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| The New Republic: Books & Arts May 13, 2010  James Gardner The last time King Tut came to New York, back in 1979, he was appropriately entombed in the neo-classical temple of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Now, some 30 years on, he returns to less exalted digs at the Discovery Center in Times Square. Yet the change of venue underscores the enhanced fortunes of both Times Square and the Met. Three decades ago, at the perigee of New York’s civic fortunes, the area around this new exhibition would have been buzzing with hookers and addicts and littered with porn shops (and litter). Now, notwithstanding last week’s events, this has transformed into one of the safest, family-friendliest places in America. As for the Met, it has again become one of the most high-minded and unapologetically elitist institutions in the country. Its blockbuster of the moment, after all, is The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry. But 30 years ago, the late Thomas Hoving, who was the Met’s brash director at the time, had very different ideas for that institution: He aspired to tear down the notional boundaries between the high-art inside the building and the unwashed mobs outside. In the process, he ushered in the era of the museum blockbuster, where hordes of newly-minted art enthusiasts tackled one another for a glimpse of some frail antiquity, to the sounds of cash registers ringing up Egyptian themed tote-bags in the now-inevitable sales area just beyond the exit; over 1.8 million visitors saw the show at the Met. But its Barnumesque success clings to Hoving’s posthumous reputation like a lewd tattoo—it is emblematic of what serious museum directors are now determined not to do. |
