# data[].attributes.headline
Chaos at the Louvre as blockbuster Vermeer show draws thousands of visitors

# data[].attributes.subject
Chaos at the Louvre as blockbuster Vermeer show draws thousands of visitors

# data[].attributes.body
The Art Newspaper 8 March 2018

# data[].attributes.headline
At Thomas Campbell’s Met, Numbers Came to Matter More than Art

# data[].attributes.subject
At Thomas Campbell’s Met, Numbers Came to Matter More than Art

# data[].attributes.body
artnet news, 7 March 2017

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
THE DAILY PIC (#1745): With the recent resignation of Thomas Campbell as director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, there has been lots of talk about his success or failure.

Whenever his successor is installed, here's my suggestion for an impartial way to measure that new director's achievement: The Met board should attach sensors to Andrea Schiavone's Marriage of Cupid and Psyche, the Renaissance painting that is today's Daily Pic, and to a few of the museum's other similarly obscure but wonderful objects-a great Tibetan Buddha, a Greek vase, an African mask-and then track how many people stop in front of them, for how long, and how many of those same visitors come back to those objects more than once. (Facial recognition software should make it easy; the FBI should be able to help with the tech.)

If and only if Campbell's successor substantially ups those numbers-if he or she gets visitors to spend more time and more repeat visits looking at the Met's least-known and most surprising treasures-then praise will be in order. If not, it should be pink-slip time.

This is just the opposite of how Campbell's tenure has been measured by people who ought to know better-including I think Campbell himself. The slew of critics and pundits who have weighed in on his departure have all raved about the increase in the sheer number of bodies that have poured into the Met during Campbell's otherwise troubled tenure. Campbell may not have been much of a manager, they say, and he was probably bad at dollars and cents - but boy, could he grab the public's attention. But when attendance numbers depend on shows that have almost no right to exist, is it a sign of success or failure?

As Philippe de Montebello, Campbell's predecessor, once put it to me, if the Met just cared about head counts it could bring the Doors in for a concert-but how would that advance its mission or make its offerings different than what's available elsewhere in the culture? (He gave that example more than 30 years after the Doors had stopped existing. De Montebello's ignorance of pop culture was a source of his charm, and his success.)

And in fact a concert by the Doors would at least be holding up a great example of the art of rock and roll. Whereas the Met's recent slew of crowd-pleasing shows have been almost completely bankrupt in anything like art-historical or scholarly terms. The low point was probably the exhibition of the Parisian bauble-maker known as JAR- jeweler to the .01 per cent-but the blockbuster shows at the Met's Costume Institute have not been much better. It is simply a fact that Alexander McQueen will be a minor footnote in fashion history, however much he pleased the public in 2011. The Institute's equally crowd-pleasing show called " Manus × Machina," about the artisans of Parisian haute-couture, was so incoherent and weak-headed, despite the pile of notable objects it had to work with, that it would have earned a failing grade in any decent class on curating. It might have earned higher marks in a marketing course, where market-share is the only measure worth noting. (Every once in a while, the Costume Institute does do something that deserves a gold star, as with its great 2014 show about the American designer-cum-sculptor Charles James.)

Does the Met truly believe in the very special greatness of the objects it holds, or doesn't it? If it does, then its central job is to make the general public care as much about them as the institution does, however hard that task may be-both for the Met itself and its audience. Even after 25 years as an art historian and critic, I still find looking at art endlessly challenging and exhausting-and worthwhile because of that, not despite it. If the Met halved its attendance and doubled the time each visitor spent with its objects-especially with objects that a visitor had no previous reason for knowing or liking-that would count as one of the greatest achievements in the museum's history.

In his days as a lowly curator, Thomas Campbell made his mark doing something very much in that vein: He mounted shows that convinced surprisingly large numbers of people to care about the obscure but utterly fascinating topic of Renaissance and Baroque tapestries. It's said that got colleagues calling him Tapestry Tom. Once he became director, he should have had that nickname printed up big on a button he wore every day. It might not have saved his job-museum boards are inevitably filled with plutocrats whose lifetime allegiance has been to numbers and money, not art-but it would have sent a signal that his Met had its priorities right.
For a full survey of past Daily Pics visit blakegopnik.com/archive.

Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
At Thomas Campbell's Met, Numbers Mattered More than Art | artnet News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
THE DAILY PIC (#1745): With the recent resignation of Thomas Campbell as director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, there has been lots of talk about his success or failure.

# data[].attributes.headline
Louvre attendance falls as tourists stay away from Paris

# data[].attributes.subject
Louvre attendance falls as tourists stay away from Paris

# data[].attributes.body
The Art Newspaper, 5 Jan. 2017

# data[].attributes.body
Video ahead of the museum's opening in May 2015

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Watch and Listen | Whitney Museum of American Art

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Jimmie Durham reflects on the ways self-portraits both reveal and hide information, and what it means "to be a citizen of the world."

# data[].attributes.headline
Metropolitan Museum's Director Resigns Under Pressure

# data[].attributes.subject
Metropolitan Museum's Director Resigns Under Pressure

# data[].attributes.body
The New York Times, Feb. 28, 2017

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Image

Thomas P. Campbell, the Metropolitan Museum of Art's director and chief executive, in 2014. Mr. Campbell announced on Tuesday he was leaving both posts. Credit Credit Karsten Moran for The New York Times

Thomas P. Campbell resigned under pressure on Tuesday as the director and chief executive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, after months of growing concerns among staff members and some trustees about its financial health and his capacity to lead the largest museum in the country.

Met officials said that Mr. Campbell would stay on until June, the end of the fiscal year, but that Daniel H. Weiss, the Met's president and chief operating officer, would be simultaneously serving as interim chief executive. Mr. Weiss will work with Mr. Campbell and the museum's leadership on a transition plan while the Met seeks a new director, one of the most powerful in the art world.

"We are not looking to appoint a new director immediately," said Daniel Brodsky, the museum's chairman, in a letter to board and staff members, "but instead will take some time to consider the leadership needs of the museum in a thoughtful and deliberative way."

The Met said that Mr. Campbell, 54, had made the decision to leave the job he had held for eight years. But the circumstances surrounding his departure point to his being forced out. As The New York Times reported extensively in an article in early February, Mr. Campbell's financial decisions and expansion plans had been criticized by some trustees, curators and other staff members. During the last couple of years, despite the museum's record attendance, much of his original agenda was rolled back because of the museum's economic difficulties, including a soaring deficit.

The sudden end to Mr. Campbell's tenure came in recent days after key board members - including Hamilton E. James, who leads the Met's finance committee - insisted it was time for him to go, according to people inside the Met who spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal confidential conversations and personnel decisions.

It was Mr. James, the president and chief operating officer of the Blackstone Group investment firm, who by many accounts first sounded the alarm about the Met's financial condition after joining the board in 2010. Mr. James declined on Tuesday to be interviewed.

The full board was not informed of Mr. Campbell's resignation until Tuesday afternoon, having been summoned to a conference call only an hour before. According to one trustee who spoke on condition of anonymity - having been instructed by the board chairman not to speak to the news media - Mr. Brodsky started the call by introducing Mr. Campbell, who then read his full statement in what the trustee called a "trembling voice."

Image

Daniel H. Weiss, the Met's president and chief operating officer, will assist the museum's leadership on a transition plan while the board begins a search for Mr. Campbell's replacement. Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times

Mr. Brodsky said that he would take no questions, but would see everyone at the next full board meeting in two weeks.

No mention of a search committee was made on the call. This was a distinct change from the departure of Mr. Campbell's predecessor, Philippe de Montebello, when Annette de la Renta and S. Parker Gilbert, then both vice chairs of the Met board, were simultaneously announced as the chairwoman and vice chairman of the search committee.

In response to Mr. Campbell's exit, Mr. de Montebello said in a telephone interview: "I wish him well in his new endeavors. The Met is a great institution and I'm sure it will thrive in the future under new leadership."

Mr. Campbell, in his letter to staff and trustees on Tuesday, wrote that he had decided to step down "in order to pursue the next phase of my career."

"I couldn't be more proud of The Met's accomplishments during my tenure," he wrote.

Just how an institution as august and professional as the Met found itself in a financial emergency during a strong economy became the subject of public consternation, and some of the blame fell on Mr. Campbell as its chief executive.

There were buyouts and layoffs; the digital staff he built up had to be pared down. His plan to construct a $600 million wing for Modern and contemporary art, for the museum's 150th anniversary in 2020, was postponed indefinitely. Several of his key hires were let go.

In 2015 Mr. Weiss, formerly president of Haverford College, was hired, a move viewed by many inside the Met as a way to bring in an experienced administrator to compensate for Mr. Campbell's managerial inexperience.

But many inside and outside the Met have also questioned the role of the board in the Met's difficulties. The board, after all, backed Mr. Campbell's decision to take on a temporary expansion into the Met Breuer. (The Met Breuer building cost about $15 million to refurbish after the Whitney Museum of American Art left, and it costs $17 million a year to run.) The board also approved Mr. Campbell's efforts to bulk up the museum's digital staff.

The board initially promoted Mr. Campbell with a mandate to strengthen the museum's Modern and contemporary art activities. Without that commitment, the understanding goes, the Met would not have secured Leonard A. Lauder's game-changing gift of Cubist artworks, valued at more than $1 billion, which require a worthy exhibition space.

The degree to which Mr. Campbell lost ground with curators was striking, given that he came from their ranks, having spent 15 years at the museum as a tapestry specialist before becoming director in January 2009.

But the Met also has had critical and popular success under Mr. Campbell, seeing its attendance rise to about seven million visitors a year (including the Cloisters). And the Met Breuer, which opened in March, has drawn 557,000 visitors - more than projected - exceeding the Whitney's annual attendance in that building.

Moreover, the Met has had many acclaimed exhibitions under Mr. Campbell, including "Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World" last year, and its recent Kerry James Marshall survey at the Met Breuer was considered groundbreaking.

Mr. Campbell will have to give up his Met apartment across from the museum at 993 Fifth Avenue. It is worth millions of dollars, part of his hefty compensation package, which was about $1.4 million in 2015, according to the most recently available tax forms.

While many in the art world have speculated about who might replace Mr. Campbell, no clear leading candidates have surfaced. Among the names often floated are Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Glenn Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art; both are engaged in their own major building projects. But they specialize in Modern and contemporary art, and the Met seems ambivalent about how much to commit to that area.

Others have wondered whether Mr. Weiss, 59, might succeed Mr. Campbell since he has proved proficient as a financial steward and steadying force and is liked by the staff. In addition to an M.B.A., Mr. Weiss has a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in Western medieval and Byzantine art.

According to a senior executive in the art world with knowledge of the board's thinking on the succession plan, who refused to be identified because of the sensitive situation, the trustees intend to use the next few months to see if Mr. Weiss is up to the job.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Met Chief Quits With Museum Facing Turmoil. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Metropolitan Museum's Director Resigns Under Pressure

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Thomas P. Campbell resigned under pressure on Tuesday as the director and chief executive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, after months of growing concerns among staff members and some trustees about its financial health and his capacity to lead the largest museum in the country.

# data[].attributes.headline
Metropolitan Museum director Thomas Campbell resigns

# data[].attributes.subject
Metropolitan Museum director Thomas Campbell resigns

# data[].attributes.body
The Art Newspaper, 1 March 2017