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Museum: Behind the Scenes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art |
Author: Danny Danziger
Published: 2007-06-21 |
List price: $27.95
Our price: $9.63
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As of: November 20th, 2008 03:25:39 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 A different kind of museum tour...
The author Danny Danziger has skillfully edited a series of 52 interviews with a diverse group of curators, support staff, trustees, and the Met's Director Philippe de Montebello. The result is a vivid picture of an institution, with many fascinating life stories and thoughtful comments on the museum from very different but all compelling points of view.
 Could have been so much better
This book is mostly a series of condensed and edited interviews with the staff of the Metropolitan. Anyone looking to get the big picture or a great narrative like Calvin Tompkins provided in 'Merchants and Masterpieces' will be disappointed, as I was. All of the interviews provide interesting little nuggets of information, and a few are really fun to read (the best one is with the museum's director, Philippe de Montebello, who seems like a total gent) but all of them could have been trimmed back by about half. This book is mostly padding. And with so many people talking about their jobs without any sense of context, you begin to wonder what the point of this book is. It seems like a memento for people who work at the Met, not a book directed to outside readers. Maybe Danziger was going for the kind of effect that Studs Terkel gets with some of his interview books, like "Working," but Danziger, who is basically voiceless for most of the book, doesn't direct the conversations to big themes the way Terkel can. Basically, you should only read this if you are Met Museum groupie. Otherwise skip it.
What's The Point
I must say that I'm surprised by all of the great reviews this book has been given. Its simply ok. The Met is one of my favorite places to visit and reading the description of this book I went into it thinking I would love it. I was sadly mistaken. In fact I couldn't wait to finish reading it.
The author clearly researched his topic well, interviewing countless people in each of the Mets departments but none are presented in an intriguing way. Each person that is profiled is the subject of their own little chapter but the author never goes in depth into the person's job at the Met. Take for instance the fact that we learn that the head custodian is a recovering coke addict but not what goes in to keeping such a massive institution running. We meet curators and learn of their passion for their field or for say baseball but never what goes into their daily job as a curator in the greatest museum in North America.
Really a dissapointment with very little if any redeeming qualities. The book might as well have been about an athlete and ask nothing about their sport or an astronaut and ask them nothing about NASA.
 A very insightful, well-written book
This is one of those books that while you are reading you hate to come to the end because it is so well-written and inspiring. Having gone to the Met many times, it was delightful to read about the behind-the scenes happenings. I very much like the fact that the author painted such a broad scope of people whom he interviewed from the plumbers, waitresses, curators, members on the board of directors and the people whose relatives have given millions in acquisitions.
This is a wonderful book and a must-read for anyone who appreciates art.
I also couldn't put it down!
What a rich, generous, amazing book! Perhaps fifty different people from curators through trustees, security people, and cleaning staff show us how they all work together to make one of the greatest museums in the world. From the extremely wealthy trustee to the waitress with aching feet, it shows the human faces behind the priceless art in New York's Metropolitan Museum. We know about the life of Van Gogh; now we can learn about the people who serve the place which keeps his work safe for the world to see. To the author: thank you so much!
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