Albright-Knox Art Gallery leaders are promising the public will have a chance to join the museum's expansion conversation. An architecture firm has been hired, but there is no specific design plan yet.You might have a favorite masterpiece that is housed at the Albright-Knox, but there are many that remain hidden away. The gallery has 7,000 pieces of artwork, but with space limitations, it can only display less than 3 percent of the collection at any given time.
"Museums don't generally display everything they own. This is not uncommon for museums to have a lot of their work in storage. However, in our case, it's more than others," Lin-Hill said.
Lin-Hill talked about the future expansion while standing near one of the Jackson Pollock's most famous paintings, Convergence from 1952. Expansion would allow a chance for a rotation out of storage and Lin-Hill says the coming expansion will allow the gallery to exhibit roughly twice as many masterpieces as are currently on view.
"When you think of the fact that we will have 500 works on display as opposed to 200 works, it's a huge change," Lin-Hill said.
The Office for Metropolitan Architecture, based in New York City, has been selected to design the plan. Lin-Hill says there are clear directives, including greater transparency of the museum and a reconnection with Delaware Park.
"Our needs are pretty clear. We haven't renovated, significantly, this building and our 1905 building in many decades," Lin-Hill said.
"Over the next 6-7 months, we'll be working very intently with OMA to figure out exactly what we're going to do," he added. "Bringing the community in to talk with us about what they want, that will begin in the later fall."
This expansion is expected to cost about $60 million and would double the gallery's current space.