The Great Hall at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The resignation – some would say, forced resignation – of Thomas P. Campbell as director and CEO of the debt-ridden Metropolitan Museum of Art can only sadden those of us who favor this beloved institution and know its scholarly leader even casually.
Sadden but not surprised. When Campbell became director in 2008, I thought he was an exhilarating choice, because he was a curator and not a manager. And I thought he was an odd choice, because, well, he was a curator and not a manager. Those mixed feelings turned out to be prescient.
Campbell – an Anglo-American born in Singapore and educated at Oxford – is an expert in tapestries. (His nickname – not always kindly meant, I think – is “Tapestry Tom.”) As such, he has contributed some of The Met’s most brilliant exhibits and catalogs, filled with cinematic works in threads that were the “big screen” entertainments of their time. “Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence” (2002) and “Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor” (2007) were justly acclaimed for their breadth, depth and visual dazzle.
But the gifts that enable you to pursue a goal single-mindedly – those of a curator, a scientist, an artist or a writer – are not necessarily the broad talents of a manager and, especially, a leader. Just as not every actor can direct himself and others in a movie, nor every doctor be a hospital administrator – a player-manager, as it were – so not every curator can head the institution for which he works. Campbell, while passionate about art, seemed to shrink in his new role rather than expand with it. That the unassuming scholar followed the urbane, mellifluous Philippe de Montebello – who could fund-raise reading the phone book – led to the inevitably unfortunate comparisons.
But art insiders suggest what some of us surmise – that Campbell was set up to fail by the very board that elevated him in the first place – a board whose members have pushed a Modern and contemporary art agenda consonant with their own collections, tastes and pocketbooks. Under Campbell, The Met leased and renovated the former Whitney Museum of American Art, now The Met Breuer, an artistically successful but costly venture; went heavily into digital; and rebranded itself – questionable pursuits in an ambivalent economy.
Diadumenos, a Roman copy of a Greek work by Polykleitos in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Greek and Roman Galleries. Photograph by Marie-Lan Nguyen
In a New York Times essay, critic Holland Cotter wrote that The Met needs to reconnect with viewers whose interests are more aligned with the “photogenic events” of Selfie Nation, like The Costume Institute’s “Manus x Machina,” than with “the worthy scholarly shows” that were the specialty of Campbell and his predecessor.
“If historical art is now a hard sell, and it is, learn to sell it hard. That means, among other things, start telling the truth about it – about who made objects, and how they work in the world and how they got to the museum and what they mean, what values they advertise, good and bad. “Go for truth (which, like the telling of history, is always changing), and connect art to life. Mix things up – periods, functions, cultures. (You can always unmix them.) Let audiences see that old is always new, if viewed through knowledge.”
But The Met has been doing this for years. The Breuer is all about seeing contemporary art through the lens of The Met’s encyclopedic collection.
If The Met didn’t know to relate to the public and the Modern, contemporary art scene, do you think Leonard Lauder would’ve gifted it – and not the Whitney or The Museum of Modern Art – with a Modern collection worth $1 billion? (The expansion that would house it is now on hold.)
Meanwhile, some experts don’t buy Cotter’s notion that viewers are only interested in the now. They contend, and rightly so, that visitors of all ages flow through the galleries. Certainly, last year’s “Pergamon” show, an unprecedented foray into the Hellenistic world, captivated a wide audience.
Yes, The Met has to move with the times. We all do. That’s merely Darwinian. But I’m reminded of something my beloved Aunt Mary used to say – bend over too much and your butt sticks up in the air. It’s akin to the baseball adage that says you stay within yourself, play your game.
The Met can only cater so much through its exhibit and education programs to a society that has been betrayed culturally by its parents, its schools and its civic leaders. It’s not The Met’s fault that people don’t know Alexander the Great from Alexander Graham Bell. Why should The Met suffer? Why should we?
I agree with Cotter that some of the air has gone out of its balloon. But this is not an irreversible problem. Time to get back on a sound financial footing and do more of the historical survey shows, both big and small, for which the museum is known.
The Met is a great institution, one of the greatest in the world. Time to remember what made it so.