The Met Breuer Falls Flat

The Met Breuer is one of the best art spaces in Manhattan. So it is only natural that everyone was holding their breathe to see what the Met would put in it after signing an eight year-contract. Well, it's finally clear. The first exhibitions have opened. The Met Breuer has opened with two "ho-hum" exhibits, and I have to ask, "What is it all about?" Can't the Met do better than that?

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One part of the exhibition contains the work of contemporary India Artist Nasreen Mohamedi (now passed away). Well fine. Perhaps that is warranted. But then rooms and rooms devoted to unfinished works of "the greats" of Western Art. Is that what we were waiting for? Is this really needed by the public? And is this the best the Met can do?

So much artwork needs to be displayed--both from the United States and abroad. Artists, sculptors, living and dead. The public needs to see these artists work. The Met has the expertise. But somehow, it can't see, "Outside the Box," as that headline writer for Roberta Smith's review in the NY Times Sunday Arts Section suggested. That headline was "Thinking Inside the Box," and that is just what the Met has done. So now we are still left with the question of, what will be the role of these wonderful space? The Met has not answered that question with these two ill matched exhibitions. Please do better next time, Met.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/04/arts/design/at-the-met-breuer-thinking-inside-the-box.html?smtyp=cur&_r=0