It wasn’t as scary as the sight of heavily armed police in a bullet-proof vests Saturday night at Lincoln Center (where I attended the hyperactive William Kentridge production of Alban Berg‘s “Lulu” at the Metropolitan Opera).
But (without giving away the details) it was clear to me, when I entered the garage of the Metropolitan Museum to attend its press lunch today, that security measures there had been tightened.
Fittingly, director Tom Campbell began his remarks to the scribe tribe by describing how the Met’s professionals are helping colleagues from countries in crisis (including Syria) during this fraught moment in world history.
Photo by Lee Rosenbaum
Surprisingly, though, he only glancingly referred to the situation in Paris. I would imagine that his predecessor, Philippe de Montebello, a Frenchman by birth, might have spoken out more feelingly, in solidarity with professional colleagues from his native land, with whom he would likely have been in direct touch.
As it happens, the Met has been closely collaborating with Grand Palais on an exhibition that’s on my must-see list—the first museum retrospective for Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, now at the Paris museum and opening (in reduced form) at the Met in February.
Here’s what Campbell had to say this afternoon regarding the role of his museum in the aftermath of the Paris massacre: