By Michelle Cohen, Wed, September 26, 2018 The Met Breuer. Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum.
It was announced Friday that the Met Museum would lease the Breuer building to the Frick, the New York Times reports. According to an agreement between the two venerable art institutions, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will likely sign the Met Breuer on Madison Avenue over to the Frick Collection beginning in 2020. Doing so would allow the in-debt Met to free itself of the last three years of an eight-year lease and an $18 million annual expense and enable it to put funds toward improving the modern and contemporary galleries at its Fifth Avenue flagship. Likewise, the Frick would have a suitable temporary home while the Gilded Age mansion that it inhabits is being renovated.
Find out more
By Devin Gannon, Tue, May 29, 2018 Photo via The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Following two years of renovations, the Metropolitan Museum of Art reopened its impressive music collection, which includes roughly 5,000 instruments dating from about 300 B.C. to the present, grouping them by period and type, rather than culture by which they were created. The redesign of the exhibit, called The Art of Music, places “Fanfare” as the first gallery. Drawing visitors into the instrument gallery, Fanfare features 74 brass instruments “spanning two millennia and five continents.” It includes sacred conches, animal horns, a vuvuzela and more. And now, for the first time, the instruments can be heard through dynamic kiosks at the museum, or online.
Find out more
By Michelle Colman, Wed, May 9, 2018 On Monday night, Rihanna, Madonna and all of the celebrity A-listers posed on the Met Gala’s red carpet to show off their over-the-top interpretations of the Metropolitan Museum’s 2018 Costume Institute exhibit “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.” This year’s exhibit focuses on the dialogue between fashion and medieval art, displaying Papal robes and accessories from the Sistine Chapel, many of which have never been seen outside The Vatican. To house it all, the Met tapped architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfo (DS+R) to design the show, and ArchDaily has uncovered this gorgeous photo set showing their work.
Take a tour
By Michelle Colman, Mon, April 23, 2018 The flowers are finally blooming, spring is in the air, and there are tons of awesome art exhibits popping up all over the city. Although we recently highlighted some amazing art day trips from New York City, there is always art at our doorstep that we should take advantage of, so we’ve rounded up 10 terrific exhibits and events that will not last long. So take an extra long lunch break or sneak out of work early to catch these temporary shows that are all worth a visit.
Check out the list
By Dana Schulz, Thu, March 1, 2018 Photo via Wiki Commons
At the beginning of the year, the Met announced that it would begin charging non-New Yorkers (i.e. those without a state ID) $25 for admission, waiving its pay-what-you-wish policy that had been in effect since 1970. And as of today, that policy is officially being implemented through signs at all entrances, 14 new kiosks in the Great Hall, roaming museum staff with iPads, and a brochure that explains the new fee system, reports the Times.
Read more
By Dana Schulz, Sun, February 12, 2017 The Times may have recently questioned whether or not the Metropolitan Museum of Art is “a great institution in decline” (referring to its $40 million deficit and decision to put on hold its $600 million expansion), but the paper is much more positive when reporting on the Met’s new Open Access policy. This allows free and unrestricted use of 375,000 high-resolution images of artworks in their collection, ranging from paintings by Van Gogh, El Greco and DeGas to ancient Egyptian relics to classical furniture and clothing.
Find out more
By Lori Zimmer, Thu, January 12, 2017 In a city where hundreds of interesting happenings occur each week, it can be hard to pick and choose your way to a fulfilling life. Ahead Art Nerd founder Lori Zimmer shares her top event picks for 6sqft readers!
Get nasty this week with not only one, but two powerful group exhibitions featuring female artists who are biting back at The Untitled Space and The Knockdown Center in Queens. Get a curator’s insight on art history at The Met, then step into the future of art with a talk on virtual reality at The New Museum. David Zwirner welcomes the work of famed illustrators R. Crumb and his wife, and Canada Gallery discusses the work of Elizabeth Murray with Linda Yablonsky. Finally, educate yourself on New York history, first with an incredible photography show about New Yorkers in protest at the Bronx Documentary Center, then at UnionDocs for a film on the Lower East Side of yesteryear when squatters ruled the streets—and abandoned buildings.
More on all the best events this way
By Susan Cohen, Fri, September 30, 2016 If you’ve ever visited The Metropolitan Museum of Art and watched an artist working at a canvas or sculpting amongst the museum’s larger than life pieces, then you’ve seen the Copyist Program in action. Founded in 1872, two years after The Met first opened, the program has provided countless artists the opportunity to copy the great works that fill the museum’s numerous galleries.
The Copyist Program is overseen by The Met’s Department of Education, and Maya Valladares, an artist focusing on textiles, serves as the its Assistant Educator for Public Programs and Creative Practice. Her role requires her to create holistic experiences through the museum’s public programming, and through the Copyist Program, she works to enhance the experience of copying for the students and cohorts that come through the museum’s doors.
6sqft recently spoke with Maya, who shared details about the program’s rich history, what copying offers artists, and what it’s like to duplicate the works of a world-class museum.
Read the interview here
By Dana Schulz, Mon, September 14, 2015 Now that adult coloring books are sweeping the nation, we don’t have to hide our love for youthful illustrations and activities–like this new hand-drawn map of the Metropolitan Museum of Art called MetKids Map. The fun interactive platform is dotted with yellow and red circles for which children search and click, opening a separate window full of information about a gallery or work of art.
See more of the fun illustration and learn how it works
By Diane Pham, Tue, March 31, 2015 The Met—already well-loved for its generous “pay as you wish” admission—is offering up another public good sure to get art buffs and wannabes clearing space on their hard drives. The Met has added 422 free titles to its MetPublications site, providing global citizens with digitized versions of new and archived books and catalogs that—if you can even get your hands on them in real life—can oftentimes ring up for more than $200 a pop.
More info here
