Shortly after the corona-related closure on March 13th, it was still planned that the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) to reopen at the beginning of July, says the director of the famous house, Max Hollein. “Back then, that was seen by many as an incredibly pessimistic forecast. Now we know of course that that would have been very optimistic.”
Indeed: Because New York has meanwhile been one of the largest corona hotspots worldwide. Almost 33,000 infected people died in the state, including 23,660 in New York City alone.
But with the reopening of the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA for short, on August 27th and the Met on August 29th, a piece of normality should finally return – or what is considered normal in times of Corona: security checks at the entrance, minimum distance, limited number of visitors, mask requirement, data storage and marked paths. One advantage, says Max Hollein, is that, unlike the Louvre, you don’t have “these three objects” that visitors absolutely want to see and check off their list, so that crowds can arise. But the Met director doesn’t believe in a huge flow of visitors in the near future anyway.
Museums rely on local tourism
Director Max Hollein is looking forward to the reopening of the Met
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Before Corona, 7.4 million people came to the US art museum, founded in 1870 and now the largest art museum on Fifth Avenue in the heart of Manhattan; Hollein now expects three, at most four million for the next twelve months.
“A third of our visitors used to come from abroad,” said Hollein, “and I don’t think we will see a return to tourism until a vaccine is found.”
He and his team therefore initially rely on the local audience – although it is important to him in the long term that visitors come from all over the world: “The Met is clearly not just a museum for New Yorkers,” emphasizes the 51-year-old. “And of course we will work hard to achieve the Met’s main task of being a great encyclopedic museum for the world and for all citizens of the world.”
How long it will take until the consequences of the corona pandemic are defeated, however, is in the stars. Hollein hopes that in two or three years everything will have normalized again. But even until then, the audience at the Met should feel comfortable despite all Corona requirements: “That it still feels like a visit to a museum. That you not only enjoy being in this house, but also like being in company to be, even if you keep your distance from other people. But it’s still a house for a community, that’s very important to us. “
Corona instead of a birthday party
The Met actually wanted to celebrate its 150th birthday this year. A task that Max Hollein had been looking forward to very much. But now the Austrian, who was only appointed as Met boss in August 2018, had to face a much greater challenge: Corona.
In 2019 the world in the Met was still fine
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Unlike in Germany or Austria, museums in the USA are not financed by the public sector, but by private foundations and through donation galas and entrance fees. The Met’s current financial deficit is around 150 million. Nevertheless, of the approximately 2,400 employees, only 81 have so far been laid off. However, Hollein admits that if income falls, the museum will have to make further savings in the coming years – not only in terms of staff, but also in terms of the program.
The pandemic as an opportunity
Despite all the restrictions, Max Hollein also sees an opportunity in Corona: “This time is also an incredibly creative phase in which one thinks as an institution: How can we be differently or digitally present? How can we do what we wanted to implement, maybe do it in a completely different form? Which projects are particularly important to us and why? And why do they sometimes have to be even bigger? “
The extensively renovated MoMa attracted numerous tourists
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Not only the Met director himself, but his employees too, felt cheered on by the pandemic to break new ground. “There was a much stronger willingness to work together, which actually seems almost absurd when everyone is alone at home,” says Hollein. The collaboration has never worked so well, “because everyone basically knew that was what matters now. We want to achieve something different and further together.”
The MoMA, which houses some of the most important and influential collections of modern and contemporary art in its halls and can only dream of the otherwise usual 2.8 million visitors annually in the near future, is similarly optimistic. An extensive renovation was only completed in October 2019, and the pandemic came six months later. Despite all the financial losses, MoMA grants art lovers free entry for one month – the new beginning after Corona should be a good one.
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