Pages

Wednesday, January 19, 2022

UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS @ THE MET

 


 

The Met

Exhibitions

 

 

January 2022

 

Detail of Charles Ray's 'Mime' sculpture

Charles Ray: Figure Ground

OPENING SOON

January 31–June 5, 2022
The Met Fifth Avenue

Charles Ray: Figure Ground presents the work of one of the most important artists of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. For over five decades, Ray (born Chicago, 1953) has experimented with a wide range of methods, including performance, photography, and sculpture, the medium for which he is best recognized today. In the process, he has utilized a variety of materials, expanded the fundamental terms of sculptural language, and pioneered major advances in production, combining the analog and the digital as well as human and robotic hands. Additionally, Ray's work addresses in elliptical, often irreverent ways not only art history, popular culture, and mass media but also identity, mortality, race, and gender.

This exhibition unites sculptures from every period of Ray's career with key photographs from the 1970s and 1980s, exploring central aspects of his challenging and sometimes provocative oeuvre. It also brings together for the first time all the works that Ray loosely patterned on Mark Twain's 1885 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Located at The Met, whose collection the artist has studied closely for many years, Charles Ray: Figure Ground features a suite of judiciously placed works whose arrangement in space forges subtle connections between objects and viewers. Similar to a philosopher's stone, which keeps the process of interpretation in constant motion, Ray's sculpture poses many trenchant questions but answers none directly.

Learn more →

Zodiac figure of a tiger made of porcelain in the biscuit and with turquoise and aubergine glazes.

Celebrating the Year of the Tiger

OPENING SOON

January 29, 2022–January 17, 2023
The Met Fifth Avenue

The traditional East Asian lunar calendar consists of a repeating twelve-year cycle, with each year corresponding to one of the twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac. The association of these creatures with the Chinese calendar began in the third century B.C. and became firmly established by the first century A.D. The twelve animals are, in sequence: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. Each is believed to embody certain traits that are manifested in the personalities of people born in that year. February 1, 2022, marks the beginning of the Year of the Tiger, a creature characterized as brave, heroic, resolute, and vigorous.

Tigers have been closely associated with human life since ancient times. Symbols of power and authority, they are often seen on the sacred ritual vessels of the Shang (ca. 1600–1046 B.C.) and Zhou (1046–256 B.C.) dynasties. During the late Zhou and Han (206 B.C.–A.D. 220) dynasties, rulers delegated military command to officers using tiger-shaped bronze tallies. Depictions of tigers permeate almost all aspects of Chinese culture. For example, the tiger symbolizes the western quadrant of the four cardinal directions. It is regarded as the king of all wild animals and used on military banners to illustrate bravery and swiftness. In Chinese folklore, the tiger is a protective deity able to dispel harmful spirits.

Learn more →

 

David's 'The Oath of the Tennis Court.' One man is stood on a table in the center of the frame raising his hand in a vote. He is surrounded by other men all raising their hands towards him in a vote. The words 'Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman' are imposed over the image.

Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman

UPCOMING

February 17–May 15, 2022
The Met Fifth Avenue

Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman will be the first exhibition devoted to works on paper by the celebrated French artist who navigated vast artistic and political divides throughout his life—from his birth in Paris in 1748 to his death in exile in Brussels in 1825. His iconic works captured the aspirations and suffering of a nation, while addressing timeless themes that continue to resonate today.

Through the lens of his preparatory studies, the exhibition looks beyond his public successes to chart the moments of inspiration and the progress of ideas. Visitors will follow the artist's process as he gave form to the neoclassical style and created major canvases that shaped the public's perceptions of historical events in the years before, during, and after the French Revolution.

Organized chronologically, the exhibition will feature more than eighty drawings and oil sketches—including rarely loaned or newly discovered works—drawn from the collections of The Met and dozens of institutional and private lenders.

Learn more →

 

Detail of a drawing for Book Eleven of The Aeneid features Aeneas and Iulus mourning Pallas, who was killed by the Trojans in battle.

In the Orbit of Jacques Louis David: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints

OPENING SOON

January 20–May 31, 2022
The Met Fifth Avenue


Jean-Baptise Carpeaux's 'Why Born Enslaved!' with the text 'Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast'.

Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast

UPCOMING

March 10, 2022–March 5, 2023
The Met Fifth Avenue

Painting of a dark-skinned man laying down on a damaged rudderless fishing boat holding on to a few stalks of sugarcane and looking out to the right side of the painting. The boat is surrounded by sharks, turbulent waters and a distant waterspout. Over the painting, the text reads, 'Winslow Homer Crosscurrents'.

Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents

UPCOMING

April 11–July 31, 2022
The Met Fifth Avenue


Text 'Louis Bourgeois: Paintings' laid over a photograph of the artist poised in thought in front of an easel.

Louise Bourgeois: Paintings

UPCOMING

April 12–August 7, 2022
The Met Fifth Avenue

Exhibitions Highlights

Curved shapes in pastel colors

Surrealism Beyond Borders

CLOSING SOON

Through January 30, 2022
The Met Fifth Avenue


Image of a marble statue next to an iron one

The African Origin of Civilization

Ongoing
The Met Fifth Avenue


Text reading 'In America A Lexicon of Fashion' laid over a series of three photographs, one above the other. In each a person who is hidden except for their legs, holds a flag resembling the American flag in that the upper left quarter is a different color than the remaining three quarters of the flag.

In America: A Lexicon of Fashion

Through September 5
The Met Fifth Avenue

See all current exhibitions →

Plan Your Visit

See the Plan Your Visit page for more information about buying tickets in advance. Please note our current opening days and hours for each location.

For the health and safety of our staff and visitors, dining locations are closed, and capacity is limited.

In accordance with the New York City mandate, all visitors aged 5 and older must show proof of vaccination status. All visitors aged 12 and older must show proof that they have received two doses of an accepted two-dose series vaccine, or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. All visitors aged 18 and older must also show a valid personal ID. All visitors aged 5–11 must show proof that they have received at least one dose of an accepted vaccine. Beginning January 29, all visitors aged 5–11 must show proof of full vaccination. Face coverings are required for all visitors aged 2 and older, even if they are vaccinated.

Face coverings are required for all visitors aged 2 and older, even if they are vaccinated.

Read our visitor guidelines.

Buy your tickets now →
Become a Member →

 

 

 

The Met
Fifth Avenue


1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028

The Met
Cloisters


99 Margaret Corbin Drive
Fort Tryon Park
New York, NY 10040

metmuseum.org

 

Explore        Membership        Donate