In early March, The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced that it would be temporarily closing all three of its locations in NYC—The Met Fifth Avenue, The Met Breuer, and The Met Cloisters—in response to the then-emerging COVID-19 pandemic. This set the tone for all the other museums and art institutions around the city, which shuttered around the same time. And now this week, The Met has become the first major museum to announce their tentative plans to reopen in August with some major safety precautions.
The museum said in a statement that they are planning to reopen to the public "in mid-August or perhaps a few weeks later," and have come up with that approximate date via Governor Andrew Cuomo's timeline of benchmarks the state must meet to reopen. There is obviously still a lot of uncertainty around whether conditions will be safe for in-person activities to resume before the end of the summer, but this is in line with other institutions, including NYU and Columbia, who have both said they intend to resume in-person classes in the fall with safety measures in place.
If the Met is able to reopen in August or September, they too will have a lot of new safety measures "given the need to provide an environment that respects social distance requirements": the days and hours The Met is open will be reduced, and all tours, talks, concerts, and events will be canceled through the rest of 2020. They add that they hope to resume all those activities in 2021, including the Met Gala, which has been officially canceled for 2020; and they plan to have a belated celebration of the museum's 150th anniversary next year as well.
When visits do resume, the museum has a few exhibits it's planning to debut, including: Making The Met, 1870-2020, the signature exhibition of the Museum’s 150th anniversary celebration; The Roof Garden Commission: Héctor Zamora, Lattice Detour, the latest in a series of annual presentations of a site-specific work on the open-aired roof garden; and The Costume Institute’s About Time: Fashion and Duration exhibition, which was going to be the theme of this year's Met Gala, is scheduled to open on October 29th, 2020.
“The Met has endured much in its 150 years, and today continues as a beacon of hope for the future," said Daniel Weiss, the museum’s president. "This museum is also a profound reminder of the strength of the human spirit and the power of art to offer comfort, inspiration, and community. As we endure these challenging and uncertain times, we are encouraged by looking forward to the day when we can once again welcome all to enjoy The Met’s collection and exhibitions."
The Met, which officially closed on March 13th, has projected at least a $100 million loss in revenue because of the pandemic and the shutdown (and that figure was based on estimations that the museum would be able to reopen in July). As a result, it has laid off 81 staff members so far.
Before COVID-19, The Met had previously closed for two days on only two occasions: after 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy.
