UPCOMING
Major Exhibitions
Exhibitions
Installations
Continuing Exhibitions and Installations
Asian Art 100
New Galleries
Chronological List of Exhibitions
SPECIAL NOTE: All exhibitions take place in the Met's Fifth Avenue building unless otherwise noted.
UPCOMING MAJOR EXHIBITIONS
Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World
April 18–July 17, 2016
In the three centuries following the conquests of Alexander the Great (r. 336-323 B.C.), Hellenistic kings ruled large kingdoms with cosmopolitan cities that fostered an unparalleled growth in the arts. The Hellenistic Age witnessed the beginning of art history, when the first art collections and museums as well as great libraries were formed within elaborate palaces. This landmark exhibition represents an historic collaboration between The Met and the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, whose celebrated sculptures will comprise approximately one-third of some 265 artworks on display. The focus is on the rich diversity of art forms that arose through the patronage of the royal courts of the Hellenistic Kingdoms, with special emphasis placed on Pergamon, capital of the Attalid dynasty, which ruled over large parts of Asia Minor. Carefully selected masterpieces in all media highlight the innovations and technical mastery achieved by Hellenistic artists, whose enduring legacy profoundly influenced Roman art.
The exhibition is made possible by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and Betsy and Edward Cohen / Areté Foundation.
Additional support is provided by Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman, Renée Belfer, Diane Carol Brandt, Gilbert and Ildiko Butler, Mary and Michael Jaharis, and The Vlachos Family Fund.
It is supported by an Indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Accompanied by a catalogue.
The catalogue is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, James and Mary Hyde Ottaway, Mary and Michael Jaharis, and the Jenny Boondas Fund.
Press Preview: Monday, April 11, 2016, 10 am–noon
#MetPergamon
Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs
April 27–July 24, 2016
One of the most productive periods in the history of Iranian and Anatolian art corresponds to the rule of the Seljuqs and their immediate successors. Under the Seljuqs, Iran’s prosperous middle class spurred arts patronage, technological advancements, and a market for luxury goods. In contrast, in Anatolia, northern Iraq, and Syria, which were controlled by the Seljuq successor dynasties, art was produced under royal patronage, and Islamic iconography was introduced to a predominantly Christian area; furthermore, many of the artists had fled to the region from Iran after the Mongol conquest in 1220. Because patrons, consumers, and artists came from diverse cultural, religious, and artistic backgrounds, distinctive arts were produced and flourished in the western parts of the Seljuq realm. Approximately 270 objects in diverse media from American, European, and Middle Eastern public and private collections will be shown, including a selection of representative objects from Turkmenistan.
The exhibition is made possible by the NoRuz at the Met Fund.
Accompanied by a catalogue.
The catalogue is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Doris Duke Fund for Publications, and the Marshall and Marilyn R. Wolf Foundation.
Press Preview: Monday, April 25, 10 am–noon
#CourtandCosmos
Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology
May 5–August 14, 2016
The Costume Institute’s spring 2016 exhibition, presented in the Museum’s Robert Lehman Wing, will explore how fashion designers are reconciling the handmade and the machine-made in the creation of haute couture and avant-garde ready-to-wear. With more than 150 ensembles dating from the early 20th century to the present, the exhibition will address the emergence of a distinction between the hand (manus) and the machine (machina) at the onset of industrialization and mass production. It will explore this ongoing dichotomy, in which hand and machine are presented as discordant tools in the creative process, and question this relationship and the significance of the distinction between haute couture and ready-to-wear.
The exhibition is made possible by Apple.
Additional support is provided by Condé Nast.
Press Preview: Monday, May 2, 10 am–1 pm
#ManusxMachina
The Roof Garden Commission: Cornelia Parker, Transitional Object (PsychoBarn)
April 19–October 31, 2016
This spring British artist Cornelia Parker will create a site-specific installation atop The Met’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden. The installation will be the fourth in a series of commissions created specifically for the outdoor space.
The exhibition is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Additional support is provided by Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon B. Polsky.
Accompanied by a catalogue.
The catalogue is made possible by the Blanche and A.L. Levine Fund and the Mary and Louis S. Myers Foundation Endowment Fund.
Press Preview: Monday, April 18, 10:00 am–noon
#MetRoof
diane arbus: in the beginning
July 12–November 27, 2016
Location: The Met Breuer
Featuring the rarely seen early work of Diane Arbus (1923–1971), this exhibition explores the genesis of one of the most influential and controversial artists of the 20th century. The show focuses on Arbus's first seven years working with the camera on the streets of New York City (1956–1962), a dramatic era in American history and the period when the artist developed her idiosyncratic style and subject matter, which were soon recognized, praised, criticized, and copied all over the world. The majority of the photographs will be drawn from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's vast Diane Arbus Archive, acquired in 2007 by gift and promised gift from the artist's estate. More than half of the photographs have not been exhibited or published, offering general visitors and scholars alike an unparalleled opportunity to see the work of this evocative and haunting artist.
Press Preview: Monday, July 11, 10 a.m.–noon
#DianeArbus
#MetBreuer
UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS
Richard Tuttle: The Critical Edge
April 2—June 26, 2016
The exhibition features a series of six striking new works, all from 2015, made with layers of cut and sewn pieces of fabric that Tuttle sourced in New York and Maine. Together they elaborate the artist’s interest in texture and material, likewise his longstanding use of textile as a medium. Here Tuttle builds his compositions from fragments of fabric, many fashioned into idiosyncratic shapes and some endowed with a clumsy yet evocative three-dimensionality. Once assembled, these fragments generate lively patterns of varying hues. Because the strips of fabric vary in their degree of opacity and transparency, they catch and release light in different ways. They are also responsive to the surrounding environment: shifts in the air cause them to rise and fall in a manner suggestive of breathing. A suite of nine watercolors will accompany the assemblages.
The works in this exhibition were created specifically for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This exhibition will be their official debut to the public.
Turner’s Whaling Pictures
May 10–August 7, 2016
This small exhibition will be the first to explore connections between the late seascapes of J. M. W. Turner and Herman Melville’s epic 1851 novel Moby Dick. Turner’s four canvases devoted to the subject of whaling, now in The Met and Tate Britain, will be shown together for the first time, with several watercolors and books. The installation will offer an opportunity to engage with the work of two great 19th-century artists, and to assess whether Turner’s pictures inspired one of the crowning achievements of American literature.
Accompanied by a Bulletin.
The publication is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The Metropolitan’s quarterly Bulletin program is supported in part by the Lila Acheson Wallace Fund for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, established by the cofounder of Reader’s Digest.
Press Preview: Monday, May 9, 10 am–noon
#MetTurner
Dream States: Contemporary Photographs and Video
May 16—October 30, 2016
Artists have always turned to dreams as a source of inspiration, a retreat from reason, and a space for exploring imagination and desire. In the history of photography, dreams have been most closely associated with the Surrealists, who pushed the technical limits of the medium to transform the camera’s realist documents into fantastical compositions. Whereas their modernist explorations were often bound to psychoanalytic theories, more recently contemporary photographers have pursued the world of sleep and dreams through increasingly open-ended works that succeed through evocation rather than description. This exhibition takes a cue from the artists it features by displaying a constellation of photographs that collectively evoke the experience of a waking dream. Here, a night sky composed of pills, a fragmented rainbow, a sleeping fairy-tale princess, and an alien underwater landscape illuminate hidden impulses and longings underlying contemporary life. Drawn entirely from The Met collection, the installation will feature approximately thirty photographs and video works primarily from the 1970s to the present.
UPCOMING INSTALLATIONS
Global by Design: Chinese Ceramics from the R. Albuquerque Collection
April 25–August 7, 2016
This exhibition, which focuses on the late 16th to the 18th century—the period when Chinese porcelain became a global luxury—will feature 60 exquisite and unusual pieces in a presentation that challenges the traditional, and overly rigid, cataloguing of Chinese ceramics as domestic or trade items. In addition to exploring the trade in Chinese ceramics within Asia, the exhibition will focus on the development of shapes and designs that reflect longstanding exchanges between China and the Islamic world as well as on the subsequent introduction and incorporation of works reflecting both these traditions into Europe and the Americas in the late 16th century. It will also explore the ways in which 18th-century artists, when faced with the global idioms that had developed at that time, made artistic choices that allowed them to create an endless range of spectacular and visually imaginative works.
#GlobalbyDesign
CONTINUING EXHIBITIONS AND INSTALLATIONS
Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible
March 18–September 4, 2016
Location: The Met Breuer
This exhibition examines a subject critical to artistic practice: the question of when a work of art is finished. Beginning with the Renaissance masters, this scholarly and innovative exhibition examines the term “unfinished” in the broadest possible way, including works left incomplete by their makers, which often give insight into the process of their creation, but also those that partake of a non finito – intentionally unfinished – aesthetic that embraces the unresolved and open-ended. Some of history’s greatest artists explored such an aesthetic, among them Titian, Rembrandt, Turner, and Cézanne. The unfinished has been taken in entirely new directions by modern and contemporary artists, among them Janine Antoni, Lygia Clark, Jackson Pollock, and Robert Rauschenberg, who alternately blurred the distinction between making and un-making, extended the boundaries of art into both space and time, and recruited viewers to complete the objects they had begun.
With over 190 works dating from the Renaissance to the present— nearly 40 percent of which are drawn from the Museum’s collection, supplemented with major national and international loans—the exhibition demonstrates The Met’s unique capacity to mine its rich collection and scholarly resources to present modern and contemporary art within a deep historical context. The exhibition catalogue will expand the subject to include the “unfinished” in literature and film, and the role of the conservator in elucidating a deeper understanding of artistic thought on the subject of the unfinished. It will be published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press.
The exhibition is made possible by Leonard A. Lauder and The Dr. Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation.
Additional support is provided by the Jane and Robert Carroll Fund, Howard I. Hoffen & Sandra Hoffen, Kenneth and Rosalind Landis, Ann M. Spruill and Daniel H. Cantwell, and Northern Trust.
It is supported by an Indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
The catalogue is made possible by the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, Inc. and the Roswell L. Gilpatric Publications Fund.
#MetBreuer
#MetUnfinished
Nasreen Mohamedi
March 18–June 5, 2016
Location: The Met Breuer
A singular artist to emerge in post-Independence India, Nasreen Mohamedi (1937–90) created a body of work vital to the evolution of international modernism and abstraction. The Met Breuer exhibition marks the largest presentation of Mohamedi’s work to date and explores the conceptual complexity and visual subtlety that made her practice unique in its time. Mohamedi drew upon a range of inspirations in her work, from Paul Klee and Agnes Martin, to Mughal architecture and Indian classical music, the architecture of Louis Kahn, and Italian neorealist cinema. She experimented with organic lines, delicate grids, and hard-edged forms in her oeuvre, and this aesthetic informed and infused the photographs she took throughout her life. With more than 130 paintings, drawings, and photographs, the exhibition surveys the different stages of Mohamedi’s career and the development of her aesthetic approach, which made her one of the most significant artists of her generation.
The exhibition is made possible by Nita and Mukesh Ambani and the Reliance Foundation.
The exhibition is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, with the collaboration of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi.
#MetBreuer
#NasreenMohamedi
The Secret Life of Textiles: Plant Fibers
March 7–July 31, 2016
Fibers are the most important components of a textile. Everything related to the production of a textile—yarns, dyes, weaving, and patterns—begins with and is determined by the type and quality of the fibers. At The Met, the Museum’s comprehensive textile collection, the conservators’ expertise, and state-of-the-art analytical instrumentation come together to make possible a detailed examination of fiber characteristics and technology through a series of four installations that will be focused on plant fibers, animal fibers, silk, and synthetic fibers. This first installation in the series will reveal the technological transformation and beauty of the most important plant fibers—linen, hemp, ramie, and cotton—used by various cultures around the world in North Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas, from the Dynastic period of Egypt to the present day.
Crime Stories: Photography and Foul Play
March 7–July 31, 2016
Since the earliest days of the medium, photographic images have been used for criminal investigation and evidence gathering, to record crime scenes, to identify suspects and abet their capture, and to disseminate crime-related images to the public. This exhibition explores the multifaceted intersections between photography and crime, from 19th-century “rogues’ galleries” to work by contemporary artists inspired by criminal transgression. Drawn entirely from The Met collection, the installation will feature approximately 40 works, ranging from the 1850s to the present.
#CrimeStories
#MetOnPaper100
Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France
February 15–May 15, 2016
Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842) is one of the finest 18th-century French painters and among the most important of all women artists. An autodidact with exceptional skills as a portraitist, she achieved success in France and Europe during one of the most eventful, turbulent periods in European history. In 1776 she married the leading art dealer in Paris; his profession at first kept her from being accepted into the prestigious Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. Nevertheless, through the intervention of Marie Antoinette, she was admitted at the age of 28 in 1783, becoming one of only four women members. Obliged to flee France in 1789 because of her association with the queen, she traveled to Italy where in 1790 she was elected to membership in the Accademia di San Luca, Rome. Independently, she worked in Florence, Naples, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and Berlin before returning to France, taking sittings from, among others, members of the royal families of Naples, Russia, and Prussia. While in exile she exhibited at the Paris Salons. She was remarkable not only for her technical gifts but for her understanding of and sympathy with her sitters. This will be the first retrospective and only the second exhibition devoted to Vigée Le Brun in modern times. The 80 works on view will be paintings and a few pastels from European and American public and private collections.
The exhibition is made possible by the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund, the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, and the Diane W. and James E. Burke Fund.
Corporate support is provided by Bank of America.
Additional support is provided by gifts made in memory of Parker Gilbert.
The exhibition is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Réunion des Musées Nationaux – Grand Palais, and the National Gallery of Canada, with the exceptional participation of the Château de Versailles.
Accompanied by a catalogue.
The catalogue is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
#VigeeLeBrun
Transformed: Medieval Syrian and Iranian Art in the Early 20th Century
February 10–July 17, 2016
In the early 20th century, the arts of medieval Iran and Syria attracted unprecedented interest from the West. These objects were loosely termed “Seljuq,” after the primary rulers of Iran and Iraq and their successors in the 11th to the 13th century. Demand by museums, collectors, and dealers—especially for figural and highly decorated Seljuq works—led to the custom of repairing, filling in, and enhancing fragmentary and deteriorated examples. The exhibition will consider the legacy of such practices 100 years later, as it compares archaeological artifacts with those that were refurbished or forged.
The exhibition is made possible by The Hagop Kevorkian Fund.
The Power of Prints: The Legacy of William M. Ivins and A. Hyatt Mayor
January 26–May 22, 2016
To commemorate the centennial of The Met’s Department of Drawings and Prints in 2016, this exhibition celebrates two transformational figures: William Ivins, the inaugural curator of the department, and his protégé, A. Hyatt Mayor. These social historians and “amateur print specialists,” as they referred to themselves, transformed how Americans understand and collect prints. The Power of Prints demonstrates how The Met’s print collection was constructed to contain the most beautiful, rare, and exceptional prints alongside the equally important popular and ephemeral works that were collected in the first 50 years of the department’s history. The exhibition shows how the print collection was meant to be like a library—conceived from the beginning as a corpus of works that described, in the most comprehensive way, man’s spiritual aspirations. On view are works by Andrea Mantegna, Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Jacques Callot, Goya, James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, as well as works by lesser-known artists.
The exhibition is made possible by The Schiff Foundation.
Accompanied by a catalogue.
The catalogue is made possible by the Drue E. Heinz Fund.
#PowerofPrints
#MetonPaper
A New Look at a Van Eyck Masterpiece
January 25–April 24, 2016
One of the most intriguing observations about a newly discovered mid-15th-century Crucifixion drawing from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam is its relationship to The Met’s Crucifixion and Last Judgment paintings, which today are known as two halves of a diptych, by Jan van Eyck and his Workshop. Exactly what this relationship is, however, is a matter of discussion that impacts many other issues, such as the attribution, date, and function of the drawing, as well as the date and original form and function of the paintings. Recently, The Met’s paintings, along with their frames, underwent technical investigations in the Museum’s Department of Paintings Conservation in an effort to solve long-standing mysteries about them. This exhibition features the Rotterdam drawing and The Met’s Crucifixion and Last Judgmentpaintings in a presentation that focuses on the new discoveries that have been made. Additional objects, drawn mostly from the Met collection, including paintings, prints, drawings, a rosary bead, manuscript illumination, enamelwork, and portrait medals, provide a context for the Crucifixion and Last Judgment themes.
#MetvanEyck
The World in Play: Luxury Cards, 1430–1540
January 20–April 17, 2016
Location: The Cloisters
Only three decks of European hand-painted playing cards are known to have survived from the late Middle Ages. These include The Cloisters Playing Cards, which form the core of this small exhibition highlighting several intriguing works of secular art from the Cloisters collection. Examples of cards from the earliest hand-painted woodblock deck, 15th-century German engraved cards, and north Italian tarot cards of the same period complete the display. Collectively, the figures and scenes depicted on these cards reflect changing worldviews during a period of tumultuous social, economic, and religious change, charting the transition from late medieval to early modern Europe.
Accompanied by a publication.
The exhibition and catalogue are made possible by the Michel David-Weill Fund.
#MetLuxuryCards
Wordplay: Matthias Buchinger’s Drawings from the Collection of Ricky Jay
January 8–April 11, 2016
This exhibition presents approximately 22 drawings by the 18th-century German artist Matthias Buchinger (1674–1739), who was born without hands or feet. Despite his disabilities, he was celebrated in his own time as a draftsman and calligrapher as well as a magician and musician. He was said to have performed for German emperors, European princes, and for King George I of England. He was also a frequent guest at noble houses in England and Ireland, and performed at local fairs and inns from Amsterdam and Stockholm to Leipzig and Paris. The Met’s two drawings by Buchinger are displayed alongside some 20 works from the collection of Ricky Jay, the celebrated illusionist, actor, and author. Framing Buchinger’s stupendous works, which were composed largely through micrography (employing minuscule script to create abstract shapes or figurative designs) and calligraphy, are works from The Met collection—from late Medieval manuscripts and Renaissance typographical prints, to 17th-century writing books and contemporary works on paper—all of which demonstrate words in play.
#MatthiasBuchinger
Artistic Furniture of the Gilded Age
In three parts, all opening December 15, 2015
• Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room (permanent installation): December 15, 2015
• George A. Schastey (special exhibition): December 15, 2015–May 1, 2016
• Herter Brothers and the William H. Vanderbilt House (gallery installation): December 15, 2015–January 31, 2017
The centerpiece of this three-part exhibition is a sumptuous Aesthetic-style dressing room (1881–82) that was part of a larger commission for Arabella Worsham. She then sold her West 54th Street house and its furnishings to John D. Rockefeller, who made few changes. The Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room has found new life at The Met, where it provides fresh insight into the luxurious and artistic interiors found in New York’s wealthiest households in the late 19th century. The exhibition’s second part focuses on the dressing room’s designer, George A. Schastey (1839–1894), who, although little-known today, operated one of the largest and most successful decorating firms of the time. Some 15 to 20 works by or attributed to Schastey are shown near five examples by rival firms such as Herter Brothers, Pottier & Stymus, and Herts to demonstrate the quality of his work. The unique atmosphere created by New York’s esteemed Gilded Age decorating firms is demonstrated in a new gallery installation on Herter Brothers’ most important commission, the William H. Vanderbilt House, highlighting several new discoveries. Completed in 1882, the Vanderbilt commission dates to precisely the same moment as the Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room.
Artistic Furniture of the Gilded Age: George A. Schastey is made possible by the Enterprise Holdings Endowment and The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation.
Additional support is provided by Karen H. Bechtel.
Accompanied by a Bulletin.
The publication is made possible by the William Cullen Bryant Fellows.
The Metropolitan’s quarterly Bulletin program is supported in part by the Lila Acheson Wallace Fund for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, established by the cofounder of Reader’s Digest.
#GildedAgeFurniture
Phil Collins, How to Make a Refugee
December 9, 2015—March 27, 2016
Filmed during the Kosovo War (1998–1999), how to make a refugee, by British artist Phil Collins, addresses the depiction of war victims by journalists and documentarians. In this film, Collins brings a critical, self-conscious eye to the conventions governing the representation of suffering in the media.
Design for Eternity: Architectural Models from the Ancient Americas
October 26, 2015–September 18, 2016
From the first millennium B.C. until the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century, artists from the ancient Americas created small-scale sculptures representing buildings to be placed in the tombs of important individuals. These works in stone, ceramic, wood, and metal range from highly abstracted representations of temples and houses to elaborate architectural complexes populated with figures conveying a rich sense of ancient ritual and daily life. Often called models, these miniature structures were critical components in funerary practice and beliefs about an afterlife. This exhibition, the first of its kind in the United States, provides new insights into ancient American architectural design and sheds light on the role of models in mediating relationships between the living, the dead, and the divine.
The exhibition is made possible by Jill and Alan Rappaport in honor of Joanne Pearson.
Additional support provided by the Friends of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas.
Accompanied by a catalogue.
The catalogue is made possible by the Mary C. and James W. Fosburgh Publications Fund and The MCS Endowment Fund.
#DesignforEternity
Alex Katz at the Met
October 9, 2015–June 26, 2016
This exhibition, mounted in celebration of gifts both donated and promised to The Met, gathers works by Alex Katz (American, born 1927), one of our era's most acclaimed artists. Acquired through the generosity of Glenn Fuhrman, Leonard A. Lauder, and Katz himself, these works—eight in total, including two loans—span nearly the entire arc of Katz's career and include drawings, prints, and paintings. Among the works are two cutouts, the innovative artistic device that Katz pioneered in the late 1950s; a haunting cityscape; several portraits of Ada, Katz's wife and long-time muse; and portraits of luminaries from Katz's own social and artistic circles.
#MetKatz
New Discoveries: Early Liturgical Textiles from Egypt, 200–400
September 23, 2015–September 5, 2016
Iconographic analysis and scientific testing have revealed new information about the meaning and use of two textiles in The Met's collection. The first—woven in a loop pile meant to suggest a mosaic—has recently been recognized as a wall hanging for Christian liturgical use. The second—five recently acquired elements from a depiction of the Crossing of the Red Sea as described in the book of Exodus—can be understood as being from a wall hanging for Christian or possibly Jewish use.
#LiturgicalTextiles
Reimagining Modernism: 1900–1950
Opened September 2014
This reinstallation of the first-floor galleries of the Lila and Acheson Wallace Wing for modern and contemporary art is a comprehensive and unprecedented reinterpretation of The Met collection of European and American modern painting, sculpture, photography, drawings and prints, and design. The first-floor galleries have been divided into seven themes that relate to art and life in the first half of the 20th century: Avant-Garde (Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Gallery and The Esther Annenberg Simon Gallery), Direct Expression (Gallery 911), Abstraction (The Marietta Lutze Sackler Gallery and The Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Gallery), Bodies (also in The Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Gallery), Work and Industry (Gallery 903), The Metropolis (Pierre and Maria-Gaetana Matisse Gallery), and Retreat (The Sharp Gallery and 901).
Sol LeWitt: Wall Drawing #370
June 30, 2014–January 1, 2017
Sol LeWitt’s 1982 piece Wall Drawing #370: Ten Geometric Figures (including right triangle, cross, X, diamond) with three-inch parallel bands of lines in two directions was installed at the Museum over a period of four weeks. The drawing of 10 geometric figures set within squares went on view in its complete state beginning June 30, 2014 and will remain on view through January 1, 2017.
The loan of Wall Drawing #370 is courtesy of The Estate of Sol LeWitt.
The installation is made possible by The Modern Circle.
Fabergé from the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation Collection
November 22, 2011–November 27, 2016
When Matilda Geddings Gray acquired her first piece of Fabergé for her niece, in 1933, she was already a wealthy and sophisticated collector, and the name of the Russian artist-jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé (1846–1920) was almost unknown in the United States. Since then, Fabergé’s art has become widely known and his exquisite objects are now internationally sought after. On long-term loan to The Met, this selection from the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation collection, one of the finest in the world, includes objects created for the Russian Imperial family, such as the Lilies-of-the-Valley Basket—the most important Fabergé creation in the United States—and three Imperial Easter Eggs.
ASIAN ART 100
CONTINUING EXHIBITIONS AND INSTALLATIONS
(For the two upcoming Asian Art 100 exhibitions see here and here)
Monkey Business: Celebrating the Year of the Monkey
January 8–July 24, 2016
The installation features depictions of monkeys in various media, including painting, ceramics, metalwork, and jade carving. Of particular interest are a 12th-century painting of three monkeys raiding an egret’s nest and a blue-and-white porcelain plate of monkeys and deer under a tree, both of which, as visual puns, express the wish for academic and political successes.
#YearoftheMonkey
#AsianArt100
Encountering Vishnu: The Lion Avatar in Indian Temple Drama
December 19, 2015–June 5, 2016
Dramas presented during religious festivals in southern India are an important aspect of popular Hindu celebration. This exhibition will highlight five rare wooden sculptural masks that represent a largely unrecorded category of late medieval Indian devotional art. The masks depict the characters in the story of the deadly battle between Vishnu in his man-lion avatar, Narasimha, and an evil king whose destruction was essential for the restoration of order in the universe.
The exhibition is made possible by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation Fund.
#AsianArt100
#VishnuAvatars
Masterpieces of Chinese Painting from the Metropolitan Collection
October 31, 2015–October 11, 2016
During the last 40 years, The Met’s collection of Chinese painting and calligraphy has grown to be one of the greatest in the world. With masterpieces dating from the Tang dynasty (608–917) to the Qing (1644–1911), the collection encompasses the vast historical sweep of the brush arts of China, from meticulous court painting to fiercely brushed dragons to lyrical paintings by scholars. The exhibition is part of a yearlong celebration marking the centennial of the Department of Asian Art. This exhibition, presented in two rotations, highlights the gems of the permanent collection in a chronological display, with an emphasis on works from the Song (960–1279) and Yuan (1271–1368) dynasties.
The exhibition is made possible by the Joseph Hotung Fund.
#AsianArt100
#ChinesePainting
Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection
October 20, 2015–January 22, 2017
Over the course of five decades, Mary Griggs Burke (1916–2012), a New York-based collector of Asian art, built one of the finest and most comprehensive private collections of Japanese art outside Japan. Over 300 masterworks, including over 225 paintings in various formats, as well as Buddhist sculptures and an array of ceramics and lacquerware, outstanding examples of every type of Japanese art represented, were bequeathed to The Met. This exhibition, which serves as a tribute to a great collector, reveals the distinctive features of Japanese art as viewed through the lens of 50 years of collecting: the sublime spirituality of Buddhist and Shinto art; the boldness of Zen ink painting; the imaginary world conjured up by the Tale of Genji and classical Japanese literature; the sumptuous colors of bird-and-flower painting; the subtlety of poetry, calligraphy, and literati themes; the aestheticized accoutrements of the tea ceremony; and the charming portraiture of courtesans from the "floating world" (ukiyo-e).
The exhibition is made possible by the Mary Griggs Burke Fund, Gift of the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation, 2015.
#AsianArt100
#ArtsofJapan
Asian Art at 100: A History in Photographs
September 19, 2015–May 22, 2016
A selection of archival photographs of galleries and installations dating from 1907 to 1945 documents the changing face of Asian art at The Met. Complementing the display is a wall-mounted timeline with images of the building, floor plans, and small versions of these historic photos to place them in the context of the larger Museum.
#AsianArt100
Chinese Textiles: Ten Centuries of Masterpieces from the Met Collection
August 15, 2015–June 19, 2016
Showcasing some of the most important and unusual textiles in The Met's collection, this installation explores the cultural importance of silk in China. Works on view include three rare pieces dating from the Tang dynasty (618–906), 11th- and 12th-century tapestries from Central Asia, spectacular embroideries, and a monumental panel from the late 17th or early 18th century depicting phoenixes in a garden.
The exhibition is made possible by the Joseph Hotung Fund.
#AsianArt100
#ChineseTextiles
Chinese Lacquer: Treasures from the Irving Collection, 12th-18th Century
August 15, 2015–June 19, 2016
Featuring many of the most important examples of Chinese lacquer in The Met's collection, this installation explores the intricate techniques used to embellish lacquer objects with scenes derived from history and literature, images of popular gods, representations of real and mythical animals, landscapes, flowers, and birds.
The exhibition is made possible by the Joseph Hotung Fund.
#AsianArt100
#ChineseLacquer
A Passion for Jade: The Heber Bishop Collection
March 14, 2015–June 19, 2016
Heber R. Bishop's collection of carved jades was formed in the last quarter of the 19th century and bequeathed to The Met in 1902. Consisting of over 1,000 pieces—primarily Chinese jades of the 18th and 19th centuries, and jades from Mughal India—it was the first major collection of its kind in the country. This exhibition features a selection of the finest examples from this renowned collection.
The exhibition is made possible by the Joseph Hotung Fund.
#BishopJades
#AsianArt100
NEW GALLERIES
The Arts of Nepal and Tibet
Reopened March 13, 2015
These newly reinstalled galleries for Nepalese and Tibetan arts display some 100 sculptures, paintings, and textiles from the 9th to the 19th century, showcasing the 14 masterpieces acquired recently from the Zimmerman Family Collection.
The exhibition is made possible by The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Foundation Fund.
#NepalTibetArts
#AsianArt100
New Venetian Sculpture Gallery
Opened November 11, 2014
The Met’s marble sculpture Adam by Tullio Lombardo (ca. 1455–1532) returned to public view late last fall following a 12-year conservation project, presented in a special exhibition in the Museum’s new Venetian Sculpture Gallery. Adam is now the focal point of this permanent gallery in a niche inspired by its original location in a monumental tomb in Venice. The creation of this new space has encouraged the curatorial reassessment of The Met’s sculpture collection from this period. Tullio’s statue is joined by an exquisitely carved Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Cristoforo Solari (ca. 1460–1524), specially acquired for this gallery, and a newly conserved masterpiece by Tullio’s father Pietro Lombardo, a Madonna and Child, whose attribution to Pietro was sometimes questioned in the past and that, as a consequence, has spent several decades in storage. The new Venetian Sculpture Gallery, a perfect cube, was designed with Renaissance ideals of geometry and proportion in mind. It is a meditative environment that encourages sustained encounters with these important works.
The installation of this gallery was made possible by Assunta Sommella Peluso, Ignazio Peluso, Ada Peluso and Romano I. Peluso.
Chinese Treasury
Opened May 19, 2014
This gallery, which recreates the type of collecting and display found in 18th-century treasure cabinets (duobaoge), features some of The Met's most precious works of Chinese art including sculptures and vessels of ivory, rhinoceros horn, glass, porcelain, and jade. Touchpads allow viewers to read introductory texts for all of the objects as well as to explore further by grouping the works of art digitally by material and by theme.
The Costume Institute’s Anna Wintour Costume Center
Opened May 8, 2014
The Costume Institute galleries reopened on May 8 as the Anna Wintour Costume Center after a two-year renovation, reconfiguration, and updating. The 4,200-square-foot main Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch Gallery features a flexible design that lends itself to frequent transformation, as well as a zonal sound system and innovative projection technology. The redesigned space also includes: the Carl and Iris Barrel Apfel Gallery, which orients visitors to The Costume Institute’s exhibitions and holdings; a state-of-the-art costume conservation laboratory; an expanded study/storage facility that houses the combined holdings of The Met and the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection (which was transferred to The Met in 2009); and The Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library, one of the world’s foremost fashion libraries. The Costume Institute was last refurbished in 1992.
New European Paintings Galleries, 1250–1800
Opened May 23, 2013
The Met's galleries for its world-renowned collection of European Old Master paintings from the 13th through the early 19th century reopened in May 2013 after an extensive renovation and reinstallation. This was the first major renovation of the galleries since 1951 and the first major reinstallation of the collection since 1972. Gallery space has increased by almost one-third, making it possible to display more than 700 paintings from the collection and giving the entire floor of galleries a grandeur not seen in half a century. The reinstallation also captures historical crosscurrents between countries and contacts between artists by placing them in adjoining rooms. The Met’s collection of early Netherlandish, Italian, and French paintings is wide-ranging and includes landmark pictures, while its collection of Dutch school paintings must be counted among the finest in the world. As for individual artists, the representation of Rembrandt, Rubens, Vermeer, Poussin, Velázquez, Goya, and David is the strongest in the western hemisphere, and there are individual masterpieces known to every student of art history, such as Bruegel’s The Harvesters and David’s The Death of Socrates. Key works have been cleaned, conserved, or reframed, and important new loans complement the collection.
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Updated March 21, 2016
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF UPCOMING AND CURRENT
EXHIBITIONS AND INSTALLATIONS:
Richard Tuttle: The Critical Edge
April 2—June 26, 2016
Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World
April 18–July 17, 2016
The Roof Garden Commission: Cornelia Parker, Transitional Object (PsychoBarn)
April 19–October 31, 2016
Global by Design: Chinese Ceramics from the R. Albuquerque Collection
April 25–August 7, 2016
Court and Cosmos: The Great Age of the Seljuqs
April 27–July 24, 2016
Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology
May 5–August 14, 2016
Turner’s Whaling Pictures
May 10–August 7, 2016
Dream States: Contemporary Photographs and Video
May 16—October 30, 2016
diane arbus: in the beginning
July 12–November 27, 2016
CONTINUING EXHIBITIONS AND INSTALLATIONS
Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible
March 18–September 4, 2016
Nasreen Mohamedi
March 18–June 5, 2016
The Secret Life of Textiles: Plant Fibers
March 7–July 31, 2016
Crime Stories: Photography and Foul Play
March 7–July 31, 2016
Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France
February 15–May 15, 2016
Transformed: Medieval Syrian and Iranian Art in the Early 20th Century
February 10–July 17, 2016
The Power of Prints: The Legacy of William M. Ivins and A. Hyatt Mayor
January 26–May 22, 2016
A New Look at a Van Eyck Masterpiece
January 25–April 24, 2016
The World in Play: Luxury Cards, 1430-1540
January 20–April 17, 2016
Wordplay: Matthias Buchinger’s Drawings from the Collection of Ricky Jay
January 8–April 11, 2016
Monkey Business: Celebrating the Year of the Monkey
January 8–July 24, 2016
Encountering Vishnu: The Lion Avatar in Indian Temple Drama
December 19, 2015–June 5, 2016
Artistic Furniture of The Gilded Age
In three parts, all opening December 15, 2015
• Worsham-Rockefeller Dressing Room(permanent installation): December 15, 2015
• George A. Schastey(special exhibition): December 15, 2015–May 1, 2016
• Herter Brothers and the William H. Vanderbilt House(gallery installation): December 15, 2015–January 31, 2017
Phil Collins, How to Make a Refugee
December 9, 2015—March 27, 2016
Masterpieces of Chinese Painting from the Metropolitan Collection
October 31, 2015–October 11, 2016
Design for Eternity: Architectural Models from the Ancient Americas
October 26, 2015–September 18, 2016
Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection
October 20, 2015–January 22, 2017
Alex Katz at the Met
October 9, 2015–June 26, 2016
New Discoveries: Early Liturgical Textiles from Egypt, 200–400
September 23, 2015–September 5, 2016
Asian Art at 100: A History in Photographs
September 19, 2015–May 22, 2016
Chinese Textiles: Ten Centuries of Masterpieces from the Met Collection
August 15, 2015–June 19, 2016
Chinese Lacquer: Treasures from the Irving Collection, 12th-18th Century
August 15, 2015–June 19, 2016
A Passion for Jade: The Heber Bishop Collection
March 14, 2015–June 19, 2016
Reimagining Modernism: 1900–1950
Opened September 2014
Sol LeWitt: Wall Drawing #370
June 30, 2014–January 1, 2017
Fabergé from the Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation Collection
November 22, 2011–November 27, 2016
Image Captions:
Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible: Alice Neel. James Hunter Black Draftee, 1965. Oil on canvas. COMMA Foundation, Belgium, © The Estate of Alice Neel, Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London
Nasreen Mohamedi: Nasreen Mohamedi (Indian, 1937-1990). Untitled, ca. 1975. Ink and graphite on paper, 20 × 28 in. (50.8 × 71.1 cm). Sikander and Hydari Collection
Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World:Fragmentary Colossal Head of a Youth, Greek, Hellenistic Period, 2nd century B.C. Marble, H. 22 7/8 in. (58 cm). Berlin, Pergamonmuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (AvP VII 283)
Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology: Dress, Silicon feather structure and molding of bird heads on cotton base, Iris van Herpen (Dutch, born 1984), fall/winter 2013–14. Photo by Jean-Baptiste Mondino
Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France: Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (French, Paris 1755–1842 Paris). Self-portrait, 1790. Oil on canvas, 100 x 81 cm. Galleria degli Uffizi, Corridoio Vasariano, Florence (1905)