021: Projected closure and deinstallation of the current Oceania galleries  

2020–2021: Construction Document phase  

2019–2020: Design Development phase

2020: The Rockefeller Wing Reinstallation Concept Workshop is held at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA. This international planning meeting brings together Met curators and a diverse group of fifteen scholars from across the globe to consider the ways in which this renovation will set a new standard for the presentation and understanding of these three collections.

2019: With support from the David L. Klein, Jr. Foundation, Met curators, conservators, designers, and wHY Architecture host a Rockefeller Wing Reinstallation Planning Meeting in Mexico City. With participation of leading experts from the Museo Nacional de Antropología, the Museo del Templo Mayor, and the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, this scholarly meeting focuses specifically on the reinstallation of the arts of the ancient Americas and how best to illuminate new narratives and develop richer understandings of these artistic traditions. 

2018–2019: Schematic Design phase  

2016–2017: Concept Design phase  

2016: wHY Architects is selected as the creative partner for the reimagination of these three distinct collections. 

2015: Curators, conservators, and staff from across The Met lead The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing Strategic Planning Retreat at The Pocantico Center, Tarrytown, NY. It is at this meeting where plans to reimagine the presentation of the three distinct collections of arts of sub-Saharan Africa, the ancient Americas, and Oceania are first conceived.  

2007: New Galleries for Oceanic Art open. The redesigned and reinstalled seventeen-thousand-square-foot exhibition space presents a substantially larger portion of The Met’s Oceanic collection. A new space is added at the entrance to the Africa galleries in which Ethiopian liturgical art is featured.  

1996: The 1991 gift of the Perls collection of art from the Court of Benin is incorporated into the Benenson Gallery for African Art at the center of highlights of the collection from Nigeria, Cameroon, and Central Africa.  

1993: The Met opens the Jan Mitchell Treasury for the display of ancient American works of art in gold.

1991: The Met's Board of Trustees votes to rename the "Department of Primitive Art" the "Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas."

1982: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing opens at The Met.

View of the recently opened African art gallery in The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982. The Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

View of the recently opened Ancient American art gallery in The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982. The Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

View of the recently opened Oceanic art gallery in The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982.  The Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

1978 to 1979: Museum of Primitive Art (MPA) collection, staff, and library are transferred to The Met.

1974: Douglas Newton appointed Chairman for The Met's Department of Primitive Art.
Construction of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing begins, designed by architects at Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates.
Mary Rockefeller Morgan is elected to the MMA Board of Trustees.
MPA closes its doors to the public.

1969: Art of Oceania, Africa, and the Americas from The Museum of Primitive Art opens at The Met to introduce the Museum's public to the Rockefeller collections.
Nelson A. Rockefeller signs an agreement to transfer the MPA's collection, staff, and library to The Met.

1961: Nelson A. Rockefeller's son, Michael C. Rockefeller, joins the Harvard-Peabody New Guinea Expedition to the Baliem Valley in western New Guinea and makes his first collecting trip to the Asmat region. He is lost while on a second collecting trip to the Asmat later that year. 

1959: Michael Rockefeller becomes an MPA Trustee. 

1957: MPA inaugurates its exhibition program in spring 1957 with Robert Goldwater underscoring: "We are aware of our kinship with all mankind." This humanist approach to the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas informs some seventy subsequent exhibitions, and nearly sixty publications. The museum itself was pocket-sized, but the impact of its exhibition program on the perception of non-Western art museography, collectors, and the public was tremendous. 

September 1956: Robert Goldwater is appointed Director of the Museum of Indigenous Art.

December 1956: Museum of Indigenous Art is formally renamed Museum of Primitive Art (MPA).

1953: Museum of Indigenous Art, on West 54th Street in New York, is chartered as an educational corporation, "the first of its kind in the world." Rockefeller and René d'Harnoncourt are principal officers.

Left: View of exhibition Primitive Sculpture from the Nelson A. Rockefeller Collection, Century Association, New York City, January 7 to March 1, 1953. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Goldwater Library, K2 N495 Spec Coll. Right: Renaming charter for the Museum of Indigenous Art, December 24, 1956. The Museum of Primitive Art Records, The Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, AR.1999.9.6.

1932: Nelson A. Rockefeller becomes a Trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Read the full history of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing.

The Met’s galleries devoted to the arts of Africa were inaugurated in 1982 as part of the newly built Michael C. Rockefeller Wing. The installation marked a radical expansion of the canon of art presented by the Museum, and has celebrated the cultural achievements of African artists and innovators for the past forty years. In 2015, we embarked on an exciting new project to overhaul the cnceptual and physical footprint of these galleries, updating this global crossroads for a new generation. Preparation and construction work for these improvements are now underway.

Defined by its immense cultural diversity, Africa is increasingly recognized at once as the locus of our common ancestry and the birthplace of humankind’s capacity to translate abstract thought into visual expression 78,000 years ago. The Met collection is celebrated internationally for the caliber and the scope of its holdings of classical African Art. It comprises works by artists from across sub-Saharan Africa through nearly three thousand works spanning two millennia, several hundred distinct cultures, and thirty-nine contemporary nation-states.  

The renovation of the African galleries—the first since the inauguration of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing in 1982—will significantly reframe this unique collection through a narrative path that is both chronological and geographical. Major landmarks positioned at key sightlines will lead visitors across times and places through four main spaces divided into smaller chapels. The display will evocatively draw upon specific architectural vernaculars, while architectural elements in the collection are positioned throughout the installation to anchor the visitor within specific geographies. Didactics will be rethought, with a strong emphasis on the works’ historical contexts. Giving voice and making visible the continent’s artistic dynamism, audio guides, film footage, and prompts to additional online content will complete these galleries and contribute to a refreshed understanding of Africa’s artists’ cultural achievements.

The Met’s first galleries devoted to the arts of the ancient Americas opened in the late nineteenth century, but it was not until the opening of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing in 1982 that the Museum began to exhibit the art of Latin America before European colonization in a sustained and comprehensive way. In 2015, we embarked on a conceptual and physical overhaul of these galleries, reenvisioning this global crossroads for a new generation. Preparation and construction work for these improvements are now underway.

For thousands of years before European colonization, a parallel history of art unfolded in North, Central, and South America. We know a scant few of the creators by name, but their works speak volumes about the complexity and achievements of artists in the many diverse communities, kingdoms, and empires that thrived from Alaska to Chile and into the Caribbean prior to the early sixteenth century. The Museum’s holdings include a broad range of works, including monumental stone sculptures, spiritually charged vessels in wood and ceramic, shimmering regalia of gold and shell, and exquisitely woven textiles and featherwork. The new galleries will feature a variety of viewing experiences, from the daylit Central Park galleries to special, low-light spaces to display delicate ancient textiles. The new installation will reflect recent advances in scholarship, with fresh narratives developed in dialogue with colleagues across the country and Latin America. K’iche’ Maya authors described the exquisitely painted manuscripts of their ancestors as “means of seeing, instruments of sight.” It is our hope that the new galleries will provide greater illumination of the ancestral arts of the Americas and guide us toward new ways of seeing.

The Met’s galleries devoted to Oceanic art were inaugurated in 1982 as part of the newly built Michael C. Rockefeller Wing. The installation marked a radical expansion of the canon of art presented by the Museum, and has celebrated the cultural achievements of Pacific artists and innovators for the past forty years. In 2015, we embarked on an exciting new project to overhaul the conceptual and physical footprint of these galleries, updating this global crossroads for a new generation. Preparation and construction work for these improvements are now underway.

The expansive region of Oceania covers over a third of the earth's surface and is home to some 1,800 different cultures and a kaleidoscopic range of artistic traditions. The ocean that links these myriad cultures is conceived by islanders as a deeply interconnected highway, binding its people together and reinforcing long-standing networks of genealogical relationships and ancestral ties. The Met’s collection of Oceanic Art comprises over 2,800 works that present the rich history of creative expression and innovation that is emblematic of the region. These exceptional artworks tell a wealth of stories relating to origins and ancestral power, performance and initiation. They include monumental architecture, elaborately carved ancestral figures and spectacular ritual regalia such as towering slit drums, spiritually charged reliquaries, and dazzling turtle-shell masks.  
 
A new diagonal trajectory through the wing will lead visitors through updated galleries, anchored at each end with dramatic high-ceilinged spaces that showcase a soaring installation of Asmat art to the north and the iconic Kwoma ceiling, illuminated by natural light, to the south. Refreshed didactics will foreground the distinct cosmological and conceptual landscape of this unique region, centering local and indigenous knowledge to present compelling histories in a nuanced and inclusive way. Throughout Oceania, art is a connecting force—creating and fostering relationships and acting as a bridge to the ancestral domain. Its highly distinctive aesthetics are grounded not so much in ideas of beauty (which are often culturally inflected) but in efficacy, that is, in its capacity to effect change. A range of new digital and audio features will present contemporary perspectives from the region, providing richer, newly vivid contexts for understanding these extraordinary works of art and opportunities for an increased appreciation of the environments in which they were created.