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Dazzling Byzantine Treasures Displayed in Major International Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum, Opening March 23
Thursday, March 11, 2004, 5:00 a.m.
As the triumphant Byzantine general Michael VIII Palaiologos entered Constantinople on August 15, 1261, carrying aloft the famed icon of the Virgin Hodegetria, the city's eternal protector, he initiated an artistic and intellectual flowering in Byzantium, and among its East Christian rivals, that would endure for nearly 300 years. The restoration of the "Empire of the Romans" – the basileia ton Rhomaion – just 57 years after the fall of Constantinople to the knights of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, encouraged faith-inspired art of astonishing beauty and widespread influence.
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Public Lecture by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Spiritual Head of Worldwide Orthodox Christian Church, Presented in Conjunction with Upcoming Byzantium Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum
Thursday, March 11, 2004, 5:00 a.m.
His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual head of the worldwide Orthodox Christian Church, will deliver the lecture "Byzantine Icons: A Legacy for Humanism" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Thursday, March 18. Presented in conjunction with the upcoming international loan exhibition Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557), the lecture will take place at 2 p.m. in the Museum's Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. Reservations, which are required, may be obtained on a first-come, first-served basis by calling (212) 570-3792. The event is free to the public with Museum admission.
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METROPOLITAN MUSEUM LAUNCHES '21st-CENTURY MET': INTERIOR CONSTRUCTION PLAN TO RETURN ROMAN AND HELLENISTIC ART TO PUBLIC VIEW IN MAJESTIC NEW SETTING, RENOVATE AND REINSTALL GALLERIES FOR ISLAMIC ART, 19th-CENTURY ART, MODERN ART, AND MODERN PHOTOGRAPHY,
Monday, February 23, 2004, 5:00 a.m.
(NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 24, 2004)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art today announced plans to launch—and fund—a series of milestone 21st-Century Met interior construction projects aimed at dramatically enhancing the Museum's displays of Hellenistic and Roman art, Etruscan art, Islamic art, 19th-century art, modern art, and modern photography. Additionally, the major new "building-from-within" program will substantially upgrade the Museum's Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education, the traditional welcoming point of entry for some 125,000 school visitors each year. To finance the projects, the Museum announced a new plan to complete private funding for the construction and rehabilitation work.
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Major Gift of Diane Arbus Photographs Promised to The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Thursday, February 19, 2004, 5:00 a.m.
(New York, February 17, 2004)--An important group of photographs by Diane Arbus, one of the most original and influential photographers of the last half-century, will join the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art as the promised gift of collectors Danielle and David Ganek. The 13 rare, vintage prints represent one of the most significant acquisitions of 20th-century photography in the history of the Metropolitan and more than double the Museum's holdings of works by the artist.
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$345 MILLION ECONOMIC IMPACT ON NEW YORK CITY AND NEW YORK STATE GENERATED BY METROPOLITAN MUSEUM'S SPECIAL EXHIBITION EL GRECO
Wednesday, February 18, 2004, 5:00 a.m.
(New York, February 17, 2004) – National, regional, and foreign tourists visiting The Metropolitan Museum of Art's acclaimed fall 2003 exhibition, El Greco, spent a combined $345 million during their visits to New York City, according to a Museum audience survey released today. Using the standard ratios for calculating tax revenue impact, the direct tax benefit to New York City and New York State from visitors who said that seeing the exhibition was important to their decision to visit the City is estimated at $14.5 million.
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Selected Masterpieces from Metropolitan Museum's Collection of Islamic Art on View During Gallery Renovation
Tuesday, February 17, 2004, 5:00 a.m.
A key milestone in the final phase of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's 1993 master plan for construction in the southern part of its main building will be initiated this month, with the temporary closing of the galleries for Islamic art for enlargement, renovation, and restoration beginning June 2. Over the next several years, the 30-year-old galleries will be expanded to include additional display space and updated to reflect the most recent scholarship and museological practices.
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Poets, Lovers and Heroes in Italian Mythological Prints
Tuesday, February 3, 2004, 5:00 a.m.
Printmaking revolutionized artistic production in the 15th century by allowing artists to create numerous impressions from a single matrix and distribute their work to a wider audience then ever before. Italian artists from Mantegna to Canova embraced the medium, focusing their efforts largely on depictions of scenes from Greek and Roman mythology. A new exhibition exploring the Italian passion for mythological prints that started in the Renaissance and lasted into the early decades of the 19th century opens on February 3, 2004, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Drawn from the Metropolitan Museum's collections, Poets, Lovers, and Heroes in Italian Mythological Prints showcases more than 100 woodcuts, engravings, and etchings, as well as illustrated books, by such artists as Jacopo de' Barbari, Marcantonio Raimondi, Ugo da Carpi, Agostino and Annibale Carracci, Salvator Rosa, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo among others.
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Playing with Fire: European Terracotta Models, 1740-1840
Tuesday, February 3, 2004, 5:00 a.m.
Playing with Fire: European Terracotta Models, 1740-1840, the first major museum exhibition devoted to Neoclassical terracotta sculptures, will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on January 28, 2004. Unprecedented in scale and range, the exhibition unites approximately 135 works from collections throughout Europe and the U.S. Ranging from quick preliminary sketches to completely finished models, the sculptures demonstrate the dash and erudition of modelers across Europe during the Neoclassical age. The international character of the exhibition reflects the broad scope of this rich tradition and includes works by such great modelers as Antonio Canova, Augustin Pajou, Johann Heinrich Dannecker, Philippe-Laurent Roland, and Johan Tobias Sergel. The exhibition also examines the work of sculptors little known outside their home countries, such as the Russian Mikhail Ivanovich Kozlovsky and the Swiss Valentin Sonnenschein, as well as several anonymous modelers.
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Once-in-a-Lifetime Viewing Opportunity within Old Kingdom Tombs at New Gateway to Metropolitan Museum's Egyptian Collection
Tuesday, February 3, 2004, 5:00 a.m.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today the eagerly awaited reopening of the Old Kingdom tombs of Perneb and Raemkai – which will go on temporary view without the glass panels that will be installed later this spring – for a rare six-week viewing by the public.
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Echoing Images: Couples in African Sculpture
Tuesday, February 3, 2004, 5:00 a.m.
Couples in African art and how that theme has been expressed in 28 cultures across the continent are explored in an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, beginning February 10, 2004. Featuring some 60 works in wood, bronze, terracotta, and beadwork that were created between the 12th and the 20th centuries, Echoing Images: Couples in African Sculpture will provide for the first time a dynamic range of artistic commentaries on human duality. The works on exhibition draw primarily from important public and private collections in the New York area, including the American Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the High Museum in Atlanta.