Those who showed up at the Met steps to learn that their seats were in the Boathouse were taken to their destination via shuttle. As the bus wound through the rainy park, one slightly wet but distinguished-looking man groused that if he'd known this was how it was going to be, he and his wife might have stayed home and watched the webcast on their computer. But would staying home have come with a high-quality totebag, an open bar stocked with Glenlivet, and a staff of caterers running around with trays of hors d'oeuvres? Probably not!

Plus, at least he wasn't asked to watch the memorial from a makeshift tent outside, which is where members of the press were apologetically directed upon arriving at the Boathouse. It wasn't bad in there, actually: you could bring your drink in if you wanted, and more importantly, the tent was waterproof, so even if it was kind of cold, we didn't get rained on. "We" here refers to The Observer and a charming Danish artist dressed in a purple pantsuit named Hanne Lauridsen who said she was writing something on the memorial for NowJournal.com. "They were always holding each other's hands," Ms. Laudidsen said, with warmth, of Christo and Jeanne-Claude. "They really looked like two lovers." She had on a saffron necklace, which she'd worn because it reminded her of The Gates. The mayor, it turned out, had the same idea, except he went with a saffron tie.

"As we waited to unfurl the first Gates, the anticipation was palpable," Mr. Bloomberg recalled during his remarks, speaking in a voice that made him sound like the narrator of a children's book. "When the moment arrived, I had the honor of pulling the cord, and a brilliant saffron panel fell to the ground along with a giant cardboard [tube] that promptly whacked me on the head."

He made a joke about how he'd been "struck" by the Gates, which was pretty good, but not as good as when the Crimson called up Skip Gates the day after the installation was taken down and asked him whether he'd gone to see the Gates or if he'd "skipped" them.

The rest of the program consisted of mainly eloquent tributes and a few funny stories, and the mood overall was not somber but bright and celebratory. The biggest laugh of the afternoon went to Mr. Tompkins, who talked about how Jeanne-Claude broke up with her husband so she could be with Christo by changing the locks in their apartment and announcing to him, as he tried to get inside, "Your key does not fit my lock!"

When Mr. de Montebello announced his retirement almost a year ago, many New Yorkers were taken aback. The museum’s public face and its unmistakable voice (who hasn’t heard those dulcet tones emanating from the nearest audio guide?), Mr. de Montebello was the museum’s eighth and longest-serving director. He hasn’t been a fixture of the city’s life so much as one of its linchpins. Under Mr. de Montebello’s guidance, our greatest museum became even more indispensable.

Not least because of respect paid to the public. “Elitism” is a dirty word redolent of sniffy aristocrats, but Mr. de Montebello has proven that it isn’t necessarily the same thing as snobbery. By advocating for the highest standards, he placed faith in the acumen and ability of that many-headed monster, the general audience. This outlook is starry-eyed, perhaps, but better naïveness than rank condescension. Besides, Mr. de Montebello has been vindicated. Look at the crowds: They want to see the best. In his own erudite way, Mr. de Montebello is a populist.

The Met acquires an object after a variety of experts—curators, conservators, librarians and scientists—discuss and debate its historical and artistic merits. But Mr. de Montebello was the final word—or so it’s said. “My-way-or-the-highway” betrays not a little arrogance; there’s no doubting Mr. de Montebello must have frustrated and infuriated colleagues. But quality, not appeasing, was the goal. Do I remember correctly Mr. de Montebello stating that collecting used condoms wasn’t in the museum’s mission statement? He took his job seriously.

EIGHTY-FOUR THOUSAND objects entered the collection during Mr. de Montebello’s tenure. There are bound to be a fair share of clunkers—how could there not be? All the same, the work on display—around 300 or so pieces—is probably fairly skimpy in terms of the good stuff. You just know the riches go deeper than that. Helen C. Evans, curator of Byzantine art, must have exercised considerable diplomatic skill in coordinating the 17 curatorial departments when organizing the exhibition.

The curators had free reign, but Mr. de Montebello made a request: The exhibition should be mounted in a cross-cultural and ahistorical manner. Five thousand years of art—why not mix-and-match Mesopotamian devils, Jasper Johns, sandstone Buddhas, a Kongo power figure, Islamic miniatures and Peter Paul Rubens’ busty wife? Commonalities in aesthetic and functional purpose are gently emphasized, not least as they apply to art’s ability to encapsulate spiritual longing and solace. (Mr. de Montebello has spoken movingly about the profound feelings engendered by Duccio’s “Madonna and Child.”)

Juxtapositions of time, style and place, often extreme and never denied, are rendered fluid. Credit Jeff Daly, the senior design adviser, for a beautifully nuanced installation—he hasn’t done the impossible; he’s made the possible revelatory. But consider what he’s working with: a collection guided by a man whose discernment, intelligence and eye have led him to a fairly unfashionable conclusion: Art is the embodiment of humankind’s noblest impulses. Mr. de Montebello is an optimist. That’s but one reason “Three Decades of Acquisitions” sings.

“The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, until Feb. 1, 2009.

Daunting Intensity

Political artist Sue Coe aims her latest critique at cruelty inflicted on elephants. Most of the pictures focus on early 20th-century circuses replete with dicey stagehands, a clammy P. T. Barnum and Thomas Edison—the great inventor electrocuted an elephant as a publicity stunt. A nitpicky hand at oils muffles Ms. Coe’s rancor, but the drawings—fiery admixtures of gouache, graphite, watercolor and collage—embody it with daunting intensity.

“Elephants We Must Never Forget: New Paintings, Drawings and Prints by Sue Coe” at Galerie St. Etienne, 24 West 57th Street, until Dec. 20.

Deadening Literalism

Alfred Kubin’s black-and-white drawings, nightmarish dreamscapes enveloped within gloomy chiaroscuro, recall Goya’s Los Caprichos and Redon’s mystical reveries, but Salvador Dali is the better comparison. Lacking moral indignation or haunting romanticism, the Austrian loner illustrated his monsters, hobgoblins and “slaughter festivities” with deadening literalism and stilted authority. The drawings aren’t hallucinations given heft, but melodramatic inventories of Freudian portent.

“Alfred Kubin: Drawings, 1897-1909” at the Neue Galerie, 1048 Fifth Avenue, until Jan. 26.

mnaves@observer.com

At the Avon Foundation gala on Tuesday, Oct. 28, Grey's Anatomy's Patrick Dempsey told us that he will probably be shooting on Tuesday, but will take a break to vote. And at the FIAF Trophee des Arts Gala on Wednesday, Oct. 29, former Metropolitan Museum of Art director, Philippe de Montebello said that there was, frankly, no point in watching. 

"These days it's pointless to watch the election. Results are given one minute after the polls!" he said. "The drama of the all night stuff would be most unusual and rare now, wouldn't it?"

Actress and socialite Cornelia Guest seemed to agree when we ran into her last night at the high-end sunglasses boutique Ilori in Soho, where she was celebrating with designers Mark Badgley and James Mischka the launch of a pair of sunglasses the duo designed for the store. (Of course, Ms. Guest was dressed in Badgley Mischka from head to toe.)

"I am just going to go out to dinner and treat it like any other day," said Ms. Guest. "Nowadays, anywhere you go, you can have access to information on your phone or on your BlackBerry. There is so much friction and energy about this election people are going to be telling you what's going on wherever you are. Eight years ago you used to have to sit, but now you can be anywhere you want!"

"I always like to be honored!" Mr. Montebello told the Daily Transom. "I have no idea how they found me, I guess they must have looked me up in the phone book or something."

Mr. Montebello, who came to the U.S. from Paris when he was a teenager, has served as the Met's director since 1977. He was the longest serving director in the museum's history before announcing in January that he will step down at the end of the year; he will be replaced by Met curator Thomas Campbell. During his tenure, Mr. Montebello  acquired works such as Vincent Van Gogh's Wheat Field with Cypresses and Jasper Johns' White Flag, and the Daily Transom wondered if Ms. Montebello was nervous about the museum's well-being in his absence during a time of financial instability. 

"No, we're doing well. We are obviously nervous about the economy in the non-profit world. Fundraising--and, if you depend to a certain degree on city funding, which we do--is going to be difficult," he said. "But we are well-positioned and the institution is strong. We'll survive."

But while gallerists and art collectors might be dreading lower attendance at art fairs and an ultimate drop in prices, Mr. Montebello said that it will actually be a positive thing for the museum. 

"Right now, I think we're certainly in a bubble in contemporary art prices and if prices plunge then hopefully museums can buy again. Prices have gotten extraordinarily high. For the museums there is no question: If prices of art go down, it good for us," he said. "We're not sellers, we're buyers." 

According to city records, Mr. de Montebello and his wife, Edith, director of financial aid at the Trinity School, sold their two-bedroom co-op at 25 East 86th Street this month for $2.195 million.

The buyer is graphic designer Holly Okner, whose father happens to be the investor Peter A. Aron, the chairman of the South Street Seaport Museum from 1987 to 2000.

A Met spokesman wouldn’t comment on the deal, except to say the director has moved to another apartment a few blocks up: “From what I know, Philippe de Montebello would never dream of being far from the Met, and we’re all glad to know he’s going to be in the neighborhood.”

“You can’t write about that,” the listing broker, Suzanne Sealy, told this reporter. “I can’t say anything. No comment.” According to her listing, the apartment has a herringbone-floored foyer, a living room with a wood-burning fireplace, and a “formal dining room, great for entertaining.”

On the downside, the place has only 1,500 square feet. “The point of the move,” a source explained, “is that as he moves into retirement, he wanted a place that was larger and has a more copious home office.” After all, Mr. de Montebello still has work to do: When he’s replaced at the Met, he becomes a professor of museum history and culture at New York University.

Incidentally, Met chairman James R. Houghton got $4.9 million when he sold his apartment at the Majestic earlier this year. “There are things called hotels,” he told The Observer, playing down the importance of real estate deals. “I’ve stayed at the Four Seasons, but I’m also a member of the Harvard Club and the University Club.”

mabelson@observer.com

The New York Times reports:

Last year, the popular and eccentric museum-director made $4,557,342, putting him ahead of the directors of major hospitals and universities across the country.

And he isn't the only Manhattan non-profiteer: Glenn Lowry, the director of the Museum of Modern art, "in addition to a compensation package that in 2004 was $1.28 million, between 1995 and 2003 received a total of $5.35 million from a trust set up by museum trustees. The former chairman, Robert Menschel, and president of MoMA, Marie-Josée Kravis, said in a letter to the New York Times that the trust helped to secure the recruitment of Mr. Lowry to the museum in 1995. In 2006, Mr. Lowry received $901,766 in compensation."

Yet, however foolish the question may be, when a writer in The New York Times confidently announces that today's "contemporary art" dates precisely from the year 1970, attention must be paid. You or I may not be taken in by such obvious nonsense, but we both know that there are still a great many people around–some of them quite grown-up–who tend to believe what they read in The Times , especially on subjects they know nothing about.

The dubious distinction of having made this pronouncement about the year 1970 belongs to Deborah Solomon, who, in the course of an interview with Philippe de Montebello, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in the Sunday Times of Jan. 9, boldly declared that contemporary art began in 1970–in the period, she avowed, "that follows modern art." I have to confess that when I read this astonishing statement the other day, the first thing I thought of was that wonderful first stanza in Philip Larkin's poem, "Annus Mirabilis," that goes:

Sexual intercourse began

In nineteen sixty-three

(Which was rather late for me)–

Between the end of the

Chatterley ban

And the Beatles' first LP.

For just as there are a great many grown-up people today who believe that nobody had a good sex life before the 1960's, there are apparently a lot of deluded folks on the art scene who believe that "contemporary art" didn't really get going in this country until–well, whatever year it was that they began to pay attention to it. For people of this myopic persuasion, the beginning of contemporary art and–who knows?–maybe all of art history dates from the day they arrived in Manhattan and saw their first exhibitions at Leo Castelli's or Mary Boone's.

But this, of course, is to confuse personal experience with the history of the world–a not uncommon problem with certain critics and museum curators of Ms. Solomon's generation. Yet Ms. Solomon herself can scarcely be said to belong to the ranks of these esthetic innocents. She has written biographies of Jackson Pollock and Joseph Cornell, who were once themselves–need we be reminded?–contemporary artists of some notoriety in the period that she has now consigned to pre-1970 antiquity. Add to this the fact that Ms. Solomon's parents are art dealers who specialize in the kind of blue-chip modern art that was once itself in the forefront of the contemporary art scene, as even I can remember. So how are we to account for an assertion of such stunning–what shall we call it?–simplicity. Sheer ignorance, though never to be wholly discounted, is not a sufficient

explanation.

My own guess is that Ms. Solomon's assignment in conducting the Times interview was to expose Mr. de Montebello as some sort of reactionary or hypocrite in art matters because of his public criticism of both the Sensation exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Kiki Smith sculpture of a defecating nude female figure in the Whitney Museum's American Century show. It is in the very nature of high-profile media interviews today to aim for embarrassing or befuddling their subjects and thereby exposing the institutions they represent to public ridicule. Ms. Solomon's specific target in the interview was the Met's record in the field of–what else?–"contemporary art."

If that was indeed the point of the interview, then it must be said to have conspicuously failed in its purpose. For Mr. De Montebello responded to Ms. Solomon's ill-formulated questions with an engaging combination of firm conviction and intellectual courtesy. In regard to her amazing claim that modern art had ended in 1970, Mr. de Montebello reminded Ms. Solomon, "In this department, we're dealing with a period of just 100 years, so we don't need to break it up into modern and contemporary." And implicit in that statement is an assumption, or so it seemed to me anyway, that works of contemporary art are still expected to meet the same standards of quality that apply to the acquisition of works of art from earlier periods.

That, in any case, is what I take to be the policy or theory governing the acquisition of new art at the Met. In actual practice, however, the museum is rarely in a position to abide by such rigorous standards of quality, for there is very little new art on the scene today that can meet standards of that sort. As a consequence, the new art–or the recently new–that we see in the Met's galleries tends for the most part to be the usual hodgepodge of overpublicized contemporary reputations. I frankly do not see how it could be otherwise. Time is always a factor in the codification of esthetic standards, and neither record-breaking auction prices nor well-oiled publicity machines are adequate substitutes for the perspective of history.

It is worth recalling, in this regard, that many of the modern masterpieces we admire in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art today weren't all that new when Alfred Barr was acquiring them for MoMA in the 1930's. Most of them dated from the earlier decades of the century, and some from the last years of the 19th century. The first work of art that MoMA acquired for its permanent collection, moreover, wasn't a Fauvist painting by Matisse or a Cubist painting by Picasso but a Realist painting by Edward Hopper. We may have a high regard for Hopper–I do myself–but he could hardly be said to represent the highest achievement of modernism in the 1930's. Time was an important factor in judging art then, and it remains an important factor today.

In the absence of historical perspective, we are all to some degree hostage to the winds of fashion and publicity. Take the case of the Irish-born American painter Sean Scully, whose works on paper are currently the subject of a small exhibition in the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing at the Met. Hardly a week seems to pass without some announcement of a Sean Scully exhibition or publication arriving in the mail, either at home or at my office. Mr. Scully is clearly an energetic traveler, and so these announcements come from various points of the globe, yet the look of the work that is reproduced on these announcements remains the same. It is the work of a highly accomplished pictorial technician whose signature style of painterly stripes and rectangles is yet another example of what is best described as tasteful modernism.

In the current show at the Met, Sean Scully on Paper , there are pastels, watercolors, etchings and photographs, and in an adjoining gallery there are two oil paintings, Red on Cream (1976) and Molloy (1984). A preliminary watercolor study for Molloy , based of course on the novel by Samuel Beckett, is included in the show itself, which also features suites of etchings said to be inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and James Joyce's Pomes Penyeach . I must confess to a certain skepticism about the relation, if any, which these paintings and etchings bear to their ostensible literary subject. Joseph Conrad and James Joyce are writers who deal with very different realms of experience, yet in Mr. Scully's work they are both reduced to the tasteful modernism of the artist's abstract repertory of stripes and rectangles.

What saves Mr. Scully's work from being utterly contemptible is his technical mastery of the various media he employs. Yet by associating this technical virtuosity with writers who had something profound to tell us about the nature of modern experience, he inevitably reminds us that his own art is conspicuously lacking in depth. The more one sees of the work, the more it looks like a certain mode of modernist abstraction at the end of its tether.

Alas, the Met has not yet solved the problem of encompassing new art in ways that meet high artistic standards. But then, none of our other museums has, either. Perhaps it is not a problem susceptible to a solution in a period as creatively fallow as our own.

Sean Scully on Paper remains on view at the Met though March 12.

What was not to be expected, however, was that the Mayor would be so promptly vindicated in his further charge that the Brooklyn Museum had conspired with Charles Saatchi and other vested interests–as The Times belatedly reported on Oct. 31–to "inflate the value of the works on display" in the Sensation show. Whether any laws have been violated as a result of these hugger-mugger financial machinations remains unclear. What is now beyond question is that the entire project of bringing this shabby inventory from the Saatchi Collection to Brooklyn has from the outset been what even The Times , after publishing some 60 or more news stories, editorials and reviews in ardent defense of the exhibition, has finally been obliged to concede is "an ethically dubious enterprise."

That from the outset the Sensation exhibition has also been an esthetically barren enterprise is not something The Times will probably ever bring itself to concede. But that no longer matters. No one not directly involved in the trade–the trade, that is, in contemporary art futures–gives much of a damn anymore about the critical judgments of Michael Kimmelman or Roberta Smith, the newspaper's chief critics. About events like the Sensation exhibition, these critics now enjoy the same level of credibility as Joe Lockhart's daily "spin" game at the Clinton White House. Mr. Kimmelman's everybody-does-it defense of the Brooklyn Museum's financial deceptions is itself a vivid example of Clintonesque ethics. About the only thing missing from that ethically dubious defense was the Al Gore mantra of "no controlling legal authority."

As for Ms. Smith's equally pathetic attempt to defend the Sensation show on the grounds that it brings New York "up to speed" on the great things happening on the London art scene, that is neither accurate reporting nor sound criticism. For what the Sensation show brings us "up to speed" on is simply Mr. Saatchi's latest venture in the art-futures market. Because of the Sensation scandal, all the world now knows exactly how this market-manipulation venture works. Mr. Saatchi first commissions work that is guaranteed to cause outrage, then promotes it as his latest "discoveries," then importunes once-respectable institutions like the Royal Academy of Art or the Tate Gallery to endorse it, and then makes a killing in the art-auction market. This is what now passes for "avant-garde" art in London–and, of course, in New York–and it has proved to be a highly successful business enterprise.

What gets marketed, however, isn't so much the art as the buzz, to which critics like Ms. Smith are always eager to contribute their support. And if the buzz is sufficiently repellent–if it delivers on its promise to offend decency, promote perversity and celebrate violence–there will be no shortage of well-heeled fools eager to write checks for the privilege of acquiring a piece of the action. That they, too, may stand to profit in the auction market is a further incentive, of course, but meanwhile they collect kudos for being so "advanced" in their artistic tastes.

To the extent that the uproar over the Sensation exhibition has now laid bare the essentially commercial character of such "avant-garde" events, the show itself may someday be seen to have served some redeeming social purpose, after all. Thanks to the total lack of conscience, tact and taste which Arnold L. Lehman, the director of the Brooklyn Museum, brought to the organization, the financing and the promotion of the Sensation show, all art museums that traffic in this particular vein of "cutting-edge" hucksterism have also suffered a significant loss in public confidence. The sheer quantity of cynical hokum that it has long been standard practice for our art institutions to invoke in defense of whatever horror or inanities the art traders are currently promoting as avant-garde is no longer as persuasive as it once was for anyone not involved in the market. We haven't witnessed the death throes of this phenomenon yet, but some of the other institutional defenses of Sensation have shown signs of moral fatigue and a distinct diminution of mental acuity.

Consider, for an egregious example, the obtuse contribution of Glenn D. Lowry, the current director of the Museum of Modern Art, to this scandal. Writing on the Op-Ed page of The Times on Oct. 13, Mr. Lowry warned: "If Americans wish to continue to be a major cultural force well into the next century, then we must recognize that the arts–and contemporary art, in particular–are not just important to our society, but also our collective responsibility." He called for "engaging in an open debate" about exhibitions like the Sensation show, yet his own contribution to the controversy was clearly designed to sidetrack the debate that was already in progress by invoking the names of Manet and Cézanne and Picasso and Pollock. And when was the last time that MoMA invited public debate about its own policies on contemporary art?

Now if the future of the United States as "a major cultural force" really does depend on accommodating the commercial interests of Mr. Saatchi, then the whole question of American cultural influence in the world needs to be radically reconsidered. But that is not where America's future cultural interests lie, of course. Much may depend, indeed, on our ability to resist such accommodations to current sensations.

What made Mr. Lowry's remarks especially alarming is the fact that MoMA's own current expansion plans call for an even greater concentration on contemporary art than in the past. If the Sensation show is to be taken as a model for the kind of "daring" art that can now be expected to fill MoMA's vast new exhibition spaces on W54th Street, then we are in for even greater disasters in the next century.

Mr. Lowry was responding, of course, to the remarkable article which Philippe de Montebello, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, had contributed to the Times Op-Ed page on Oct. 5. "We are meant to view the art in this show, or most of it," wrote Mr. de Montebello, "as visual pronouncements, even statements of a higher order, aimed at making us pause, think and reconsider our surroundings, our beliefs.… Well, here is where I part company, at the risk of apostasy, with many colleagues and critics alike. I have seen the exhibition, and I think the emperor has no clothes."

And further: "In the end, what remains terribly disturbing to me is that so many people, serious and sensitive individuals, are so cowed by the art establishment or so frightened at being labeled philistines that they dare not speak out and express their dislike for works that they find either repulsive or unesthetic or both." Mr. de Montebello even characterized Kiki Smith's Tale , in the current show of The American Century at the Whitney Museum of Art, as "simply disgusting and devoid of any craft or esthetic merit."

This really was an important contribution to the current debate about contemporary art, or at least the aspects of contemporary art that are designed to make headlines and controversy, and because of it Mr. de Montebello was the only member of the New York art establishment to acquit himself with professional honor in this dismal episode. It was a reminder, too, of why the Metropolitan Museum is now so often the most important of the few New York art museums where considerations of esthetic quality remain the top priority.

As to why The New York Times mounted its blitzkrieg coverage in defense of the Sensation exhibition, that is not much of a mystery. As soon as Mr. Giuliani took action against the Brooklyn Museum, The Times clearly seized upon the event as a means of inflicting significant damage on the Mayor's campaign for a U.S. Senate seat. As they did twice with Bill Clinton, The Times ' top brass is preparing to hold its collective nose while endorsing Hillary Clinton for the Senate, and the Sensation controversy offered the paper a handy weapon for that purpose.

My own guess is that the Times blitzkrieg has backfired, politically and otherwise. It has damaged the paper's credibility, it has damaged the credibility of the city's art establishment, it has made the paper's critics look ridiculous, and it has probably won the Mayor some friends he didn't have before. As for the Brooklyn Museum's credibility on artistic matters, that will not be repaired until the time comes to appoint Mr. Lehman's successor.