The Metropolitan Museum of Art Is Marking Its 150th Anniversary With a Party for Hundreds of Artists and a Show About Its Storied History

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is hitting a major
milestone: the beloved, venerable institution is turning 150 years
old on April 13.

It was on that date in 1870 that the Legislature of the State of
New York passed an act to establish the
institution.

“Unlike our friends at the Louvre [in Paris] and the Prado [in
Madrid] and many other great encyclopedic museums around the world,
which began with a royal collection, the Met began with nothing—not
a piece of art, not a building,” Ken Weine, the museum’s chief
communications officer, tells Artnet News.

That makes the current size and scope of the Met—the largest in
the world by area, at 2.2 million square feet, with some 1.5
million collection objects covering 5,000 years of history—all the
more remarkable. When the very first museum trustees signed the
charter so many years ago, they had no way of knowing what they
were setting in motion.

“In the early days of the Met, there were intense conversations
about if the museum should be a destination for the masses or the
elites,” Weine says. “Wonderfully, even in the last 12 years, there
have been great changes in museum visitorship. We’ve grown from 4
million to 7 million visitors and have an audience that continues
to grow younger and more diverse. That is a reflection of the
energy and changing landscape of New York City, which is a global
destination.”

In recognition of the watershed moment that started it all, the
Met is pulling out all the stops, with a year’s worth of
celebrations that began this week with the long-awaited reopening of the museum’s
British galleries.

Things kick into high gear on April 13, starting off with a
ceremonial cake-cutting with city and state officials. The
flavor of the cake has yet to be determined, but it’s being baked
and decorated by Margaret Choo, a project manager in
membership research at the Met who also has a side hustle selling
high-end baked goods.

“Like all great New Yorkers, she has many talents,” Weine says.
“She’s renowned internally and accepted our invitation to make a
very, very big cake.”

Throughout the anniversary day, there will be musical
performances in the Great Hall, and as night falls, the Empire
State Building will be illuminated in red in the Met’s honor.
Bloomingdale’s will also mark the occasion with specially designed
window displays and by lighting its facade red in the evening.

There will also be a special exhibition at the museum, “Making
the Met: 1870–2020” (March 30–August 2, 2020), featuring 250 works
that showcase transformative moments in the museum’s history.

Displays of gifts and promised gifts given on the occasion of
the anniversary will also be prominently featured, with objects
scattered throughout the galleries as well as in dedicated
exhibitions, such as one on the fashion collection of Sandy
Schreier. Another show will highlight Hudson River School paintings
and other American artworks from the collection of Barrie and
Deedee Wigmore. In addition, a new series of installations will
highlight cross-cultural connections between works made in
different regions of the world.

Among the many pieces in the museum’s collection are works from
approximately 1,000 living artists—all of whom are being invited to
an “Artists Take the Met” party this spring.

“Artists of the time were among the founders of the Met, so it
is appropriate that contemporary artists celebrate,” Weine says,
noting that he expects 500 or so turn up for the event. (Some of
them are even being enlisted to DJ by Met director Max
Hollein.)

“This anniversary is an exciting and important opportunity for
us to say thank you to New Yorkers, to our supporters, and to all
of our millions of visitors who helped us build this institution,”
Weine says. “The promise of the Met is that we can build in New
York a place for all people to gather to celebrate human
creativity. It is a wonderfully idealistic notion, and we are
elated both to celebrate and to plan for the decades ahead.”

To learn more about the museum’s many activities, see its
web page about the anniversary and the promotional
video below.

The post The Metropolitan Museum of Art Is Marking Its 150th
Anniversary With a Party for Hundreds of Artists and a Show About
Its Storied History appeared first on artnet News.