Luke Syson, curator of European sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will kick-off week-long festivities on October 20 at the Florence Gould Hall of the French Institute Alliance Francaise with a lecture titled Hugging Zombies: how the Met has been collecting art that’s out of fashion and why you should, too.
Luke Syson, curator of European sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“It is a vice among dealers and curators to say that a work of art is ‘important’ without actually saying why it matters now. The Met buys European furniture, sculpture and decorative arts, not just because pieces speak to the moments they were made but because they go on speaking today,” said Syson.
Additional presentations will bring together dealers, auctioneers, collectors and museum directors to discuss the issues around the trade in antiquities and the popular meme that ‘no one under 65 cares about or collects historical art’.
A New Normal for Collecting Antiquities in a Post-Loot Culture is debated on October 23 with The art is at least twice my age: Life in the Art Market Under 40 following on October 26.
