NYAB Venue - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Museum in The Upper East Side area

The Metropolitan is a collection of museums, each deserving of many repeated visits. It is a vast storehouse of knowledge, where works of art are held for reference as well as for display; its collections are meant to be consulted as one chooses from a long menu. Indeed, the strength of the Met is that all under one roof it provides an almost infinite number of options for many rich and rewarding visits. These can take an infinite number of forms, from random wanderings to planned itineraries, from an in-depth study of a single gallery or exhibition to the exploration of several different cultures or periods. Every conceivable peregrination is possible because the Met is a universal museum: every category of art in every known medium from every part of the world is represented here and thus available for contemplation or study – and not in isolation but in comparison with other times, other cultures, and other media. Understood in this way, of course, the Met can never be too big, for once we acknowledge that it can be visited best only in sections, in small tastings, then, as with a long menu or a box of assorted chocolates, the more we have to choose from, the better.