Metropolitan to take over Whitney's Breuer building | The Art Newspaper

NEW YORK. Ending months of speculation in the New York museum world, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art today announced a partnership that will see the Metropolitan take over the Whitney’s Marcel Breuer building after it moves downtown in 2015.

According to a joint press release sent out by both museums, their boards of trustees “have agreed in principle” to an eight-year collaboration, with the possibility of extending the agreement. “The Metropolitan Museum plans to present exhibitions and educational programming at the Whitney’s landmark building at 945 Madison Avenue,” the release adds.

Unlike today’s earlier news that the Museum of Modern Art will be buying the struggling American Folk Art Museum’s building, the Whitney is not planning on selling its space. The Metropolitan will instead cover operating costs and provide programming, including “exhibitions, lectures, and gallery tours that present and interpret both contemporary and historical art”. The Whitney, which breaks ground on its new Renzo Piano-designed home in the Meatpacking District on 24 May, will retain some space in the building for art storage and permanent site-specific installations, such as Charles Simond’s miniature archaeological site located in the stairwell,Dwellings.

This deal finally answers the question on many minds in the art world of how the Whitney would manage to run two museum buildings simultaneously. When the museum's former chairman and leading patron, Leonard Lauder, donated $125m to the endowment in 2008, the money came with the stipulation that the museum not sell the Breuer building for a certain period. Today director Adam Weinberg revealed that “throughout our planning for the Whitney’s new building downtown we have committed ourselves to finding a distinguished museum partner for the Breuer building in keeping with its iconic stature. The Met is ideal in so many ways. I am sure that Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who initially offered her collection of American art to the Met before deciding to found the Whitney Museum, would be delighted that we are embarking on this unprecedented collaboration.”

“With this new space, we can expand the story that the Met tells, exploring modern and contemporary art in a global context that reflects the breadth of our encyclopaedic collections,” said the Metropolitan’s director Thomas Campbell. “This will be an initiative that involves curators across the Museum, stressing historical connections between objects and looking at our holdings with a fresh eye and new perspective. This project does not mean that we are taking modern and contemporary art out of the Met’s Main Building, but it does open up the possibility of having space to exhibit these collections in the event that we decide to rebuild the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing where they are currently shown.”