Large crowds of mask-wearing, socially-distanced folks came together on Saturday to celebrate the reopening of Brooklyn Museum.
The museum shuttered its doors six months ago due to the coronavirus pandemic and staff have been planning a safe reopening for months. To celebrate, food, music and family-friendly activities filled the museum's plaza over the weekend.
Pan in Motion — led by composer and educator Kendall K. Williams — put on a steel pan performance, while Sabine Blaizin got the crowd moving with his DJ sets. Both children and adults picked up chalk and transformed the plaza into their personal canvas, filling it with colorful drawings and quotes. Meanwhile, local food vendors Greedi Vegan, Island Pops and Wadadli Jerk cooked up a storm for the festivities.
With the reopening, the museum will have precautions in place including operating at reduced hours with timed tickets, with entry every 15 minutes. To limit the number of people in the galleries, only the 1st and 5th floors will be open. Tickets must be reserved in advance.
But folks don't have to go inside to experience art, with the museum's recent launch of Art on the Stoop: Sunset Screenings, which features video artworks by a range of artists exploring themes of power and uncertainty, distance and loss and history's hand in present times.
The videos are being screened in the museum's plaza, giving viewers a safe place to watch the show, while "acknowledging the critical role that public spaces play for idea-sharing, community-building, and democracy," Brooklyn Museum's website states.
