Today the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (formerly the Albright-Knox Art Gallery) shared new details about its expanded visitor experience offerings and public programming, which will launch upon the museum’s opening in June. Following the museum’s opening celebration and ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 12, the entire museum will be accessible free of admission charges throughout its opening weekend (June 15–June 18), with an array of performances, activities, and events organized throughout the renewed and vastly expanded campus, designed by OMA/Shohei Shigematsu in collaboration with Cooper Robertson.

Driven to expand accessibility and engagement with its local and global communities, in November 2019 the Buffalo AKG broke ground on the most significant campus development and expansion project in its 161-year history, supported by the largest capital campaign for a cultural institution in the history of Western New York, with approximately $195 million raised to fund the construction of the Buffalo AKG and $35 million raised in additional operating endowment funds. With the introduction of the new Jeffrey E. Gundlach Building and the extensive renovation of the museum’s historic buildings, the new Buffalo AKG will comprise more than 50,000 square feet of state-of-the-art exhibition space, five classroom studios, the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Town Square, and more than half an acre of new public greenspace. In addition to a physical museum campus that is accessible, dynamic, and porous, visitors to the Buffalo AKG will discover a dramatically reenvisioned, visitor-centered museum experience that is more inclusive, interactive, and impactful than ever before. 

“The opening of the Buffalo AKG marks the completion of a truly transformational construction project,” said Janne Sirén, Peggy Pierce Elfvin Director. “It also signals the opening of an entirely new museum that will engage and inspire communities across Western New York and the world beyond. The Buffalo AKG has something for visitors of all backgrounds, identities, and levels of ability. We believe art has the power to teach, comfort, heal, and transform, and we cannot wait to welcome the people of Western New York back to their hometown museum.”

The Knox Building

Open free of admission charges year-round, the Seymour H. Knox Building will be the cornerstone of the Buffalo AKG’s robust public programming. Originally designed by Gordon Bunshaft and completed in 1962, the Knox Building’s centerpiece is the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Town Square, a 6,000-square-foot community gathering space. In order to create the space, the museum enclosed the formerly open-air courtyard with Common Sky, a stunning new site-specific sculpture designed by Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann of Studio Other Spaces, and added a new entry on the building’s east side. Surrounding the Ralph Wilson Town Square are Cornelia, the Buffalo AKG’s new café; Creative Commons, a multigenerational learning and play space that illuminates art and creativity in accessible, meaningful, and joyful ways; five state-of-the-art studio classrooms, each of which has a specific programmatic purpose; a 2,000 square-foot gallery; and the 350-seat Stanford and Judith Lipsey Auditorium. 

“For the first time in its history, an entire wing of the Buffalo AKG will be free year-round,” said Charlie Garling, the museum’s Delaware North Director of Learning & Creativity. “Without paying a cent, visitors will have access to a wide array of unique spaces and experiences. We are committed to ensuring that the Knox Building is an open, welcoming space that is integrated into the fabric of daily life in Buffalo.”

Creative Commons will position learning through play at the heart of the Buffalo AKG’s physical campus and extend engaging and interactive experiences to all corners of the museum’s galleries. Managed by the new Learning Through Play Coordinator, Creative Commons comprises multiple areas, including a LEGO build station at which visitors can create with LEGO bricks, scan their creations, and see what they have made on the adjacent digital screen. Additional stations include a freebuild area, a magnet wall, a digital drawing station, and the Living Display, which features interactive activities that play with the idea of perception.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is the result of the first ever philanthropic partnership between the LEGO Foundation and a fine art museum. The design of the space is founded on LEGO’s belief that play is a joyful, meaningful, iterative, actively engaging, and socially interactive experience. The goal of the space is to provide visitors with hands-on playful learning experiences and opportunities to express their identity, meaningfully connect with others, form connections with art in the Buffalo AKG’s collection, and be creative.

Access and Studio Programs

For nearly five decades, the Buffalo AKG has presented a robust and beloved suite of programs for visitors with disabilities. As the museum prepares for its June opening, the Learning & Creativity Department has broadened its Access Programs and created a series of offerings designed for individuals of all levels of ability, veterans, and members of under-resourced communities. Beginning in September 2023, Access Programs will include

• Multisensory tours, which connect people who are blind or have low vision with works in the Buffalo AKG collection and special exhibitions through guided touch, verbal descriptions, and facilitated group conversations.
• Art Today, a partnership with the Alzheimer’s Association of WNY, which engages people with dementia and their caregivers in guided gallery tours, group conversations, and artmaking activities.
• The Community Access Program (CAP), a free program that supports organizations working with people with disabilities and under-resourced groups to explore their own creativity. Visits include guided tours, hands-on art workshops, and discussions based on participants’ needs and interests. CAP welcomes people of all ages and abilities who are supported by human services agencies, and other groups and organizations in the local community.

Access and Studio Programs will be presented in the Knox Building’s five new classroom studios, each of which has a specific programmatic purpose, including a family room for young children and their families and caregivers; a community access room; a digital media studio; a ceramics studio; and a painting and drawing studio.

Cornelia

The Knox Building also includes Cornelia, the museum’s new café, named after Cornelia Bentley Sage Quinton, the museum’s second director and the first woman director of an art museum. Led by Executive Chef Tony Martina and Food & Beverage Manager Michelle Merlo, Cornelia will have a completely new menu featuring produce from local farms and suppliers and a new picnic basket offering that will allow visitors to enjoy their meals in the Ralph Wilson Town Square, on the Great Lawn, or in Delaware Park. Visitors will also find Sculpture Bar, a second café location, on the Sculpture Terrace of the Gundlach Building. 

Shop AKG

The museum shop will be located on the east side of the Knox Building. Managed by Lauren Lamb, Head of Retail Operations, the shop will feature a wide array of new products created by local artists and international designers, as well as apparel, posters, gifts, and Buffalo AKG publications.

A New Visitor Experience

A central element of the Buffalo AKG’s new offerings for visitors is AKGo!, a new audio experience created in partnership with Art Processors, a leader in interactive media and exhibition design. Through a series of seven immersive, thematic journeys, AKGo! actively empowers visitors to explore the museum at their own pace and according to their own interests. In addition to Buffalo AKG leaders like Peggy Pierce Elfvin Director Janne Sirén and Charles Balbach Chief Curator Cathleen Chaffee, AKGo! Introduces more diverse community voices, including artists, a football hero, a comedian, an animal rescue expert, and architect Shohei Shigematsu himself. Each of the seven journeys is designed to engage different audiences, including adults with children, educators, excursionists and tourists, art experts, individuals new to art and art history, researchers, and experience seekers. The AKGo! journeys are:

• Now Hear Me Out…
  Assistant Curator Andrea Alvarez and local teacher and comedian Kevin Thomas, Jr. playfully discuss contemporary art and what they see, what they think they see, and what it all means.
• Glass Steel Stone: The Building
  Shohei Shigematsu of OMA New York shares the vision that inspired the Buffalo AKG campus.
• Victory & Defeat
  Legendary Buffalo Bills running back Thurman Thomas and artist Patti Thomas (“The Ghost”) connect the trials and triumphs of artists in the Buffalo AKG’s collection with the ups and downs of the athletic world.
• Journey Through Modern Art
  Beginning with the realism of Gustave Courbet and concluding with the Pop art of Andy Warhol, this journey sheds new light on old favorites by tracking the development of modern art in the Western World through thirteen works located throughout the Wilmers Building.
• Spotlights
  Hear the stories and perspectives behind the artworks from the artists themselves, museum staff, and special guests.
• ARTimals
  Learn about the animals in the Buffalo AKG’s collection as curators speak with an animal rescue expert on this playful journey designed for the museum’s youngest audiences, their caregivers, and the young at heart.
• Stop Look Listen: A Guided Soundscape
  This journey offers opportunities for reflection and decompression in the museum with guided close looking by artist Julia Bottoms, accompanied by an original musical soundscape composed by Art Processors.

How to Visit

The Buffalo AKG will be open Thursday and Friday from 10 am to 8 pm, and Saturday, Sunday, and Monday from 10 am to 5 pm. Admission tickets will cost $18 for adults, $16 for students and seniors, $10 for youth (ages 6 to 18), and will be free for children ages 5 and under. As one of the benefits of museum membership, Buffalo AKG members receive advance access to general admission ticketing two weeks ahead of the public. Tickets for Buffalo AKG members will be available beginning Thursday, April 20, with the public able to secure advance admission starting Thursday, May 4. The museum will hold Members’ Preview Days on Sunday, June 11, and Tuesday, June 13. To plan your visit, learn more about the Buffalo AKG and its offerings, and purchase admission tickets, please visit https://buffaloakg.org/visit.

About the Buffalo AKG Art Museum

Founded in 1862, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum (formerly the Albright-Knox Art Gallery) is the sixth-oldest public art institution in the United States. For more than 160 years, the Buffalo AKG has collected, conserved, and exhibited the art of its time, often working directly with living artists. This tradition has given rise to one of the world’s most extraordinary collections of modern and contemporary art.

In June 2023, following the completion of the most significant campus development and expansion project in its history, the Buffalo AKG will open to the public for the first time. The project is funded by a $230 million capital campaign, the largest such campaign for a cultural institution in the history of Western New York, including $195 million raised for construction and $35 million in additional operating endowment funds.

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