|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
The Met's Erstwhile Dictator of Taste
| Article
# : |
10902 |
|
|
Section : |
BOOK WORLD
|
| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1993 |
2,900 Words |
| Author
: |
Jason Edward Kaufman
Jason Edward Kaufman is an art historian and critic based in
New York. |
MAKING THE MUMMIES DANCE
Inside The MetropolitanMuseum of Art
Thomas Hoving
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993
448 pp., $25.00
If museum revolutionaries have a face emblazoned on their flags, it is Thomas P.F. Hoving's. As director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1967 to 1977, Hoving led America's greatest art museum through a complete image remake, and he did so in a consistently flamboyant manner. By utterly recasting the way the nation's flagship art institution was perceived and run, this radical leader inevitably became the symbol of the sea change that continues to engulf the museum world.
Making the Mummies Dance: Inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art is the fifth volume the ex-director has authored based on his experiences at the Met. Earlier efforts include two novels and two nonfiction "tell-alls." This newest, also nonfiction, is the first to cover his entire career as director. The title derives from a remark made by New York City's former mayor John Lindsay to Hoving, then his commissioner of parks. When Hoving told the mayor of his intention to accept the offer to direct the Met, Lindsay reportedly said, "Seems to me the place is dead. But, Hoving, you'll make the mummies dance."
Throughout the book, quotes and anecdotes--up to a quarter-century old--are recalled with unfailing specificity, interleaved into the firs-person narrative. The book begins at a rapid clip, picking up Hoving's career after six and half years in the Met's Department of Medieval Art. The blow-by-blow account barrel along, slowing in the less-well-edited middle section, and, by the final chapter, we have witnessed the major turning points in a decade of the great museum's history. Yet, as literature, the book is more autobiography than institutional history; the episodes are chronicled not objectively but as evidence of personal struggles and conquests. As such, Making the Mummies Dance offers considerable insight, not so much into the museum's affairs, as into the mind and motivations of the man held responsible for their development.
Museums and morality
The self-portrait is bravura, candid, self-absorbed, occasionally self-effacing, guarded yet revealing, and, in general, quite entertaining. Telling remarks expose both the author's character and the tenor
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
