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Credential Application Guidelines for Red Carpet Arrivals at the 2009 Costume Institute Gala
Tuesday, March 31, 2009, 4:00 a.m.
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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Metropolitan Museum Lectures in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 5:00 a.m.
For tickets, call the Concerts & Lectures Department at 212-570-3949 or visit
www.metmuseum.org/tickets, where updated schedules and programs (including
additional lectures that are free with Museum admission) are available.
Tickets are also available at the Great Hall Box Office, which is open
Tuesday–Thursday 10–5:00, Friday and Saturday 10–7:00, and Sunday noon–5:00.
Student discount tickets are available for some events; call 212-570-3949.
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Brilliant Chinese Paintings and Calligraphies of Ming Dynasty in New Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum
Wednesday, January 21, 2009, 5:00 a.m.
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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Metropolitan Museum's Summer Exhibitions J. M. W. Turner, Jeff Koons on the Roof, and Superheroes Generated $610 Million Economic Impact on New York
Wednesday, January 21, 2009, 5:00 a.m.
(New York, November 24, 2008) – The Metropolitan Museum's presentation of three acclaimed and widely attended exhibitions in the summer 2008 season—J. M. W. Turner, Jeff Koons on the Roof, and Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy—generated $610 million in spending by regional, national, and foreign tourists to New York, according to a visitor survey released today by the Museum. Using the industry standard for calculating tax revenue impact, the study found that the direct tax benefit to the City and State from out-of-town visitors to the Museum totaled some $61 million.
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Pierre Bonnard's Luminous Late Interiors Featured in Metropolitan Museum Exhibition Opening January 27
Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 5:00 a.m.
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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Master Drawings from Collection of Jean Bonna On View at Metropolitan Museum
Monday, January 19, 2009, 5:00 a.m.
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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Metropolitan Museum Celebrates the Holidays by Opening on "Holiday Monday" December 29
Monday, December 22, 2008, 5:00 a.m.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be open to the public on Monday, December 29 (the Monday between Christmas and New Year's Day), as part of the Museum's popular "Holiday Mondays" program. The Museum will open the doors of its main building this winter and spring on three additional major Monday holidays: January 19 (Martin Luther King Jr. Day), February 16 (Presidents' Day), and May 25 (Memorial Day).
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METROPOLITAN MUSEUM LECTURES IN THE GRACE RAINEY ROGERS AUDITORIUM
Tuesday, December 16, 2008, 5:00 a.m.
For tickets, call the Concerts & Lectures Department at 212-570-3949 or visit
www.metmuseum.org/tickets, where updated schedules and programs (including
additional lectures that are free with Museum admission) are available.
Tickets are also available at the Great Hall Box Office, which is open
Tuesday–Thursday 10–5:00, Friday and Saturday 10–7:00, and Sunday noon–5:00.
Student discount tickets are available for some events; call 212-570-3949.
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Brooklyn Museum Announces Landmark Costume Collection Partnership with Metropolitan Museum
Monday, December 15, 2008, 5:00 a.m.
(New York, December 16, 2008)—The Brooklyn Museum announced today a landmark collection-sharing partnership with The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/press/ (PDF)
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Rich Legacy of African Textiles on View in Metropolitan Museum Exhibition
Thursday, December 4, 2008, 5:00 a.m.
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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SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS SEPTEMBER 2008 - AUGUST 2009
Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 5:00 a.m.
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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Contemporary Photographs Explore Truth and Illusion in Reality Check at Metropolitan Museum
Tuesday, October 21, 2008, 4:00 a.m.
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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Curators Pay Tribute to Outgoing Director with Exhibition The Philippe de Montebello Years
Sunday, October 19, 2008, 4:00 a.m.
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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Photographs by Samoan Multimedia Artist On View at Metropolitan Museum This Fall
Monday, October 6, 2008, 4:00 a.m.
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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Dynamic Exhibition of Modern British Prints on View at Metropolitan Museum
Sunday, September 21, 2008, 4:00 a.m.
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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Classic 1930s Street Photographs of New York City on View at Metropolitan Museum September 23
Wednesday, September 17, 2008, 4:00 a.m.
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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Contemporary Works by African-American Artists Featured in Provocative Visions Installation
Monday, September 15, 2008, 4:00 a.m.
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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Thomas P. Campbell Named Next Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Wednesday, September 10, 2008, 4:00 a.m.
(New York, September 9, 2008)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that Thomas P. Campbell – an accomplished curator with a specialty in European tapestry who has worked at the Museum since 1995 – has been elected its next Director and CEO, succeeding Philippe de Montebello, who announced in January his intention to retire from the Metropolitan Museum at the end of this year. Mr. Campbell, who organized the groundbreaking and widely acclaimed exhibitions Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence (2002) and Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor (2007), is currently Curator in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts as well as Supervising Curator of the Museum's Antonio Ratti Textile Center. He was elected at today's meeting of the Board of Trustees and will assume the directorship of the Metropolitan Museum on January 1, 2009.
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Landscapes by Revered Chinese Painter Wang Hui in Fall Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum
Monday, August 18, 2008, 4:00 a.m.
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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Metropolitan Museum to Open on Labor Day "Met Holiday Monday"
Wednesday, August 6, 2008, 4:00 a.m.
Galleries, shops, and dining areas at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be open to the public on September 1 (Labor Day), the next "Met Holiday Monday." This special viewing day is also the last chance for visitors to see two popular exhibitions: Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy, which has already had more than 400,000 visitors since it opened on May 7, and Radiance from the Rain Forest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru.