Special offerings include live music, two-for-one drinks, gallery chats, and more
“Forget streaming on the couch; it’s time to go out!”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art will host “Date Night”—with live music, gallery chats, and light refreshments in the American Wing Café—every Friday and Saturday evening (5 to 9 p.m.) beginning February 18, 2022, at its Fifth Avenue location.
“Forget streaming on the couch, it’s time to go out!” says Ken Weine, the Museum’s Vice President of External Affairs and Chief Communications Officer. “We are all long overdue for a great date night in New York. The soaring spaces and hundreds of galleries at The Met are even more spectacular and romantic at night. Plus, New Yorkers can always pay what they wish for admission, so it’s truly the best date in town.”
Visitors can “get to know” a work of art, just like a date, during informal drop-in Gallery Chats led by Museum guides. On February 18 and 19, Mike Hashim’s New Orleans Foot Warmers will roam the Museum, bringing swinging Crescent City energy with performances of jazz classics by Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton. On February 25 and 26, Sonnambula—New York’s leading medieval, Renaissance, and baroque music ensemble—will perform the greatest hits of the 16th and 17th centuries surrounded by 700 years of western European art in The Robert Lehman Wing. In March, performances will include celebrated contemporary string quartet ETHEL in the American Wing Café; and a special edition of Juilliard’s ChamberFest featuring performances in the European Paintings galleries. Refreshments include buy-one-get-one drink specials and light fare in the American Wing Café. Details can be found at metmuseum.org/datenight.
On view in the galleries are the following exhibitions: Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts (through March 6); Charles Ray: Figure Ground (through June 5); Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman (February 17–May 15); Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast (March 10, 2022–March 5, 2023); Alter Egos | Projected Selves (through May 1); Cruel Radiance: Photography, 1940s–1960s (through May 1); Shell and Resin: Korean Mother-of-Pearl and Lacquer (through July 5); and In America: A Lexicon of Fashion (through September 5). Ongoing exhibitions include: A New Look at Old Masters: The Collection of European Paintings (through spring 2023) and the recently opened Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room and The African Origin of Civilization. For a complete list of exhibitions, please refer to The Met's website.
Friday and Saturday evenings are made possible by the Ruth Lapham Lloyd Trust and the William H. Kearns Foundation.
Support for Juilliard ChamberFest at The Met is generously provided by The Howard & Sarah D. Solomon Foundation.
Visiting The Met
The Met Fifth Avenue is now open six days a week, Thursdays through Tuesdays. Hours are Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m.–9 p.m., and Sunday–Tuesday and Thursday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. The Met Cloisters is open Thursday–Tuesday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Both locations are closed on the first Monday in May. The Met has developed comprehensive safety procedures for its staff and visitors, following guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), New York State, and New York City. In accordance with NYC mandate, visitors age 5 and older must show proof of full vaccination. Face coverings are required. More information on what visitors can expect is available here, or visit metmuseum.org.
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February 15, 2022
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