Brooklyn Museum Unveils $13 Million Plan for a New African Art Gallery Opening in 2027
The Brooklyn Museum is preparing a major new home for its Arts of Africa collection, announcing a $13 million renovation that will transform third-floor space into a dedicated, 6,400-square-foot destination for art from Africa and the diaspora. The galleries are slated to open in fall 2027 with an inaugural presentation of more than 300 works ranging from antiquity to the present.
The project centers one of the country’s longest-standing institutional holdings of African art: the museum’s collection dates to the early 1900s and now totals about 4,500 works. The opening installation will be organized under the direction of Ernestine White-Mifetu, the museum’s curator of African art, and Annissa Malvoisin, associate curator of African art. Their approach will place historical holdings in dialogue with contemporary work, with the African diaspora positioned as a core interpretive framework.
“This is more than a new collection gallery — it’s a bold reframing of how African art is understood and celebrated in American museums,” Brooklyn Museum director Anne Pasternak said in a statement. She also described the renovation as part of a broader effort to “revitalize the entire Museum,” creating spaces intended to draw a wide range of visitors.
Architecturally, the new galleries will sit adjacent to the museum’s Beaux-Arts Court, a grand interior designed by McKim, Mead & White. The museum is working with the Brooklyn-based architecture firm Peterson Rich Office (PRO) on a plan that will convert areas currently used for on-site storage into public-facing galleries.
One of the most consequential changes is the way the new suite will connect to the museum’s Egyptian art galleries. The museum has said the reconfiguration is meant to unite North Africa with the rest of the continent, challenging a long-standing separation that has shaped how many American museums organize their collections. In comments to the New York Times, Pasternak criticized the conventional divide, saying, “It’s always bewildering to me that those collections are so separate. I think in especially in a place like Brooklyn, that framing reads as racist.”
White-Mifetu, also speaking to the Times, emphasized that the diaspora will not be treated as an addendum but as a central narrative. “The diaspora is Africa’s story,” she said. “We can’t just focus on the African part and negate that important journey that millions of people took.”
Construction is expected to begin this summer. The museum said the project will be funded by the City of New York and federal grants, with additional support from the Ford Foundation, the Sills Family Foundation, and individual donors.
The announcement arrives amid a complicated institutional backdrop. A little more than a year ago, the Brooklyn Museum laid off about 40 employees as it confronted a $10 million budget deficit. More recently, the museum has pointed to signs of momentum, including a widely praised Claude Monet exhibition last fall and a significant expansion of its holdings: nearly 600 works entered the collection as part of the institution’s 200th anniversary in 2025.
With the new African art galleries, the museum is signaling that the next phase of its renewal will be as much about interpretive structure as square footage — a rethinking of how histories are connected, and how audiences are invited to see them.
