Presenting TEDxMet: ICONS

«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...»

We began with five curators—some of the best storytellers in the Museum: Andrew Bolton, Navina Haidar, Melanie Holcomb, Jeff Rosenheim, and Luke Syson.

Then we added one of our Trustees, the acclaimed author Andrew Solomon.

We, of course, thought about artists and invited Lorna Simpson, Alice Attie, and, an icon in his own right, Bill T. Jones. We also wondered if we could do the first wordless TED talk: enter artist James Nares.

We considered architecture and asked Nicolai Ouroussoff to think about New York's iconic Breuer Building.

Humor seemed like a good idea, so Maira Kalman and Negin Farsad came on board.

And science—from no less than Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel.

We also knew the day needed performance so Kyle Abraham, Meredith Monk, and STREB Extreme Action Company joined So Percussion, our TEDxMet house band.

The list was capped off by our discovery of Chartgirl, tackling one of the mightiest Met icons of them all,
J. Pierpont Morgan.

That's how our TEDxMet line-up emerged: strong, inspiring, ready to spread some ideas in a whole new way. Be there in person or watch the live stream, October 19, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.

Made possible by Adrienne Arsht.