NYC's Museum for African Art Pivots Toward New Business Model: Policy vs. Art

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By Jennifer Maloney

Interior of the Museum for African Art in Manhattan

NEW YORK---The Museum for African Art is expanding its mission, aiming now to create a policy center akin to Asia Society as it attempts to raise the money needed to finish the long-delayed construction of its home. The institution's plan to reinvent itself as the New Africa Center—with a museum, policy institute and members' club for business executives, cultural leaders and policy makers interested in Africa—comes after the departure of the museum's longtime president, Elsie McCabe Thompson, in October. The organization's board and chief financial officer, Phil Conte, are now quietly raising funds for a new, $60 million capital campaign to complete its home at the northeast corner of Central Park. The museum's opening has been delayed repeatedly since it broke ground in 2007. [link]