EAST LANSING, MICH.- The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University was awarded $1 million from MSU Federal Credit Union in support of an expansion across Grand River Avenue that will provide increased access and research for the MSU Broad’s 7,500 piece permenant collection.

The expansion will provide additional exhibition spaces for its collection and a research center focused on the museum of tomorrow. The collection will serve as an access point to education and research and will include a study center and cases for visiting instructors, students, and researchers to integrate the collection into teaching and learning. The MSU Broad’s living and expanding collection spans artistic production from Ancient Greece and Rome and pre-Columbian cultures, to Medieval and Renaissance, to Modern and Contemporary, and enables the museum to explore the art of our time through the long lens of art history. The MSU Broad (currently housed in a building designed by the acclaimed Zaha Hadid) is unique among contemporary art museums by virtue of the historical collection it has inherited from the Kresge Art Museum, formerly the art museum of MSU.

Since Director Marc-Olivier Wahler’s arrival in July 2016, the MSU Broad has been committed to researching and displaying the collection. In April 2017, the MSU Broad announced the launch of the Collection Gallery, a gallery dedicated to the display of the collection year-round in the museum. In 2018, the MSU Broad will advance its commitment by growing the museum’s reach beyond the MSU campus.

Speaking to the importance of this expansion, Director Marc-Olivier Wahler states: “The MSU Broad is unfettered by the constraints of traditional museums and is devoted to being a leader in the research and development of the future of museums. This expansion will be a lab where collaboration and new thinking can be tested and position our museum as a hub for aesthetic and institutional innovation.”

Partnering with MSU’s Arts & Cultural Management and Museum Studies to position the collection as a gateway to scholarly research and understanding, the MSU Broad will provide a world-class learning experience in the arts for graduate and undergraduate students across academic disciplines.

“We are thrilled to partner with the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum and MSUFCU to bring the Broad collection with its Kresge heritage further out into the community,” said Christopher P. Long, Dean of the College of Arts & Letters. "Access has always been the heart of the MSU land-grant mission and the liberal arts endeavor at its core, so this gift advances that mission by providing more members of our community with educational opportunities to be transformed by the power of art.”

The museum is one of 10 areas of the university to receive support from a $5.5 million gift the MSUFCU made to expand opportunities for community members to engage in the arts, business and science.