Celebrate The Studio Museum in Harlem’s much-anticipated grand reopening

The Studio Museum in Harlem has served as the nexus for artists of African descent locally, nationally, and globally for over fifty years. Through exhibitions, residencies, and community programs, they aim to highlight emerging and established Black artists shaping the future of contemporary art. Closed since 2018 for an architectural overhaul, the museum reopens to visitors from November 15, 2025, with the unveiling of its new building at 144 West 125th Street. Visitors to the revamped Studio Museum can explore thought-provoking works in state-of-the-art galleries and engage with Harlem’s rich cultural legacy.

What’s the history of The Studio Museum?

The Studio Museum was founded in 1968 by a diverse group of artists, activists, philanthropists, and Harlem residents. Their aim was to create a new kind of museum, strongly rooted in its local community, that not only displayed artwork but also supported artists and art education – particularly emerging artists of African or Latinx descent. “These founding ideals formalized a commitment to serving as a landing place for work inspired and influenced by Black culture,” says Director and Chief Curator Thelma Golden, “a commitment that continues to guide our collection, exhibitions, and programming to this day.”

The Studio Museum was pioneering in its commitment to showing modern and contemporary art that reflects Black creative communities; today, it is internationally renowned for decades of leading scholarship in this field. From 1977 onwards, the museum has been a collecting institution, preserving and caring for works that tell the profound stories of our time. 

What’s new at the museum?

• The new building, designed by Adjaye Associates with Cooper Robertson, is intended to express the museum’s core values of openness and engagement
• More than double the space dedicated to exhibitions and studios for the museum’s renowned Artist-in-Residence program 
• A rooftop terrace provides panoramic views over Harlem and a community gathering space, designed by Studio Zewde, with sculptural seating and native plants
• Camille Norment’s sonic sculptural installation Untitled (heliotrope) (2025) and Christopher Myers’ metal figures in Harlem Is a Myth (2025) make their debuts at The Studio Museum
• The museum’s first podcast, New Additions, invites artists at pivotal points in their careers to reflect on their artistic origins, studio practices, and dream aspirations

What’s on view at the museum?

• Spread across several floors, the rotating collection display From Now: A Collection in Context presents a rich tapestry of Black artistic production over the past 200 years
• A major presentation of works by Tom Lloyd, an early pioneer of light-based art, whose practice was the subject of the museum’s inaugural exhibition in 1968
• Installations such as David Hammons’ Untitled flag (2004), inspired by the pan-African flag, and Glenn Ligon’s neon lettering in Give Us a Poem (2007)
• A visual timeline of archival materials and ephemera, To Be A Place tells the story of the museum’s nearly 60-year history, showing how the institution has changed with the times
• The ongoing project Harlem Postcards, which invites a variety of contemporary artists to reflect on Harlem as a site of cultural, political, and creative vitality

How can you get involved?

The Museum’s reopening festivities include a Community Day on November 15th and Studio Sunday on November 16th. Their ongoing public programming offers a variety of family-friendly art activities, such as Story Time and Teen Studio, as well as exhibition tours and drop-in artmaking sessions. 

For artists, their renowned Artist-in-Residence program provides support and studio spaces in one of the most important historical centers for Black cultural production. As the Museum’s longest-running founding initiative, the program has supported over 150 artists since its inception, including Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Kerry James Marshall, Titus Kaphar, and Lauren Halsey.

To learn more about The Studio Museum in Harlem’s past, present, and future, you can discover key milestones from its 50-plus years of history, listen to how Harlem’s landscape inspired the new building, or preview the reinstalled collection galleries – all on Bloomberg Connects.