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Course: The Metropolitan Museum of Art > Unit 2
Lesson 1: Q&A- Why does design matter in arms and armor?
- Why is writing so important in Islamic art?
- What's the story behind the world's oldest piano?
- Were there superheroes in the ancient world?
- What's at the Met for sports fans like me?
- What's that artist making in the galleries?
- Is there more than one way to see a work of art?
- Can I learn about Greek mythology at the Met?
- How were mummies made in Ancient Egypt?
- How did they get all this stuff into the museum?
- How can I recognize ancient Greek architecture?
- How does the Met decide how and where to hang the art?
- Can doodles be art?
- What's special about these galleries?
- How does the museum take care of all the armor?
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How does the Met decide how and where to hang the art?
Go behind the scenes with Sophie, age 10, as she learns about the choices curators make when they decide what art to put on view.
Video transcript
#metkids
q&a The Metropolitan Museum of Art How does the Met decide
how and where to hang the art? Sophie, age 10 I'm Sophie. I'm going to be interviewing
a curator who is also my aunt. I'm Nadine Orenstein. I'm in charge of prints
in this department. Any time there's an exhibition
that has something to do with prints, I'm usually involved some way. Is it hard, like, organizing? We play a lot
with what we're going to put out, and so sometimes,
something looks really good when we have it in the department. We have it out on our table
or in our study room. But then, you get it out
into the gallery, and then the things don't look the same. Everything always looks different
the minute you switch it around. There are three curators here
putting together the gallery today. This is fun! It's our opportunity to choose
works from our whole collection and to choose works on different subjects. We pick out kind of crazy ideas
or silly themes. These pictures are all pictures
of people turning their backs towards the people
who are looking at the pictures. This is my favorite one. Even though this guy
is turning his back to us, he is a barber, and a barber has a little stand
with a wig on it. And it's the stand with the wig
that's looking out at the people. What if you put them in size order? We could put them in size order. Let's see, how does that look? Sometimes, when they put up the pictures, they put it up in chronological order, which means from most recent
to longer ago. Sometimes they also put it
on like what's in the picture. It really just depends
on how nice it looks. Is it hard measuring
if it's perfectly straight? We don't do the measuring ourselves. We have people in the department
who are really good at measuring, and they have levels that tell us
whether things are straight. We just measured the distance
between the frames, because that's how they think
they're going to hang it. So this is how they hang pictures
in the Met, and how they decide
where different pictures go and how they organize them. This is Sophie reporting
from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. what's your #metkids question? Are you an artist who has some work
in the Metropolitan Museum? (laughter) ♪ (upbeat music) ♪