There is an Oz-like aspect to experiencing a reading of Simon Gray’s play The Old Masters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art—the wizard being the art dealer Joseph Duveen, whose altercation with his longtime colleague, Renaissance art historian Bernard Berenson, over a painting’s attribution forms the play’s central plot line. Some 124 masterpieces in the Read More
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Gala is perhaps the institution’s most famous and most glamorous event, New York’s version of the Oscars. The event, a million-dollar fund-raiser for the Met, is planned out months, sometimes more than a year, in advance.
But when 40-year-old British designer Alexander McQueen committed suicide last February, the Read More
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is playing catch up in the digital age.
The Met is beginning what they say will be a long and expensive process of wiring the thick-walled building for Wi-Fi, so that visitors will be able to watch videos about the art from anywhere inside the museum. They created their Read More
This week, CNN celebrated Piers Morgan’s ascent to Larry King’s anchor chair with a bash at the apartment of NewsBeast editrix Tina Brown. By all accounts it was a good party, despite the fact that its location, WWD discovered, had been transformed into Tina’s “brainstorming” bunker where she’s “assembling the team” for the magazine’s Read More
When art fairs and galleries try to be hip, they release an iPhone app or start a YouTube channel. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, always the traditionalist, opted for something subtler: an audio slideshow.
Connections, the museum’s newest online initiative, launched today. The institution’s shiny new digital media department invited conservators, curators, executives, Read More
Forbes’ annual list of the 400 richest Americans came out last week, and (surprise!) some of the country’s richest people are also its most prominent art collectors. Here’s a closer look at the top art lovers to make the list, and what they’re spending all that money on. (Spoiler alert: Jasper Read More
Museum eateries are, by and large, airy, pretty, tasty-and exceptionally well air-conditioned. New York boasts many, a handful of which are much less well known for their culinary accomplishments than they deserve to be. Here’s a few, along with a look at what’s on view before or after the meal.
The Neue Read More
No need to feel bad when you pay five bucks plus pocket lint instead of the $20.00 “Recommended Admission”! The Metropolitan Museum of Art is New York’s richest cultural institution, according to Crain’s rankings.
N.B. the Natural History Museum beat out the Met in attendance figures, probably because everyone likes dinosaurs but some Read More
Hilde Limondjian retired from her job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last month after 41 years. In charge of the Met’s concert and lecture series for most of her life, she’s seen the institution, and the cultural life of the city, go through sweeping changes. Shortly before her goodbye party, hosted by Read More
It was no surprise to learn that the Met’s Young Members Party doesn’t exactly put the “art” back in “party.” In theory, Thursday night’s event would provide a chance for the museum’s under-35 crowd to view two of its special exhibitions-Big Bambú, a giant site-specific installation on the roof, and American Woman: Fashioning a National Read More
