Meet Me at the Met
This morning I danced with newly acquired crests from Cameroon. I was physically familiar with Papua New Guinean full body masks, and a massive ceremonial Kwoma ceiling. I stood close to indigo-dyed women’s wraps from the Bamileke people, the Akan peoples’ terracotta memorial heads, the white-faced masks of the Ibibio people, the Janus-Faced headdress of the Ejagham peoples Akparabong clan. Many of these objects are associated with the Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, and some of them are not. There are “newer,” gifts from Eve Glasberg and Amyas Naegele. Astoundingly, there were bronze and ivory pieces from the 18th century, the Kingdom of Benin. It astonished me. It always does, the Met.
Here was Georgia. There was Gertrude.
Then there was, alas, a freight elevator. What a lucky bunch we are, taken to the fifth floor to receive our last presentation from the high minds in digital development at the Met. Loic uses fertile language, he’s languid, serene in his numbers and calculations. He is pointed with his word choices, noting we call what we do the activity that it is, not what it classifies as digitally. Makes perfect sense, once you say it aloud. We heard this throughout the seminar, that apps are dead and we have a change in digital classification schemes. “Agile, simple… significant competitive advantage…” he told us, asking THE questions about whether or not we, they, the pros, are filling the spaces where the people are, both physically and digitally. What does success look like? This business model is based on an endowment, and in reminding us of this, the Met will be able to measure success. Go for the metrics. Make a change this way, he promotes. Quantitive tools, from a history buff. He says to do what we are supposed to be good at, and that our skillset involves not just looking for but categorically finding what it is you can do online — as well as what is done in the halls of the building. But he considers both as simply “space where someone is hunting.” He says no one should be cataloguing better than they do, and about this he would be so right. So choice.
