A giant red plastic chair now stands near the entrance of the Museum of Fine Arts at 255 Beach Drive NE. It is Nuestra Silla, by New York-based conceptual artist Lucia Hierro. It is a Monobloc chair, the kind found on patios everywhere, scaled up and painted bright red. St. Pete Catalyst covered its debut in October, and Tampa Bay Beacons reported that it was going in outside the museum's entrance that month.
The chair is the most visible part of a change that has mostly happened at the museum's edges. Beginning Saturday, November 21, it moves inside to the galleries most downtown neighbors have walked through many times.
So Far, Art Unbound Has Changed the Museum's Edges
The MFA announced Art Unbound: The Future of the MFA, St. Petersburg on June 10, 2026. The museum describes it as a multi-phase plan covering the permanent collection, the indoor galleries and transitional spaces, and the outdoor campus. The plan draws on founder Margaret Acheson Stuart, who saw the MFA as a world-class "place for the people."
Each phase so far has changed the outside of the museum or its entrance hall. The collection rooms themselves stayed as they were.
- Spring 2026. Yvette Mayorga's outdoor sculpture Magic Grasshopper went up on Beach Drive in March. The museum called the move a way to make its exterior a "front porch" for the city.
- Summer 2026. Yvette Mayorga: Goddesses of the Great Hall opened June 20 in the museum's 1965 entrance hall. It set Mayorga's self-portrait and works on loan beside the MFA's own 1799 painting Julie as Flora, Roman Goddess of Flowers, by Élisabeth Vigée-LeBrun.
- October 2026. Hierro's Nuestra Silla went up outside the entrance.
When the Great Hall show opened, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art Katherine Pill explained what was coming next. In the MFA's launch announcement, she said Mayorga's work "creates an exciting juxtaposition of time periods that we will emulate across the entire museum campus." The Great Hall pairing of an 18th-century portrait and a contemporary artist was a preview of how the whole museum will be laid out.
What Changes Inside on November 21
The collection galleries closed September 21 for reinstallation. The Hazel Hough Wing stayed open the whole time. The Tampa Bay Times reported the partial closure in September, as staff rearranged the works.
The main change is in how the rooms are organized. The MFA is dropping the familiar layout by date and by region. In its place is a thematic model that puts historical works from different cultures alongside modern and contemporary pieces, grouped around shared human themes. The museum also plans layered interpretation and digital storytelling meant to "spark conversation rather than just providing facts."
The collection being rearranged covers nearly 5,000 years. The museum names works by Georgia O'Keeffe, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Auguste Rodin, Kehinde Wiley, and Vigée-LeBrun among its holdings. It also describes its photography collection as one of the largest and most respected in the Southeast, with work by Ansel Adams, Edward Steichen, Julia Margaret Cameron, Carrie Mae Weems, James Van Der Zee, and Aaron Siskind. A visitor who has always found the Monets in the same room should expect to find them somewhere new, and in different company.
Executive Director and CEO Klaudio Rodriguez put the scope plainly in the September closure announcement:
"This reinstallation is more than changing what's on the walls. It's about ensuring art is an accessible, essential human experience for everyone."
The MFA Shop and Café Clementine are being redesigned too.
The Layout Is Designed to Keep Moving
The MFA says it will treat the galleries "as a modular canvas" and "rotate holdings frequently," so visitors have a reason to come back. The September release says the same thing: rotating installations will give visitors "something new" each time.
That changes what the permanent collection means if you live a few blocks away. In the old layout, you could walk the collection once and know it. Under the new plan, the reopening on November 21 is the first arrangement, and later rotations will change it again.
The museum's own schedule shows how far ahead it is planning. Upstairs, conservator Luis Seixas is finishing the last phase of restoring the museum's Tabernacle of Saints Peter and Paul, a gilded, painted, and carved object. Visitors can watch the work as it happens. Under Art Unbound, the tabernacle is set to go into the collection galleries in 2028.
For members, rotation makes a membership more useful. The MFA lists year-round free admission, exhibition previews, free or discounted programs, $5 off up to two adult guest tickets per visit, and shop and café discounts among its CORE benefits. Set against a $16 adult ticket, those benefits add up faster when the rooms keep changing.
The Preview Comes Two Days Early
The first chance to see the new layout is Art Unbound After Dark: Preview Party on Thursday, November 19, from 5 to 8 p.m. That is two days before the public reopening.
- Where: the reimagined collection galleries, with DJ Nilla Green in the Mary Alice McClendon Conservatory
- Food and drink: Café Clementine's L'Apéro hours, a house-made spritz made for the night, organic wines, local Green Bench beer, and savory and sweet bites for purchase
- Tickets: $15 for MFA members, $25 for nonmembers, free for ages 12 and under
- Same evening: MFA Teen Night for high school students, also 5 to 8 p.m.
Tickets are sold through the preview party page. The public can see the galleries starting Saturday, November 21.
What Stayed Open While the Rooms Were Rehung
The Hazel Hough Wing has New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations, on view through January 3, 2027. The show tells the stories of four masquerade artists: Chief Ekpenyong Bassey Nsa of Nigeria, David Sanou of Burkina Faso, Sheku "Goldenfinger" Fofanah of Sierra Leone, and Hervé Youmbi of Cameroon. It looks at the choices they make and how they adapt their traditions to current trends, locally and globally. If you went to the museum this fall for that exhibition, you came through a building whose permanent rooms were behind closed doors.
The Upstairs Is Next
The rehang is the third phase, and two more are scheduled.
Winter 2026 brings the Creativity Commons. These are two new spaces for creative learning, informal gatherings, story times, and artist meetups. The Education Gallery will go into the current upstairs gallery. The museum describes it as a free space with a local artist-in-residence and room for community projects. The MFA Studio Classroom will be a fully equipped makerspace in an area the public cannot currently enter.
Spring 2027 moves past the gallery walls. The Mary Alice McClendon Conservatory is set to become a hub for digital and experimental art and live programming. The museum describes the space moving "from a brunch vibe to meeting spot to jazz night." The outdoor areas around the building are slated for public art and community gathering space.
The red chair and the grasshopper came first. Next are the free gallery upstairs and a conservatory built for evenings, so the parts of the building you can use without walking a single gallery keep growing.
On the MFA Calendar Between the Preview and New Year
| Date | Event | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Thu, Nov 19 | Art Unbound After Dark: Preview Party; MFA Teen Night | 5–8 p.m. |
| Sat, Nov 21 | Collection galleries scheduled to reopen to the public | Museum hours |
| Sun, Nov 29 | Art & Nature Sunset Tours with Tampa Bay Watch Discovery Center | 3:30–5:45 p.m. |
| Thu, Dec 3 | Art After Dark: Trivia Night with Max Blowers | 5–8 p.m. |
| Sat, Dec 5 | Sensory Saturday | 10 a.m.–noon |
| Thu, Dec 10 | Art After Dark + Jazz Night with Bryan J. Hughes & the Crew, with Lost Coast Oyster Co. at Café Clementine | 5–8 p.m. |
| Sat, Dec 12 | Studio Saturdays | 9–11 a.m. |
| Thu, Dec 17 | Art After Dark with Classical Revolution | 5–8 p.m. |
| Sun, Dec 20 | Spanish-speaking Language Tour with Nelson Lees | 2–3 p.m. |
| Sun, Dec 27 | Art & Nature Sunset Tours with Tampa Bay Watch Discovery Center | 3:30–6 p.m. |
On select Art After Dark Thursdays, members get in free, nonmembers pay $16, and youth 17 and under get in free. The full listing is on the MFA events calendar.
Before You Walk Over
The museum posts its hours as Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is closed Mondays, so the first full week after the reopening starts with a dark day on November 23. The museum is also closed Thanksgiving, which falls on November 26 this year, and Christmas Day. Café Clementine is listed as open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the shop 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., both Tuesday through Sunday.
General admission is posted at $16 for adults. It is $14 for seniors 65 and over, military, Florida educators, and college students with ID, and $10 for ages 7 to 17. Children 6 and under and MFA members get in free. Through Museums for All, up to four people per SNAP EBT card get in free with the card and a photo ID. Paid self-parking is in the museum's south lot and along Bayshore Drive, paid by ParkMobile app or kiosk. Hours and prices can change around a reopening, so check the MFA's hours and admission page before you head down Beach Drive.
Part of what makes downtown St. Petersburg special is having a museum like this a short walk from home. At Melody Stang, we follow changes like this rehang closely because they shape daily life on Beach Drive. If you're thinking about a downtown address within walking distance of the MFA and the waterfront parks, let's connect and schedule a consultation.
