Tom Campbell speaking at his first Met press conference last September as director-designate, while his predecessor listens
Rebecca Mead‘s July 27 New Yorker profile of the Metropolitan Museum’s new director, Tom Campbell, is now online. While I learned more about his impressive expertise regarding tapestries, his personal qualities, not to mention his aspirations, vision and plans for the institution he has now directed for nearly seven months, are still very much a mystery. The piece tells us little about specific recent developments at the Met, let alone Campbell’s role in influencing them.
But you be the judge. Here’s the piece: Renaissance Man.
The full-page photo of our hero is not to his advantage: There he stands, stiff and grimly expressionless, dwarfed by enormous racks of mostly empty picture frames, wearing a poorly knotted, ridiculously shiny purple tie.
Let’s bring back the familiar “red or yellow corduroy trousers” and open collar! It’s time to loosen up, if not sartorially, at least directorially.