This post is about a the availability of single session registrations now available for MET(Museum)-101 – the first offered as part of MWC University – which is a four-session survey course about the Metropolitan Museum of Art ! Members should go to “Reservations/ Payments” in the Members Section of the website to sign-up for the entire course, or a few sessions.
Sometimes it’s hard living in a city of superlatives. While it’s often terrific to have access to the best, the most, the biggest, the highest ….etc. – those very same qualities can be tough to navigate. This seems particularly true for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that extreme and august cultural presence in our midst that seems to have so much of, well, everything. But most of us only see a small portion of the Museum and are most likely to get to the Met to see one of their blockbuster events – think Alexander McQueen, or Tutankhamun, or the Islamic Galleries or The Steins Collect.
Over 6.5 million people went to the Met last year. They wandered in a small area of the Museum’s 2,000,000 square feet of exhibition space and looked at a fraction of the Met’s 2,000,000 works. The Met is the pre-eminent art institution in the US and, globally, ranks second only to the Louvre. (The number two spot is a neck and neck race between the Met and the British Museum.) It just gets bigger and bigger. The Met also includes Cloisters, its museum for medieval art located at the northern tip of Manhattan in Fort Tryon Park. A new addition is coming sometime in 2016 when the Met will move its contemporary art collection a stone’s throw away into the Breuer-designed building recently vacated by the Whitney with their move downtown. The course will focus on the main location..
But the one surety among all this bigness is to realize that it is very, very difficult to metaphorically wrap your arms around this 
monolithic institution. – One which has astonishing depth in so many areas and which offers unparalleled treasures around every turn and in every nook and cranny. IF ONLY YOU KNEW WHERE TO LOOK !
Which is why MWC University is being kicked off with a course: MET(Museum)-101: Knowing the Institution. The point of this four-part survey series is to learn about the range of the Met’s permanent collections and understand the Museum’s strengths and services. While you may not be quite as knowledgeable as a curator or docent upon conclusion of the course, you WILL know more about the MET, its collections, its building and its services than 99% of New York. This is an experience which will help you understand how to make the Met your own and know how to wander through its vast environs according to your own taste, curiosity and schedule.
Our professor in this endeavor is none other than well-known art and architectural historian and lecturer Thomas Beachdel (introduced to us by Molly Newman – thanks, Molly !) Mr. Beachdel has lectured at the Met itself but also at the Guggenheim, the New Museum, the Whitney, DIA Beacon, the 92nd St Y , the Dahesh and at contemporary New York galleries. He currently teaches at NYU and Pratt and has also taught at Hunter College and Parsons-The New School and the City College School of Architecture. He is a master at making art accessible and conversational and … joyous. If you’ve sometimes been tantalizingly but unmistakenly frustrated on your visits to the Met and have thought about how to more fully take advantage of it – this opportunity is for you.
The four part course includes a minimum of 8 hours of lectures/ instruction and will take place on April 16th, April 23rd, April 30th and May 7th from 10am until noon. The group will meet at the Met and fees will include museum admission. Class size will be limited. MWC University is non-accredited (!) and there will be no homework or tests ! The course fee is: $490. Members can register for the course after clicking on the Reservations/ Dues tab in the Members section of the website.
