In this week's episode we talk to Max Hollein, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, about the new plans for the museum’s wing of Modern and contemporary art, including the appointment of the architect Frida Escobedo in place of David Chipperfield.
As The Art Newspaper is about to publish its annual museum attendance survey, showing that visitors are beginning slowly to return to museums after the height of the pandemic, we ask Hollein how the vision for the museum has changed following the events of the past two years.
Aref El Rayess, Untitled (1977–78) © Aref El Rayess Foundation, Aley, Mount Lebanon, Courtesy: Saradar Collection
Plus, our deputy digital editor Aimee Dawson talks to the curator Sam Bardaouil about the exhibition Beirut and the Golden Sixties: A Manifesto of Fragility at the Gropius Bau in Berlin.
Meret Oppenheim, Ma gouvernante – My Nurse – Mein Kindermädchen (1936/1967) © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Pro Litteris, Zurich
And in this episode’s Work of the Week, as the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, opens a major Meret Oppenheim survey, the show’s curator Natalie Dupêcher discusses Oppenheim’s Surrealist object Ma gouvernante – My Nurse – Mein Kindermädchen (1936): a pair of white heels on a silver platter, trussed like a chicken.
• Beirut and the Golden Sixties: A Manifesto of Fragility, Gropius Bau, Berlin, until 12 June.
• Meret Oppenheim: My Exhibition, Menil Collection, Houston, until 18 September; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 30 October-4 March 2023
The Week in Art podcast by The Art Newspaper is available every Friday on our website and all the usual places where you find podcasts. This podcast is sponsored by Christie's.