At The Met – Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast

New York’s most famous art museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is currently featuring a groundbreaking exhibition called “Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast.” The exhibition is centered around a single sculpture – a marble bust by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux entitled Why Born Enslaved! (1868). The bust, featuring a Black woman with tied arms and a defiant expression, became very popular in Europe when it was created. The Met’s exhibition explores the idea that antislavery imagery often reinforced the colonial power structures that they were meant to critique. It is “the first exhibition at the Met to examine Western sculpture in relation to the histories of transatlantic slavery, colonialism, and empire.” The exhibition is thoughtfully and expertly curated to challenge “institutional narratives… bringing race to the forefront of discussions about art and culture.”

The New Hall of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History

The American Museum of Natural History is a New York institution, dating back to 1869. Since the 1970s, one of the museum’s permanent exhibitions has been an impressive showcase of gems and minerals. As a part of the museum’s 150th birthday celebration, this exhibition was overhauled, receiving a complete redesign, including a new floor plan, new specimens, and way more information. The new Allison and Roberto Mignone Halls of Gems and Minerals reopened this summer, after being closed for several years. It was well worth the wait, as the new gallery is stunning and full of fascinating educational resources describing “how the vast diversity of mineral species arose on our planet, how scientists classify and study them, and how we use them for personal adornment, tools, and technology.” The new exhibition features everything from huge glittering geodes to multicolored crystal formations and cut precious gemstones. There are specimens from 98 countries around the world, and many from right here in New York. Educational and beautiful, the new exhibition is a must-see part of one of our favorite museums in New York City.

The Garden Court at The Frick Collection

The Frick Collection houses a number of distinguished European sculptures and paintings in the former residence of Henry Clay Frick (1849-1919) on the Upper East Side. After browsing the Frick’s impressive galleries, visitors often like to enjoy the Garden Court and sit by the fountain. John Russell Pope drew inspiration for the design of this serene space from similar courts in Washington, D.C. in the mid-1930s, when the Frick was being converted from a residential space to a public museum. The museum’s special exhibitions currently include: Elective Affinities: Edmund de Waal at The Frick Collection, Whistler as Printmaker: Highlights from the Gertrude Kosovsky Collection, and Tiepolo in Milan: The Lost Frescoes of Palazzo Archinto.