The pandemic has been a blow to the museum’s budget. But this historic gift will allow it to expand its collection of modern and contemporary art.
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Spencer Platt / Getty Images
The pandemic has been a blow to the museum’s budget. But this historic gift will allow it to expand its collection of modern and contemporary art.
Spencer Platt / Getty Images
Even before the pandemic, money is tight at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But now, the museum has announced its largest-ever capital gift – $125 million. The cash will fund the renovation of the museum’s Modern Wing, which includes the creation of galleries and 80,000 square feet of public space. The ambitious project has been talked about for over a decade, but has been delayed due to lack of funds.
The museum’s benefactors are trustees Oscar Tang and his wife, Agnes Hsu-Tang, and the new space will bear their name.
Oscar Tang is a retired financier and co-founder of investment management firm Reich & Tang. His previous philanthropic activities include gifts to the New York Philharmonic and Phillips Academy Andover, where he attended. Agnes Hsu-Tang is an archaeologist and art historian, and a senior research scholar at Columbia University. She previously served on the scientific committees of the UNESCO World Heritage Center.
“The achievements and generosity of Oscar and Agnes are astounding,” Max Hollein, the Met’s director, said in a statement. Press Release. “The reimagining of these galleries will allow the Museum to approach 20th and 21st century art from a global, encyclopedic, daring and surprising perspective – all values that reflect the heritage of Oscar and Agnes.”
How to complete this huge project is a question Hollein has pondered since he took over as director in 2018. The pandemic has hit the budgets of all museums around the country. The Met even predicted a $150 million budget shortfall last year. Even so, museum leaders caused some controversy in the art world when they announced that they would take advantage of the newly eased guidelines to sell some works of art in order to earn money. money (“discontinue use”, as it is called in the museum- say).
That decision drew some criticism even from Hollein’s predecessor, Thomas Campbell, who compared museums de-licensing works to “cracking cocaine for addicts – a quick hit, that becomes a dependency.”
Hollein responded in an interview with NPR earlier this year, saying, “I don’t think it’s a slippery slope. I think the slippery slope would be better if we as institutes were in it.” the museum is going to take a hand in our funding, in the funds that we have operations in, and reduce them because that then will have huge impacts in the long run.”
The architectural firm for the new wing will be announced in 2022.
