The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, or MSU Broad, was awarded $1 million from the MSU Federal Credit Union, or MSUFCU, in support of an expansion across Grand River Avenue that will provide increased access and research for the MSU Broad’s 7,500 piece permanent collection.
The B2 Art Lab will provide additional exhibition spaces for its collection and a research center focused on the museum of tomorrow. The collection will serve as an access point to education and research, and will include a study center and cases for visiting instructors, students and researchers to integrate the collection into teaching and learning.
The MSU Broad’s living and expanding collection spans artistic production from ancient Greece and Rome and pre-Columbian cultures to medieval and renaissance to modern and contemporary.
The MSU Broad, currently housed in a building designed by the acclaimed Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid, is unique among contemporary art museums by virtue of the historical collection it has inherited from the Kresge Art Museum, formerly the art museum of MSU.
Since Marc-Olivier Wahler, director of the MSU Broad, arrived in July 2016, the museum has been committed to researching and displaying the collection.
In April 2017, the MSU Broad announced the launch of the Collection Gallery, a gallery dedicated to the display of the collection year-round in the museum. In 2018, the MSU Broad will advance its commitment by growing the museum’s reach beyond the MSU campus.
“The MSU Broad is unfettered by the constraints of traditional museums and is devoted to being a leader in the research and development of the future of museums,” Wahler said. “This expansion will be a lab where collaboration and new thinking can be tested and position our museum as a hub for aesthetic and institutional innovation.”
Partnering with MSU’s Arts & Cultural Management and Museum Studies to position the collection as a gateway to scholarly research and understanding, the MSU Broad will provide a world-class learning experience in the arts for graduate and undergraduate students across academic disciplines.
“We are thrilled to partner with the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum and MSUFCU to bring the Broad collection with its Kresge heritage further out into the community,” said Christopher P. Long, dean of the College of Arts & Letters. “Access has always been the heart of the MSU land grant mission and the liberal arts endeavor at its core, so this gift advances that mission by providing more members of our community with educational opportunities to be transformed by the power of art.”
The museum is one of 10 areas of the university to receive support from a $5.5 million gift the MSUFCU made to expand opportunities for community members to engage in the arts, business and science.
