The Art Newspaper

Michael Gross tries to crack the Met's wall of silence

By The Art Newspaper. From In The Frame
Published online: 12 May 2010

The code of omertà and oral history might seem a contradiction in terms, but great museums move in mysterious, some might say Sicilian ways as the writer Michael Gross discovered recently. As he reported in the Huffington Post last week, when he asked to listen to taped interviews then deposited in the Smithsonian Institution about the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, while researching his history of its movers and shakers, Rogues’ Gallery, he met an official wall of silence. The Met’s tapes are now back in the Met under lock and key, access restricted, but the saga of “oral-gate” is told in the paperback version of Gross’ book, which is published this week.