The Director of one of the largest museums in the world – American Metropolitan (Metropolitan Museum of Art de New York), Thomas Campbell announced that he officially leaves the Museum at the end of June 2017, and his duties will fall on the shoulders of the President of the Metropolitan Daniel Weiss. T. Campbell headed the Museum since 2009 and resigned under pressure from the Board of the Museum and public opinion.
Metropolitan currently experiencing record attendance in 2015-2016, and the Director of the Museum has largely contributed to this, although attendance brought $8 million loss for the period and resulted in the dismissal of 90 employees and a policy of spending cuts. D. Weiss spoke about the fact that if we do not take necessary action in the near future the Museum may face a $40 million shortfall.
As found out the journalists of the French magazine “Cross” (La croix), his actions caused a lot of criticism. For example, renting for $17 million a year for the Museum Whitney (Whitney Museum) to host there an exhibition of contemporary art. This step caused the rivalty with Metropolitan Museum of modern art and the Guggenheim.
Also on the eve of the 150th anniversary of the Museum it started construction of a new wing costing $600 million, which would have been completed in 2020, but in January the work was stopped for uncertain term.
At the same time, experts say about the controversial decisions the Board and about the objective problems of financing of the Museum, because customers prefer modern art and there is a threat of D. Trump administration to close the state support through national funds (National Endowment for the Arts).
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