Press release
The reimagined galleries in The Met’s Michael C. Rockefeller Wing will reintroduce the collection of works from Oceania—over 500 years of art from the region—newly framed in Indigenous perspectives and celebrating the unceasing creativity of Oceania’s finest visual artists
(New York, October 4, 2024)–The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today that it will reopen the galleries dedicated to the Arts of Oceania on May 31, 2025, following the completion of a major renovation and reenvisioning of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing. The galleries have been closed to the public since January 2021.
The reinstallation will feature over 650 stellar works from the Museum’s remarkable collection of Oceanic art, drawn from over 140 distinct cultures in a region of astonishing diversity, covering almost one-third of the earth’s surface and that continues to capture the global imagination. These include monumental artworks from New Guinea (the second-largest island in the world) and the coastal archipelagos, which stretch beyond its shores to the north, central, and eastern Pacific, as well as the two neighboring regions of Australia and Island Southeast Asia, whose Indigenous communities all share a common ancestry. The new galleries take a fresh look at the visual arts of Oceania, exploring the long-standing relationships between Austronesian-speaking peoples who are deeply connected, not separated, by the ocean. A significant set of new acquisitions substantively broaden the media and cultural scope of works presented in the galleries. These include works that extend the curatorial narrative, recalibrating and balancing the former focus on ceremonial architecture and men’s ritual practice by expanding the collection to include the work of women, especially fiber work by senior female artists from Australia and New Guinea.
Designed by the architect Kulapat Yantrasast of the firm of the firm WHY Architecture in collaboration with Beyer, Blinder, Belle Architects LLP, and with The Met’s Design Department, the galleries for the Arts of Oceania are organized around a stunning new diagonal trajectory through the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing that reintroduces this iconic collection for a new generation of visitors in sensationally appointed galleries filled with natural light. The newly designed layout establishes visual sightlines that emphasize the dynamic interactions between adjacent island groups that have paved the way toward innovation and creativity in the artistic sphere. Signature monumental works from the Asmat region of southwest New Guinea and the Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea anchor each end of the installation, linked by a suite of smaller, more intimate focus galleries designed for close looking and reflection.
“With The Met’s superb collection of Oceanic art, we have a great responsibility to represent a vast diversity of geographies, histories, and cultures,” said Max Hollein, the Museum’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “A major priority for the reinstallation of the Arts of Oceania galleries is to better connect and contextualize those histories and cultures for visitors. As is the case throughout the Rockefeller Wing, an important part of that process has been to engage with distinguished colleagues globally, on topics as wide-ranging as ocean navigation and the critical future of environmental stewardship. The result is the creation of an important platform to enrich our collective understanding and appreciation of living Pacific cultures.”
The new galleries present storied works from The Met’s historic collection of Oceanic art in dynamic groupings alongside a selection of new works by leading contemporary artists from the region and a major new site-specific series from artist Taloi Havini (Buka Island). The new site-specific series explores the close alignment of land with “skin,” the threat to spiritual nourishment, and the environmental damage caused by the overreach of mining operations for copper and minerals in the region. Freshly energized narratives, both written and digital, are placed throughout the galleries to elevate Indigenous voices, foreground the latest developments in interdisciplinary scholarship, and emphasize the continued creativity of Oceania’s Indigenous artists through the lenses of global history, storytelling, and Pacific oratory and performance.
“The Met’s collection of Oceanic art is unusually expansive in terms of breadth and range. This gives us a rare opportunity to present art from across the entire region of Oceania, astonishing artworks that were created in the last 500 years by descendants of the early Austronesian-speaking voyagers who settled this last region of the world in waves of migration that began 3,500 to 5,000 years ago,” said Maia Nuku, John A. Friede and A. J. Hall Curator for the Arts of Oceania. “The conceptual framing of our new galleries for Oceania responds directly to the unique spatial and relational dynamics of Oceania: horizon lines, the arching dome of the sky, and islands tethered in a vast ocean—these are the coordinates that guide and shape life in this compelling landscape. The dynamic new layout is enhanced by architectural features specifically designed to frame the installation of artworks in vertical and horizontal planes. This formal arrangement for landmark works provides strong visual cues that emphasize connectivity and speak directly to the distinctive ways that Oceanic peoples approach life and use art to navigate physical and spiritual worlds.”
Gallery Design and Experience
The galleries are presented in a new layout designed to foreground Indigenous temporalities and ancestral connections, offering perspectives on art that reach deep into Oceania’s past while acknowledging ongoing manifestations of its agency in the present. The reinstallation is organized according to island groups with galleries oriented along a diagonal axis, leading visitors through a carefully appointed sequence of galleries that flow through the center of the wing and is anchored at each end by a dramatic display of monumental works. A soaring installation of Asmat art in the high-ceilinged gallery to the north features nine upright spirit poles (bisj), arranged in a dynamic crescent shape, set among extraordinary fiber body masks, impressive shields with dazzling designs, and a large Asmat canoe, hollowed from a single trunk over 48 feet long.
In the first gallery for Oceania, visitors will encounter art from the western half of New Guinea with spectacular artworks created by Asmat and Kamoro artists from the southwest region, complemented by canoe prows, carved ancestor figures, and a stunning selection of newly acquired textiles from Lake Sentani and Cenderawasih Bay. The astounding mobility of Oceanic peoples over the course of millennia was a catalyst for the flourishing of a dynamic range of cultures, languages, and artistic traditions—over 1,800 groups linked in dynamic networks of exchange and encounter. Voyaging and the arts of navigation feature prominently in the reimagined galleries with exquisitely carved spirit canoes, decorated canoe prows, and a navigational chart evoking the extraordinary story of voyaging—both literal and metaphorical—across the vast landscape of Oceania. Island settlements were never static but served as staging posts from which to launch further connections, with the Ocean itself conceived as a highway that links rather than separates islanders, ensuring that relationships (which are a hallmark of the region) remain invigorated and constantly renewed.
These strong ancestral connections are foregrounded as visitors move into the adjacent galleries dedicated to the Indigenous arts of Island Southeast Asia. Highlight works in this suite of nested galleries enforce major sightlines designed to emphasize visual resonances between key genres across the region. Here, architectural works from Taiwan, Philippines, Borneo, and Sumatra are presented alongside sumptuous woven and beaded textiles, jewelry, and elaborate metalwork in a gallery that explores the ancestral origins of Austronesian-speaking peoples. A case dedicated to art from the islands and coral atolls of the northern Pacific presents sophisticated woven textiles and dance ornaments from the island of Nauru (which feature shark teeth, frigate bird feathers, and cut sections of pink coral) as well as turtle shell exchange valuables produced by women and ceremonially presented (“womens’ wealth”), along with flower and scented oils, on formal occasions.
The next gallery features distinctive examples of chiefly ceremonial regalia from the major island groups at the heart of the Pacific (which include Fiji, Tonga, Tahiti, Cook and Austral Islands, Marquesas Islands, Rapa Nui, Hawaii, and Aotearoa New Zealand). These rare and prestigious items are produced from a wealth of high-status materials and include whale ivory breastplates, impressive clubs carved from dense hardwoods, and finely incised paddles, ceremonial adzes, and vessels for interacting with gods. Stepping across the threshold into a gallery featuring art from the Solomon Islands, visitors encounter important presentation valuables, including lustrous red feather currency and shell valuables, as well as a shark reliquary, woven ceremonial shield, and ornately carved canoe prow figure, whose pearl shell inlay is designed to shimmer in the sunlight in a bid to channel ancestral agency.
The galleries that follow present an eye-catching range of art from the island archipelagos that border New Guinea and Australia. Mining the rich natural resources of their interior and coastal environments, innovative artists created a dazzling array of items for ceremonial and everyday use by harnessing the shimmering qualities and natural textures of shell, wood, and fiber in a quest to advance cosmological benefit and spiritual efficacy. These include complex turtle shell masks, drums, and charms that reference the dugong and turtles that populate the waters of the Torres Strait, and the iconic frigate birds that dominate the sky. Elaborate barkcloth masks (eharo) among the Elema people of the Papuan Gulf are presented alongside intricately incised bark belts and an important skull hook (agiba) and set of spirit boards (gope) from neighboring groups in the Papuan Gulf. The cadence of singular artworks within and across island groups in this section of the galleries underscores an underlying connectivity based on interisland mobility and kinship connections. The ongoing creativity of continental Australia’s Indigenous communities are represented in an adjoining section of this gallery, which allows for the display of important historic works alongside a rotating display of newly acquired contemporary works. The ancestral narratives embedded in woven baskets (jawun), incised shields, and pearl shell pendants (riji) from different regions of Australia find resonance in a dynamic set of newly acquired paintings on eucalyptus bark made in the last decade by Yolngu artists in Arnhem Land whose contemporary art-making practices are a continuation of customary traditions established over 60,000 years ago.
Moving into the final high-ceilinged gallery for Oceania, visitors will experience the vigor and vitality of monumental creations from the major cultural groups of Papua New Guinea (the eastern half of New Guinea) and the large island archipelagos situated to its east and southeast (Vanuatu, New Ireland, New Britain, New Caledonia) in an enhanced presentation that allows for natural light and a direct connection to Central Park through the newly constructed glazed wall that runs the length of the gallery. A new configuration of the iconic Kwoma Ceiling presents over 100 individually painted panels in a stunning display designed to evoke the polychrome interior of a men’s ceremonial house in the Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea. This extraordinary set of painted sago palm petioles (pangal) is distributed according to clan group in accordance with the present-day wishes of the descendants of the Kwoma painters who worked on the original 1971–73 commission. An impressive group of attendant ceremonial works from the Sepik River region—a reliquary (taki), canoe prow, and powerful slit gong (waken) that feature dramatic crocodile and catfish iconography—are sited underneath the Kwoma Ceiling, embedding the powerful narratives of the Sepik River at the heart of the gallery.
Exceptional artworks on display in this inspiring light-filled space guide visitors through a wealth of stories relating to origins, initiation, and ancestral power. They include some of the greatest achievements of Oceania’s visual artists, such as the flamboyantly carved malagan figures from New Ireland that combine the distinctive characteristics of fish, snakes, and birds in a series of intriguing transformations that speak to the power of Oceanic artworks as vessels and underscore their agency in managing key rites of passage and the important transitions that guide a community across significant thresholds in life and beyond death. Large-scale works in this gallery include a spectacular woven gable mask figure from the Krosmeri River in Papua New Guinea, remarkable grade ceremony figures carved from the fibrous trunk of the tree fern by ni-Vanuatu artists, and an impressive 15-foot barkcloth headdress used by the Chachet Baining peoples of New Britan in seasonal ceremonies to encourage an abundant harvest. Performed in dramatic presentations accompanied by song and dance, these animated assemblages are brought to life, displayed, worn, and, often, discarded, to be reassembled the following season, as required. Throughout Oceania, artists are prominent leaders, ritual experts, and learned orators; equally as renowned for their capacity to heal, make predictions, and manage the community’s relationships with ancestors as for their ability to manipulate locally sourced materials into spiritually transformative artworks. They produce compelling artworks with formidable visual power: awe-inspiring creations assembled from a diversity of materials such as wood, bark, fiber, feather, shell, and bone. Each material represents a rich archive of Indigenous knowledge, and visitors will be guided toward an enhanced appreciation of the efficacy of specific materials through the storytelling of community members who have chosen to share a range of creation narratives and stories. These relate to the sago palm and yam, the crocodile, and the cassowary and are presented in audio stops and label texts throughout the gallery.
Among the new acquisitions for Oceania are a set of a dozen vibrant painted barkcloths from the Omïe women’s collective in Oro Province, Papua New Guinea, which feature designs that relate to initiation stories and spiritual markers in the landscape. These will be installed on the large platform adjacent to the Kwoma Ceiling, providing an important dialogue with the sago palm petioles (pangal) produced by male Kwoma artists in the Sepik River region. A set of significant bark paintings, including the last ever made by senior Yolngu artist Nongirrnga Marawilli from Arnhem Land in the Northern Territories, will deepen this dialogue in a presentation of three major paintings on eucalyptus bark. This is the first of a series of installations that will feature the work of leading Indigenous Australian artists in a dedicated space for contemporary Aboriginal Australian art at the heart of the new galleries. This will be followed after one year (in 2026) by a large new commission by Yolngu artist Gunybi Ganambarr, as a second iteration of the contemporary artists whose dynamic, innovative works will be presented in regular rotations in this space. Two large photographic portraits by Māori artist Fiona Pardington will be installed alongside major architectural carvings from Aotearoa New Zealand and a series of exceptionally carved treasure boxes (waka huia) and greenstone valuables in the case dedicated to Māori taonga (cultural treasures). Finally, a major new series of site-specific panels by artist Taloi Havini will activate the threshold of the gallery that interfaces with Central Park. Reflecting on Indigenous temporalities and the natural life cycles of people and the environment in Oceania, Havini’s series will examine the resonance of land with “skin” and the threat to spiritual nourishment caused by environmental damage and political volatility in a series informed by the artist’s personal archive, research in museum collections, and an ongoing consultation with the chiefs, leaders, and female elders in the artist’s community on Buka Island, Bougainville.
Foregrounding Local and Indigenous Knowledge in New Digital Features
An animated map at the entrance to the Oceania galleries will convey a chronology that outlines the settlement of this vast region in two phases (60,000 years ago; and a second wave of migrations by Austronesian-speaking peoples using open-sea navigation that took place 3,500 to 5,000 years ago). A specially commissioned creative project, Spheric Oceania (2024), by Hawaiian-based artist and architect Sean Connelly, acts as an addendum to the map, shifting perspective from the fixed, classificatory system of European cartography to a planetary, geologic scale of time, setting the stage for a nonlinear way of conceptualizing time pertinent to Oceania. The sphere also introduces a unique spatial perspective—echoed in the architectural design and layout of the Oceania galleries—which accounts for the way early Islander voyagers conceptualize space (that is, not from the bird’s-eye view of a map but rather from the hull of a canoe where the sightline of the crew aligns with the horizon). This perspective—where space is defined not by longitude and latitude but by a canoe’s relative position to the stars—is subtly referenced in the receding architectural baffle feature of the ceiling in the opening gallery for Oceania, which resonates with the arched canopy of the sky, and design elements such as platforms and stanchion rails that reinforce a consistent horizon line throughout the galleries.
A range of new digital and audio features will present contemporary perspectives from leading Pacific artists, scholars, and practitioners who live in the region and have collaborated closely with the curatorial team. Their insights provide richer, newly vivid contexts for understanding these extraordinary works of art as well as exciting opportunities for an increased appreciation of the local and Indigenous environments in which they were created. Each artwork contains its own rich archive of cultural knowledge, and new interpretive devices will assist Museum visitors in unlocking clues to clarify meaning and understand the novel aesthetic values that make Oceanic art so distinctive. These strategies include introductory panels with thematic titles and labels that foreground the names of known individual artists and emphasize Indigenous terminology and local vernacular for understanding key concepts.
In the gallery for Asmart art, a newly edited AV documentary feature, “Asmat Encounters,” presents archival photographs from the Visual Resource Archive housed in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing’s department library. The feature contextualizes the Asmat collection in the adjacent display by detailing two visits made by Michael Rockefeller in 1961, when he traveled, as a young man of 23, to southwest New Guinea. There he was hosted by Asmat leaders in villages along the network of rivers that wind their way into the interior of the region. Moved by the remarkable vitality of Asmat art, the young graduate negotiated directly with village leaders and the artists he was introduced to for the acquisition of their artworks. Michael Rockefeller’s vision was to return to New York and share this impressive art with New Yorkers in a spectacular exhibition that he felt should be dedicated solely to Asmat art. A first exhibition of the collection he assembled was shown as The Art of the Asmat: The Collection of Michael C. Rockefeller, organized by his father, Nelson Rockefeller, and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (September 11–November 6, 1962) prior to its transfer to The Met as part of Nelson Rockefeller’s collection in 1969. The new in-gallery AV enriches the provenance of this important historic collection by drawing on field photographs taken by Michael Rockefeller; portraits of individual artists whose works are in the collection; and written records that document the history of the collection and how it was assembled. Focusing on the reciprocal encounters that Michael Rockefeller established in dialogue with Asmat master carvers over 60 years ago, the archival content is enhanced with newly filmed footage, interviews, and input from award-winning National Geographical photojournalist Joshua Irwandi. Irwandi is a frequent visitor to the region, and his own documentary practice involves close collaboration with Asmat elders and artists as part of an initiative he oversees to digitize the collections and archive of the Asmat Museum, established in Agats in 1969.
A third digital feature, placed directly under the Kwoma Ceiling, will afford visitors important biographical and contextual information relating to the original commission of paintings by Kwoma artists in Mariwai Village in the Washkuk Hills of Papua New Guinea (1971–73). Visitors will access information in digital format in three sections that explain details of the original commission by Douglas Newton, the first chair of the department that oversees the collections held within the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing; photographs of a selection of named artists alongside their paintings; and an explanation of favored iconography and motifs. Dynamic footage from the opening ceremonies of a new ceremonial house built in 2016 in Mariwai Village (which is named “Tokimba” and twinned with The Met’s Kwoma Ceiling in New York) round out the offerings of this digital feature, which is produced by The Met’s Digital department using archival photographs from the Visual Resource Archive housed in the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing’s department library. The consultation with descendants of the original Kwoma artists in Mariwai Village and recent drone and film footage was overseen by The Mariwai Project, who partnered with The Met on this project.
Planning and Partnerships
Critical to the ambitious effort to enrich and enhance interpretation of the artworks on display, The Met’s curatorial team benefited from local, Indigenous, national, and international expertise throughout the development, planning, and execution of this capital project. Major milestones for those discussions took place at workshops convened at the Pocantico Center, New York (in 2015 and 2023), and at the Clark Institute in Williamstown in February 2020, which allowed robust critical engagement with Pacific colleagues and scholars as well as museum professionals working in New Zealand and Europe. Important dialogues also took place with delegations of Pacific artists and knowledge holders at the Festival of Pacific Arts in Guam (2016) and Hawai’i (2024) and the Melanesian Arts and Culture Festival in Vanuatu (2023).
The project also benefited from shared dialogue with visiting artists and practitioners of Pacific dance, performance, poetry, and the visual and fiber arts who engaged with the collections. The advice and commentary from leading practitioners, scholars, and authorities in the field formed the basis of wide-ranging discussions, and these are captured in many aspects of the new galleries, from conceptual reframing to fresh research and new perspectives presented in gallery didactics, expanded online and digital content, and a new audio guide, accessible in the gallery and online using a QR code.
During the formal closing ceremony of the Oceania galleries in December 2020, Dr. Michael Mel, an artist, curator, and cultural advisor to Papua New Guinea’s Ministry of Arts and Culture who has been an important advocate from the outset of the project, commented: “You in the museum have just one half of the story—let us call that ‘the bones’—but you need us, the living stewards of Pacific arts, we who have the cultural knowledge, the language, the songs, the stories, to fill out the rest. Let us call that ‘the flesh,’ as it were, the fullness that gives shape and builds a more complete picture. We each need the other. Together we can bring the past back to its fullness, to guide and teach the younger generation (both here with us, and over there with you).”
Another significant milestone to celebrate when the new galleries for Oceania reopen in May 2025 will be the legacy of the landmark exhibition Te Maori: Maori art from New Zealand Collections, which opened at The Met in September 1984 and traveled to three other venues in the United States from 1985–86. An invited delegation of senior Māori leaders will help The Met commemorate the 40th anniversary of this groundbreaking exhibition, which is acknowledged as being instrumental in establishing important precedents for shared decision making between Indigenous communities and museums in a series of customary ceremonies in the lead-up to reopening.
Dr. Arapata Hakiwai, Kaihautu Māori, Te Papa Tongarewa, a long-term supporter and advisor to the project, remarked: “The curatorial vision for the new installation is a powerful expression of our continued journey into these shared spaces and our renewed commitment to working together to shape the future as we embark on a new era and take seriously our shared responsibilities with respect to the ongoing care of Māori and Pacific collections around the world.”
Conservation and Scientific Research
The Met’s Departments of Conservation and Scientific Research and Imaging Department have been an integral part of the capital project from its inception. The Department of Objects Conservation, in collaboration with colleagues across the Museum, has employed cutting-edge technologies, such as multiband imaging, computed x-radiography, laser scanning, and 3D printing, to promote the preservation of the collections while enriching the visitor’s experience. Conservators and scientists contributed to the initial design process by advising on environmental parameters, including light levels, relative humidity, case design, and exhibition materials. The Met’s Department of Scientific Research carried out extensive research on works in the Oceanic art collection, including analysis of pigments, materials, and C-14 dating. A team of six conservators dedicated to the project have been performing technical examinations and conservation treatments over the course of the capital project as well as advising on the mounting and installation of artworks. Technical examinations, undertaken in partnership with scientists and imaging specialists, have clarified the identification of manufacturing materials and techniques as well as signs of use, enhancing our understanding of cultural practices, innovation, and exchange.
The Arts of Oceania Collection
Oceanic art entered The Met with the establishment of the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas in 1969, following the promised gift of Nelson A. Rockefeller. The Rockefeller bequest included more than 2,000 works of Oceanic art as well as the specialized Robert Goldwater Library and the Visual Resource Archive. The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, which opened to the public in 1982, was named for Nelson Rockefeller’s son, who made a major collection of Asmat art during two field expeditions to New Guinea in 1961. Acquired directly from the artists who made them, this area of the collection contains a wealth of contextual information, including the names of artists and their personal commentary on artworks. One decade later, the dramatic Kwoma Ceiling was commissioned, and between 1971 and 1973, contemporary Kwoma artists produced 245 paintings in New Guinea, which were shipped to the Museum and installed in a display that evokes the dynamic visual interior of a men’s ceremonial house. This now iconic installation, newly reconfigured for the Central Park gallery, is a principal feature of The Met’s collection of Oceanic art.
The collection is renowned for its spectacular collection of art from New Guinea and the large archipelagos situated off its coastline whose works tell a wealth of stories relating to origins, initiation, and ancestral power. Highlight works spotlight some of the greatest achievements of artists in Oceania, such as the elaborately carved ancestral figures from ceremonial houses and highly prestigious ritual items, such as towering slit drums, skull reliquaries, and dazzling turtle shell masks from the coastal regions.
While the galleries were closed for construction, 130 masterpieces from the Museum’s collection of Oceanic art traveled outside the United States for the first time in over four decades. Monumental sculpture, ceremonial masks, textiles, and regalia from the island cultures of Oceania were featured in the traveling exhibition The Shape of Time: Art and Ancestors of Oceania from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was on view at The Museum of Art Pudong, Shanghai, China (June 1–August 20, 2023) then the National Museum of Qatar (October 24, 2023–January 15, 2024), before returning to The Met for reinstallation in the new galleries. A full catalogue with new color photography was produced to accompany the exhibition. There was also a focused installation of Oceanic art displayed at The Met, Containing the Divine: North Sumatra, Indonesia (May 25, 2022–September 29, 2023).
For further reading on the history of the department, see The Nelson A. Rockefeller Vision: Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
About the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
The Met’s Michael C. Rockefeller Wing is undergoing a major renovation project will reframe its collections for a new generation of visitors. The galleries—40,000 square feet on the Museum’s south side—are being overhauled and reimagined to reintroduce the department’s three distinct collections of African art, ancient American art, and Oceanic art, displaying them as discrete elements in an overarching wing that is in dialogue with the Museum’s collection as a whole.
As early as 1893, Mexican stone sculpture and Peruvian ceramics were gifts to The Met from diplomats and artists, including one of the Museum’s founders, the American painter Frederic Church. During the 1950s and 1960s, the American statesman and philanthropist Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller assembled a fine-arts survey of non-Western art traditions that included the ancient Americas as well as areas of the world not represented in the Museum’s collection, notably African and Oceanic art. In 1969 it was announced that Rockefeller’s collection would be transferred to The Met as a new department and wing. Opened to the public in 1982, the addition was named after Nelson Rockefeller’s son, Michael C. Rockefeller, who was greatly inspired by the cultures and art of the Pacific and pursued new avenues of inquiry into artistic practice during his travels there. Among the wing’s signature works are the striking Asmat sculptures that he researched and negotiated for with village elders as he assembled a collection in southwest New Guinea.
In addition to the galleries for Arts of Oceania, the Arts of Africa galleries will present a survey of major visual traditions developed across sub-Saharan Africa, and their interface with the Greek and Roman Art galleries provides an opportunity for new considerations of Africa in antiquity. Stone and metalwork from the ancient Americas will be concentrated in galleries where filtered daylight from Central Park will enter the galleries through a custom-designed, state-of-the-art sloped glass wall on the south facade. A new gallery devoted to light-sensitive, ancient American textiles will present a 2,000-year history of exceptional achievements in tapestry and other fiber arts. The reenvisioning of each of these suites of galleries builds on international planning workshops and consultation with dozens of local and international leaders in the arts and humanities. Recorded interviews with an interdisciplinary cohort of experts and well-known thought leaders and personalities will be featured in audio guides, podcasts, and new digital content. A series of Perspectives articles by the Digital Department will be informed by a series of archived conversations with Pacific interlocutors (accessed using a QR code in the galleries), which give rich insights and have been recorded and archived in The Met’s Digital Department.
For more information about the new Michael C. Rockefeller Wing.
Related Programs
The Met will host an opening festival to celebrate the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing on Saturday, May 31. More details will be announced.
An exciting, multidisciplinary performance, GOD-HOUSE, from award-winning dancer and choreographer Jahra Wasasala (Fiji/Aotearoa New Zealand), will activate the new galleries for Oceania as part of MetLiveArts’ programming in 2025. The work is developed in direct dialogue with the Oceanic artworks on display and will serve as a performative portal connecting the audience with the transformative realms associated with the Oceanic art and ancestors in the new galleries. This groundbreaking artist produces visceral work that confronts the discomfort of genealogical histories. The new work will explore the tensions of these personal and public histories, channeling them through her own body as a “vessel” (the “GOD-HOUSE”) to resolve her shared internal conflict with the artworks.
Credits
We thank all who have made possible the renovation of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, including leadership commitments from The Carson Family Charitable Trust, Kyveli and George Economou, Bobby Kotick, Drs. Daniel and Marian Malcolm, Adam Lindemann and Amalia Dayan, Samuel H. and Linda M. Lindenbaum, Samuel and Gabrielle Lurie, The Marron Family, Naddisy Foundation, the City of New York, the Estate of Abby M. O’Neill, Andrall E. Pearson and Rappaport Family, the Estate of Ruth J. Prager, Ceil and Michael E. Pulitzer, Carlos Rodríguez-Pastor and Gabriela Pérez Rocchietti, Alejandro and Charlotte Santo Domingo, and Helena and Per Skarstedt. Major support was provided by Mr. and Mrs. Richard Lockwood Chilton, Jr., Mariana and Raymond Herrmann, Mary R. Morgan, and Laura G. and James J. Ross.
Programming related to the reopening of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing is made possible by the Ford Foundation and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.
The renovation of the galleries was overseen by Alisa LaGamma, Ceil and Michael E. Pulitzer Curator of African Art and Curator in Charge of The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing and Doris Zhao, Project Manager.
The Arts of Oceania team includes: Maia Nuku, the Evelyn A. J. Hall and John A. Friede Curator for Oceanic Art; Sylvia Cockburn, Senior Research Associate; and Maggie Wander, Senior Research Associate (2022–24).
The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing team includes: David Rhoads, Christine Giuntini, Lauren Posada, Raychelle Osnato, Damien Marzocchi, Jessi Atwood, Matthew Noiseux, Paige Silva, Lydia Shaw.
The conservation of these collections was overseen by Lisa Pilosi, Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Charge with conservators Dawn Kriss, Sara Levin, Amanda Chau, Katharine Fugett, Teresa Jiménez-Millas, Caitlin Mahony, Marijn Manuels, Katherine McFarlin, Nick Pedemonti, Carolyn Riccardelli, Netanya Schiff, Chantal Stein, Ahmed Tarek, Marlene Yandrisevits, with additional help from the Objects Conservation Department, as well as a team of conservation preparators dedicated to the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing collection: Matthew Cumbie, Nisha Bansil, Johnny Coast, Jennifer Groch, Lindsay Rowinski, Nina Ruelle, Barbara Smith and staff preparators Warren Bennet, Andy Estep, Jacob Goble and Frederick Sager.
The Met’s Design team, overseen by Alicia Cheng, Head of Design, includes: Patrick Herron, Alexandre Viault, Tiffany Kim, Anna Rieger, Maanik Chauhan, Sarah Parke, Clint Coller, Jourdan Ferguson, Amy Nelson, with support from Rebecca Forgac.
The design of the Michael C Rockefeller Wing was led by WHY Architecture, in collaboration with The Met’s Design Department. Beyer Blinder Belle was the executive architect and led the design of the exterior sloped glazing wall. The construction was managed by AECOM Tishman. The team collaborated with engineers including Kohler Ronan, Thornton Tomasetti, and Arup. The cases were fabricated by Goppion. The design and construction process was led by Justin Mayer (Senior Project Manager, Capital Projects) and Mabel Taylor (Associate Project Manager) of The Met’s Capital Projects department overseen by Jhaelen Hernandez-Eli (Vice President, Capital Projects.
About The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded in 1870 by a group of American citizens—businessmen and financiers as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day—who wanted to create a museum to bring art and art education to the American people. Today, The Met displays tens of thousands of objects covering 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy. The Museum lives in two iconic sites in New York City—The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters. Millions of people also take part in The Met experience online. Since its founding, The Met has always aspired to be more than a treasury of rare and beautiful objects. Every day, art comes alive in the Museum’s galleries and through its exhibitions and events, revealing both new ideas and unexpected connections across time and across cultures.
###
October 4, 2024
Contact: Meryl Cates; Ann Bailis
Communications@metmuseum.org
Rendering of Arts of Oceania Galleries, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Image by WHY Architecture
Press resources
Source link : https://www.metmuseum.org/press/news/2024/mcrw_oceania
Author :
Publish date : 2024-10-04 15:09:42
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.