Brooklyn Museum at 200

Older than the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum combined, and five years the Met’s senior, the Brooklyn Museum celebrates its 200th anniversary this month. To celebrate its landmark birthday, the New York museum is debuting a three-chapter group show, “Breaking the Mold: Brooklyn Museum at 200”—which opens this week. Organized by the museum’s Meghan Bill, the exhibition celebrates the borough's past, present, and future with works that span over five centuries.

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In the plaza outside of the main exhibition space stands Mark di Suvero’s Sooner or Later, 2022, a twisted steel sculpture with touches of peeling paint and graffiti. Inside, Liza Lou’s 35-foot Trailer, 1998-2000, is decorated with pearls, beads, and zebra wallpaper, challenging the idealized image of masculinity associated with these spaces.

Part one of the exhibition, “Brooklyn Made,” is a love letter to the borough’s artists who have defined the museum from the beginning. The oldest work on view dates back to the 17th century: a pair of hand-made moccasins once worn by the land’s Indigenous inhabitants. This historical artifact is in dialogue with contemporary artists from KAWS, best-known for his large, Mickey Mouse-inspired sculptures, to Duke Riley, known for his folkloric mosaics, drawings, and ceramics. 

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Archives and key historical artworks make up the second segment of the exhibition, Building the Brooklyn Museum and Its Collection, taking visitors on a visual journey through the museum’s robust collection as well as its home: the Beaux-Arts building. Francis L.V. Hoppin’s McKim, Mead & White’s Design for the Brooklyn Museum, 1893 is an early depiction of the space; while cityscapes by Francis Guy, Robert Frank, and Georgia O’Keefe represent the borough over centuries. 

The final chapter, “Gifts of Art for the 200th,” celebrates a myriad of contemporary paintings, sculptures, and media donated for the bicentennial. Works by Coco Fusco, Alex Katz, Robert Frank, and more, effortlessly bring this segment into the limelight. This chapter will evolve throughout the course of the exhibition as additional works are added. Together, the numerous, diverse works on view tell the story of how the Brooklyn Museum has supported the art community over the years. 

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"Breaking the Mold: Brooklyn Museum at 200" is on view through February 22nd, 2026 at the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238.