Three new exhibitions will be on display when the museum’s Fifth Avenue location begins welcoming visitors again on Aug. 29.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced on Wednesday that its landmark location on Fifth Avenue will welcome visitors five days a week, Thursday through Monday, when it reopens to the public on Aug. 29.
The museum, which had not been closed for more than three days in a row in over 100 years before it was forced to shut down in March because of the coronavirus pandemic, has prepared for the reopening by devising safety protocols for visitors and staff that follow the guidelines formulated by the Centers for Disease Control and the government. Face coverings will be required in the museum, and social distancing will be encouraged. The number of visitors will also be capped at 25 percent of the facility’s maximum capacity.
“The safety of our staff and visitors remains our greatest concern,” Daniel H. Weiss, the museum’s president and chief executive, said in a statement.
Three new exhibitions will be on display when the museum resumes operations late next month. “Making the Met, 1870-2020” will focus on the institution’s history; “Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle” will highlight a series by the modernist painter that surveys the formative history of the United States; and a new commission by Héctor Zamora, “Lattice Detour,” will grace the building’s roof garden. Visitors will be able to view the new exhibitions, and the museum’s other treasures, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays, and noon to 7 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays.
The Met Cloisters, the museum’s outpost for medieval art in Upper Manhattan, will open again in September, according to Wednesday’s release. The museum’s other location, the Met Breuer, will not reopen at all. Plans to vacate the space were underway before the pandemic began and will proceed as scheduled.