The Metropolitan Museum of Art

1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street
New York, New York 10028-0198
General Information: 212-535-7710
TTY: 212-570-3828 or 212-650-2551




"Jeff Koons on the Roof"--On view is an installation of sculptures by American artist Jeff Koons (b. 1955), featuring three of the artist’s meticulously crafted works that have never before been on public display. The works are set in the most dramatic outdoor space for sculpture in New York City: The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden, which offers a spectacular view of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline. Beverage and sandwich service is available from 10:00 a.m. until closing, including Friday and Saturday evenings. Through October 26.

"Photography on Photography: Rflections on the Medium since 19"--This exhibition presents four decades of photographs by artists who have turned the camera on photography itself. In the early 1960s, the photograph—mechanical, reproducible, and found in every corner of the culture from the printed page to the passport and photo-booth—became the weapon of choice for artists such as Andy Warhol and Vito Acconci in breaking down the boundaries not only between mediums but between art and life itself. In the following decade, belief in the objectivity and neutrality of photography began to crumble along with all the received wisdoms of the period, and the aggressive and voyeuristic urges latent in the taking of and looking at pictures became the subject in self-portraits by artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Janice Guy.

In the late 1970s, Richard Prince and Sherrie Levine began making photographs of the photographs of others and claiming them as their own. Reflecting a moment in which technologies of reproduction such as the audio cassette and VCR were all but erasing distinctions between originals and copies, their strategy of appropriation wreaked havoc not just with photography but with our most cherished notions of authorship and originality. Images by others could also be the starting point for labyrinthine narratives where the viewer is led into a perceptual and epistemological hall of mirrors, as in Allen Ruppersberg's Miscellaneous Men (1977) and Lutz Bacher's Jackie & Me (1989). Through October 19

"Provocative Visions: Race and Identity-Selections from the Permanent Collections"--This installation features acquisitions made during the past sixteen years (1992–2007), many on view at the Museum for the first time. The thirteen sculptures, prints, and drawings by seven contemporary African-American artists—Chakaia Booker, Willie Cole, Glenn Ligon, Whitfield Lovell, Alison Saar, Lorna Simpson, and Kara Walker—confront issues of racial heritage and identity. Through March 8

"Early Buddhist Manuscript Painting: The Palm-Leaf Tradition"--This installation of thirty palm-leaf folios features some of the earliest surviving Indian illuminated manuscripts dating from the tenth to the thirteenth century. It centers on one remarkable Mahayanist Buddhist text, the Ashtasahashirika Prajnaparamita Sutra ("Perfection of Wisdom"), illustrated through the Museum’s rare holdings of eastern Indian and Nepalese illuminated palm-leaf manuscripts, book-covers, initiation cards, thankas, and sculptures.
Indian illustrated palm-leaf manuscripts from this period are extremely rare, and the few that survived did so outside India, principally in the monasteries of Tibet. The painting style in these earliest surviving manuscripts reflects stylistic conventions developed in Indian temple and monastic mural painting, now almost completely lost to us. Thus these manuscript paintings provide a unique insight into Indian painting styles at the close of the first millennium A.D. Drawn from the Museum’s own holdings of illuminated palm-leaf manuscripts, the installation features many rarely seen works, including some that have never been exhibited.
Traditional Indian manuscripts consist of a series of unbound folios, prepared from treated and trimmed leaves of the palm tree, and secured between wooden covers. The folios and covers were beautifully illuminated with miniature illustrations, typically with images of the deities to whom the text was dedicated and who were evoked through the recitation of the text. Narrative themes—such as scenes from the life of the historical Buddha—occur more rarely. These manuscripts have helped transmit Indian religious thought for more than two thousand years, and from at least the tenth century served as the vehicle for preserving some of the earliest surviving paintings known from India.
On view is a series of remarkable folios from editions of the Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita manuscript, depicting both the wisdom goddess Prajnaparamita herself, and Buddhist Bodhisattvas who serve as the embodiment of compassion to all living creatures, extending blessings and boons to devotees. A tenth- to eleventh-century illustrated book cover, probably painted in Nepal, depicts the goddess flanked by scenes from the life of the historical Buddha. Other highlights of the installation are two folios from a unique edition of the Pancavimsatisahasrika Prajnaparamita manuscript (ca. 1090), one of which depicts the Buddha giving safety to mariners.
The installation is organized by John Guy, Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art in the Museum’s Department of Asian Art. Through March 22

 The Metropolitan Museum of Art

1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street
New York, New York 10028-0198
General Information: 212-535-7710
TTY: 212-570-3828 or 212-650-2551

Hours*

*Galleries are cleared at 5:15 p.m., Sunday–Thursday, and 8:45 p.m., Friday and Saturday

**The Main Building of the Metropolitan Museum—its galleries, public restaurants, and shops—will be open from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on the following Met Holiday Mondays:

• Labor Day: September 4, 2006
• Columbus Day: October 9, 2006
• Martin Luther King Jr. Day: January 15, 2007
• Presidents' Day: February 19, 2007
• Memorial Day: May 28, 2007

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