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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 Drawings of Bronzino, the first exhibition ever dedicated to Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572), brings together nearly all of the 61 known drawings by, or attributed to, the great Florentine court artist of the Medici. On view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from January 20 through April 18, 2010, the exhibition features drawings of extraordinary beauty and rarity which are seldom on public view, and draws loans from major museums and private collections within Europe and North America, including the Galleria degli Uffizi, Musée du Louvre, British Museum, Royal Library of Windsor Castle, Ashmolean Museum, Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden, and Staatliche Museen Berlin.
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Romare Bearden's vibrant mural-size tableau The Block (1971) and related sketches and photographs will be featured at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning January 15, 2010, in a small installation of works from the collection. The Block, an ambitious 18-foot-long collage, celebrates the Harlem neighborhood in New York City that nurtured and inspired so much of the artist's life and work. Romare Bearden (1911–1988) is best known for the colorful cut-paper collages that he began making in the 1960s. Elaborate works such as The Block (1971) elevated this genre to a major art form through its unusual materials, expressionist color, abstracted forms, flattened shapes and spaces, and shifts in perspective and scale—all the while maintaining focus on the human narrative being told within a single city block.
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An installation of 14 bold and colorful paintings created by contemporary Aboriginal Australian artists will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on December 15. Drawn from a U. S. private collection, Contemporary Aboriginal Painting from Australia will provide an introduction to Aboriginal painting, which has become Australia's most celebrated contemporary art movement and has attained prominence within the international art world. The installation will present works created primarily over the past decade by artists from the central desert, where the contemporary painting movement began, and from adjoining regions, to which the movement spread. The works on view—all of which have never before been on public display—will feature paintings by prominent artists, including some of the founders of the contemporary movement, as well as emerging figures. This is the first presentation of contemporary Australian Aboriginal painting to be held at the Metropolitan Museum.
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In 1975, The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired, by gift and purchase, more than 400 works of Japanese art from collector Harry G. C. Packard (1914-1991). This daring acquisition instantly transformed the Museum into an institution with one of the finest collections of its kind in the West, comprised of encyclopedic holdings from the Neolithic period through the 19th century.
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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.
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North Italian Drawings, 1410–1550: Selections from the Robert Lehman Collection and the Department of Drawings and Prints, on view from November 3, 2009–January 31, 2010, features 31 exceedingly rare drawings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Robert Lehman Collection, with an additional nine chosen from the Department of Drawings and Prints. The installation showcases a period in Italian art that saw the emergence of drawing as an essential tool for artists and includes a selection of works that illustrate the versatility of the medium over more than a century. Drawings from the later 15th century show how artists used the medium to work out elaborate, multi-figured compositions, and several works from the 16th century reveal the close relationship between drawing and painting.
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Photographs are often perceived as transparent windows onto a three-dimensional world. Yet photographs also have their own material presence as physical objects. Contemporary artists who exploit this apparent contradiction between photograph as window and photograph as object are featured in Surface Tension: Contemporary Photographs from the Collection, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 15, 2009, through May 16, 2010. The exhibition presents 30 works that play with the inherent tension between the flatness of the photograph and the often lifelike illusion of depth.
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Pablo Bronstein at the Met is a presentation of new work by the London-based artist, addressing the history and future of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and will be shown at the Museum from October 6, 2009, through February 21, 2010. Several large ink drawings by the artist will suggest a mythical history of the Metropolitan Museum, imagining the building under construction. A series of computer drawings will focus on hypothetical futures of the Museum. This will be the artist's first solo exhibition in New York.
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The marble sculpture Young Archer, attributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (Caprese 1475- Rome 1564), is now on view in the Vélez Blanco Patio in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The fragmentary marble figure of a nude youth, which is missing arms and lower legs, was retained previously in the Fifth Avenue mansion that has housed the Cultural Services office of the French Embassy for decades. The sculpture is on special loan to the Metropolitan Museum for ten years from the French Republic, Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs.
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From the decade before the Revolution to the eve of World War I, many of America's most acclaimed painters captured in their finest works the temperament of their respective eras. They recorded and defined the emerging character of Americans as individuals, citizens, and members of ever-widening communities. Opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this fall, American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915 will bring together for the first time more than 100 of these iconic pictures that tell compelling stories of life's tasks and pleasures. The first overview of the subject in more than 35 years, the exhibition includes loans from leading museums and private lenders—and many paintings from the Metropolitan's own distinguished collection. American Stories features masterpieces by John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson Peale, William Sidney Mount, George Caleb Bingham, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, John Sloan, and George Bellows, and notable works by some of their key colleagues.
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"What Japan was, she owed to the samurai. They were not only the flower of the nation but its root as well." From Bushido: The Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe (1907)
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The Du Paquier ceramic manufactory, founded by Claudius Innocentius du Paquier in Vienna in 1718, was only the second factory in Europe able to make true porcelain in the manner of the Chinese. This small porcelain enterprise developed a highly distinctive style that remained Baroque in inspiration throughout the history of the factory, which was taken over by the State in 1744. Imperial Privilege: Vienna Porcelain of Du Paquier, 1718–44, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through March 21, 2010, charts the history of the development of the Du Paquier factory, setting its production within the historic and cultural context of Vienna in the first half of the 18th century. The exhibition features more than 100 works, half drawn from the Metropolitan Museum's superb collection, and half from the premier private collection of this material.
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The first comprehensive exhibition of Luo Ping's paintings ever presented in America, Eccentric Visions: The Worlds of Luo Ping (1733-1799) will bring together nearly 60 works, including many Chinese "National Treasures," by one of the most celebrated painters in 18th-century China. Complemented by 27 pieces from American collections, this momentous international-loan exhibition will reveal the range and brilliance of the artist's vision as well as his place among his peers. Highlights of the exhibition will include the sensational handscroll Ghost Amusements (ca. 1766)—one of the best known paintings in the late imperial China—depicting the world of ghosts that, he claimed, he had seen with his own eyes. The youngest of the so-called "Eight Eccentrics," a group of highly individualistic artists active in the prosperous metropolis of Yanzhou, Luo Ping was an extraordinary artist, whose works influenced the course of later Chinese painting.
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Velázquez Rediscovered, a special exhibition on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art until February 7, 2010, features a newly identified painting by Velázquez, Portrait of a Man, formerly ascribed by the Museum to the workshop of Velázquez and recently reattributed to the master himself following its cleaning and restoration. It will be shown alongside other works from the Museum's superior collection of works by the great Spanish painter.
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Although lacquer is used in many Asian cultures, the art of carving lacquer is unique to China. Showcasing some 50 wondrously wrought examples, Cinnabar: The Chinese Art of Carved Lacquer, opening on August 6, will explore the development of this important artistic tradition from the 13th to the 18th century. Drawn from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's holdings as well as the collection of Florence and Herbert Irving, the installation will feature a number of masterworks, including newly acquired, rare 13th-century lacquer boxes for holding incense or cosmetics, and a recently restored eight-panel screen depicting a birthday celebration in an elaborate private compound. Dated 1773, this screen has never before been exhibited in public.
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New York, July 10, 2008)—After 15 years as Senior Consultant for modern and contemporary art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Nan Rosenthal will retire on July 1, it was announced today by Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Curator in Charge of the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art at the Metropolitan.
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Arts of Korea Gallery
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Nearly a dozen examples of early Jewish art—dating from the first through the seventh century C.E.—are on view in the south gallery of the Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries for Byzantine art and the Medieval Europe Gallery. Works on loan from the Jewish Theological Seminary, The American Numismatic Society, and the Judy and Michael Steinhardt Collection, New York, are shown alongside objects from the holdings of the Metropolitan.
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Monumental Tapestry is Highlight of Multi-Year Project at Met's Northern Manhattan Branch
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The Christmas tree and Neapolitan Baroque crèche at The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, a long-established yuletide tradition in New York, will be on view for the
holiday season from November 24, 2009, through January 6, 2010. The brightly lit,
20-foot blue spruce – with a collection of 18th-century Neapolitan angels and
cherubs among its boughs and groups of realistic crèche figures flanking the
Nativity scene at its base – will once again delight holiday visitors in the Museum’s
Medieval Sculpture Hall. Set in front of the 18th-century Spanish choir screen
from the Cathedral of Valladolid, with recorded Christmas music in the
background and daily lighting ceremonies, the installation reflects the spirit of the
holiday season.
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Vermeer's Masterpiece "The Milkmaid"
On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's historic voyage from the Netherlands to New York, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has sent The Milkmaid, perhaps the most admired painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), to the Metropolitan Museum. The exhibition marks the first time that The Milkmaid has traveled to the U.S. since 1939, and also features all five paintings by Vermeer from the Metropolitan's collection and works by other Dutch masters.
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メトロポリタン美術館では１０月２１日より>侍の芸術：日本の武器、武具、1156-1868 展を開催します。この展覧会は日本全国６０以上のパブリック、プライベート・コレクションから選りすぐった名品が一堂に会する一大イベントで、日本の刀剣・甲冑を中心に侍の芸術を総括的、且つ詳細に紹介します。展示作品は国宝34点、重要文化財64点、重要美術品6点、名物９点を含む、甲冑、刀剣、日本刀の鍔・拵え（こしらえ）、弓矢、馬具、旗、陣羽織、大名の装飾品、また侍を描いた屏風、絵巻物等合計214点で、この中には日本国外で初公開となる作品も多数含まれており、武家文化の真髄を刀剣・甲冑戦具等芸術を通して見せるユニークな展覧会となります。刀剣・甲冑を中心に侍芸術を総括的にみせる展覧会はこれが世界最初で最大規模のもので、展示作品には日本刀の最高傑作として知られる名刀、大包平（１２世紀）や、三日月の前立て付き兜が圧倒的な存在感を放つ伊達政宗の鎧（１６－１７世紀）他、信長、秀吉、家康等日本を代表する武将ゆかりの品々がメトロポリタンの特別展ギャラリーに並びます。期間中12月の第1週に約60作品の展示替えが行われる予定です。
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The 50th anniversary of the publication of The Americans, Robert Frank's ground-breaking book of black-and-white photographs, will be celebrated with the major exhibition Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art September 22, 2009–January 3, 2010. Robert Frank is one of the great living masters of photography, and his seminal book The Americans captured a culture on the brink of social upheaval. The exhibition traces the artist's process of creating this once-controversial suite of photographs, which grew out of several cross-country road trips in 1955 and 1956. Born in Switzerland in 1924, Frank was an outsider encountering much of America for the first time; he discovered its power, its vastness, and—at times—its troubling emptiness. Although Frank's depiction of American life was criticized when the book was released in the U.S. in 1959, The Americans soon became recognized as a masterpiece of 20th-century art. Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans features all 83 photographs from his original book. Remarkably, the exhibition at the Metropolitan will be the first time that this body of work is presented in its entirety to a New York audience.
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Watteau, Music, and Theater, the first exhibition of paintings by the great early 18th–century French painter and draftsman Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) in the United States in 25 years, is currently on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through November 29. The exhibition explores the place of music and theater in the work of the artist, comparing the imagery of power associated with the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV, with a more optimistic and mildly subversive imagery of pleasure developed in contemporary opera-ballet and theater. Showing that the painter's utopian vision was influenced directly by these sister arts, it sheds light on a number of Watteau's pictures.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present an exhibition celebrating the musical heritage of China – one of the oldest continuously documented traditions with roots reaching back more than 8,000 years – beginning September 5. Featuring some 60 objects and illustrations – drawn largely from the Museum's collections of Asian art and musical instruments – Silk and Bamboo: Music and Art of China will reveal the dynamic interplay of cultures, the continuity of musical practice, and the diversity of China's musical traditions from the fifth century B.C. to the present.
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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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Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907) was a French-Irish immigrant who became the greatest American sculptor of his day. From humble roots, through his prodigious talent, he rose in society, eventually counting some of America's most influential people in art and literature, diplomacy and economics, technology, and social policy among his friends and clients. The collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art contains nearly four dozen works by the accomplished artist, representing the entire range of his oeuvre, from early cameos to innovative bas-reliefs to character-penetrating portrait busts and statuettes derived from his public monuments. These unparalleled holdings will be supplemented with loans from private collections and public institutions in the exhibition Augustus Saint-Gaudens in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The presentation will address the artist's groundbreaking position in the history of late-19th-century American sculpture, his role in advancing American art on the international stage, and the long history of presenting and collecting his work at the Metropolitan Museum.
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An impressive group of Japanese mandalas—graphic depictions of the Buddhist universe and its myriad realms and deities—are featured in an exhibition on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through November 29. Showcasing more than 60 magnificent works—painting, sculpture, drawing, metalwork, stoneware, textile, and lacquer—drawn from major museums and collections in the United States, Japanese Mandalas: Emanations and Avatars illustrates the exceptional and complex world of Esoteric Buddhist art in Japan. Highlights of the exhibition include a set of monumental 13th-century mandalas on loan from the Brooklyn Museum—this pair was selected by the Japanese government to be conserved in Japan. Displayed in tandem with iconographic drawings that explain the character and placement of the deities, the mandalas introduce viewers to the supreme Buddha Dainichi Nyorai, the principal buddha of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, and his innumerable emanations and avatars across the Buddhist cosmos.
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The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion, the spring 2009 exhibition organized by
The Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, explores the
reciprocal relationship between high fashion and evolving ideals of beauty,
focusing on iconic fashion models in the latter half of the 20th century and their
roles in projecting, and sometimes inspiring, the fashion of their respective eras.
The exhibition is on view at the Metropolitan from May 6 through August 9,
2009.
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With strokes of genius, artists in the Middle Ages explored the medium of drawing, creating a rich panoply of works ranging from spontaneous sketches to powerful evocations of spirituality and intriguing images of science and the natural world. Opening June 2 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages is the first museum exhibition to examine in depth the achievements of the medieval draftsman. Through some 50 examples created in settings as diverse as a ninth-century monastery and the 14th-century French court, the presentation considers the aesthetics, uses, and techniques of medieval drawings, mastered by artists working centuries before the dawn of the Renaissance. Works from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum are displayed along with important loans from American and European museums, and the great national, university, and monastic libraries of Europe. Many of these manuscripts are so highly prized that they have never before been lent outside of their home countries.
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Michelangelo's First Painting, a special exhibition beginning June 16 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, presents The Torment of Saint Anthony, the first known painting by Michelangelo Buonarroti (Florence 1475- Rome 1564), believed to have been created when he was 12 or 13 years old. Recently acquired by the Kimbell Art Museum, the painting has undergone conservation and technical examination at the Metropolitan Museum. Michelangelo's First Painting will run through September 7, after which the panel will return to the Kimbell Art Museum for display as part of its permanent collection.
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During the reign of Emperor Napoleon III, the narrow streets and medieval buildings of Paris gave way to the broad boulevards and grand public works that still define the urban landscape of the French capital. Napoleon III and Paris, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from June 9 through September 7, 2009, portrays the quickly changing cityscape of Second Empire Paris through a presentation of 40 photographs and 13 works in other media, all drawn from the permanent collection. Spanning the period from 1851 to 1871, the installation begins with a photographic introduction to Napoleon III and his family, then traces the radical transformation of the city under the emperor and his master urban planner Baron Haussmann, and concludes with depictions of the ruins of Paris in the aftermath of the Commune. Many of the works in the installation are by the preeminent photographers of the period, including Gustave Le Gray, Charles Marville, Edouard Baldus, Louis-Émile Durandelle, Alphonse Liébert, and Pierre-Ambrose Richebourg.
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When The Charles Engelhard Court—the grand, light-filled pavilion that has long served as the formal entrance to The Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Wing—reopens this spring after two years of construction and renovation, the Museum's unparalleled collections of American ceramics, sculpture, stained glass, architectural elements, silver, pewter, glass, and jewelry will finally be seen in all their glory. So, too, will its early American rooms—12 of the Met's historic interiors, mostly from the colonial period, located on three floors of the wing's historic core—that have been reordered, renovated, and reinterpreted. The popular American Wing Café will also reopen in its previous location on the park side of the court. The opening of the galleries marks the completion of the second part (begun in May 2007) of a project to reconfigure, renovate, or upgrade nearly every section of The American Wing by 2011.
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Conceptual artist Roxy Paine (American, b. 1966) has created a site-specific installation for the 2009 season of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, the most dramatic outdoor space for sculpture in New York City. Roxy Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom features a 130-foot-long by 45-foot-wide stainless-steel sculpture, Maelstrom (2009), that encompasses the nearly 8,000-square-foot Roof Garden, and is the largest sculpture to have been installed on the roof of the Metropolitan. Set against, and in dialogue with, the greensward of Central Park and its architectural backdrop, this swirling entanglement of stainless- steel pipe showcases the work of an artist keenly interested in the interplay between the natural world and the built environment, as well as the human desire for order amid nature's inherently chaotic processes.
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Ancient Afghanistan—located at the crossroads of major trade routes, where it attracted invading armies and nomadic migrations—was home to some of the most complex, rich, and original civilizations on the continent of Asia. Opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this summer, the traveling exhibition Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul, celebrates the country's unique role, as both the recipient of diverse cultural elements and the creator of distinctive styles of art from the Bronze Age into the Kushan period. The presentation also commemorates the heroic rescue of Afghanistan's national treasures long thought to have been destroyed. The exhibition features a rich selection of artworks from four archaeological sites. All works belong to the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul. Highlights include gold vessels from the Bronze Age Tepe Fullol hoard; superb works and architectural elements from the Hellenistic city of Aï Khanum; sculptural masterpieces in ivory, plaster medallions, bronzes, and Roman glass from Begram; and extraordinary turquoise-encrusted gold jewelry and ornaments from the nomadic tombs at Tillya Tepe.
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Beginning in the 16th century, a tradition of bronze sculpture developed in France that was influenced by achievements of the Italian Renaissance, while manifesting its own distinct refinement and force. Even though French bronzes were among the glories of royal châteaux, including Versailles, and were collected eagerly by connoisseurs, they have received relatively little scrutiny from scholars. Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, brings together a large number of spectacular bronzes and is the first exhibition to address this subject in 40 years.
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Liza Lou's recent work Continuous Mile, an ambitious and engaging large-scale sculpture made of gleaming white beads, went on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on January 23, 2009. The work is a two-year loan from the artist and is on display on the second floor of the Museum's Lila Acheson Wallace Wing for modern and contemporary art.
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The first major New York exhibition in 20 years devoted to Francis Bacon (British, 1909–1992)—one of the most important painters of the 20th century—will be presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from May 20 through August 16, 2009. Marking the 100th anniversary of the artist's birth, Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective will bring together the most significant works from each period of the artist's remarkable career. Drawn from public and private collections around the world, this landmark exhibition will consist of some 65 paintings, complemented by never-before-seen works and archival material from the Francis Bacon Estate, which will shed new light on the artist's career and working practices. The Metropolitan Museum is the sole U.S. venue of the exhibition tour.
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(New York—April 23, 2009) The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today a new endowment fund and promised gift of artwork in memory of the great American street photographer Helen Levitt, who died on March 29, 2009, at the age of 95. The Helen Levitt Memorial Fund has been established through a generous planned gift of the artist's sister-in-law, Mrs. Robert O. Levitt, and will support the Museum's acquisition of photographs by Helen Levitt and other mid-20th-century American photographers working in her tradition. Mrs. Robert O. Levitt has also made a promised gift to the Metropolitan Museum of 12 of the artist's photographs.
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The first major museum exhibition to focus on the highly influential group of New York artists known as the "Pictures Generation" will be presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from April 21 through August 2, 2009. The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984 will trace the development of one of the most important art movements of the last quarter of the 20th century, which included some of the key figures in contemporary art: Robert Longo, Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, Sherrie Levine, David Salle, Matt Mullican, Jack Goldstein, James Welling, and Troy Brauntuch. The "Pictures Generation" worked in all mediums—photography chief among them—to explore how images shape our perceptions of ourselves and the world. Drawing from the Museum's collection as well as from public and private collections, the exhibition will feature more than 160 works by 30 artists, including photographic works by Barbara Kruger, Laurie Simmons, James Casebere, Allan McCollum, Sarah Charlesworth, and Louise Lawler, and film and video by Ericka Beckman, Michael Smith, and Dara Birnbaum. The exhibition will also examine the pivotal roles played by lesser-known artists such as Paul McMahon and Michael Zwack.
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The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from April 21 through August 2, 2009, will include performances, videos, and music by several contemporary New York artists, as well as related film screenings and audio features. This is the first major museum exhibition to focus exclusively on the highly influential group of artists known as the "Pictures Generation." Working most often in photography, but also in painting, sculpture, performance, film, video, and audio, this tightly knit group of artists explored how images shape our perceptions of ourselves and the world. Featured are 160 works by 30 artists, including Jack Goldstein, Robert Longo, Troy Brauntuch, Sherrie Levine, Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, David Salle, Matt Mullican, Louise Lawler, and Dara Birnbaum, among others. As part of the exhibition, three large-scale drawings by Robert Longo will also be presented in the Great Hall.
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An exhibition featuring exceptional works of African and Oceanic sculpture selected from the extensive holdings of the Barbier-Mueller Museum in Geneva, one of Europe's preeminent private collections of non-Western art, will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on June 2. Presenting more than 35 works—most never before seen in the United States—African and Oceanic Art from The Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva: A Legacy of Collecting will explore the wide spectrum of artistic creativity from two distinct regional traditions that have profoundly influenced world art.
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Applications must be received by Friday, April 24, from all media outlets wishing to be considered for accreditation to cover red-carpet arrivals at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute Gala Benefit, which will be held on the evening of Monday, May 4, 2009, to inaugurate the exhibition The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion.
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The early Joseon period, a time of extraordinary artistic achievements in Korea, will be explored in a loan exhibition opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in March 2009. Showcasing approximately 47 spectacular works—painting, ceramics, metalwork, and lacquer—Art of the Korean Renaissance, 1400-1600 will illustrate the lively and nuanced story of the formidable cultural renaissance that flourished during these two centuries. Drawn from major museums and collections in Korea, Japan, Germany, and the United States—including the National Museum of Korea; Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art; Kyushu National Museum of Japan; Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka; Museums of East Asian Art, Cologne; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Cleveland Museum of Art; Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation; and the Florence and Herbert Irving Collection—the exhibition will also include the Metropolitan's recently acquired mid-16th-century hanging scroll, Gathering of Government-officials. The presentation will launch a series of focused exhibitions on important periods in Korean art history, to be held at the Museum over the next 10 to 15 years.
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Drawn entirely from the extensive resources of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Arts of the Ming Dynasty: China's Age of Brilliance will present a grand array of artworks created during one of the most celebrated dynasties in Chinese history. Featuring 70 paintings and calligraphies, including masterpieces by Wang Fu (1362-1416), Xia Chang (1388-1470), Wen Zhengming (1470–1559), Dong Qichang (1555–1636), and Chen Hongshou (1599–1652), the exhibition will examine various artistic trends as well as the distinctive personal expressions of many of the leading artists of the time. The works will be complemented by more than 30 ceramics, textiles, lacquers, cloisonnés, jades, and bamboo carvings that will showcase the material prosperity experienced during the period.
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(New York—January 13, 2009) The Metropolitan Museum of Art has accepted the promised gift of 250 exceptional examples of American art pottery from the collector Robert A. Ellison Jr., it was announced at a meeting of the Museum's Board of Trustees today. The collection—which spans the years 1876 through 1956 and represents all regions of the nation—ranks among the foremost of its kind, and will be unveiled on the mezzanine level of the Museum's Charles Engelhard Court when the second phase of the newly renovated American Wing opens on May 19, 2009.
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The first exhibition to focus entirely on the radiant late interiors and still-life paintings of Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) will open January 27, 2009, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Pierre Bonnard: The Late Interiors features 80 paintings, drawings, and watercolors that date from 1923 to 1947, when Bonnard centered his painting activity in Le Cannet, a hill town in the south of France. Working in his modest house overlooking the Mediterranean, Bonnard's paintings transformed the rooms and objects that surrounded him into dazzling images infused with intense light. It is these luminous late interiors that define Bonnard's modernism and prompt a reappraisal of his reputation in the history of 20th-century art. Among the 45 paintings, 16 watercolors and gouaches, and 19 drawings and sketches in the exhibition are numerous rarely seen works from private collections, as well as loans from prominent museums in Europe and the U.S. The exhibition will also reunite several pictures that once hung side-by-side on Bonnard's studio wall in Le Cannet.
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Raphael to Renoir: Drawings from the Collection of Jean Bonna is the first comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the European Old Master and 19th-century drawings from this distinguished Swiss collection. On view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning January 21, 2009, Raphael to Renoir provides a rare opportunity to see 120 master drawings, ranging across 500 years of the history of art, from the Renaissance to 1900. Representing a range of artistic schools, the selection includes works by famous artists—such as Carpaccio, Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, Parmigianino, Canaletto, Rembrandt, Claude Lorrain, Watteau, Chardin, Boucher, Fragonard, Goya, Ingres, Gericault, Delacroix, Manet, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Degas, Cézanne, Redon, Renoir, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Seurat—as well as superb and poignant drawings by lesser-known artists.
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Nine thousand picture postcards amassed by American photographer Walker Evans (1903–1975) are among the fascinating works in The Walker Evans Archive, acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1994. Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard, to be presented at the Museum from February 3 through May 25, 2009, will be a dynamic installation of hundreds of these postcards from Evans's collection, which he built and refined over the course of 60 years. The direct influence of the postcard on his pictorial style will be demonstrated with the inclusion of a small group of Evans's own photographs, also from the Museum's collection.
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Never-before-seen paintings and works on paper by London-based artist Raqib Shaw (Indian, born 1974) will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from November 4, 2008, through March 8, 2009.
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On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's historic voyage from the Netherlands to New York, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has sent The Milkmaid, perhaps the most admired painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer (1632—1675), to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. To celebrate this extraordinary loan, the Metropolitan Museum presents Vermeer's Masterpiece The Milkmaid, a special exhibition beginning September 10, which also includes all five paintings by Vermeer from its collection, as well as a select group of works by other Dutch artists, placing Vermeer's superb picture in its historical context. The exhibition marks the first time that the painting has traveled to the United States since it was exhibited at the 1939 World's Fair.
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Beginning around four thousand years ago in the lands of western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean, one of the first international ages in human history emerged. Intense exchange fostered a burst of creativity in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, the Levant, and the Aegean in the second millennium B.C.—the time of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. The quest for raw materials such as metals, semiprecious stones, and other exotic luxury goods led to contacts with the Iranian plateau and Central Asia. Within this lively sphere of interaction, societies that otherwise differed strongly in culture and language were linked by the exchange of objects and ideas. In response, new international styles and imagery arose, reflected in the art, trade and diplomacy that connected the Mesopotamian heartland with the regions "Beyond Babylon."
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Africa's extraordinary legacy of textile arts, with its explosive color and complex graphic statements, will be presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning September 30. Bringing together more than 40 works dating from the early 19th century to the present – including a spectacular silk and cotton kente prestige cloth woven in Ghana during the 19th century and a 30-foot-long installation work by contemporary artist Yinka Shonibare – The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End will highlight the enduring significance of textiles as a major form of aesthetic expression across the continent. While examining some of the finest and earliest preserved examples of different regional textile traditions, the exhibition will relate these to works by eight contemporary artists, who draw inspiration from textiles in their explorations of other media ranging from sculpture, painting, and photography to video and installation art. Works selected for the exhibition are drawn primarily from the collections of the Metropolitan and the British Museum as well as several private collections in the U.S. and Europe.
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American-born artist Alexander Calder (1898–1976) is celebrated for his mobiles, stabiles, paintings, and objets d'art. The landmark exhibition Calder Jewelry—to be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from December 9, 2008, through March 1, 2009—is the first museum presentation dedicated solely to his extensive output of inventive jewelry. During his lifetime, Calder produced approximately 1,800 unique pieces of brass, silver, and gold body ornaments, often embellished with found objects such as beach glass, ceramic shards, and wood. Calder Jewelry will feature approximately 90 works—necklaces, bracelets, earrings, brooches, and tiaras—many of which were made as personal gifts for the artist's family and friends.
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"It is unbelievable how much is spent on these new weddings…."
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"Nothing is more abstract than reality."
-Giorgio Morandi, 1955
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"We mingle our praises with those of God's angels, whom we cannot hear."
Cassiodorus (sixth-century Roman scholar and monk)
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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 Christmas tree and Neapolitan Baroque crèche at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a long-established yuletide tradition in New York, will be on view for the holiday season from November 25, 2008 through January 6, 2009. The brightly lit, 20-foot blue spruce – with a collection of 18th-century Neapolitan angels and cherubs among its boughs and groups of realistic crèche figures flanking the Nativity scene at its base – will once again delight holiday visitors in the Museum's Medieval Sculpture Hall. Set in front of the 18th-century Spanish choir screen from the Cathedral of Valladolid, with recorded Christmas music in the background and daily lighting ceremonies, the installation reflects the spirit of the holiday season.
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Some 900 outstanding examples of medieval art created between the fourth and 14th centuries return to view this fall in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's newly expanded Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries for Byzantine Art and new Gallery for Western European Art from 1050 to 1300. The new galleries incorporate the recently acquired "Jaharis Byzantine Lectionary"—an important, rare, and beautifully ornamented liturgical manuscript from about 1100—in an apse-like space, while the former Medieval Tapestry Hall has been transformed into a grand space for the presentation of western European art from the early Middle Ages.
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More than any other type of picture, photographs seem to have a direct and natural connection to visible reality. Reality Check: Truth and Illusion in Contemporary Photography surveys the ways in which artists exploit illusionism in photography to blur the distinction between what is real and what is not. Among the works featured are photographs of staged scenarios and constructed environments that appear to be real, as well as real scenes or landscapes that appear strangely artificial. On view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from November 4, 2008, through March 22, 2009, Reality Check is the third installation in the Joyce and Robert Menschel Hall for Modern Photography, the Museum's new gallery for contemporary photographs.
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To celebrate Philippe de Montebello's 31 years as Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the curators of the Museum have organized an exhibition of approximately 300 of the more than 84,000 works of art acquired during his tenure. This unique project – The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions, which will be on view in The Tisch Galleries from October 24, 2008, through February 1, 2009 – is a collaboration of the curators currently working in the Museum's 17 curatorial departments. Special emphasis will be placed on works that were transformative to the Metropolitan Museum's collections by building on existing strengths and expanding into new areas of collecting. Mr. de Montebello – the eighth and longest-serving Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art – announced in January his plans to retire at the end of the year.
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Sixteen photographs by contemporary artist Shigeyuki Kihara (b. 1975, Samoa) will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning October 7. This marks the first presentation of Samoan contemporary art at the Museum. Shigeyuki Kihara: Living Photographs explores themes of Pacific culture, identity, colonialism, indigenous spirituality, stereotypes, gender roles, and consumerism. Works on view include a hauntingly beautiful picture from the artist's 2004 Vavau series called Taema ma Tilafaiga: Goddess of Tatau, depicting Samoan goddesses chanting about the art of tattooing, as well as a highly praised work titled Fa'a fafine: In a Manner of a Woman, Triptych 1-3, a sequence of photographs, in which the artist re-create and addresses a Samoan portrait genre, in which women were posed as reclining "South Seas Belles." All works on view were printed this year by the artist in Auckland, New Zealand, except two from the Metropolitan's own collection. Complementing the exhibition will be a performance by the artist, Taualuga: The Last Dance, in the Museum's Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium on October 19.
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中國十七世紀下半最著名的藝術家王翬的繪畫九月九日開始，將在大都會博物館展出。《山水清暉：王翬（1632-1717）藝術展》闡述王翬的藝術發展歷程，從早年對傳統山水畫風的精湛詮釋，至1689年獲選繪製康熙皇帝南巡中國文化區行程，事業臻於巔峰爲止。展出的二十七幅畫來自臺北、北京、上海、和北美洲的幾個公私收藏，其中十一件作品—包括兩件山水長卷巨幅—從來沒有在西方展出過。配合王翬作品展出的，還有精選的早期山水畫，大都來自大都會博物館的館藏，以彰顯王翬藝術的淵源。
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Rhythms of Modern Life: British Prints 1914-1939, the first major exhibition in the United States to examine the impact of modern artistic movements – especially Italian Futurism – on British printmaking from the outbreak of World War I to the beginning of World War II, will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning September 23, 2008. Featuring the work of 14 artists, Rhythms of Modern Life will showcase more than 100 prime examples of graphic works that celebrate the vitality and dynamism of modern life.
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In the late 1930s, Rudy Burckhardt—then a recent émigré to America from Switzerland—photographed his adopted hometown of New York City, and immediately made some of the most lyrical, witty, and poetic images of the city ever created. New York, N. Why?: Photographs by Rudy Burckhardt, 1937–1940, opening September 23 at the Metropolitan Museum, will present in its entirety Burckhardt's unique, handmade album of 67 classic images of sidewalks, outdoor advertising, and pedestrians, selected and sequenced by Burckhardt in 1940 and acquired by the Museum in 1972.
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Thirteen works by seven contemporary African-American artists – Chakaia Booker, Willie Cole, Glenn Ligon, Whitfield Lovell, Alison Saar, Lorna Simpson, and Kara Walker – are featured at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Provocative Visions: Race and Identity – Selections from the Permanent Collection. The installation, which opened August 19, examines the ways these artists challenge accepted perceptions and assumptions about race, gender, and identity. Cultural heritage and personal history provide a context for these images. All of the sculptures, prints, and drawings were acquired during the past 13 years, within a year or two of their creation – supported in large part by gifts from the Peter Norton Family Foundation and the Hortense and William A. Mohr Sculpture Purchase Fund. Most works are on display at the Metropolitan Museum for the first time.
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The porcelain factories of Berlin, Sèvres, and Vienna achieved a remarkable level of artistic and technical skill in the first half of the 19th century, and the quality of painted decoration practiced at these three factories at this time has never been surpassed. Approximately 75 extraordinary examples from these three European porcelain manufactories will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning September 16, 2008, in the exhibition Royal Porcelain from the Twinight Collection, 1800-1850. The exhibition will illustrate the exchange of ideas and styles among the factories that resulted in some of the most splendid porcelain ever produced.
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The paintings of Wang Hui, the most celebrated artist of late 17th-century China, will be featured in an exhibition opening on September 9 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Landscapes Clear and Radiant: The Art of Wang Hui (1632-1717) will trace Wang's artistic development – from his early years as a brilliant reinterpreter of classic landscape styles to the pinnacle of his career, when he was chosen to illustrate the Kangxi Emperor's epic 1689 inspection tour of China's cultural heartland – through 27 paintings drawn from the Taipei and Beijing Palace Museums, Shanghai Museum, and several North American collections. The presentation of Wang Hui's career will incorporate 11 works that have never before been exhibited in the West, including two enormous panoramic landscape handscrolls. Wang's paintings will be complemented by a selection of earlier landscapes, drawn largely from the Metropolitan Museum's holdings, that will highlight the sources of Wang Hui's inspiration.
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An installation of 30 palm-leaf folios from Indian illuminated manuscripts will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on July 29, 2008. Featuring some of the earliest surviving Indian manuscripts, dating from the 10th to the 13th century, Early Buddhist Manuscript Painting: The Palm-leaf Tradition will center on one remarkable Mahayanist Buddhist text, the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita Sutra ('Perfection of Wisdom'), illustrated through the Museum's rare holdings of eastern Indian and Nepalese illuminated palm-leaf manuscripts, book-covers, initiation cards, thankas, and sculptures.
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The Italian term pietre dure – literally meaning "hard stones" – refers to the artistic cutting of semiprecious stones, such as agate, lapis lazuli, and other colorful hardstones, to fashion extravagant luxury objects, from architectural ornament and furniture to ornate display items and personal jewelry. Opening July 1 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the landmark exhibition Art of the Royal Court: Treasures in Pietre Dure from the Palaces of Europe will feature more than 170 masterpieces in carved stone, many of them embellished with gold and silver mounts or decorated with exotic woods and other coveted materials. From the Renaissance to the early 19th century, the affluent societies of Europe were mesmerized by works in pietre dure, both as diplomatic gifts and as objects of desire. The presentation at the Metropolitan will offer the most comprehensive overview ever dedicated to this magnificent medium.
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The first major retrospective of the work of celebrated British artist J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) to be presented in the United States in more than 40 years will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning July 1, 2008. The exhibition J. M. W. Turner will represent the artist's extensive iconographic range, from seascapes and topographical views to historical subjects and scenes from his imagination. More than half of the approximately 140 paintings and watercolors on view will be on loan from Tate Britain, which houses the Turner Bequest, the most comprehensive collection of the artist's work in the world. These will be complemented by works from other collections in Europe and North America.
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A new installation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art – Krishna: Mythology and Worship – celebrates the Hindu god Krishna, perhaps the most popular of all the appearances (avatars) of the Indian Hindu deity Vishnu. The installation of 23 painting, textiles, and sculptures from the Museum's collection will be on view in the Museum's Florence and Herbert Irving Galleries for the Arts of South and Southeast Asia through July 28, 2008. Most of the paintings on display are manuscript pages produced in Rajasthan and the Punjab Hills, illustrating popular events from Krishna's life. The textiles were employed to enhance shrines devoted to Krishna.
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Landscape painting in America reached its high point in the mid-19th century, peaking around the time of the Civil War. Nine important American landscape paintings, ranging in date from 1836 to about 1897, will be on view beginning May 20, 2008, in the Museum's Robert Lehman Wing, while The Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Paintings and Sculpture Galleries undergo renovation. The paintings will return to view in the American Wing when its galleries reopen in winter 2010-11.
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AsAs superheroes enjoy a surge in mass popularity, The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art explores the symbolic and metaphorical associations between these fictional characters and fashion in Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy, an exhibition at the Museum from May 7 through September 1, 2008. The exhibition features approximately 60 ensembles including movie costumes, avant-garde haute couture, and high-performance sportswear to reveal how the superhero serves as the ultimate metaphor for fashion and its ability to empower and transform the human body.
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The Victoria and Albert Museum in London holds one of the world's finest collections of European decorative arts. Thirty-five of its masterpieces will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning May 20, 2008, in the exhibition Medieval and Renaissance Treasures from the Victoria and Albert Museum, while the V&A prepares a new suite of galleries for its collection. Dating from 300 to 1600, the exhibition will include superb examples of sculpture, metalwork, ceramics, and glass that are rarely lent. Most have never been on view in New York.
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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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Framing a Century: Master Photographers, 1840-1940 tells the story of photography's first 100 years through the work of 13 key figures who helped shape the aesthetic and expressive course of the medium: Gustave Le Gray, Roger Fenton, Carleton Watkins, William Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Nadar, Edouard Baldus, Charles Marville, Eugène Atget, Walker Evans, Man Ray, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Brassaï. Opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on June 3, 2008, the exhibition will present 10 to 12 iconic works by each of these influential artists, to convey a broad sense of their contributions to photography. Many of the works displayed in Framing a Century are drawn from the acclaimed Gilman Paper Company Collection, which was acquired by the Museum in 2005.
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Opening May 6, 2008, this installation showcases many of the most significant works in the Metropolitan Museum's modern design collection. The major design movements are represented through works created by some of the most renowned designers of the 20th century.
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Sculptures by Jeff Koons (b. 1955) – an American artist known internationally for his controversial and intriguing contributions to contemporary art – comprise The Metropolitan Museum of Art's 2008 installation on The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, opening April 22. The installation will feature three large-scale and brilliantly colored works: Balloon Dog (Yellow) of 1994-2000, Coloring Book of 1997-2005, and Sacred Heart (Red/Gold) of 1994-2007 – all made of high chromium stainless steel with transparent color coating. These sculptures have never before been on public display. They will be situated in the 10,000-square-foot open-air space that offers spectacular views of Central Park and the New York City skyline. Jeff Koons on the Roof will be the 11th consecutive single-artist installation on the Cantor Roof Garden.
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An unprecedented exhibition of luxury items from ancient Peru, embellished with brilliantly colored feathers of Amazonian rainforest birds, went on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on February 26. Bringing together more than 70 works from public and private collections in the United States and the Metropolitan's own holdings – many of which have never been displayed before – Radiance from the Rain Forest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru explores the more than 2,000-year-old tradition of sophisticated feather-working that prospered in ancient Peru.
The exhibition was made possible by the Friends of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.
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Photography on Photography: Reflections on the Medium since 1960, on view from April 8 through October 19, 2008, is the second exhibition in the Museum's new gallery for contemporary photographs. Photography on Photography presents four decades of photographs by artists in the permanent collection who have made photography itself their subject and taken aim at its claims of objectivity and its ubiquity in modern life. Featured in the exhibition are works by Vito Acconci, William Anastasi, Lutz Bacher, Liz Deschenes, Roe Ethridge, Robert Heinecken, Sherrie Levine, Robert Mapplethorpe, Richard Prince, Thomas Ruff, Allen Ruppersberg, Karin Sander, Hiroshi Sugimoto, and Andy Warhol, as well as recently acquired photographs by Moyra Davey, Kota Ezawa, Janice Guy, Josephine Pryde, James Welling, Christopher Williams, and Mark Wyse.
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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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Order and disorder, reason and emotion, restraint and excess — opposing impulses such as these have influenced design since the beginning of civilization. Classic/Fantastic: Selections from the Modern Design Collection, opening December 21 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, juxtaposes these divergent approaches, presenting an Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy of design philosophies in the modern era. Of the approximately 75 works in a wide range of media — including furniture, metalwork, ceramics, glass, textiles, and drawings — half will be devoted to designs rooted in the centuries-old vocabulary of classicism, updated yet still linked to the rules and traditions of the past, and the other half to romantic and surreal subjects of fantasy, drawn from the realm of pure imagination. A number of works from the Metropolitan Museum's collection will be exhibited for the first time, including tables by Costa Achillopoulo and John Dickinson, a Dutch Rozenburg ceramic covered vase (ca. 1900-14), a Danish lamp by Sigfrid Wagner (1905), a Dale Chihuly Venetian series glass vase (1989), and flatware designed by the American Marion Weeber (1965-70).
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中國人有句話說：“一圖勝千言”。有鑒于此，將於2008年三月一日在大都會博物館開幕的特展 “書畫名品的奧妙：如何解讀中國畫” 對中國書畫進行圖像分析，將原作與放大的細部照片並列，以顯示每件作品的奧妙之處。展出的大都會博物館收藏的書畫共有三十六件，有時一個展廳只針對兩三件作品，透過精彩的細部放大，使觀衆了解其風格、構圖、或内容。作品的年代跨越八世紀到十七世紀的一千年，題材包括人物、山水、花鳥、和宗教畫，是大都會館藏中的精華。
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A Chinese saying summarizes the dichotomy between image and text this way:
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Opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on February 5, Jasper Johns: Gray will be the first exhibition to examine the use of the color gray in the work of American artist Jasper Johns. From the mid-1950s to the present, gray has been a consistent thread in Johns's practice and an important means for the artist to evoke different moods and to explore a range of formal ideas. This major exhibition offers a new lens through which to see the work of this pivotal American artist, bringing together 119 paintings, reliefs, drawings, prints, and sculptures. Jasper Johns: Gray features masterworks of Johns's career — such as Canvas, Gray Target, Jubilee, 0 through 9, No, Diver, and The Dutch Wives — as well as works from the artist's recent Catenary series and new works never before exhibited.
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It is impossible to tell you all the insults my painting of this year has won me, but I don't care, for when I am no longer controversial I will no longer be important.
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A special installation of magnificent Korean screens dating from the late 19th to the early 20th century will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on March 11. Featuring four screens drawn from American collections, Beauty and Learning: Korean Painted Screens will highlight a unique genre of Korean painting known as ch'aekkŏri (books and things), which flourished in Korea from the late 18th to the early 20th century. These screens, portraying books and objects, can be seen as representations of a scholar's study or studio. Approximately 20 objects, including ceramics and bronzes similar to those illustrated in the screens, will complement the installation. This is the first exhibition to focus on the subject in the United States.
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"I would like… to join the curves of the women to the shoulders of the hills…Like Poussin, I would like to put reason in the grass and tears in the sky."
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906)
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On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the design for Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted's 843-acre New York City masterpiece, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present Lee Friedlander: A Ramble in Olmsted Parks. On view from January 22 to May 11, 2008, the exhibition will feature 36 photographs, most never before on public display. Friedlander describes these striking photographs, culled from a 20-year exploration of public parks and private estates designed by North America's premier landscape architect, as "one photographer's pleasurable and wandering glances at places that bear the great vision of Mr. Olmsted."
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As a living art, fashion is open to multiple readings, and blog.mode: addressing fashion at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from December 18, 2007, through April 13, 2008, presents approximately 65 costumes and accessories dating from the 18th century to the present — all recent Metropolitan Museum acquisitions — and invites the public to share their reactions via a blog on the Museum's website. Over the duration of the exhibition, which will take place in The Costume Institute galleries, individual costumes and accessories will be posted on the blog periodically with commentary from curators Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton, and, where relevant, from contemporary designers.
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An installation of rare and exquisitely decorated armor, weapons, and equestrian equipment from Tibet and culturally related areas of Mongolia and China will go on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on December 14. Featuring approximately 35 objects dating from the 15th to the 20th century, Tibetan Arms and Armor from the Permanent Collection will explore this little known aspect of Tibet's rich artistic and historic culture. Drawn from the Museum's own collection – one of the most important in the world – the installation includes several recent acquisitions that have never before been exhibited or published.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art's renovated and expanded Galleries for 19th- and Early 20th-Century European Paintings and Sculpture will reopen on December 4, 2007. The newly refurbished galleries – which occupy nearly 35,000 square feet, including 8,000 square feet of new exhibition space named the Henry J. Heinz II Galleries in recognition of a major gift made by his widow, the long-time Metropolitan Museum Trustee Drue Heinz – will showcase European paintings from the Museum's world-renowned collection, dating from 1800 through the early 20th century. This new presentation will feature a more thorough display of the Museum's 19th-century collection, augmented with seminal works from the early modern era.
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The Christmas tree and Neapolitan Baroque crèche at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a long-established yuletide tradition in New York, will be on view for the holiday season from November 20, 2007, through January 6, 2008. The brightly lit, 20-foot blue spruce – with a collection of 18th-century Neapolitan angels and cherubs among its boughs and groups of realistic crèche figures flanking the Nativity scene at its base – will once again delight holiday visitors in the Museum's Medieval Sculpture Hall. Set in front of the 18th-century Spanish choir screen from the Cathedral of Valladolid, with recorded Christmas music in the background and daily lighting ceremonies, the installation reflects the spirit of the holiday season.
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A new, large-scale work conceived specifically for display in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's galleries by New York-based artist Tara Donovan (American, born 1969) comprises the exhibition Tara Donovan at the Met, on view from November 20, 2007, through April 27, 2008.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Wrightsman Galleries, currently undergoing
extensive renovations and reinstallation, will reopen on October 30. The
spectacular 18th-century rooms, which include the De Tessé Room, the Cabris
Room, the Paar Room, the Varengeville Room, the Bordeaux Room, and the
Crillon Room, house the Museum's renowned collection of French furniture and
related decorative arts. Named for Jayne and Charles Wrightsman, who amassed
one of the finest private collections in America of the decorative arts of the ancien
régime, the galleries opened to the public between 1969 and 1977. The
Wrightsmans' splendid gifts strengthened the Museum's already important
collection of French 18th-century interiors and furnishings. Mrs. Wrightsman, a
Trustee Emerita, continues her generosity to the Metropolitan Museum to this day,
and has made these renovations possible.
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著名作家林語堂（1895-1976）和其家人收藏的四十三件中國近代書畫將從九月十五日起，在大都會博物館首次公開展出。林氏後人最近將這批藏品捐贈給大都會博物館。