New York, October 20, 2008

Metropolitan Museum Audio Guide to Include
The Philippe de Montebello Years:  Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions

New York − The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Audio Guide program will include the special exhibition audio tour The Philippe de Montebello Years:  Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions, beginning October 20, 2008.

To celebrate Philippe de Montebello’s thirty-one years as Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum’s Forum of Curators, Conservators, and Scientists has organized an exhibition of approximately three hundred works of art—from a total of more than eighty-four thousand—that were acquired during his tenure.  The audio program features lively one-on-one conversations with the Director and 23 Curators discussing a selection of these works and the many stories behind their acquisition. Their dialogues reveal the dynamic, collaborative process of building the museum’s collection and the Director’s multifaceted role in this vital effort. In this unparalleled forum, visitors using the audio guide will get an insider’s understanding of how and why these magnificent and important works belong in the collection today.

A series of the extended interviews between Philippe de Montebello and the Museum’s curators are also available online.

For families and younger audiences (ages 7-12), special Storytime at the Met episodes are available both in the galleries and online. Philippe de Montebello counts myths, legends and fairytales related to three works in the exhibition. Each episode is introduced by museum educator, Mike Norris.

Helen C. Evans, the Metropolitan Museum’s Mary and Michael Jaharis Curator of Byzantine Art, is coordinating curator for the exhibition.

Developed in close collaboration with the Museum’s curators and educators the Audio Guide provides valuable insights into the Museum’s vast permanent collection and special exhibitions – all in one player. Constantly updated, the program currently contains over 94 hours of audio commentaries, including special selections such as Art and Music, an Architecture tour of the Museum, a Family Audio Guide specially designed for younger visitors, and The Director’s Selections which provides a highlights tour of 60 masterpieces, narrated by Philippe de Montebello. This tour is available in eight languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin and Korean).

Audio Guides are available in the Great Hall or at the entrance to selected special exhibitions for a $7.00 rental fee ($6.00 for Museum members, $5.00 for children under 12, and $4.00 for groups larger than 15).

The Audio Guide at the Metropolitan is produced by Antenna Audio, the leading provider of audio and audio-visual interpretation to museums, exhibitions, historic sites and visitor attractions around the world. Antenna Audio is a fully owned subsidiary of Discovery Communications, LLC.

The Audio Guide program at the Metropolitan Museum is sponsored by Bloomberg.

 

CONTACT: Michelle S. Melendez, Antenna Audio (212) 570-3845

 

 

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