The Met’s Acquisitions Motto: Don’t Trust Artists Under 50

In the question-and-answer portion of his recent lecture about “the history of the Metropolitan Museum’s involvement with contemporary art,” curator Gary Tinterow was shockingly candid about the second-class status of such art at the Met. During his prepared talk, he had not only enumerated the many big names in modern and contemporary art who were missing from the Met’s collection; he had also listed a number of lesser-known 19th-century artists whose work he had recently seen fit to acquire.
Then, in response to questions, he enunciated this policy for augmenting the spotty contemporary collection:
We’re focusing more on the historical gaps. If it’s work by living artists, it’s likely to be older artists we will be focusing on, at least till we fill the gaps of what we have on display. So we’re not making many speculative purchases of works by 30- or 40-year-old artists….
No matter how bright you are, you have no way of knowing that an artist will not make something better next year, and you can’t buy the same artist every year. You need some historical perspective to put together a comprehensive collection that makes sense to future generations.
Still, the Tinterow Doctrine seems slightly less restrictive than the non-acquisitions policy for contemporary art that was recently advocated by the Met’s director, Philippe de Montebello:
We have pretty much made the decision not to buy very much of this generation. There is plenty of time, if someone emerges as a major artist, to buy that artist 50 years from now.
That would pretty much rule out any artist under 75, and it would also guarantee that when the Met did buy, it would pay multiples over what it could have spent for the same work, were the Met less wary of contemporary.
The nation’s premier art museum is trying to bridge its generation gap through temporary one-person shows of contemporary work. Tinterow also noted that New York City “has unparalleled resources” for viewing such art—at other museums and at commercial galleries.
This contemporary cluelessness is a departure from the museum’s own previous collecting practices, as Tinterow’s own recital of the Met’s history of major acquisitions made clear. Today’s artworld has no lack of competent experts who feel confident (if not always infallible) in making informed judgments about the work of living artists. One of them should be hired by the Met’s Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern and Contemporary Art and be allowed to exercise the desire to acquire.
Otherwise, that sub-par department should admit defeat and delete the last part of its name.