Queens Museum will Double in Size

The Queens Museum of Art will close on June 2 to complete a major expansion. When it reopens in October 2013 as the Queens Museum, it will have doubled in size, expanding to 105,000 square feet. The new name, Finkelpearl told the New York Times, "better reflects the breadth of what we do.

View Slideshow Courtesy of Grimshaw and the Queens Museum of Art.  ; Courtesy of Grimshaw and the Queens Museum of Art.  ;

Begun in 2011, the $68-million project, by international architecture firm Grimshaw, adds new galleries, artist studios, event space and classrooms. A highlight will be the addition of a 200-by-27-foot glass facade facing the Grand Central Parkway. This facade will feature a highly visible display space for commissioned artworks that will, according to a press release, adhere to its glass surface.

The inaugural exhibitions in the renovated space will be solo shows by Pedro Reyes and Peter Schumann. Reyes's "The People's UN," will convene mock United Nations assemblies in performance pieces, some private and some public, that will address international issues with unconventional techniques drawn from radical theater, marriage counseling and corporate consulting.

Schumann's "Black and White" will include sculptures, painting and kinetic machines made live on-site, as well as 50 years' worth of works by the founder of New York's Bread and Puppet Theater.

In a press release, the museum's executive director, Tom Finkelpearl, said, "after years of design and construction, we will finally have the sort of exceptional space our community deserves, one that will allow us to continue to offer our innovative slate of exhibitions and programs."