Weiss Flight: The Challenges Confronting the Metropolitan Museum’s Next President

This hit me hard. On Tuesday, an announcement from the Metropolitan Museum landed in my inbox with a thud:

I have admired Daniel Weiss’ skill, knowledge and proactive approach in deftly steering the Metropolitan Museum through troubled waters since he arrived in 2015, and I think he’s been a much needed steadying influence after the instability of the Tom Campbell years. As the Met’s above-linked press release recounts, he oversaw the $150-million replacement of 30,000 square feet of skylights over the European Paintings Galleries (the largest infrastructure project in Met history); the reconception and expansion of the British Galleries; and the renovation of the Musical Instruments Galleries. He also (in the words of the press release) “rallied the institution in the summer of 2020 to publicly commit to 13 Commitments on Anti-Racism and Diversity. The Museum quickly began implementing this work—including hiring its first-ever Chief Diversity Officer; securing funding so that all Met internships would be paid (among the first in the field to do so); and directing support to enhance acquisition of art by artists of color.”

But while giving the museum one more year to get its administrative act together before he leaves, the Met’s president and CEO is is planning his departure at a time when many (perhaps too many?) ambitious and costly capital projects are still pending—the thorough reenvisioning of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing (which houses the Museum’s collections of art from sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, and the ancient Americas); the renovation of the Ancient Near Eastern and Cypriot Art Galleries; and the sweeping renovation of the Modern Wing (to be named for lead donor Oscar Tang), at a time when the Met’s chairman of modern and contemporary art, Sheena Wagstaff, has announced that she will depart from the museum this summer.

Tuesday’s press release seems to exaggerate Weiss’ achievements in orchestrating the Met’s rebound from the effects of Covid: It credits him with “reengineer[ing] its budget to enable the Met to retain staff throughout the five-and-a-half-month closure period, reopen with a vibrant program, and return to a balanced budget.”

Unmentioned by the press release is that while the Met may have managed to “retain its staff throughout the five-and-a-half-month closure period,” it later lost considerable staff (in what I had described as a “pandemic bloodletting”) during the Covid-related economic downturn. As I reported in my Mar. 15, 2021 post, staff cuts had included the following:

—Some 80 laid off last April

—Another 79 whose positions were cut last August

—Some 90 who took voluntary retirement in August

—Some 45 non-union employees and 136 unionized employees who were furloughed “effective August 30, until further notice,” according to Max [Hollein]’s and Dan’s letter to staff (which I had obtained). That letter stated: “We expect these furloughs to last no longer than six months.” But Kenneth Weine, the Met’s chief communications officer, told me recently that the Met is “not trying to bring back those that were let go.”

As for the press release’s “balanced budget” claim, CultureGrrl readers may remember that the Met in its most recent annual report (for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021) showed operating deficits of $7.7 million and $7.6 million, respectively, in fiscal 2020 and 2021—not a huge amount on operating expenses of $250.5 million, but not a “balanced budget.” In response to my query, a Met spokesperson told me: “We expect to achieve a balanced budget for FY 22, which just ended.”

As as often been the case, the Met privileged the NY Times in releasing its news: At 11:08 a.m.—half and hour before the Met’s email was sent to the rest of us (although perhaps some other writers may have been similarly prioritized)–Robin Pogrebin of the NY Times tweeted a link to her Times report—Met Museum’s Chief Executive to Step Down. The rest of the scribe tribe was left to play catch-up. (My approach to that disadvantage, as evidenced in this post, is to take some time to provide context and dig a bit deeper.)

Although Dan turned 65 this month, his departure is not being characterized as a retirement. (The Met has no mandatory retirement age.) Dan plans to “step down,” in the words of the press release—the same terminology used to describe the departure of Tom Campbell, who became director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, trading places with Max Hollein.

As the Met’s president and CEO, Weiss ranked above Hollein on the Met’s organization chart, but Hollein has a more prominent public profile as the museum’s director:

A Met spokesperson said that the relative functions of these two top executives will be revisited by the Board of Trustees over the next few months as part of its “review of the Museum’s leadership structure,” as mentioned in the Met’s press release. “The Met has had different models,” the spokesperson noted: “A President reporting to a Director and CEO; a Director reporting to a President and CEO; the President and Director each reporting to the Board.”

The “two-headed Met” has had a checkered past (as I wrote here): President William Macomber was director Philippe de Montebello‘s organizational superior; William Luers was his equal. It was only after Luers’ 1999 retirement that de Montebello achieved CEO status. Emily Rafferty, Weiss’ predecessor as president, was de Montebello’s subordinate.

Presumably, a search firm will be enlisted to disseminate the prospective president’s job description and to screen candidates, but at this writing, none has been named, according the the museum’s spokesperson. The go-to search firm for the Met has lately been Phillips Oppenheim, which on its website lists the Met among “the organizations we serve.”

But back to the Met’s financial challenges: To help address them, it has quietly instituted (with no press announcement, at this writing) a hike in certain general admission fees, effective July 1:

In response to my query, a Met spokesperson said he believed this fee change was first posted on the “General Admission” webpage several weeks ago. When the mandatory admission fee was first instituted (effective in Mar. 1, 2018) for adults from outside New York State and for students from outside New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, there was an outcry of dismay from many (including me). I haven’t yet seen a review copy of Weiss’ forthcoming book, but I imagine that “the museum matters” not just to the financially secure, but also to the less advantaged who can’t afford to shell out $30 whenever they crave some cultural solace during these trying times. This increase makes the Met more expensive than the Museum of Modern Art ($25), which has traditionally been NYC’s priciest art museum and (unlike the Met and other members of the Cultural Institutions Group) receives no operating support from the city.

Still TBD: What will Weiss do next: another museum gig, a return to academia, another book, or something new? We don’t know exactly what prompted him to leave, but we do know that we are increasingly witnessing the departures of prominent museum officials in the “golden years” of their professional lives, who have been subjected to unaccustomed setbacks, rebellions and attacks (an aspect of the “challenging times” of the Met press release’s subhead).

As I’ve previously noted, it’s a tough time to be a museum leader.

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