First things first, this post would have been written hours ago if not for The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s new real estate website.  Someday, I will buy my home from this very site.  I would like the Italian Villa that is listed right now and if you would like to donate to the cause, please let me know.

We’re going to be getting out of order for a little bit.  As the semester winds down I’ve had a lot going on and so haven’t been getting to my blog as hoped. However, winter break is coming up and I have a month off from school and my graduate assistantship. This = catching up on the things I’ve been meaning to write about for months. That said…

An excellent thing I’m finding about grad school is the great privilege of having professors with no shame; professors who are willing to call up just about ANYBODY and ask them for a tour, or to come talk to one of our classes.  The students in the Seton Hall Museum Professions department (myself included) have had an amazing semester.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art brightens any dreary day!

Tuesday, for Exhibitions A to Z (Steve Miller is the possibly the King of shameless opportunity seeking) we had a 2 ½ hour tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in NYC.  Let me just say, celebrity to some people includes Brad Pitt or Whoopi Goldberg, to me big time museum people are my celebrities. Our tour was with Michael Batista, Exhibition Design Manager at the MET and Sophia Geronimus, Graphic Design Manager, who joined us for the first portion of our tour.  How amazing to meet these people who are the BEST of the BEST in our field! A big thank you to both of them.

Our visit began with a literal walk-through of the exhibition The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty on display September 28, 2010- January 2, 2011. I can’t wait to go back and actually SEE this exhibition; there are some 300 amazing artifacts! Michael and Sophia talked us through their process of everything they do in planning an exhibition. I think the biggest point that was stressed was how incredibly important communication is.  When you have many different people, from different fields/specialties and often IN different countries, it is imperative everybody be on the same page.  Michael showed us the exhibition floor plan and model of the exhibition, and what a treat it was. To actually see that whole process in front of you is much different than just talking about it in the classroom.

Second, we went into the The Artistic Furniture of Charles Rohlfs exhibition. You all, of course, know my love of the Arts and Crafts Movement. This furniture takes it to a whole new level, wow. Thought it in no way goes together I will be buying the Italian Villa from the Preservation Nation real estate site and filling it with FLlW, Stickley and Rohlfs furniture. How do you like that?

Photographs from http://historicrealestate.preservationnation.org and http://www.macklowegallery.com respectively.

Last, but the MOST EXCITING! Michael took us into the new Islamic Wing of the Museum. It won’t actually be called that, it will be the Galleries for the Arts of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia. What’s exciting about this you might ask? The fact that THEY AREN’T OPEN YET! They won’t actually be opening until fall of 2010, but we had a sneek peek!  I’m not going to tell you much, you’ll have to go see for yourself, but it’s going to be beautiful! Lots of art AND marble from all over the world.  Again, we got to see another part of the process. The building stage, something you definitely don’t get the full perspective on in the classroom.

Interesting fact:  The MET ACTUALLY cut a hole in the façade of the museum to bring in materials for the new Islamic exhibition space.  There is NO LIMIT to what we museum people will do to make the absolute BEST exhibitions we can for the public. Seriously, they just cut a hole in the side of the museum, I love it!