So Many People, So Few Sightlines
I know I would have loved the Manet/Degas exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum if only I had been able to view the art. And I could have learned something about the dynamic—personal and artistic—between the two painters if I could have stopped to read the text on the gallery walls. Alas, though it was a late Monday morning (when I called them, the time advised by the Met itself as the best chance to avoid the crowds), the shoulder-to-shoulder sea of humans prevented both.
Blockbuster exhibitions—famous names, big crowds, lots of swag at the gift shop—may be good for a museum’s bottom line but far from ideal for the viewer. I am heartened to find that my disappointment is not entirely my own. In “Rant 74: Blockbuster blues,” on just this subject, the author talks about not just the frustration of ticket lines around the block (not a problem at the Met) but also the joylessness of the whole endeavor “when inside, the average congregation around a painting exceeds twenty.” Numerically, that was just about what happened here. Not my first experience with a blockbuster crowd of this sort but this may have been the worst.
One’s choices at this point appear to be to catch glimpses of the paintings through a sea of shifting heads or to shuffle through to the next gallery where if lucky you might be the one who is able to stand in front of a masterpiece for a few seconds while blocking someone else’s view. Give up on any reading. Reading any of the wall text is near impossible in a dim room at a distance of a dozen paces or more unless the viewer is gifted with superhuman eyesight.
Presumably the Met tried to maintain some control over crowd size through a system of having visitors sign up for a “virtual queue.” The process itself was fairly smooth with a nice museum employee to assist. (All museum staff were unfailingly courteous and helpful.) The problem is that it did not appear to be achieving its aims.
After commenting on her childhood memories of being in a museum unable to see anything: “I’m not sure that I’m happy only being able to experience an exhibition between the heads of my fellow onlookers. Maybe I’m saying that the contemplation, the ability to look at something of interest for as long as I want is crucial to my enjoyment of an exhibition. Now that I’m tall enough to see the art, why should I be six rows back?” —Cara Sutherland, Rant 74: Blockbuster blues
What did not disappoint? My girl Olympia of course. (Click here for an earlier story.) Manet’s masterpiece (photo, top) was center stage, and I politely sidled my way to a front row spot twice—once to say a warm hello and later, a final adieu until we meet again upon both of our returns to Paris. An escape to other parts of the museum produced delightful scenes of young artists doing a masterful job of copying a chosen painting while we strangers peered over their shoulders and nodded in admiration (photo, below). The 4th floor Met Dining Room, previously restricted to high rolling members, is now open to the public, where the pastrami-smoked trout was superb and the onion rings were world-class. (And a special mention of the bus ride back to the hotel is warranted, where we watched an 8 year-old fellow passenger absolutely engrossed in the remaining pages of a Harry Potter novel. When his stop came, his mother had to force him to insert a bookmark, at “page 720,” he announced proudly.)
I am not certain how to fix the problem of too many people, made worse by too many iPhones snapping too many photos and selfies, even videos (like the stories about trying to view the Mona Lisa at the Louvre), or in this case, some who monopolized front row positions by whipping out sketchbooks. And then sketching, as crowds jostled behind them. Longer museum hours? Fewer tickets? Without a solution, when it comes to blockbuster exhibitions, if you want simply to view the art and take a moment to contemplate, you may be out of luck.
The ultimate choice might be to stay home, order the doorstop-weight catalog to be delivered by UPS, and then, from the comfort of a favorite living room couch or chair, to turn page by sweet page to view, to read, perchance to dream of art, with no heads to block the view.
Postscript: Manet/Degas has received rave reviews, so if you have an effective crowd-avoidance strategy, by all means, go. On view through January 7, 2024 and remember that the Met is closed on Wednesdays. And not all was lost. I moved on to MOMA where viewing the Ed Ruscha exhibition was enjoyable—manageable crowd, larger galleries, room to turn around and best of all, the ability to spend time with Ruscha’s works.
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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.
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