Boston's Museum Makes More Room for Art of the Americas

In November, the [Museum of Fine Arts, Boston](http://www.mfa.org/) opened the doors to a [brand new expansion](http://www.mfa.org/collections/art-americas) that houses its collection of American Art, in every meaning of the word "American." The new wing not only better shows off some of the museum's very famous works, made by artists from the colonial period through the present day, it also, for the first time, integrates art from Central and South America and from Native Americans. The impetus for the new wing represents a central challenge posed to all museums today. Having begun the journey of building the wing more than a decade ago, museum director Malcolm Rogers says it was essential to ask the question, how could the MFA make important changes and offer something new and possibly more relevant, in order to stay, fundamentally, the same institution. **I talked to Rogers earlier this week by phone from his office in Boston about the new Arts of the Americas wing, as well as the importance of an institution's vision in times of financial hardship:**