The giant gongs are back! After a three and a half year restoration, the Oceanic wing is back and larger and moved around a little and filled with more stuff and more little information cards and more maps.
For whatever reason, the arts of Oceania (everything from New Zealand to Borneo to Hawaii) have always struck a chord with me. I’ve thought long and hard about why this is and I actually came up with an answer – when I was very young my parents took me to stay at the “Polynesian Resort” at Walt Disney World and, somehow, that aesthetic imprinted on me.
Anyway, this remains my favorite room at the Met. I’m not a scholar so I won’t go into what exactly you’ll see (I’ll leave that to yesterday’s Times) – you should just go see it yourself. In the mean time, I am going to dig up a DVD of La Valee.
