After being closed for more than a month due to the government shutdown, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., has officially planned to reopen.
The Smithsonian Institution, which operates a network of more than 30 museums and zoos, will also reopen some of its spaces in Washington this week, with the rest to follow shortly.
The National Gallery will officially begin welcoming the public again on Friday, with plans to resume normal business hours. (As the museum noted in its press release announcing its reopening, this also means its espresso bar and café will be open again.)
On the same day, the Smithsonian-run National Museum of American History, the National Air and Space Museum and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center will also reopen. The Smithsonian said in the announcement that all of its other museums and research centers and zoos will begin a “rolling reopening” starting Monday. Its three-sentence release did not include an exact timeline for reopening.
With the return of the National Gallery comes one of the season’s most high-profile exhibitions in the United States: “Stars We Can’t See: Australian Indigenous Art,” billed as the largest exhibition of its kind to be held outside Australia. The exhibition, which features nearly 200 works, was originally scheduled to open in mid-October, but was unable to be shown because the museum closed on October 5. It will now officially open on Saturday.
Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery, said in a statement: “We are delighted to welcome visitors back to the National Gallery and to present Stars We Cannot See for the first time, which brings important Australian Aboriginal masterpieces to the United States, many for the first time. The result of a fruitful collaboration with our colleagues at the National Gallery of Victoria, this exhibition is a truly historic opportunity for our audiences to learn about the creativity and history of Aboriginal art in Australia.”
The longest government shutdown in U.S. history officially ended Thursday night. 43 of the shutdowns were triggered by bitter differences between Democrats and Republicans over government spending. President Donald Trump signed a new spending plan last night after the House voted to advance it.
