I am delighted to announce the launch of the Met's latest web series, MetCollects. This multimedia feature gives you an intimate look at some of the hundreds of works of art that the Met acquires each year. These exciting new additions are introduced by the curators who proposed them for the Met's collection.

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I arrived in Davos this year ready to talk about the critical relevance of culture within the World Economic Forum's annual meetings. But one thing was lingering in my mind and became a critical part of my discussions there. Last November Bill Gates did an interview with the Financial Times newspaper. In it, he said that it was morally questionable to give money to an art museum when there are still diseases that cause blindness in the world. While I greatly admire Mr. Gates's work as a significant philanthropic catalyst, this particular perspective seems limited and counter to the very priorities that he champions in his charitable work.

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We just posted my episode, entitled Breakthrough, as part of 82nd & Fifth, the award-winning web series that has introduced our audience and our curators to a whole new way of looking at works of art: one object, one curator, two minutes at a time. I chose one of my favorite masterpieces—a Bernard van Orley tapestry of The Last Supper from 1524—and was amazed by the stunning details that Met photographer Peter Zeray was able to capture. This is the 75th of this 100-episode project, and I hope you take some time to enjoy them all.

The situation in Syria is both grave and deeply troubling. In the midst of such striking human suffering, all other concerns can easily get lost in the shadows. But we must believe that there will be a time when peace returns to Syria, and when that moment arrives, it would be tragic to find that most of the country's heritage had been lost.

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Earlier this year, the Met became the first art museum to ever receive a TEDx license to hold a conference in the style of the globally known TED Talks. We chose the (broadly interpreted) theme of Icons and started to plan right away...

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Today we announced a new program aimed at connecting more directly with the global museum community. The Met has been an international institution since its founding; it was established in 1870 not as a museum of American art but as an encyclopedic collection—with the goal of including works of art from around the world. Since then we've collaborated with nations and institutions across the globe, through exhibitions, excavations, training, and all types of scholarly exchange.

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The Cloisters marks its seventy-fifth anniversary this year. Since its opening on May 14, 1938, it has become a treasured landmark, celebrated for both its extraordinary setting and its world-class collection of medieval art and architecture. Located in Fort Tryon Park, a verdant oasis on the northern tip of Manhattan, the building commands sweeping views of the Hudson River and the towering Palisades on the river's opposite bank. The quiet of the lush gardens and the magnificence of the historic architecture create an ideal setting for the outstanding collection within.

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Yesterday was an exciting and historic moment for the Met, as we announced the gift of Leonard Lauder's unrivaled collection of seventy-eight Cubist paintings to the Museum. This is among the greatest contributions to the Metropolitan in the course of its 143-year evolution, in the same league as gifts from J.P. Morgan, Louisine and H.O. Havemeyer, Benjamin Altman, Robert Lehman, Charles and Jayne Wrightsman, and Walter Annenberg—truly transformative collections that have come to the Met.

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In recent weeks, you may have read about a lawsuit filed by one of the Metropolitan Museum's Fifth Avenue neighbors. It inaccurately alleges that the Met deceives the public by not making its long-standing pay-what-you-wish admission policy clear enough, and asserts that we are violating a nineteenth-century New York State law that once mandated that we be free to the public. This was followed by a second legal action, filed by the same law firm, seeking monetary damages.

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