All language subtitles for Inside.Americas.Treasure.House.The.Met.S01E01.1080p.WEBRip.x264-CBFM

Nestled in New York's Central Park,

this is the largest art museum
in America.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
is 2.3 million square feet

of objects spanning 5,000 years
of history.

The museum really was
an audacious vision

to create a cultural centre that
rivalled the greatest in the world.

The Met is a collection
of collections -

paintings, jewellery,
textiles, statuary,

and the world's most famous
fashion gala.

Every year we're pumping out
something pretty amazing.

It's America's treasure house.

The collection
is what excites every curator

to be part of this institution.

In 2020, the Met turned 150,

in its pomp and ready to celebrate.

I'm this excited!

But as the revels began,
Covid-19 struck New York.

There are new warnings
about the Coronavirus outbreak.

For the first time ever,
the Met was shut...indefinitely.

Walking through the museum
with 5,000 years of the greatest

works of art,
it's a spiritual experience.

This is an exhibition install,
frozen in time.

Initially, a cash crisis loomed.

We're likely to see somewhere
between 100 and $150 million

of loss.

Then national outcry
at racial injustice

had the Met examining
its own record...

You see so many pictures
of men winning.

..and resolving to change.

These objects were stolen,

they were never intended
to be in a space like the Met.

It would be an anniversary year
nobody would forget...

Nothing compares

to what our city and country
is going through right now.

..however hard they tried.

We can overcome.

When the world unlocked,

would there still be a place
for America's treasure house?

It's spring 2019.

The Upper East Side streets
bordering Central Park

emerge from winter looking clean
and fresh.

Occupying a site four blocks long
on Fifth Avenue,

the Metropolitan Museum of Art
is a year from its 150th birthday.

As usual, on a Monday morning,
just before opening,

the Great Hall is a greenhouse.

My staff comes here at

about 5.00, 5.30 in the morning.

We take out all the old flowers,

then we start
making the arrangements.

And, of course, we have to be done
before all the tourists come.

New Yorkers treat the place
like home, but in an average year,

most of the seven million visitors
through these doors are tourists.

If you have a bag,
please have it open. All bags!

Good Morning. Good morning.

Many of them are Americans
making a pilgrimage.

It's pretty fabulous.

It's the visitor dollars
that keep the Met open.

So you've stepped into
the Greek and Roman Department.

We're starting in Ancient Greece.

Greek and Roman is laid out
chronologically.

The Met has around
two million objects,

one million of them on show.

Now, I want you to think about
sightlines

as we're going on our tour. Things
are grouped and displayed together,

so that if I took
all the object labels away,

just visually,
looking down a hallway,

you'd be able to understand
the history of that art and culture.

Follow me in.
We're entering Ancient Rome.

It takes tour guides a year
to learn the history.

We're entering Africa,
Oceania and the Americas.

Down the hallway
into Ancient America.

Mayan and Aztec
are in the far gallery,

getting into Peruvian objects that
are about 1,000, 1,500 years old.

The Met's not trying to be
the largest institution

or the biggest holder of objects,

but to tell the most comprehensive
story we possibly can.

The museum is organised
into 17 departments.

The objects don't change,

but the curators place them in
new contexts to tell fresh stories.

It almost looks like
he's parachuted down in.

A team from the Medieval Department
are installing a new exhibition.

It's a 9th-century
limestone Mayan sculpture

of the rain god Chaac.

And it's part of the
Crossroads installation.

These objects have all been
displayed before,

but here, they'll tell a story
of disparate cultures

flourishing simultaneously
500 years ago.

It's one of the exciting things
about this installation,

is that it really crosses
the collections.

We have a number of big sculptures
that are being brought in.

We've got another one
coming from the Asian Department.

A big 13th-century Khmer sculpture.

Images of piety and power

from Asia, the Americas, Africa
and Europe now sit side by side.

Go back.

All the sculptures are between the
4th century and the 15th century.

It's interesting how different
cultures are doing similar things

at this period, when they're not
doing it at any other time.

Assistant Curator Andrea Achi
has a special interest

in the North African culture in this
era, in particular Byzantine Egypt.

This space is my favourite space
at the Met because in 2000,

when they were doing renovation
to the Byzantine Galleries, um,

they just discovered it.

She has another exhibition
in this understairs gallery,

the Art and Peoples
of the Kharga Oasis.

What I've done in this installation
is to talk about really where

these objects are from,
and the fact that

objects don't just come from the air
into vitrines.

I'm actually an archaeologist
by training,

and I've excavated right next to
the excavation that the Met did

so I know this material
really intimately.

So, for example, these are gold
from, um, Alexandria.

The people who were wearing these
were people of colour

and they were Egyptians and they had
really specific ideas

of what it meant to live well.

This filigree jewellery
comes from a time

when Roman culture
is giving way to Byzantine.

For next year's
anniversary celebrations,

she'll cast Met treasures
in a new light

with an exhibition called
The Good Life.

One thing I'm trying to do is
disrupt this notion of

what African art is,

because when we think about African
art we only think about West Africa.

Visitors don't usually think
about Egypt and Ethiopia and Sudan.

50 years from now, maybe someone
will look at jewellery like that

and say, "Oh, that's African art."

Departments tend their permanent
galleries while spending months

or years developing temporary
exhibitions for the future.

But the Costume Institute
presents several every year.

Camp is 2019's main event -

a celebration
of theatricality in costume.

Flamboyant pieces by modern
designers strike poses

beside mannered garments
from history,

exploring the origins of the term
"camp".

The main annual show is a
much-anticipated New York event.

Fashion fans arrive suitably
dressed.

CAMERAS SHUTTERS CLICK

It's launched on the first Monday
in May by the famous Met Gala.

It's a starry, starry night

where celebrities
and the designers who dress them

make a splash and donate heavily.

In 2019, it raised $15 million.

The money funds the work
of the Costume Institute.

Their collection of some 30,000
garments spans five centuries.

In the department's labs,
textiles are intensively researched.

It's actually a surgical microscope.

I don't know how anyone would do
surgery on this

because it's very... It's very
finicky about staying in focus.

We're doing microscopic analysis
to determine

the difference between these
two fabrics, gazar and zagar.

What everyone thinks is gazar
might not be gazar,

and what people think is zagar
might not be zagar.

The difference is basically
the density of the weave.

These investigations are vital.

Some modern materials pose a threat.

We have 18th-century gowns
worn to, like, the French court

that are in much better condition
than this dress from the 1960s.

We already have stuff from the 1990s
that is starting to degrade rapidly.

We're acquiring a lot of new
and contemporary garments

that have synthetics,
that have inherent vice,

a quality intrinsic to them that
causes their own self destruction.

This is by a woman named Diana Dew.

A movie dress, leather with
illuminated photographs.

Well, they should have put,
like, "leather" in quotes

because this is obviously not
leather. This is called pleather.

The fabric is polyurethane.

It's flaking, it's falling apart.

There's this white bloom
that's come to the surface

and, actually, you can smell it.

It stinks.

What we're smelling is off-gassing
chemicals that can actually harm

other objects in our collection.

This is very recent.
It's, like, five years old.

It's a certain kind of polyurethane
that's susceptible to oxygen.

We're going to put it in this big
bubble, essentially,

and pump the bubble full of argon
gas. Taking out all the oxygen

should slow down the degradation
of that dramatically.

The exhibition schedule
is punishing.

Upstairs, Camp still has
four months to run.

Downstairs, they are already
planning the 150th year show,

where black will be the new pink.

I mean, every year we're pumping out
something pretty amazing.

We technically have less than
a year to plan.

Erm, so we'll see, fashionably late.
Right?

The museum is led
by a new executive team.

APPLAUSE

This year, we actually have a full
spectrum of major exhibitions.

Director Max Hollein is responsible
for the Met's creative vision.

The first sculpture commission
on the Met's facade,

and the artist who we've selected
is Wangechi Mutu.

She's an outstanding artist,
born in Nairobi.

I'm going to give you a quick
overview of the summer and the fall.

Quincy Houghton plans
the exhibition schedule.

We're commemorating
the 50th anniversary

of the Apollo moon landing...

Steering the ship is Dan Weiss,
the CEO,

and since the Met was established
in 1870, it's 16th president.

The museum is run from a quiet floor
high above the public galleries.

From up here, Dan can see spring
in Central Park and winter in Paris.

In college, I had images
from the Metropolitan on my wall,

and one of them was this painting
by Alfred Sisley,

and now I have the real thing,
which is a great privilege.

The Met actually began in Paris,

with American industrialists
dreaming of an American Louvre.

When the museum was founded
150 years ago,

it really was largely
an audacious vision

that a bunch of businessmen
in New York City had -

to create a cultural centre

that rivalled the greatest
cultural institutions in the world.

And it was preposterous.
They had really no art.

They had ambition, they had vision.

But they had no art.
And they had limited funds.

And somehow through this...this, er,
extraordinary experiment,

they were able to generate
great interest and support.

And in this moment in our history,

what I think about all the time,

is how do we find the right balance
between respecting our tradition,

exhibiting, collecting, studying

the works of 5,000 years
of civilisation,

and at the same time serving the
public that's changing in ways

that we all see every day.

The Met opened in April 1870,

a museum for the New World
celebrating the art of the Old.

The philanthropist founders
believed that by getting close

to beautiful objects,
visitors' lives would be improved.

The collections are extensive,
and constantly growing.

They have one of
the world's largest assemblages

of 17th-century
Dutch master paintings.

This is one of the most beloved
areas of the Met.

It's something that New Yorkers
in particular feel very attached to.

Historians argue that the
cosmopolitanism, the tolerance

of New York City really extends
back to its Dutch roots.

It's definitely humbling being
responsible for the Rembrandts

and the Vermeers of the Met,

but I have to say it's nice being
the curator for an area

that is such a crowd pleaser.

There are around 200 Dutch works,

but one frequently scores high
in visitor surveys.

Young Woman with a Water Pitcher

was the first painting by Vermeer
to come to America.

It's the kind of painting
that really was so revolutionary

for 17th-century Dutch art.
It's not a scene from the Bible,

from classical myth or history.

This is an ordinary
anonymous, everyday scene

that somehow is incredibly poetic
and moving

thanks to the magic of Vermeer.

The Met's is a world-leading
collection of Dutch masters.

These works have been enjoyed
by New Yorkers since 1871,

when the Department
of European Paintings began.

We've collected continuously
for nearly 150 years.

People have come and asked me

how many different museums we've
borrowed these pictures from,

and it is kind of nice to be able
to say, actually, this is all ours.

The museum started with collections
donated by the founders themselves

and their art-loving friends.

The very first acquisition
in November 1871

was this Roman sarcophagus,
given by a Turkish diplomat.

America was booming.

It was fashionable among
the new elite to collect the art

of the ancient world and bequeath it
to the Metropolitan Museum.

As visitors enter the Greek
and Roman Departments,

they pass the fragmentary
Head of a Youth.

Carved in the 2nd century BC,

it's said to be the face
of Alexander the Great.

30,000 objects represent
these classical civilisations,

but also their forebears.

The Etruscans,
whose culture the Romans absorbed,

are represented by vessels
showing scenes from daily life.

These minimal marble forms
are the work of artists

at the Cycladic Islands,
from a Neolithic civilisation

that flourished in the Aegean
in the 4th century BC.

Also on the ground floor,

galleries devoted to
another 19th-century passion

for the European age of chivalry.

The Arms and Armor Department began

with a purchase of a single
French collection in 1904.

The accent was on armour
designed for display and ceremony,

not battle. A group
of 16th-century helmets

celebrate the genius of Milanese
armourer Filippo Negroli.

Today, this collection
numbers 14,000 items,

one of the most encyclopaedic
in the world.

I've been coming to the Met
since before I was five years old.

I grew up on 86th Street.

The museum is a sanctuary.

This is a church.
This is a cathedral.

There are people who come
religiously to see a certain object

and stand before it.

You go into the galleries and
realise there is more to the world

than just...bad news.

Maintaining ancient objects like
these is the work of conservators.

Hermes Knauer did it for 40 years.

This shirt, when it came in,
in 2008, was orange with rust.

I spent three-and-a-half months
cleaning this.

Each one of these rings
has an inscription

and it's the 99 names of God.

This piece may have belonged to the
Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal.

All of these pieces
have not only a history,

but people who are dedicated
to care for them.

But you don't see them.
The museum is an iceberg.

You see the tip of an iceberg, but
seven-eighths of it is underground.

The iceberg is several floors deep.

The public never see this network
of labs, studios, workshops

and archives.

Our newly acquired pistol sword.

Ted Hunter and Sean Belair
are conservators and armourers.

I'll remove the corrosion
and then probably apply

a protective coating to make sure

it doesn't reactivate in the future.

We do like to disassemble
our firearms

so you really have to figure out
how they come apart.

Do you take the hammer off?
Would that help? Well, the hammer...

Can't see what's behind it.
Well, there's a nut here,

but you can't get past there first.

So we need to remove...

You know...

Hmm. Yeah.

Sometimes the design solutions
these craftsmen come up with are...

..real headscratchers.

Aha! There you go!

We approach things, I think, on a
foundation of the old techniques,

with our hammers
and antique tools in hand,

and in the other hand we have
our modern chemicals and adhesives

and scalpels and things.
We use conservation-grade materials.

We understand the science,
but because it's arms and armour,

sometimes you just need a hammer.

Some of the thousand-piece
collection goes out on loan

to other museums. Coming or going,
every item must be examined.

This armour belonged to
the Duke of Sessa

and is going on loan to Florence.

I will use cleaning techniques

that are what I think of
as the modern techniques.

Probably use my microscope
for some of it.

I don't want to take any gold off,
I don't want to wear down

any of the etching or the repousse
work. On the other hand,

I will probably need to use a more
traditional technique

to reattach these lames.

So it's going to need
a combination of things

to get it to display worthy.

Cos when I send this off on loan,
it's got to look good.

We've got a reputation
to uphold, right?

If I get going now, I could probably
get it roughly cleaned up

and the mannequin made in a month
or so, but it's going to be tight.

Right now, there's a lot of things
happening. I'm juggling this,

and we have a major exhibition
coming called The Last Knight,

with lots of armour. And we're
borrowing pieces that we don't have

anything comparable. And I'm...
I think Sean agrees,

we're very excited about it.
It's going to be good.

These workshops date to
the first years of the museum.

Away from the public galleries,

they're a haven
for these enthusiasts.

Every department is fun
for people who are in it.

I've been here now, um...
almost 18 years.

There's so many things that we do,

done by people who are passionate
about what they are doing.

There are around 2,000 staff,
most of them unseen,

maintaining and expanding
the collections,

preparing for next year's
challenging exhibition schedule.

Curator Dr Wolf Burchard is building
an exhibition about five centuries

of British trade and its effect
on interior design.

It will open the 150th celebrations.

These here are the 18th-century
galleries and they're very much

the centrepiece
of the British Galleries.

The Met's existing British Galleries
are being remodelled for the show.

They include whole rooms
purchased and carefully removed

from British stately homes
after the Second World War.

This is a room from the 1750s.

I think this colour has come out
really beautifully.

When it was done in the 1990s,
it was a much brighter yellow.

But it was all done with sponges

and made the whole room look a bit
like your local pizzeria.

It's extremely important to get
these things absolutely right.

Burchard has a $20 million budget
and most of his exhibits.

What he needs now is time.

This was originally a dining room
from a house in London.

A very, very talented artist is
going to recreate what would have

been that view
in 18th-century London.

Whereas the other room is going
to be the view that you would

have had of the country landscape.

We have about eight months left.

We're opening in February 2020

and given that this will mark the
150th anniversary of the Met,

we really have to stick to
that deadline.

When you look at the space
right now,

you think, well, how are they
going to open in eight months?

These are all part of
the glass cases.

Installation of the art has to start
at the beginning of July,

so we really need to make sure
that these will be installed

within the next six weeks.

But it's all going to go according
to plan, I have no doubt.

The display will feature around
700 objects.

Presenting them to digital-age
visitors in an arresting way

is the job of the Design Department.

Patrick Herron is
the lead designer on this project.

Shall we move her
up ever so slightly?

But does she then have to
move further to the left?

I think what we want to avoid
is having too many big gaps.

His team have mocked up what will be
a display case of 18th-century

consumer durables that made luxury
accessible to almost all.

Well, what if we moved her
further to the back?

These Georgian chocolate pots,
candlesticks and snuff boxes

were never meant to be
seen together.

Now they must tell a group story.

We did move the lids around a little
bit. I saw that, but it's fine.

There's a lot of back and forth
between how the objects

get displayed, how they're lit.

We're wondering about that one.

It's a bit too close to this.
It needs to slot down and over.

It's quite finicky.

I don't think I knew what
I signed up for, but here I am.

Yeah, it's going to be fantastic.

SHIP'S HORN BLOWS

Preparations for the Met's
slew of celebratory events

go on through autumn and winter.

As 2020 begins, the flagship
exhibition Making The Met

is nearing completion.

I'm this excited!

Andrea Bayer is in charge
of all curatorial staff,

but this is her personal project -

the story of the Museum's evolution,
told in 250 objects.

Ten grand rooms, ten episodes,
through the history of the museum.

It's going to be a thrilling,
immersive experience.

I'm incredibly proud
of what we have achieved here.

One of our greatest Egyptian
sculptures, Pharaoh Hatshepsut,

she's going to sit right there,
and then out the window

we see the great obelisk.

After her death, her sculptures
were defiled by her co-ruler

who took over from her,
and that is his obelisk.

So, history over a long period
of time coming together.

We will have things here
ranging from a Nepalese face mask,

through Richard Avedon's portrait
of Marilyn Monroe.

So that gives you
a sense of how truly global

and encyclopaedic the museum is.

And each of the collecting
departments has gone

to their donors, their supporters,
and asked whether they want to

give gifts in honour of
the museum's anniversary.

And let me tell you - ha-ha! -

a number of EXCEPTIONAL
things have come in,

and some of them have made their way
into this exhibition.

It's not just about objects.

This exhibition also underlines
an ongoing mission.

When we began in 1870, it was about
bringing great objects

to a New York public,
to inspire and to educate.

It's important to remember that the
Met has lived through, for example,

several periods in which there was
a great debate about immigration

and who is an American? And many
of the steps taken by the Met

were to help new immigrants
understand how do you make yourself

an American, how do you make
yourself a citizen of the world?

It's always been
a part of the museum's mission.

The 21st-century Met
wouldn't presume to define

what or who an American is.

In old age, the museum is keen
to show how young it is

and awake to new ideas.

Diversity amongst staff and the
selection of art is a priority

for the new management team.

We have the responsibility
to share,

ideally, the greatest artworks
of the last 5,000 years.

And so it's important that the
museum is not only reliving

previous times, but it really also
needs to live in our current time.

Appointed one year ago,
Director Max Hollein

felt the Met's architecture looked
exclusive rather than inclusive.

Wangechi Mutu
is the first artist EVER

to exhibit work
in the niches in the exterior.

The facade of the Metropolitan

has been empty since the museum
was built.

Asking a contemporary artist to
place something in there

that is about the issues of today
is a statement. It's saying,

"Listen, we're willing to talk about
what we're going through

"as a culture and as a people,

"and we're willing to put you
in that position,

"as the bearer of these ideas,
in the front of this institution."

The African-inspired figures
are called The NewOnes, will free Us

and that's what Max
wants them to do.

Artists are, of course,
great seismographs

for things that happen in society.

Also, they address urgencies.

Also, they help us
look at the world

in a way that we need to look at it.

Wangechi Mutu is, with her art,
a very important proponent

for our bringing in
a new practice,

looking at art not only from
a Western perspective.

I think of these women as characters
that have the capacity,

the freedom and the opportunity
to be where they need to be,

to say what they have to say.

They're here and they're present
and they've arrived.

Days before opening,
Wolf Burchard's exhibition

of 500 years of British art
and commerce is nearing completion.

It spans the Tudor
to the Victorian eras,

but rests heavily on 18th-century
British mercantile expansion.

A display of teapots will take
visitors to marine technology,

Anglo-Chinese relations,
and slavery.

Most of the 700 exhibits
are from the permanent collection

of the Department of European
Sculpture and Decorative Arts.

Ceramics, textiles,
paintings and furniture

sit with monumental
architectural objects.

This 17th-century staircase
was bought by the Met in the 1930s,

rescued from the demolished
stately home Cassiobury Park.

It features balustrades
carved in three dimensions

form a single elm tree.

I've worked on this staircase
since 2014.

To bring it back to life,
to make it speak again

is kind of our goal

and it's a step-by-step process,
it's a staircase,

but reaching the top now,
I am very pleased.

In the Tudor Gallery,

conservator Carolyn Riccardelli

is protecting a 500-year-old
fireplace from dust.

There is a gap between the mantle,
the stone and the panelling.

And we want to prevent dust
from getting built up behind it.

That's where pests make their way.

A skilled conservator leaves
no trace of their existence.

We try to make
our interventions invisible.

A certain personality type
goes into this.

Well, certainly meticulous.

I guess you're always
aiming for perfection

but there's a certain point
where you realise that...

..you've gotten as far as you're
going to get and you need to stop.

There is a history in the museum

of not wanting to show conservation
and not wanting to talk at all

about how the objects were cared
for, and that has really changed.

That's changed. I think, before,
it was a concern that it would

take away from the sense of wonder
and appreciation

of a work of art itself.

And now we see it as
a complement to the art.

It's like being at the dentist.

In the workshop,

another team are recreating
lost elements of a Georgian table.

It's like surgery.
The same tools.

It looks a bit like a spine.
Mm-hm.

What we'll do is, we'll just remove
this section here to get an idea.

In this case, we have the cast
of the original carving here.

And from that we have this negative
into which we pour an epoxy resin,

which then comes out like this.

It's difficult for you to see

but there's evidence
of the missing carving.

And in this case
we have the design drawing.

And then we used ornaments
from the mirror to copy from.

It really now would be
a complete piece of furniture,

when it wasn't
for so, so many years.

On February 24th,
the Met hosts a preview gala

for friends and patrons.

GLASS TINKLES

Good evening and welcome
to the Met's renovated

and reimagined galleries for
British Decorative Arts and Design.

What you will see are a dazzling
array of objects and spaces

but also with an updated
curatorial narrative.

Many will be seeing items
they've donated.

When you're here almost
always by yourself,

it's quite surreal to actually
see real people here.

You really want to pinch yourself.

Our new Director Max Hollein,
he was very keen on what he calls

alternative
or additional narratives.

So we are addressing the contrast
of the beauty and sometimes

the humour of the objects,

and the cruel aspects of the Empire,
such as the slave trade.

So what would be important here
is those slaves have a voice,

and so we have quoted
first-hand accounts of the slaves,

so we tell a more
comprehensive story,

but also address subjects
that are more difficult.

So far, the reactions
have been rather positive.

This case required
so many hours of work.

To see it all in place
is so rewarding.

This was once the dining room
in Kirtlington Park,

a British stately home
cut out and sold to the Met in 1931.

Its Georgian glory restored,

the current residents of the actual
house have crossed the Atlantic

to experience it.

It's a real double take.

It's like walking into
your home but it's...

It's obviously clearly not,
we're in the Met.

They've the got the paintings,
the lights,

the beautiful view out the window.

And it is actually pretty accurate.
You look down and you see the lake.

And then you can see...I think
at home it's a 25-mile view.

You can see a really long way.

It's a strange kind of, like,
deja vu, isn't it?

You sort of, erm... You know,

you're standing where I was putting
the Christmas tree up.

And the Met put back a copy
of the room but not all of it.

So we're missing the main ceiling.

Everything else is the same.

It's quite odd, yes,
it is quite odd.

It does feel quite strange...
being back, being in here.

On March 2nd, the new British
Galleries opened to the public,

signalling the start of a year
of landmark exhibitions and events.

But one day earlier,

the first case of coronavirus
had been reported in New York.

It was a growing problem abroad, but
as yet, not a big story in America.

As the city's eight million citizens
went about their business,

the virus was spreading.

There are new warnings about the
coronavirus outbreak

as it rapidly takes hold.

New York battled on.

Shutting down was unimaginable.

I had been in discussions with city
government each day, and each day

they were encouraging us to do
what we can to stay open,

to protect the economy,

and ensure the wellbeing
of our public and our staff.

In any museum, crowds throng the
galleries - a viral perfect storm.

The Met's board
see their responsibilities.

The only appropriate thing to do

is to close the institution
immediately.

We called the Mayor's Office to
tell them that we were going to be

announcing at 12.30 that we will
close at the end of the day.

City Hall did not argue with us.

They also had not yet made
a decision themselves

as to what they would recommend.

Today is March 12th.

The anniversary is on April 13th.

All the things we were going to do
for the 150th...

But there's a lot of
worry in the air.

The fact of the matter is,

you don't know where
it's going to strike next.

Other cultural institutions
increasingly thought it was

appropriate to close. But no-one had
actually made the gesture to do so.

Once we made that decision,
others followed suit.

Within 24 hours, the entire cultural
infrastructure of New York City

and all of Broadway
and everywhere else was closed.

SIREN WAILS

A state of emergency was declared
in New York in the last hour...

The city that never sleeps
doesn't know when it will wake.

Right before we had to
leave the building,

it felt like
we were in an enormous moment

in the institution's history
and in our own histories.

The museum hasn't closed its doors
for more than three days

for more than a century. The 150th
looks like being a memorable year -

but not in a good way.

We determined that over the next
12 months we're likely to see

somewhere between
100 and $150 million of loss.

You have artworks that are
in the midst of treatment.

Panel discussions
and lectures and talks -

everything has either been
cancelled or postponed.

Our anniversary projects
like Making The Met,

they were so close
to the finish line,

We basically pushed those
exhibitions to the fall.

Although I was thinking about
the exhibition,

to be honest with you, I was really
thinking about New York City

and the 2,200 people
who work at the museum.

The cavernous building is
frozen at noon, March 13th.

The staff have clocked out
and gone to ground.

I'm in Charleston, South Carolina.

I'm at my home
in Montclair, New Jersey.

I've made several wedding cakes
but nothing to the scale of what

I was planning on making
for the 150th.

The membership executive,
an avid baker,

was to have made
an official staff cake.

She did it anyway,

despite knowing she might
have to eat it all herself.

That's so good!

If you've come out of this

and you've lost weight,
you're just doing it wrong.

The fourth branch of the museum
is our digital branch.

That team has been working to find
ways to bring the light

and beauty of an art museum
to people

when 700 New York City
residents are dying every day.

There's a nationwide shortage
of protective equipment.

New York hospitals are under
pressure as never before.

The Met's five conservation
departments have large reserves

of gloves for handling
precious objects.

Over 23,000 gloves
and 300 masks distributed

where it was most needed,
to medical facilities.

The Textile Conservation Department,
no longer repairing fabrics,

becomes a mask-making factory.

How many masks? LAUGHING: 1,300.

If I speed things up
I could make one per 20 minutes.

RADIO BEEPS
This is Valentina, radio check.

The Fifth Avenue building
is itself an antique.

Security staff move in
to keep a round-the-clock vigil.

You have to be concerned with
external entities...

..try to compromise, you know, our
perimeters and take advantage

of what they might perceive
as a scaled-down presence.

By May, conservators are making
weekly team visits

to check on vulnerable objects
in their new twilit world.

All right. Carolyn Riccardelli
is safety officer.

Textile Conservation
made these masks for us

so I want to read the letter.

I think it's important
that you hear this.

"Wonderful colleagues,
these masks were sewn..."

It's not that emotional,
I'm just... Sorry.

"These masks were sewn with grateful
hearts in appreciation

"for your care and dedication
to the museum.

"We thank and salute each of you."

Ready? All right.
How are you doing, Rachel?

I'm OK, you? I'm OK.

Hanging in there.

If these rounds are really simple,

that means we're doing
everything right.

So for textiles, I'm looking for
insects, slipped hinges.

Some things we've covered up
with brown paper to protect them

from light exposure.

Next is Sahel.

Yeah, lights off completely in here.

Everything looks good.

Next is Making The Met. Hooray!

SHE LAUGHS

The show is in the process
of being installed.

Yeah, look at this,
all these, erm, notes.

This is an exhibition install
frozen in time.

I'm looking for any critters
flying out, like moths.

Japanese armour. We're used to
things being covered up,

but it's still exciting
to see what's inside.

I mean, who wouldn't be
excited by that?

It's nice to come here
and look at stuff.

And here's our saint.

So she is credited for ending
the plague in Palermo.

Andrea, is it Saint Ros-alia?
Santa Rosa-lia.

This is a beautiful painting
by Van Dyck, the Flemish artist,

working in Palermo, Italy, in 1624.

And it shows the Saint.

During the terrible plague,
people were praying to her,

and Van Dyck was in the city
and captures that moment.

It was one of the first works of art
that was purchased

and it has taken on additional
relevance for all of us.

Come on, we're ready.
We're ready for you!

This is an exhibition
about the museum's history.

One of the things that has really
changed for us is the knowledge

that we are living in one of
the big moments for the museum.

When alone in the empty halls,

the conservator goes in search
of a very old friend.

Each time I'm in the museum
I go to see Tullio Lombardo's Adam,

which is a sculpture that I
worked on for more than ten years.

He's a marble sculpture
from the Renaissance, maybe 1495.

The pedestal beneath it collapsed

and he fell to the floor
and broke into 28 large fragments

and hundreds of small fragments.

It was a terrible accident that
affected everybody in the museum.

And it was through the efforts
of a huge group of people

that brought it back
to the public view.

For me, this is a reminder
that...we can overcome.

Spring becomes summer.

In solitude, the executive staff

experience their workplace
in a new way.

Walking through the museum
with 5,000 years of the greatest

works of art ever produced,
it's a spiritual experience

to be alone with all of that
collective humanity.

You learn a lot about yourself
and about the world around you.

Director Max Hollein
asks questions about the future,

whenever it might start.

It's a time of reflecting.
What is really important for us?

How can we best reach our audiences?

How are we going to be
an even better institution?

Closed by the virus, the Crossroads
Project is Max's own vision.

It celebrates creative commonalities
between disparate cultures.

The idea for Crossroads was,
we actually want to show that

the history of humankind,
the history of cultural evolution,

is clearly all the history
of interconnectedness.

That these are works coming
out of Africa, out of Asia,

out of Europe,
out of the Americas,

and they all have a similar idea
behind them.

In juxtaposition,
two carvings of African men.

One, a German altarpiece
depicting an African Magus,

the other, a priestly elder
from the Dogon people of Mali.

With projects like this one,
when you've just opened it

and you could only share it with
your audiences for a couple of days,

it feels right now as if these
installations are in waiting.

In July, news from Governor Cuomo
has the museum astir.

We're going ahead
with phased reopening.

Low-risk indoor arts entertainment,
museums...

Now comes the race
to be ready for reopening.

The completion of Making The Met
is first on the agenda.

OK, over here. All righty.

This is an exhibition about the
development of the museum itself.

All departments are contributing.

Today, a Met treasure
is being brought very slowly

from the first to the second floor.

Curator Diana Craig Patch is
responsible for Egypt's Great Queen.

Hatshepsut is in the show
Making The Met,

because she is
one of our best-known pieces.

The Egyptian government
shared the statue with us -

which is something that we always
want to acknowledge -

and she is exquisite.

She looks out across time.

She doesn't look at anyone,
she just looks out across time.

It goes right here. OK.

Hatshepsut will be placed
in the window,

her back turned on the park

and the obelisk of the upstart ruler
who succeeded her.

Look at her! I mean, is that
sensational? Is that sensational?

Acquired in 1929,
the statue is carved from limestone.

Fragile and weighing just over
a ton, it's hard to move.

I don't think there's much
variability in that.

It doesn't look like there's
a whole lot of place to move it.

Crayton Sohan leads the in-house
Art Movement Team.

Slow, because we are going to see
how it picks up.

Everybody's got her, right?

I just want to make sure somebody's
keeping her from swinging.

Ready. Crayton,

we have to make sure
she's actually looking straight,

regardless of the base.

They can't centre the base,
they have to centre her face.

Egyptian statues are never balanced.
Right.

So if you balance with the base
then the...

..face can be looking
somewhere else. Right.

Memories of Carolyn Riccardelli's
Adam statue,

which spontaneously collapsed
in 2002, are easily stirred.

It took 12 years and many hands
to rebuild him.

You see the thing is, Diana,
that it's very close here.

And it has a little bit more room
in the back.

We can back up a little bit.
A tiny bit.

I'm just looking at her face.

It just needs to go
about a half inch that way.

Right, whoa, whoa. Got her?

Ready?

No, no, no. Oops, she's moved.
OK, OK, OK, OK, OK.

When they went to move it over
that little bit...

Yeah. ..it slid and the whole back
end went out.

Yeah, she's not straight any more.

The back end is no longer...

ALL TALK AT ONCE

OK, fine.

Can you run down and get me
two four-foot clamps?

BANG AND CLATTERING

I can't. I can't!

They drop things...

Diana? Yeah.

Are we ready?

I'm looking.

Yeah, she's getting better.

A little bit more.

There she goes.

She's fine. Is it good?

Yeah, you can stop.
Thank you very much.

It's funny, she's not that big
but she's not easy.

Nothing on Egypt statuary
is straight.

But they managed to get
a pyramid perfect. Yeah.

HE CHUCKLES

In August, New York
is beginning to open up.

Shops will admit
mask-wearing customers,

and restaurants can serve diners
in the open air,

in bus lanes and on pavements.

Inside the Met,

the final preparations
for the opening are under way.

In times of trouble and duress, like
after 9/11, people want to be here.

And without people here,
without that energy,

the museum becomes something
more like a mausoleum

than a living institution.

After five months
walking these echoing halls,

Max and Dan
are very slightly buoyant.

There's lots going on.

For the first time in six months,
we now have plants and flowers.

This was kind of pulled back
from the pole but it looks like

minimal art, right?
I actually photographed it.

And all the hand sanitiser machines
look like a new sound installation.

And it was obvious we've got
a lot of hand sanitisers here.

A task force is overseeing
the critical moment of re-entry.

Yes, I-I'm sorry, I was...
I should have it on.

Laurel Britton is the
Head of Revenue and Operations.

Now her previous experience
in military studies

has come to the fore.

The greatest challenge has been
the size of it.

The scope of this building
and our collection,

trying to keep staff safe
and trying to get visitors safe.

And just making sure we're doing
everything we can to minimise risk.

Joy is muted.

Massive financial losses
have led to a 20% cut in staff.

We thought we would declare victory
and move on to the 151st year.

We didn't realise that
the 150th would be, maybe,

one of the defining years
in the history of the museum.

Finally the day dawns.

First in line. I know. Tell me,

what is it like to be able to come
back here after so many months?

It's crazy good.

I have been taking my girls
to the Met since they were babies.

I couldn't get here early enough.

So they opened at ten,
we got here at nine.

I don't know if I've ever been
happier to be some place in my life.

To see people here
is just going to be wonderful.

After five months and 15 days,
the Communications Team

know footfall will be a barometer
of public confidence.

Normally, on an August day,
we can get 30,000 people.

We'll be able to accommodate
up to 14,000 people,

or 2,000 people an hour.

It'll be a really nice experience
for New Yorkers, I think.

We've been waiting months.

Good morning. Everyone's a member or
has a ten o'clock reservation? Yeah.

All right, thank you.

The first steps are tentative.

Entry is by ticket and time slot.

Routes through galleries
are laid out.

Everything is deep cleaned.

You could eat your breakfast
off the Met.

We anticipate a pretty nice turnout.

Before they come through the doors,
there's a vetting process as relates

to, you know,
the Covid-19 protocols.

Once Deputy Director
of the Secret Service,

Security Chief Keith Prewitt

balances biohazards
with public relations.

You see the Plexiglas
that's been installed.

Things like that, on the surface,
can appear unwelcoming

but I think in today's environment,
it's very reassuring.

And, erm, they're going to go
through and become reacquainted

with this place that they love.

It's been months since
Head of Communications Ken Weine

had good news to communicate.

Dan and Max have been
navigating the pandemic

and the financial challenges
the museum face.

So there are a lot of tough choices,
and they stay positive.

It's all about the visitors.

I'm running to the Contemporary
Collection. Modern art.

I just want to be surrounded
by art and beauty.

The Met was the first great
New York institution to close.

The reopening is about
more than just art.

The idea of, you know, in terms of
what it means for New York City?

Oh, yeah, it means that there is
some semblance of normalcy.

The Met only closed for, what,
max three days prior to Covid,

so this is a big first step.

Almost all of the time slots are now
fully reserved through the day.

We have been through
a lot of challenging moments

in the last six months,

and what we've been working towards
is this moment.

When the Met first opened,
visitors were American.

15 decades later,
with tourism suspended,

the museum is back where it started.

Oh, I'm ecstatic, are you kidding?

I'm ready to do a handstand,
I'm so happy the Met is back.

I grew up in New York so I've been
coming since I was in second grade.

To come back to the place we love,

to come back and to visit
the artists that we love,

part of it is
our heritage as well.

It's not just a place, you know,

it has more significance
than just a building.

People that have gotten here
throughout the day, like,

they walk through the door and they
throw their hands up

and they'll scream
and they're like, "Yes!"

There was some woman
that just went "Wah!"

You know, like this,
when she came in.

Yes, young people, er, connecting
with the Romantic paintings.

The children, they love
the Temple of Dendur

and anything in the Egyptian Wing.

And then we have the modern-art-type
folks.

Er, they're more a hipster type
of people.

Cynthia King has not left home
for five months.

The Met is her first destination.

I'm a New Yorker.

We grew up in the projects,

so here at the Metropolitan

we were able to see what
was going on in other cultures.

And we were able to wonder about it.

For a child who's still a child
who has grown up, it's life.

Upstairs, visitors see
Making The Met for the first time.

Walking through the doors,
it's like going into a sacred space.

There is such beauty,
so many treasures here.

Your mind, your imagination is
sparked by coming to something

as culturally, visually,
artistically rich

as a collection like this.

It was such an emptiness
when it wasn't here.

Looking at beautiful things,
I mean, I can't...

Looking at beautiful things...
just...I need it.

It's nice to come back and see stuff
that is new. It feels like momentum,

the museum and the city
carrying forward this touchstone,

this thing that's been here longer
than any of us have been alive,

and it's so solid in its building
on Fifth Avenue,

it feels like it's going to be here
for ever. And so it's a...

It's a symbol of New York resilience
for New Yorkers.

I think that's why they're coming.

Everyone is wearing their mask.

People are maintaining
social distance.

They're helping us to keep this open

and to keep all of New York going.

I've been a member for almost 40
years. This is like a childhood home

to me. Yeah. So this is
a very important moment.

I'm Greco Roman, my background is,
and so when I come in here,

I get to see, like,
what my ancestors look like.

I see my cheekbones,
I see my lips, I see my nose.

And it's like... Oh, God, yes!
It's like...

..I see my past in here.
These are my stories.

This is, like, MY heritage.

It's 27th August.

The New York death toll
stands at just over 32,000.

Today's visitors are taking
a risk...for art.

There weren't very many people
that saw the sculpture

lying on the ground in pieces.

But I knew that there were people...

..who thought that it would be
impossible to put it back together.

I think that the consensus
among the conservators was

that we could do it.

We just didn't know exactly how yet

or how long it would take.

When you've gone through
seemingly impossible projects,

all along the way
there are milestones.

And I feel like we've passed
an important milestone reopening.

People are very eager
to come back to the museum,

but they are faced with the reality
that it's not like it was before.

You know, the first time you
come back, that realisation

really hits you hard.

People find solace in things that
are ancient, finding connections

to people that have possibly been
through the same things.

And I think that's why
people come to museums.

They want to feel
the connection to the past...

..when you don't know
what's coming in the future.

A series of racist
killings forces America

to confront social injustice.

The Met examines its own record.

Any discussion about the future
of the museum has to take account

of this moment. It's huge.

There are many questions to answer,
not least about the art.

These objects were stolen. It's time
for museums to be reconsidering

their own colonial past.

Opening shots.
Framing the performer.

How does an institution
dedicated to the past

change to reflect the present?

I could apologise all day long
for my predecessors.

What is meaningful
is to put yourself on the line.

Lead the way, Kelsey.

Covid will be a footnote.

This revolution
will change the Met for good.

The history taught to my children
is that of slavery.

And there's more.

Before that, there is more.