While all eyes will be on the Met’s programming when it moves into the Breuer building in March, the museum has not forgotten its Modern and contemporary collection in its Fifth Avenue home. The painters Max Beckmann and Marsden Hartley are among the artists to be featured in forthcoming solo exhibitions at the Met’s main building.
Max Beckmann in New York (October 2016-February 2017) will include around 40 pictures, some made during the year he spent in the city (1949-50) and others from the 1920s through the 1940s that come from the museum’s collection and from private lenders.
Marsden Hartley’s Maine (March 2017-June 2017) looks at the artist's fascination with his home state, which inspired him throughout his career. The show's curator, Randall Griffey, says that even when living in Paris, Hartley returned to ideas based on the New England state.
The museum is currently seeking corporate sponsorship for both exhibitions.
Meanwhile, at the Breuer building, which the Metropolitan has leased from the Whitney Museum of American Art for the next eight years, a music programme will buttress exhibitions. The museum’s most ambitious sound project is a performance of the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen's KLANG (2003-2007), an unfinished, 21-part epic that will be staged in succession at each of the museum’s three buildings, including the Cloisters in upper Manhattan, starting 26 March.