Art Work: Artists Working at The Museum

Since 1935, staff members working as a part of The Met community, many of whom are accomplished artists, have shared their creative contributions with each other on a regular basis. This year the Met is open this presentation of their work to the public. The wide range of artistic expression—from drawing, painting, and photography to sculpture and digital media—corresponds to an equally expansive representation of departments throughout the institution, including guards, educators, technicians, librarians, designers, engineers, conservators, volunteers, registrars, and many others.

For the first time in almost 80 years, the Met Museum opens to the public an exhibition that has been held each year to generate a dialogue with museum workers. On this occasion, the Art Work: Artists Working at the Met exhibition can be visited by the public to see a curatorial selection made by nearly 450 workers from one of the most important museums in the world.

On many occasions, museum workers go unnoticed by the general public even when their work keeps these spaces alive and in the best conditions. The exhibitions usually show the work of artists and curators, but behind them there are a large number of people who make them possible, from designers to security guards.

If there is someone who knows museums more than anyone, it is the workers who go through them day after day and who make the institution a space for coexistence. But have you ever wondered what the museum teams think or how they see the works of art they house?

In this exhibition, a group of employees set out to select works in different formats that catch their attention. They turned their wishes and interests into a professional curatorial work that, for the first time, has the opportunity to be seen and commented on by the general public. The importance of making the public exhibition and not only for its internal visits represents an important opportunity to learn about a different approach to art from the daily relationship one has with it.