MoMA's Manhattanization
The NYT yesterday dropped this little bombshell on the rest of the (non-Art) world. Yes, admission to MoMA is going up to $20. Seriously. $20. The worst of it is that the powers that be are so fucking hypocritical about the whole thing. The article begins with a museum official gushing about how fucking nice it was to have such diverse visitors at the museum's temporary location in Queens:

It was young and, while not quite a cultural tapestry by Queens standards, more diverse than the usual MoMA scene. Many visitors hailed from the outer boroughs. "We felt good," James A. Gara, the museum's chief operating officer, said. "We really did reach an audience we had always wanted to reach."

Let me translate this:

"The museum is now so fucking far away from the Upper East Side, we didn't know who we'd get to come! I mean, you can't expect ladies who lunch to go to Queens, now can you? Well, I mean, we did have that Matisse/Picasso show, which was a 'must see,' but even that's pushing it... Queens is also a very expensive cab ride away..."

OK. So now the museum's got this "diverse, young" group of visitors. That they just gave a big fuck you to by raising the price to $20. And the rich, old, white ladies have been ensured that they won't have to suffer the agony of having some gross poor person's head blocking their view of Starry Night:



Modern-art lovers who can comfortably absorb the $8 price hike are likely to be delighted with the trade-off, as may tourists interested in exploring the full range of the museum's resources. New Yorkers who like to spend an occasional lunch hour at the museum and tourists who just want to see "The Starry Night," however, may not be so happy. As Melissa Dale, a first-year student at the Parsons School of Design who was visiting the museum's Queens outpost last week, said: "If it cost us $20, we probably wouldn't come. It's, like, food for three days for us."

The Shock of the New Entry Fee [via NYT]


- posted by liz @ 9/27/2004 08:10:00 AM