Montebello: The Met's savvy elitist

Philippe de Montebello and the Met:
How an elitist reached the masses

VICTORIA SKELLY

Last week the momentous occurred. Philippe de Montebello announced that he will retire from his post as director of the Metropolitan Museum of New York after 30 years at its helm.

What a grand tenure it has been! Over three decades Montebello has fashioned the Met into the nation’s foremost art museum, perhaps the world’s. And he has accomplished this not by pandering to the ephemerally popular. Rather, Montebello has successfully articulated a philosophy that a large, encyclopedic institution such as the Met should offer viewers art objects of enduring quality. The museum should be a repository of carefully selected works that (in Montebello’s words) are a “constant against which the shifting fashions and ideas may be tested.”

How curiously elitist and irrelevant to our times, some might say. Who cares about objects of yesteryear, when it is the new and the cutting edge that we are interested in? And yet the Met attracts some 4 million visitors each year, with close to half of that figure repeat visitors.

What has been the great draw? The Met, aside from its obvious role as the Big Apple’s large museum destination, has offered its viewers intelligent and stimulating temporary exhibitions, has made important acquisitions (including Walter Annenberg’s collection), and has practiced savvy collections management. Almost every major collection category has been revitalized or reworked in some way under Montebello’s tenure— most recently the impressive Greek and Roman Art reinstallation.

‘Man’s capacity to excel’

In this era of declining funding from corporate and governmental sources, Montebello steadfastly resisted the temptation to “dumb down” content in order to reach a mass audience. On the contrary, he has demonstrated the confidence that visitors will reach up to what he and his highly trained staff have sensitively offered. “What we learn,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal (Jan. 10), “is that no matter the degree of chaos and adversity surrounding him, man has shown his capacity to excel, to surpass. That is the ultimate assurance of renewal and survival. And it is one of the great lessons of the art museum.”

Montebello’s confidence in his choices, eschewing all manner of “marketing savvy,” reflect a marvelous faith in humankind.

Montebello’s legacy also consistently endorses the artwork as a visual phenomenon. To his mind, the art object is central to the museum-going experience. The restaurants and cafés, the stores and the concerts, are all fine accoutrements, but clearly not the main attraction. He championed the aesthetic dimension in a time when both academic and museum circles are reluctant to emphasize it. (He has observed that when art is used to illustrate some intellectual tenet with no reference to its aesthetic qualities, an unsatisfying exhibit normally results.)

The trouble with the art market

Unfortunately, academic and museum officials alike have been reluctant to venture into discussions of scales of artistic merit. If museums and universities abandon this role of separating the mediocre from the finest, who then will take up this work with a measure of just authority? The art market?

The market can to some extent complement the activity of the museums and universities, but it will always incline naturally to short-term goals and profit making. Museums and universities must assume the role of experts and provide the countervailing voice to the market’s tendencies. It’s really up to these authorities to decide what objects are the very best— what objects should comprise mankind’s collective memory.

A day-trip to New York

My art student daughter came home for the holidays confessing to being a bit wearied from all of the conceptual art-think that she has been exposed to at school. We offered her the opportunity to visit some museums during vacation. Not surprisingly, a trip to New York was among her choices. Let’s see…Chelsea? The Whitney? MOMA? No, surprisingly— or maybe not surprisingly at all— she chose to visit the Frick Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum for a one-day sojourn.

At the Frick we saw Veronese’s lush textiles, Turner’s light and flash, Vermeer’s smooth calm and El Greco’s elongated forms. At the Met we found the colors and angles of masks made in Polynesia and the intricate carvings of old musical instruments from many cultures. Of course, we stopped to study Damien Hirst’s shark in his formaldehyde tank. The shark was quite a counterpoint to the Greek and Roman sculpture next door! We marveled at the conservation problems the shark would provide for some unfortunate curator. What incredible collections! They are indeed part of humankind’s memory and can form the reference from which our creative endeavors spring today.

Let’s hope the Met’s search committee will recognize the strengths of Philippe de Montebello’s legacy and will seek to replace him with an individual who’ll enhance what he has left us rather than “deconstruct” it. Montebello himself will surely continue to communicate his musings on matters of art and the museum world in some way or another (he's only 71). His influence shall prevail. And that’s a very good thing.

Now, I can’t help wondering, what he would have to say concerning the move of the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia?



To read another perspective on Philippe de Montebello by Robert Zaller, click here.