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Twenty twenty-five was slated to be an iconic year for the Brooklyn Museum—the institution is celebrating its 200th anniversary, for which it planned an entire year of special events and an expansion to some of its spaces.
Now, the status of those celebrations is no longer clear: over the weekend, the museum announced it would lay off several employees and cut back on its exhibitions due to a $10 million budget deficit.
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“We cannot continue to operate with the growing deficit we are carrying. No organization can continue in this way,” said Brooklyn Museum director Anne Pasternak at a meeting on Friday morning, per Artnet. The cuts will also involve laying off 10% of the museum's staff.
Aside from the deficit, the Brooklyn Museum also cited inflation-related issues that have increased the institution's costs. Unfortunately, the funding that the museum receives has not kept up with the growing trend.
Pasternak also added that the museum would cut the number of the exhibitions held each year from approximately 12 to 9, or a 25% reduction. It's not yet clear if any of the exhibitions that have already been announced will be affected by these cuts.
While Pasternak noted that the museum's weekday events will be reduced, weekend programming will increase—which means that if you're a fan of the iconic First Saturdays happenings, for example, you will continue to be able to attend them.
The news of the cuts comes just a couple of weeks after the museum announced an iconic collaboration with KITH to celebrate Black History Month, which included a limited-edition KITH collection that pays homage to the Brooklyn Museum. You can still check that out from now through the end of February at the museum's gift shop.
Inflation, gentrification and other economic forces have recently led to the closure of some of our favorite New York institutions, including the nightclub Paragon, Black Flamingo and countless restaurants. We have to pay our respect to our favorite spots while we still have them. On that note, keep an eye out on the Brooklyn Museum's calendar of events to support the ones that the institution will continue to mount in the upcoming weeks.