The following letter was mailed to Daniel Brodsky, Chairman of the Met Museum’s board of trustees, on September 3rd. (I insert relevant links here.) In lieu of a response from him, I received a platitudinous letter from Jessica Hirschey, the museum’s Deputy Chief Membership Officer, dated September 17. That letter is appended below, along with my response to it. Readers who share my views should write to both Brodsky and Hirschey. Update: Also appended is the vacuously anodyne letter I subsequently received from Daniel H. Weiss, the Met’s president and CEO.
Dear Mr. Brodsky:
I am writing to you in your capacity as chairman of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Board of Trustees. In that role, you have the future of one of the world’s great cultural institutions in your hands.
Merriam-Webster defines a museum as “an institution devoted to the procurement, care, study, and display of objects of lasting interest or value” (emphasis added). But in recent years, the Met has devoted increasing attention to presumably avant-garde work, which has not yet stood the test of time. And it has done so at great financial cost, necessitating a more restrictive admission policy. Moreover, the selection of Max Hollein as the museum’s new director is likely to accelerate that regrettable trend.
Still worse, for many serious art lovers, what now passes for art in the eyes of the cultural establishment (not least Mr. Hollein’s) is at best a pitiable failure and at worst a travesty. A case in point is the Met’s current rooftop installation, Huma Bhabha’s We Come in Peace—which I have just returned from seeing.1
In Who Says That’s Art? (a copy of which is enclosed), I argue that the postmodernist genres favored by contemporary curators and critics—though not by much of the art-loving public—is in essence anti-art. In that connection, Mr. Hollein’s plan to exhibit such work alongside the Met’s treasures from the past is especially troubling.
Met trustees are free to select whatever contemporary work they like for their own personal collections. But their responsibility as trustees requires them to take a longer view. They should not be complicit in urging the public to believe that today’s “cutting-edge” work truly merits comparison with the genuine masterpieces of other times—unless it were to demonstrate its utter poverty.
If the argument and evidence offered for this position in Who Says That’s Art? warrants further consideration in your view, I’d be happy to provide copies for each of the Met’s trustees.
Sincerely,
Michelle Marder Kamhi
Notes
- For other examples, see “Met Rooftop Folly: Cornelia Parker’s ‘PsychoBarn’,” For Piero’s Sake, April 26, 2016; “An Urgent Letter to Aristos Readers,” Aristos, December 2013; and “The Apotheosis of Andy Warhol,” Aristos, December 2012. ↩
How terribly polite of you, Michelle, to omit mention of what this Museum and almost all others in the U.S. are doing: courting donors of dollars by accepting dubious items from or entire collections of momentary “art.” Rhetorical question: Does the Met BUY “contemporary art” to any extent comparable to their being gifted such? Next time you visit Miami – and I don’t mean for Art Basle’s supercharged marketplace – check out the proliferation of private museums and open-by-appointment private collections of stuff masquerading with Scaramouche chicanery. The rubric is relevant “art.”
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
You’re absolutely right, of course. I only alluded to that reprehensible tendency by saying “Met trustees are free to select whatever contemporary work they like for their own personal collections. But their responsibility as trustees requires them to take a longer view.” But I dealt with it more fully in Chapter 9 of ‘Who Says That’s Art?’.
Your excellent letter to Chairman Brodsky (with Jessica Hirschey’s anodyne response), underscores the troubling problem of today’s modern “art” curators.
At a time when the Met faces financial problems it seems unwise to pursue artists whose works are of-the-minute (dare I say of-the-second?). In addition, it would be fascinating to know if the new admissions policy is bringing in the monies it was instituted to bring in. My guess? At best, I suspect it’s a wash. If so, this means that fewer out-of-town art patrons are able or willing to visit the Met given the cost.
If the new admissions policy is worse than a financial wash, it is possible that would-be patrons are by-passing the Met entirely.
After all, people wishing to view of-the-minute creations can visit any number of New York City art sales galleries featuring this kind of art at no cost.
What response did you expect? Most of the art in the MET was made before the History of Art or for a tiny patronage or was hotly debated in its time. The museum role today is to foster viewing and discourse. You are in the business of being mad about contemporary art. So you get a response that keeps you mad. And the MET spokesperson is in the business of encouraging visitors to engage with the Museum. Now both of you have done your jobs.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
At the very least, I’d expect the Chairman of the Met and the Deputy Chief Membership Officer to recognize the difference between genuine art and pseudo art.