Submitted by Sir Joshua, Jan 10, 2008 09:48

It will be difficult to see Mr. de Montebello leave, no question about that. For many he is the only 'front man' many have known. The silly hijinks of his predecessor are mostly now forgotten except that his 'Art for Dummies' volume still lingers on Barnes & Nobel's shelves here and there. The roster of potentials makes one nervous. Mr. Potts is a hard core ethnologist and knows little of paintings. He acquired merely a handful during his 9 years at the Kimbell, and besides...who would want to leave the Fitzwilliam? Henri Loryette of the Louvre is part of a franco-napoleonic machine and really doesn't belong in NY aside from America's fondness for le Sarko. Now Neil MacGregor is another thing entirely. He might actually be a good Met director. He has been doing a magic act pulling something from nothing, financially, from the British Museum. Like the Met, the BM has wide ranging collections and I haven't heard much flack from curators working under him, so he may be someone to have over for a trustees lunch..

Primary among the nominees however is Gary Tinterow. He is a part of the machine, his appointment would be an almost seamless transition, and no donors would go into opinion shock. I quail to think of the Met going ga-ga over contemporary art and I know Gary T. has gotten the nudge from de Montebello to develop that end of the collection, but I think it might be wise for the Met to give itself some chronological parameters and not dive big-time into the Contemporary field. There are plenty of institutions that are doing that. The Met should develope what it has dealt best with, namely the history of art up through the early 20th Century. I still think Picasso looks a bit odd at the Met, after all the City has MoMA, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, etc. to deal with the fickelness of foolishness known as Contemporary Art. I have yet to see one Contemporary artist who can knock your socks off and continue to impress with works of quality. Flash in the pan-ers like John Curry are good for 10 minutes, but i'faith he is litle more than a pornographic cartoonist. Pity those hedge-funders who blew 6 and 800,000. on a Curry just to impress their cocktail friends that they were au-courant, because now they are out of date. But that's another row to hoe (oops, did I just say something bad? PC is so hard to keep up with).

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