When Richard Diebenkorn's understated masterpiece, "Ocean Park No. 107," awakes from its eight-month nap, it will find its home at the Oakland Museum of California completely transformed.

Gone will be the quiet, static corridors and hushed galleries. The museum, when it reopens in May after a $58 million renovation, will be alive with late-night revelry and cutting-edge exhibitions officials hope will be a cornerstone of Oakland's blossoming nightlife and cultural scene.

"In these tough times, the creativity and arts in the East Bay just continues to grow," said senior museum curator Rene de Guzman. "We're going to be a part of that."

The museum, home to 2 million artworks, artifacts and specimens, closed in August for its first major overhaul in its 40-year history. The new museum will have more gallery space and an upgraded electrical system that will allow for video installations and other contemporary art that the museum was previously unable to accommodate.

The programming will be updated, too. Fourth-graders from throughout Northern California will still take their Gold Rush field trips there, but the museum will also offer free gatherings to meet local artists, social events mixing science and art, films and video exhibits, interactive art shows, culinary events and later hours.

The changes will be a boon to the art scene, not just locally but across the region, said Stephen Beal, president of California College of the Arts.

"The Oakland Museum is really a wonderful resource," he said. "That they're undergoing this large-scale renovation shows that, even in these times, culture is important."

The museum is best known for its vast collection of California history, art and scientific works. Among its treasures are a pair of Gold Rush-era Levi's, 2,500 Indian baskets, original Grateful Dead concert posters, Dorothea Lange's archives and paintings by California's most influential artists, such as Diebenkorn.

The focus on California will take on new dimensions when the museum reopens. Visitors will be able to chart their own immigration stories on an interactive map, paint self-portraits and vote on "artifact of the year."

"We want visitors to feel like they're part of California, they're part of this story," said museum director Lori Fogarty. "We particularly want to reach out to people who are not traditional museum visitors."

Fogarty hopes that after the renovation, museum attendance will jump from about 200,000 a year to at least 300,000.

The museum could use the income. About half its revenue comes from the city of Oakland, which has been slashing staffing, salaries and services across the city, and the rest comes from grants and donations.

"People have had a perception that not a lot had changed here. They didn't know much about us," Fogarty said. "Now we have a chance to change that. We're going to be known."