This fall at the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, a ticket to a museum whose permanent collection is closed buys you a seat beside a conservator at work on a gilded, carved tabernacle. When the public sessions end, the museum's next stated plan for the object is a place in the collection galleries in 2028.
The MFA sits at 255 Beach Drive NE. Its collection galleries have been closed since late September for a reinstallation the museum calls Art Unbound, and they are scheduled to reopen on November 21, 2026. That leaves a little more than three weeks from this Thursday. For anyone who lives close enough to stop in on an ordinary weekday morning, those three weeks are worth more than the reopening.
What Closed, and What Stayed Open
The closure covers the collection, not the building. According to the museum's reimagination page, the exhibition New African Masquerades stays open, along with the MFA Shop and Café Clementine. Programs such as Art After Dark, Marly Music, Homeschool Hours and Studio Saturdays keep running.
New African Masquerades: Artistic Innovations and Collaborations follows 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 how each one adapts his genre to changing circumstances and trends. The exhibition is on view through January 3, 2027.
The price is what separates this stretch from the rest of the year. During the closure, the museum is selling admission at a discounted rate:
| Ticket | Closure-period price |
|---|---|
| Adults | $16 |
| Seniors, educators, college students, military | $14 |
| Youth 7 to 17 | $10 |
| Under age 6 | Free |
| Members | Free |
| Groups of 15 or more | $14 per person |
For comparison, the MFA's August 2026 announcement of its fall Art After Dark season gave regular-hours admission as $24 for nonmembers. That puts the closure rate $8 lower for an adult. The museum hasn't published what it will charge once the galleries reopen, so check with the MFA before planning a visit after November 21.
The Upstairs Room on a Weekday Schedule
The lower price does more than discount a smaller museum. It gets you upstairs, where Live Conservation with Luis Seixas runs in the upstairs gallery through December 27, 2026.
According to the exhibition page, Seixas is working through the final phase of his treatment of the museum's Tabernacle of Saints Peter and Paul, a gilded, painted and carved object. The museum describes the treatment as long and complicated. Its goal is to stabilize the piece and visually reintegrate its decoration. The MFA plans to place the tabernacle in the collection galleries in 2028.
That date is what makes this fall worth your time. The galleries reopen in November, and the museum has dated the tabernacle's gallery placement to 2028. Until the conservation exhibition closes in late December, you can watch the treatment itself, and that view ends once the work is done.
Seixas is also cleaning and consolidating other works, including rarely seen objects slated for the new installation, many of them on display in the room. He works in public on a fixed schedule:
- Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to noon
- Tuesday through Friday, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
The page listed only two Saturday sessions, October 17 and October 24, and both have passed. From here on, live conservation is a weekday event. If you can get to Beach Drive on a weekday morning, you can see something most weekend visitors will miss.
The Chair Outside Is Free to See
The other new piece this fall is outside on the grounds, and you don't need a ticket for it. Lucia Hierro: Nuestra Silla opened on October 17, 2026, outside the museum's entrance. According to the MFA's press release, it is meant for "visitors and passersby" as part of the museum's public space. It is Hierro's first public art sculpture.
The subject is the Monobloc chair, the one-piece plastic chair that has been mass-produced since the 1970s. Hierro has enlarged it to a monumental scale and painted it a vivid red. The release says the chair recalls the social world of the New York bodegas she grew up around, where a simple seat can stand for rest, hospitality and community.
"Placed in front of the museum, we hope for Nuestra Silla to function as a gathering place while transforming the museum grounds."
That's Katherine Pill, the MFA's senior curator of contemporary art, quoted in the museum's release. The exhibition page lists the sculpture as a long-term loan sponsored by the Collectors Circle, with no end date. The chair will outlast the closure. Through November 21, though, it marks the front of a museum whose real draw is upstairs.
The Calendar From Here
The dates below run from this Thursday, October 29, which is itself an Art After Dark night.
| Date | At the MFA | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Now through Nov. 20 | Collection galleries closed; New African Masquerades and live conservation open | $16 adult closure rate in effect |
| Thu., Oct. 29, 5 to 8 p.m. | Art After Dark: Spooky Edition, with a Café Clementine wine tasting | An after-hours visit during the closure |
| Thu., Nov. 5, 5 to 8 p.m. | Art After Dark: Trivia Night with Max Blowers | Trivia begins at 6 p.m. |
| Thu., Nov. 12, 5 to 8 p.m. | Art After Dark + Jazz Night with Fern & Friends | The only jazz night that falls inside the closure |
| Sat., Nov. 21 | Collection galleries scheduled to reopen | First look at the thematic installation |
| Thu., Dec. 10, 5 to 8 p.m. | Art After Dark + Jazz Night with Bryan J. Hughes & the Crew | The same jazz-night format, with the galleries reopened |
| Sun., Dec. 27 | Live Conservation with Luis Seixas closes | Last day to watch the tabernacle treatment in public |
| Sun., Jan. 3, 2027 | New African Masquerades closes | End of the exhibition that kept the museum running through the closure |
The museum's Art After Dark nights combine after-hours gallery access with docent-led tours, live music and workshops. Both jazz nights include Café Clementine's L'Apéro hours and a raw bar pop-up from Lost Coast Oyster Co. Admission is $16 for nonmembers and free for members and anyone 17 and under, according to the event listings for Fern & Friends and Bryan J. Hughes & the Crew. The November 12 night happens while the galleries are still closed, so the evening centers on the music, the oysters and New African Masquerades. The December night comes after reopening.
What Changes on November 21
When the galleries reopen, the familiar layout will be gone. According to the museum's June 10, 2026 Art Unbound announcement, the collection will no longer be organized by period and geography. Instead, it will be grouped around themes that put works from different cultures and eras side by side. The museum also plans to rotate its holdings frequently after the reopening.
The reopening is one phase of a longer plan. The announcement laid out a public-art activation in spring 2026, the Great Hall Project in summer, the collection and visitor-space work this fall, a Creativity Commons in winter 2026 and programming beyond the gallery walls in spring 2027. Plans also include redesigning the MFA Shop and Café Clementine and adding an Education Gallery and an MFA Studio Classroom. Tampa Bay Beacons covered the launch in June, describing the changes to the collection, the visitor spaces and the campus.
The museum ties the effort to its founder, Margaret Acheson Stuart, and her aim of a "place for the people." With Nuestra Silla on the front lawn, Seixas working upstairs in public and the galleries rotating after November, the MFA is set up to change more often than it used to.
Timing a Visit Before the Reopening
A visit that gets the most out of the closure fits a weekday morning between now and November 20. Arrive by 10 a.m. on a Tuesday through Friday for the first conservation session. Walk through New African Masquerades at the $16 adult rate. Then stop at the red chair on your way out to Beach Drive NE. If an evening works better, the Spooky Edition on October 29, trivia on November 5 and Fern & Friends on November 12 all fall inside the closure. Live conservation also continues through December 27, so the treatment is still on view after November 21. The museum's next stated date for the tabernacle is its 2028 placement in the collection galleries.
Many of the homes we represent hold art and collections of their own. At Pedone Elite, our home management service looks after Snell Isle properties and what's inside them while owners travel. If you'd like to talk about caring for a home on the island and its contents, or about Snell Isle more broadly, Schedule a Free Consultation with our team.
