The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently announced renovation plans for its Michael C. Rockefeller Wing. The Met has dedicated $70 million for the overhaul of the 40,000-square-foot space housing the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. Architect Kulapat Yantrasast from the firm wHY has been chosen for the renovation project, which will begin in late 2020 and is expected to be completed in 2023, according to the museum’s press release.“By ushering artistic traditions of three-quarters of the globe into The Met, the building of the Rockefeller Wing helped define us as an encyclopedic fine arts museum. Its expansive and diverse character uniquely resonates with our global city. Our Africa and Americas collections alone represent the heritage of a quarter of the US population and half of New York City’s residents,” said Daniel H. Weiss, President and CEO of The Met. “The renovation of this suite of galleries will at once make a unique and timely civic contribution to our community and immeasurably enrich and deepen appreciation of a vast swath of the world’s artistic dynamism.”The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the world's largest art museum with over two million square feet at its Fifth Avenue building, a visitor footfall that has grown from four to over seven million annually. According to the Met’s press release, the Rockefeller Wing renovation joins other large infrastructure projects, including: a multiyear project to renovate 10 galleries devoted to British decorative arts and sculpture, which will be completed in winter 2020; the replacement of the skylights in the European Paintings galleries (a project that began this summer and will continue through 2022); and renovation of the Modern Wing, for which planning is underway.“Only at The Met can one move from galleries devoted to the ancient Greek and Roman traditions that inspired the Renaissance into galleries filled with the non-European traditions that gave birth to Modernism,” said Max Hollein, Director of The Met. “Within AAOA alone there is the potential for highlighting parallels and contrasts that consider how societies across hundreds of cultures, five continents, and 5,000 years have addressed issues of authorship, patronage, trade, governance, state ideology, and ancestral commemoration. This major reinstallation of a core part of The Met’s global collection and the extraordinary design by Kulapat Yantrasast will be a manifestation of our ability to further advance the understanding, appreciation, and contextualization of the world’s most significant cultures.”Click on the slideshow for a sneak peek at the Met.  https://www.blouinartinfo.com/              Founder: Louise Blouin Read more