Inside America’s Treasure House: The Met
This is a genuinely eye-opening insight into all sorts of aspects of museum life: preservation, curation, demonstration and, most importantly, how it is able to reflect the times as Covid and the Black Lives Matter movement shake American society and culture profoundly. It begins in celebratory mode in spring 2019, with the Met and its phalanx of eccentrics and artisans preparing to mark its 150th anniversary in 2020 and looking back to its origins as the pet project of financiers whose ambitions were only limited by their funds.
The art of preservation is a fascinating one, especially in the fashion department where modern materials must be kept sealed away from farharder-wearing items from centuries earlier, their synthetic make-up not only degrading more quickly but also giving off chemicals damaging other items. But as the pandemic spreads, the museum closes and begins to resemble a mausoleum, its curators conducting socially distanced rounds to inspect items for moth damage; its reopening is treated as an important landmark in the reestablishment of the city itself, “a symbol of New York resilience for New Yorkers”.