PORTSMOUTH — The Museum of New Artwork, a downtown attraction complementing Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Membership on Congress Avenue, has suspended operations because of monetary challenges.
Opened in October 2021, the museum stories it hosted greater than 16,000 guests and introduced six exhibitions that includes native, regional and nationwide artists. The museum was operated by a 501(c)(3) group and leased area within 135 Congress St., the previous YMCA constructing now owned by brothers Michael and Peter Labrie.
Suzanne Bresette, co-chairperson of the museum’s board, introduced Thursday in a ready assertion the museum was shutting down. The discover is on the museum’s web site.
“It’s due to this fact with a heavy coronary heart that I inform you that efficient instantly MONA will droop operations due to weakening income. We entered our 2023 season with optimism about our capability to satisfy our mission whereas sustaining our free admission coverage for so long as doable, however we didn’t safe the contributions essential to help the extent of inventive programming we had deliberate for the top of 2023 and for 2024,” Bresette’s message reads.”A lot of our sister visible arts organizations throughout the nation are scuffling with the identical challenges. As they and we think about our futures as nonprofit arts organizations, we’re hopeful that there could also be a newly imagined approach ahead.
“For at this time, we at MONA stay grateful for the chance we needed to convey wonderful up to date artwork to our neighbors and guests for the previous two years, and we stay dedicated to our perception in and fervour for the transformational affect that the artistic and cultural arts have on all of us, our households, and our neighborhood,” Bresette’s assertion provides.
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In accordance with her, the 501(c)(3) will stay in impact. With a renegotiated lease, the museum’s 2024 operational price range was $450,000.
Bresette credited her fellow board members and hailed their dedication to preserving the museum’s viability.
“MONA was making an attempt to convey an distinctive and particular visible arts expertise to our neighborhood however the worth and help of the neighborhood simply was not there even after six superb exhibitions. Such a loss,” Bresette stated Friday.
A seventh new exhibition was slated to open on Jan. 26, although it was canceled previous to the museum suspending its operations.
With accessibility in thoughts and aspiring to achieve all individuals, the Museum of New Artwork supplied free admission and accepted donations on the door from guests.
“This board labored so arduous and actually wished to offer visible arts to the neighborhood and to the colleges and so forth. It had an unimaginable mission,” Bresette added Friday.
‘All of us tried actually arduous’
Michael Labrie, co-owner of the constructing since buying it for practically $3 million in October 2016, confirmed the museum’s closure when reached for touch upon Friday.
“All of us tried actually arduous to make this museum succeed and sadly sufficient help wasn’t there,” he stated.
The Museum of New Artwork is a tenant of the Labries within the historic constructing. Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Membership shouldn’t be impacted by the suspension of museum operations.
The museum’s shuttering got here lower than one week after one other downtown inventive venue, the Guide & Bar on Nice Avenue, introduced it might be closing on Jan. 28 after 12 years on the Customized Home.
Fellow metropolis nonprofit arts group 3S Artspace launched an announcement Friday in regards to the closure of the Museum of New Artwork, the Guide & Bar, in addition to the Museum of Artwork on the College of New Hampshire.
“We wish to categorical to those organizations how a lot we admire all you’ve executed for artists and for the general public – significantly MONA, who shared in our mission of bringing up to date arts to the neighborhood,” the 3S Artspace assertion says. “We all know how a lot work it takes and the way tough it’s to safe enough assets for the humanities. You’ve all performed an integral function in rising our vibrant arts scene and your presence shall be missed.”
Between the Labries and the museum’s board, “there’s a want to maintain that area with artwork and for neighborhood engagement, in addition to occasions,” Bresette acknowledged Friday.
“The Labries want to proceed to help arts and the neighborhood with the area however no plans are finalized at the moment,” she stated.
“Nonprofit arts organizations across the nation are in peril. We have to be sure that we make investments as a neighborhood on this sector. Advocacy for public funding for the humanities, arts in our college methods, private and company giving, and attendance at performances or exhibitions are all ways in which everybody might help,” Bresette continued. “We’re pausing for the second to collect our ideas and think about the longer term. We’re grateful to everybody who has supported our artists and programming and look ahead to what’s subsequent.”
The museum’s remaining exhibition displayed work from deceased artist George Rodrigue, who died in 2013.
