AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
An important home for Black art is reopening in New York City this week after being closed for seven years. Hannah Frishberg from member station WNYC has been along to the new museum.
HANNAH FRISHBERG, BYLINE: Back in 1968, a group of artists and activists rented a loft above an uptown Manhattan liquor store, determined to turn it into a nexus for Black culture. They called it the Studio Museum in Harlem. In the 57 years since, the Studio Museum has become an internationally acclaimed hub for artists of African descent, and now it has a home worthy of its influence. This weekend, the Studio Museum is cutting the ribbon on a brand-new building, just blocks from its original rented loft. Studio Museum director Thelma Golden is thrilled.
THELMA GOLDEN: But in many ways, I do feel the timing of our opening now is ideal because we're opening in a moment that's very much like the moment when the museum was founded.
FRISHBERG: The museum's new seven-story home offers a custom-built canvas to showcase rotating works from its resident artists and its 9,000-piece permanent collection.
GOLDEN: You know, it was always this museum's goal to be a home for Black art. And the collection really represents a cross-generational, amazing conversation between artists who made works over a hundred years ago and artists who are making work right now.
FRISHBERG: The inaugural exhibition includes work by the late Tom Lloyd, a light artist. His work hangs like stained glass in a chapel-like room with a high barrel-vaulted ceiling. Lloyd was also a community organizer. When the museum opened, he was the first to have a solo show.
CONNIE H CHOI: Lloyd was thinking specifically about how to reflect his immediate community, a predominantly Black community in Jamaica, Queens, to be specific. And so he was utilizing materials that were easily accessible - Christmas tree light bulbs and also Buick backup light lenses.
FRISHBERG: That's Connie H Choi, the exhibit's curator. She says Lloyd tried to engage the senses to make his work more accessible with flashing, multicolored lights, the heat of its hundreds of incandescent bulbs and the clicking sound of its control boxes.
(SOUNDBITE OF CONTROL BOXES CLICKING)
CHOI: The clicking that you hear is a replication of what the original control boxes would've sounded like.
FRISHBERG: They recreated it because so many people who love his work love that sound.
(SOUNDBITE OF CONTROL BOXES CLICKING)
FRISHBERG: For NPR News, I'm Hannah Frishberg in New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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