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Roberta Smith Thinks Out-of-State Visitors to the Met Will Be Oppressed

September 6, 2017 by Marion Maneker

The art critic takes to the pages of the New York Times to compare the deficit plagued Met’s idea to make the museum’s entry fee mandatory for out-of-state visitors to a dystopian prison:

Mr. Weiss seems to be restoring some financial sense to the Met, but he has helped hatch one really bad idea: a proposal that, if approved by the city, would allow the Met to charge out-of-state visitors a fixed $25 entrance fee instead of letting them pay what they wish, like everyone else. This could be a logistical nightmare. Those who retain the privilege of paying what they wish will still have to have their papers to get in — which papers has not been worked out. The jobs of ticket sellers and others at the museum’s entrances will become more complicated and stressful; they will in all likelihood sometimes end up functioning a bit like border guards, adjudicating who has proper New York identification and who doesn’t.

The Fall’s Most Fascinating Art Show? The Met Trying to Fix Itself (The New York Times)

Billionaires Turn Down Met Bid to Revive Contemporary Wing

July 5, 2017 by Marion Maneker

The New York Times continues its coverage of the Metropolitan Museum’s leadership transition and struggle to shore up its position as New York’s pre-eminent cultural institution—as it tries to attract donors among the world’s wealthiest persons who have turned toward Modern and Contemporary art away from other collecting categories—by framing an interesting news story in the oddest way.

The news in the story is that the Met approached—and was turned down by—David Koch and Steven Schwarzmann to donate $300m to kickstart the languishing plans to rebuild the museum’s Contemporary art wing.

Oddly, though, the Times makes the story a question of whether Leonard Lauder will go through with his gift of Cubist art if the museum cannot build a new home for the collection:

Is Mr. Lauder’s gift, valued at more than $1 billion four years ago, now at risk? If the Met takes too long to resurrect the project or ultimately scales it back, might Mr. Lauder take his collection elsewhere?

Worry not, the story tells us. Lauder will indeed give the art to the Met. Did anyone ever doubt it? Although the story tries to raise the idea that Lauder could give the art to other institutions, the collection was assembled for the purpose of enhancing Lauder’s reputation as a gift to the Met. It is silly of the Times to pretend otherwise.

It’s also silly of the Times to value the collection at $1bn. That’s simply not true. Lauder did not spend $1bn assembling the collection. It is being donated to a museum where it will not be sold. So the collection has no market value any longer. Lauder’s accountants may be working with $1bn to offset his taxes in other areas.

The Times’s long-standing skepticism about the art market isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It does act as a tonic to the market fixation on these notional values. Why the Times abandons that market skepticism precisely when it is most appropriate—Lauder’s gift is meant to be a measure of his art historical acumen and cultural beneficence, what’s a $1bn to the cosmetics magnate, after all?—is one mystery of the story.

The mystery is what’s happening at the Met. The story doesn’t tell us whether the approach to Koch and Schwarzmann was a thought out strategy or a desperate move to reclaim lost momentum. The Times doesn’t say whether the approach was made by the museum’s new president, Daniel Weiss, or the board. Either way, the story suggests the museum is still far from setting itself back on track.

The NYT Says New York’s Met Is In Trouble

February 6, 2017 by Marion Maneker

Screen Shot 2017-02-06 at 9.21.22 AM

Over the weekend, the New York Times’s Robin Pogrebin offered a tour of the horizon for the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the city’s pre-eminent cultural institution that has somewhat unexpectedly and surprisingly entered a period of confusion:

Several people inside the museum, most of whom spoke anonymously for fear of losing their positions, said the Met under Mr. Campbell had tried to do too much too fast: overhiring in the digital department; overspending on an additional building, the Met Breuer, and on rebranding; overdrawing from unrestricted endowment funds to cover costs; emphasizing Modern and contemporary art at the expense of core departments; and pursuing the new wing before the financing was in place.Instead, the Met should have been contracting, given falling revenue from its retail stores and admission fees and rising expenses.

One of the main issues seems to be the ability to communicate internally. The Met just hired a new communications director from the New York Public Library to address the problem:Continue Reading

Does the Met Have a New Rock Star?

July 15, 2010 by Marion Maneker

The New York Observer reports that the Met might have a new curator:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is expected to announce shortly that Xavier Salomon, the chief curator of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, will be joining the institution as a curator of Italian paintings.

The 31-year-old rising star-something of the “golden boy” of the Old Masters set, according to one Met wag-is being imported and installed as a full curator. That’s jaw-dropping in a business, and an institution, where even top talent climbs up the ladder slowly.Continue Reading

The Met Gets Ready for the iPad

February 2, 2010 by Marion Maneker

Thomas Campbell has been running the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since the financial crisis began. That has had its benefits, including a large-scale turnover in the museum’s upper ranks brought about by retirements and buyouts. But along with changes in leadership have come other priorities that, perhaps, reflect a new generation’s interests. Here’s what Lee Rosenbaum got out of him in the Wall Street Journal:

The museum’s Web site is being completely rebuilt, a process expected to take up to 18 months. At the new metmuseum.org, virtual visitors will “find the museum and its treasures represented as they should be—beautiful illustrations, thoughtful information and a database that allows you to search the vast majority of the collection,” says Mr. Campbell.Continue Reading

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