Arts My Mother Paid $3 At the Met
And nothing bad happened. It was just a little experiment we were trying this weekend in New York, seeing whether a woman who looks as legimitate as my mother (this woman was New York State Teacher of the Year in 2000, she knows how to dress like a functioning member of society) would be discouraged by the ticket-taker at the Metropolitan. But he was nice, she outed herself and asked him whether they were instructed to be rude depending on how much people pay (the museum’s “recommended” donation of $15 is about to rise to $20, and arts writers have been wagging tongues about it since last week), and he just told her that he didn’t really care how much people paid, and that he normally works at the information desk anyway, but that he knows the dirty looks “can happen.” So pretty much as we thought: whole lotta not much.
Christopher Knight of the LA Times has written that the museum should charge $49.99; Roberta Smith thinks the museum should be free. She also mentions the Seattle Art Museum is suggested only — something few people know. SAM will raise its admission to $10 when it opens next year. (The Olympic Sculpture Park=free.)
More later, since my plane home is boarding now …
I usually pay a dollar. It's a great meuseum, but I am usually pretty directed about why I go. Usually to see a single painting or other object (e.g., the Duccio (it's real, folks, regardless of the accusations of that silly, lazy fraud of an art history professor at Columbia University says)).
A good friend of mine, and a former curator at the Met, makes a great show of paying a penny everytime he goes (they parted on unhappy terms). He asks for a receipt each time. But he's a bit of a prick about it.