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October 26, 2015–September 18, 2016
English | Español
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May 5–September 5, 2016 (extended from August 14)
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April 27, 2016–July 24, 2016
العربية | Deutsch | Français | Italiano | فارسی | Русский | Türkmençe | Türkçe
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April 18–July 17, 2016
ελληνικά
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January 26–May 22, 2016
deutsch | español | français | italiano
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September 21, 2015–March 13, 2016
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September 18, 2015–January 3, 2016
English | Français | Português
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May 7–September 7, 2015 (Extended)
English | 中国
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October 20, 2014—February 16, 2015
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English | العربية |ελληνικά | español | français | italiano
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Devi, the Indian goddess, is the omnipresent embodiment of power and wisdom given expression in all of India’s ancient religions. From the beginnings of figurative representation in early India, she has been the frequent subject of sculpture and a favored subject in later devotional painting. Mother India: The Goddess in Indian Painting, to be presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from June 29 through November 27, 2011, will feature 40 works from the Museum’s collection that depict Devi in all her various aspects. Perhaps the most widely worshipped deity in all India, Devi stands alongside Shiva and Vishnu in the first rank of the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain pantheons.
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The spring 2011 Costume Institute exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, is on view May 4 through August 7 (new, extended closing date). The exhibition celebrates the late Mr. McQueen's extraordinary contributions to fashion. From his Central Saint Martins postgraduate collection in 1992 to his final runway presentation, which took place after his death in February 2010, Mr. McQueen challenged and expanded our understanding of fashion beyond utility to a conceptual expression of culture, politics, and identity.
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EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Information provided below is subject to change.
To confirm scheduling and dates, call the Communications Department at (212) 570-3951.
CONTACT NUMBER FOR USE IN TEXT IS (212) 535-7710.
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Sculptures by Anthony Caro (b. 1924)—who is considered the most influential and prolific British sculptor of his generation, and a key figure in the development of modernist sculpture over the last 60 years—will be featured in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's 2011 installation on The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, opening April 26. The installation will include a selection of sculpture in steel, painted and unpainted, spanning the artist's career to date and highlighting principal aspects of his long career: engagement with form in space, dialogue between sculpture and architecture, and creation of new, abstract analogies for the human figure and landscape.
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A special loan exhibition focusing on the dynamic art of buncheong ceramics will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on April 7. Featuring more than 60 masterpieces from the renowned collection of Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul, Korea—the majority of which have never before been seen in the U.S.—Poetry in Clay: Korean Buncheong Ceramics from Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art will explore the bold and startlingly modern ceramic tradition that flourished in Korea during the 15th and 16th centuries of the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910), as well as its eloquent reinterpretations by today's leading ceramists.
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During the Romantic era, the open window appeared either as the sole subject or the main feature in many pictures of interiors that were filled with a poetic play of light and perceptible silence. Rooms with a View: The Open Window in the 19th Century, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from April 5 through July 4, 2011, is the first exhibition to focus on this motif as captured by German, Danish, French, and Russian artists around 1810–20. Works in the exhibition range from the initial appearance of the motif in two sepia drawings of about 1805–06 by Caspar David Friedrich to paintings of luminous empty rooms from the late 1840s by Adolph Menzel. The show features 31 oil paintings and 26 works on paper, and consists mostly of generous loans from museums in Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, Austria, Sweden, and the United States.
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Night Vision: Photography After Dark, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from April 26 through September 18, 2011, will feature photography of the 20th century inspired by the pleasure, danger, and allure of the night. For more than 100 years photographers have been drawn to the challenge of making images after dark, capturing the aesthetic effects of nighttime rain, early-morning fog, shining street lamps, and dimly lit rooms. Modern camera artists have been captivated by glowing skyscrapers, dazzling neon signs, glittering nightlife, and the shadowy realm of the nocturnal underworld. Highlights of the Metropolitan's exhibition include classic night photography of the 1930s-1950s by Berenice Abbott, Bill Brandt, Brassaï, Robert Frank, André Kertész, William Klein, Weegee, and Garry Winogrand, as well as three early photographs by Diane Arbus that have never been shown or published before, and recently acquired photographs by Peter Hujar and Kohei Yoshiyuki.
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The first retrospective of the drawings of American contemporary artist Richard Serra will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from April 13, 2011, through August 28, 2011. Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective traces the crucial role that drawing has played in Richard Serra's work for more than 40 years. Although Serra is well known
for his large-scale and site-specific sculptures, his work has also changed the practice of drawing. This major exhibition will show how Serra's work has expanded the definition of drawing through innovative techniques, unusual media, monumental scale, and carefully conceived relationships to surrounding spaces. The exhibition, which includes many loans from important European and American collections, features 43 drawings and 28 sketchbooks from the 1970s to the present, as well as four films by the artist and a new, large-scale work completed specifically for this presentation.
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Three New York master luthiers, renowned for their hand-carved stringed instruments—particularly their archtop guitars, which have been sought after by many of the most important guitarists of the last century—will be the subject of Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from February 9 through July 4, 2011. Featuring the extraordinary guitars of John D'Angelico, James D'Aquisto, and John Monteleone, this unprecedented exhibition of approximately 80 musical instruments will focus on the work of these modern-day master craftsmen and their roots in a long tradition of stringed instrument-making that has thrived for more than 400 years and that was first brought to New York from Italy around the turn of the 20th century.
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EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Information provided below is subject to change. To confirm scheduling and dates, call the Communications Department at (212) 570-3951. CONTACT NUMBER FOR USE IN TEXT IS (212) 535-7710.
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The 1910s—a period remembered for "The Great War," Einstein's theory of relativity, the Russian Revolution, and the birth of Hollywood—was a dynamic and tumultuous decade that ushered in the modern era. This new age—as it was captured by the quintessentially modern art of photography—will be the subject of the exhibition
"Our Future Is In The Air": Photographs from the 1910s, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from November 10, 2010, through April 10, 2011.
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For the first time in more than 25 years, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will display five of its original Autochromes by Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz for one week only—January 25-30, 2011—as part of the current exhibition Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand. Invented by Auguste and Louis Lumière in 1907, Autochromes are one-of-a-kind color transparencies that are seductively beautiful when backlit.
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Thinking Outside the Box: European Cabinets, Caskets, and Cases from the Permanent Collection (1500–1900)—on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning December 7, 2010— will feature 100 works selected from the Museum's Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts. The objects featured in this installation will range from strongboxes to travel cases and from containers for tea or tobacco to storage boxes for toiletries or silverware. These lidded pieces, some of which have not been on display for many years, are made in a large variety of shapes and sizes, and of many different materials, and were created by mostly unknown artists, craftsmen, and amateurs. Viewed together, these works reflect changes in social customs as well as the evolution of styles over four centuries. Many are precious works of art that were collected in their own right.
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Astonishing archaeological discoveries made during the extraordinarily successful excavations of Heinrich Schliemann at the ancient Greek site of Mycenae in 1876 and of Sir Arthur Evans at Knossos on Crete, beginning in 1900, stirred popular interest in archaeology in the early 20th century and helped create a demand among museums and private collectors for high-quality replicas of antiquities from the newly identified Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations. Opening May 17 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Historic Images of the Greek Bronze Age: The Reproductions of E. Gilliéron & Son focuses on the work of Swiss-born Émile Gilliéron (1850–1924) and his son—also named Émile (1885–1939)—who were among the foremost art restorers of their time. Their work influenced the study of Aegean art and was integral to its widespread introduction throughout Europe and America.
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In the 18th century, privileged Europeans embarked on the Grand Tour, traveling principally to sites in Italy, where they visited cherished ruins of the ancient world and the splendid architecture of the Renaissance and Baroque eras. The influx of these travelers to destinations north and south – Venice, Rome, and Naples in particular – led to a flowering of topographical paintings, drawings, and prints by native Italians serving a foreign market eager to return home with pictures and souvenirs. Italy Observed: Views and Souvenirs, 1706-1899, currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum through January 2, 2011, showcases a selection of the rich holdings of Italian vedute (views) collected by Robert Lehman. From paintings of Venetian life by Luca Carlevaris to a Neapolitan album of gouache drawings documenting the eruption of Vesuvius in 1794 to sketches and watercolors of Italian antiquities, the installation captures the artist's romantic attraction to Italy and its irresistible Roman heritage. It also includes various marketed souvenirs—exquisite fans, spoons, teapots, and pocket watches—on loan from the Museum's Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts.
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Widely renowned as a pioneer of conceptual art, American artist John Baldessari (b. 1931, National City, California) is one of the most influential contemporary artists of the last 50 years. John Baldessari: Pure Beauty, the first major U.S. exhibition in 20 years to survey Baldessari's career, will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from October 20, 2010, through January 9, 2011. This retrospective will feature approximately 120 works spanning the period from 1962 to 2010.
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The first major exhibition in 45 years devoted to Jan Gossart (ca. 1478-1532)— one of the most innovative artists of the Burgundian-Habsburg Netherlands— is on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from October 6, 2010, through January 17, 2011. Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart's Renaissance brings together the majority of Gossart's paintings, drawings, and prints, and places them in the context of the influences on his transformation from Late Gothic Mannerism to the new Renaissance mode. Gossart was among the first northern artists to travel to Rome to make copies after antique sculpture and monuments and to introduce biblical and mythological subjects with erotic nude figures into the mainstream of northern painting. Most often credited with successfully assimilating Italian Renaissance style into northern European art of the early 16th century, he is the pivotal Old Master who redirected the course of early Flemish painting from the legacy of its founder, Jan van Eyck, and charted new territory that eventually led to the great age of Rubens.
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The Yuan Revolution: Art and Dynastic Change, a complement to the exhibition The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty, traces the momentous stylistic transformation in painting and calligraphy that began under Mongol rule and culminated in the literati traditions of the early Ming. Featuring more than 70 works in all pictorial formats—hanging scrolls, handscrolls, album leaves, and fans—the installation focuses on the rise of a new scholarly aesthetic in the graphic arts that occurred in response to the wrenching social and political changes brought about by the Mongol conquest. Drawn primarily from the Metropolitan's own holdings, the installation also includes 17 important loans from local private and university collections.
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During a trip to the Netherlands in spring 1928, the Catalan painter Joan Miró (1893–1983) purchased postcards from the museums he visited. Two 17th-century Dutch genre scenes particularly caught his attention and served as the inspiration for a series of paintings he created that summer. The traveling exhibition Miró: The Dutch Interiors, which opens at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning October 5, features Miró's three "Dutch Interiors" and the two Old Master paintings on which they are based. The New York venue will also show preparatory drawings and additional paintings by Miró in the Metropolitan's collection. This exhibition is the first in which Miró's paintings have been hung alongside the Dutch Golden Age pictures that inspired them.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present a major international loan exhibition devoted to the art of the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368)—one of the most dynamic and culturally rich periods in Chinese history—beginning September 28. Bringing together over 200 works drawn principally from China, with additional loans from Taiwan, Japan, Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty will explore the art and material culture that flourished during the pivotal and vibrant period in Chinese culture and history dating from 1215, the year of Khubilai Khan's birth, to 1368, the fall of the Yuan dynasty. The assemblage of extraordinary works will include paintings and sculpture, as well as decorative arts in gold and silver, textile, ceramics, and lacquer, and the exhibition will highlight new art forms and styles that were generated in China as a result of the unification of the country under the Yuan dynasty, founded by Khubilai in 1271. The loans from China will include key pieces from recent archaeological finds that add immeasurably to our knowledge and understanding of Chinese art of this period.
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In 1996, workmen widening the Jerusalem–Tel Aviv road in Lod (formerly Lydda), Israel, made a startling discovery: signs of a Roman mosaic pavement were found about three feet below the modern ground surface. A rescue excavation was conducted immediately by the Israel Antiquities Authority, revealing a mosaic floor that measures approximately 50 feet long by 27 feet wide. It is of exceptional quality and in an excellent state of preservation. The mosaic, comprising seven panels, is symmetrically divided into two large "carpets" by a long rectangular horizontal panel, and the entire work is surrounded by a ground of plain white. To preserve the mosaic, it was reburied until funding was secured for its full scientific excavation and conservation. Recently removed from the ground, the three most complete and impressive panels will be exhibited to the general public for the first time when they go on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on September 28. The pavement is believed to come from the home of a wealthy Roman living in the Eastern Roman Empire in around A.D. 300. Because the mosaic's imagery has no overt religious content, it cannot be determined whether the owner was a pagan, a Jew, or a Christian.
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The Ramayana –The Story of Rama, one of the great epic narratives of South Asia literature, is the focus of an installation on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through September 26. Showcasing 30 brilliantly polychromed paintings and pictorial textiles that depict episodes from the narrative, Epic India: Scenes from the Ramayana explores the magical power embodied in this ancient prose-narrative text that has so captured the imagination of Indian artists from early in the history of Indian art. The exhibition is drawn largely from the Metropolitan Museum's own collection, with some major loans from a New York private collection. The paintings on view were produced mostly during the 17th and 18th centuries in the Hindu court ateliers of Rajasthan, western India, and the Punjab Hills; others are of northern Indian provenance in a Sub-Imperial Mughal style.
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An Italian Journey: Drawings from the Tobey Collection, Correggio to Tiepolo presents 72 extraordinary works of the 16th through 18th centuries, from one of the preeminent collections of Italian Old Master drawings in private hands. It features masterpieces by gifted and historically important draftsmen—principally Italian masters but also artists whose careers brought them south of the Alps—among them Correggio, Parmigianino, Bernini, Poussin, Guercino, Canaletto, and Tiepolo. The drawings represent the principal centers of Italian art: Florence, Rome, Naples, Bologna, Parma, Venice, Genoa, and Milan. Their strikingly broad range of subject matter includes figure studies, historical and mythological narratives, landscapes, vedute, botanical drawings, motifs copied from or inspired by classical antiquity, and designs for painted compositions.
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Themes of dislocation and displacement in contemporary photography will be explored in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's forthcoming exhibition in the Joyce and Robert Menschel Hall for Modern Photography. Drawn almost entirely from the Museum's collection, Between Here and There: Passages in Contemporary Photography on view
July 2, 2010 through February 21, 2011, will feature 22 artists whose photographic works convey a sense of a rootless or unfixed existence.
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A master of classic American street photography, Leon Levinstein (American, 1910–1988) is best known for his candid and unsentimental black-and-white figure studies made in New York City neighborhoods from Times Square and the Lower East Side to Coney Island. From June 8 through October 17, 2010, The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents Hipsters, Hustlers, and Handball Players: Leon Levinstein's New York Photographs, 1950-1980. This exhibition, drawn exclusively from the Metropolitan's collection, features 44 photographs that reflect Levinstein's fearless approach to the medium. Levinstein's graphic virtuosity—seen in raw, expressive gestures and seemingly monumental bodies—is balanced by an unusual compassion for his off-beat subjects from the demimonde.
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The spring 2010 exhibition organized by The Costume Institute of The
Metropolitan Museum of Art is American Woman: Fashioning a National
Identity, the first drawn from the newly established Brooklyn Museum Costume
Collection at the Met. The exhibition, on view from May 5 through August 15,
2010, explores developing perceptions of the modern American woman from the 1890s to the 1940s, and how they have affected the way American women are seen today. Focusing on archetypes of American femininity through dress, the exhibition reveals how the American woman initiated style revolutions that mirrored her social, political, and sartorial emancipation. Early mass-media representations of American women established the fundamental characteristics of American style – a theme explored via a multimedia installation in the final gallery.
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Doug + Mike Starn on the Roof: Big Bambú
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American artists Mike and Doug Starn (born 1961) have been invited by The Metropolitan Museum of Art to create a site-specific installation for The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, opening to the public on April 27. The identical twin brothers will present their new work, Big Bambú: You Can't, You Don't, and You Won't Stop, a monumental bamboo structure ultimately measuring 100 feet long by 50 feet wide by 50 feet high in the form of a cresting wave that will bridge realms of sculpture, architecture, and performance. Visitors are meant to witness the creation and evolving incarnations of Big Bambú as it is constructed throughout the spring, summer, and fall by the artists and a team of rock climbers. Set against Central Park and its urban backdrop, the installation Doug + Mike Starn on the Roof: Big Bambú will suggest the complexity and energy of an ever-changing living organism. It will comprise the 13th consecutive single-artist installation for the Cantor Roof Garden.
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Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, es una exposición emblemática compuesta por 300 obras de Pablo Picasso (Español, 1881–1973), que brinda una oportunidad sin precedentes de contemplar una de las colecciones más importantes del mundo de la obra de este artista. Se trata de la primera muestra que se centra exclusivamente en la extraordinaria colección que el Met atesora de Picasso. Abrirá sus puertas al público desde el 27 de abril hasta el 15 de agosto de 2010. La exposición presentará la colección completa, nunca antes vista en su totalidad, que el Museo posee del artista: pinturas, dibujos, esculturas y cerámicas, así como un número significativo de sus grabados.
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Eighteenth-century European court society was famous for its lavish banquets featuring elaborate settings and protocols designed to indicate the status of both host and guests. Integral to these events were extravagant dining services of silver and gold, many of which subsequently were melted down to finance the frequent wars of the period. Vienna Circa 1780: An Imperial Silver Service Rediscovered, now on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through November 7, 2010, presents a magnificent and rare surviving Imperial silver service, made about 1779-1782 for Duke Albert Casimir of Sachsen-Teschen (1738-1822) and his consort, Habsburg Archduchess Marie Christine of Austria (1742-1798), daughter of Empress Maria Theresa.
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Founded in 1917, the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College is one of the finest college or university collections in the United States, serving as an invaluable educational resource for aspiring art scholars. While the museum is closed in 2010 for renovations, 20 of their masterpieces—19 paintings and one sculpture—are on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art for five months in the special exhibition Side by Side: Oberlin's Masterworks at the Met. These include the great Ter Brugghen painting Saint Sebastian Tended by Irene (one of the most important North Baroque paintings in the U.S.), Cézanne's Viaduct at l'Estaque, Kirchner's Self-Portrait as a Soldier, and a striking Kirchner sculpture. Each of these works is integrated into the Metropolitan Museum's excellent collection, creating new, provocative juxtapositions.
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A new installation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art explores themes of birthday celebrations and long life in Chinese art. Drawn entirely from the Museum's collection and promised gifts, and on view in The Florence and Herbert Irving Galleries for Chinese Decorative Arts, Celebration: The Birthday in Chinese Art showcases more than 50 works—paintings, garments, and decorative art objects—depicting the birthday and longevity themes that were pervasive in China especially during the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties. While the earliest work in the installation is a 13th-century painting, most date from the 16th to 18th centuries. Celebration includes several works never before exhibited, including a monumental 18th-century tapestry (kesi) woven in silk and gold with the character for longevity shou as well as a recently acquired lacquer box with mother-of-pearl inlays capturing a party setting and lively boys at play. The installation will remain on view through August 15, 2010.
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The renowned 15th-century sculptors Jean de la Huerta and Antoine Le Moiturier labored together for more than 25 years on a grand and complex commission: the tomb of John the Fearless (Jean sans Peur, 1371–1419), the second Duke of Burgundy, and his wife, Margaret of Bavaria, which featured 41 alabaster mourning figures, among other elements. Following the precedent of the mourners carved for the tomb of Philip the Bold, the first Duke of Burgundy, de la Huerta and Le Moiturier created astonishingly realistic and highly individualized pleurants (mourners) that serve as a permanent record of the lavish funeral of one of the richest men in medieval France. The figures express a broad range of powerful emotions—from melancholy to desolation—through facial expression, gesture, and the eloquent draping of garments. The renovation of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Dijon, France—where 37 of the statuettes from the tomb of John the Fearless are housed—provides an opportunity for the unprecedented loan of these figures for the exhibition The Mourners: Medieval Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy, opening March 2 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the first venue in an eight-city tour. Three additional figures from the tomb of John the Fearless (now in the collections of the Louvre, the Musée National du Moyen Âge, and the Cleveland Museum of Art) and three from the tomb of Philip the Bold will also be shown, along with an architectural element (Cleveland Museum of Art and Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, respectively). The installation at the Metropolitan will be supplemented by related works from the Museum's collection, including the monumental Enthroned Virgin from the convent at Poligny (established by John the Fearless and Margaret of Bavaria) that was carved by Claus de Werve.
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The Mourners: Medieval Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy
(opening Tuesday, March 2) – an unprecedented loan from the Musée des Beaux Arts in Dijon of 38 dramatic alabaster statuettes, considered among the most sumptuous and innovative of the late Middle Ages.
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In a special presentation at The Cloisters museum and gardens—The Metropolitan Museum of Art's branch devoted to the art and architecture of the Middle Ages—some 30 citizens of Nijmegen (The Netherlands) wearing historically accurate attire based on medieval designs will participate in a lecture demonstration with costume historian Desirée Koslin. The program will take place twice on Sunday, February 28, 2010, at 1:00 p.m. and again at 3:00 p.m., and will focus on 15 different costumes. Although they are of contemporary construction, each unique costume relates to a specific depiction in one of several well-known illuminated manuscripts of the 15th century. Costumes featured in the demonstration will include those that would have been worn by dukes, duchesses, ladies of the court, and merchants, as well as citizens, servants, and peasants. The costumed citizens of Nijmegen will be available for photographs by the public—taken without flash—during the intermission. The event is free with Museum admission.
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A new installation opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on February 6, Mastering the Art of Chinese Painting: Xie Zhiliu (1910-1997) , demonstrates how Chinese artists learned their craft from earlier masterpieces and from nature. It showcases more than 100 works—including paintings, sketches, drawings, calligraphies, and poetry manuscripts—by Xie Zhiliu (pronounced "shay jer leo"), one of modern China's leading artists and connoisseurs. It also marks the centenary of his birth. A number of his sketches and copies will be accompanied by photographs of the works that inspired him and by his own completed works, in order to trace how he developed his unique style. Drawn primarily from a recent gift to the Metropolitan Museum from the artist's daughter Sarah Shay, the works on view comprise the first solo exhibition of Xie Zhiliu's works to be organized outside China.
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A unique window into the lavish French courts of the Valois dukes of Burgundy and Berry will be offered at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this spring with the simultaneous opening, on March 2, of two landmark exhibitions: The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, duc de Berry and The Mourners: Medieval Tomb Sculpture from the Court of Burgundy. The former features the exquisitely illustrated pages of a luxurious prayer book that belonged to Jean de Berry (1340–1416); the latter shows expressive alabaster figures from the tomb of his nephew, John the Fearless (Jean sans Peur, 1371–1419).
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In the 1860s and 1870s, long before the embrace of collage techniques by avant-garde artists of the early 20th century, aristocratic Victorian women were experimenting with photocollage. Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art February 2 – May 9, 2010, is the first exhibition to comprehensively examine this little-known phenomenon. Whimsical and fantastical Victorian photocollages, created using a combination of watercolor drawings and cut-and-pasted photographs, reveal the educated minds as well as accomplished hands of their makers. With subjects as varied as new theories of evolution, the changing role of photography, and the strict conventions of aristocratic society, the photocollages frequently debunked stuffy Victorian clichés with surreal, subversive, and funny images. Featuring 48 works from public and private collections—including many that have rarely or never been exhibited before—Playing with Pictures will provide a fascinating window into the creative possibilities of photography in the 19th century.
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EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Information provided below is subject to change.
To confirm scheduling and dates, call the Communications Department at (212) 570-3951.
CONTACT NUMBER FOR USE IN TEXT IS (212) 535-7710.
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Sounding the Pacific: Musical Instruments of Oceania, the first exhibition devoted to the subject ever mounted by an art museum, will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on November 17. Featuring more than 50 outstanding works—including percussion, wind, and string instruments and forms unique to the Pacific—the exhibition will explore not only the diverse forms of Oceanic musical instruments but also the many different roles they play, or played, in Pacific cultures, from announcing the onset of war, to embodying the voices of supernatural beings or softly enticing a lover. Drawn primarily from the Museum's collection, the exhibition will showcase the objects that were created and used from the early 19th to the late 20th century in all five regions of Oceania: Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia, Australia, and Island Southeast Asia. The works on view include instruments ranging from small flutes and ocarinas used for private entertainment or courtship, to massive slit gongs played in performances for entire communities, in which the thundering beats can carry for miles.