On August 29, New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art will reopen to the public, for the most part. In lockdown since March 13 due to Covid-19, this has been the longest continuous closure in the museum’s history.
“The safety of our staff and visitors remains our greatest concern,” said Daniel H. Weiss, President and CEO of The Met. “We are eager to reopen and expect this will be possible next month. Perhaps now more than ever the Museum can serve as a reminder of the power of the human spirit and the capacity of art to bring comfort, inspire resilience, and help us better understand each other and the world around us.”
Although the museum is admitting guests again, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you and your dozen closest friends can all gather ass-to-elbows seven days a week to admire Georgia O’Keeffe’s stunning abstractions of American iconography. In accordance with guidelines from the CDC, The Met will limit the number of visitors to 25 percent of the normal capacity in order to maintain safe social distancing, implement more intense cleaning procedures, and require that all guests and employees wear masks inside of the museum. In addition, to accommodate the robust cleaning efforts, the museum will only be open five days a week, from Thursday to Monday and will operate on a limited schedule on those days (10 am-5 pm on Saturday, Sunday Monday; noon-7 pm on Thursday and Friday). Beyond The Met, the Cloisters is set to reopen sometime in September.
When visitors return, they’ll be greeted by a host of new exhibitions. Most notable, Making The Met, 1870–2020, the centerpiece of the museum’s 150th anniversary retrospective, will be on display. While tours, events, concerts and talks have all been nixed for the remainder of the year, the museum still plans on throwing belated anniversary celebrations next year. The chance to once again go to The Met is undoubtedly exciting and a sign of progress towards normalcy, but the museum will still have to contend with one final issue: how can they regain our trust that their art is actually art and not just cake?
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