Some of the goals are “practical” with plans to update the museum’s website and add more signage in and around the National Gallery’s campus which includes the East and West Buildings and the outdoor Sculpture Garden.
Still, the federally funded National Gallery is the second most visited art museum in the U.S., according to The Art Newspaper’s annual attendance survey.
This rebranding comes at a time when the National Gallery has faced criticism of “institutional misconduct.” Last October, an open letter, signed anonymously, claimed that the National Gallery’s own employees refer to it as the “last plantation on the National Mall.” The National Gallery was one of four institutions to postpone “Philip Guston Now” over the artist’s images of hooded Klansmen, leading to another open letter and petition signed by more than 2,000 people including such artists of color as Adrian Piper and Lorna Simpson.