The Rockefeller Wing

The big excitement at the Met this spring has been the long-awaited opening of the Rockefeller Wing, housing the collections of African, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian art, designed by Kulapat Yantrasast of WHY Architecture. It has received glowing reviews. I don’t like it, and, as I’m trying to do with my negative reaction to the Sargent show, am trying to figure out why.
The first thing I see when I enter the space, and something I see no matter where I look once I’m inside, is vitrines. Freestanding glass cases overwhelm the relatively few objects allowed to breathe for themselves. Admittedly, I have a general aversion to layers of glass between me and art, but here it explodes. The cases create a forest of rectangles. In instances such as Peruvian pots, the cases are way out of scale, making the ceramics look puny in comparison.
The second problem, related to the first, is that the objects are placed so far apart. In the previous installation, multiple objects were grouped together behind a wall of glass, meaning you didn’t focus on the glass. Here, more objects are given masterpiece treatment, standing alone with a vitrine around and above them. The more prominence given the object, the more prominence given the vitrine. (Back to this in a minute.)
The third problem, also related, is the overall whiteness of the space. All the walls and stands are a similar off-white color, which in its uniformity competes with the objects. It’s not quite blinding, but it accentuates the massiveness of the space, which moves from Africa to Oceania to the Americas without break or relief.
My favorite new galleries at the Met are the British galleries, which are intimate and warm, with wood panelling in the opening rooms. By contrast, the Rockefeller Wing is cold and impersonal, with all the glass, white and empty spaces.
Now about those empty spaces: In a nod of cultural respect, the Met is telling visitors that these cultures, foreign to most, have produced great artwork that deserves to be treated and seen just as you would a sculpture by Rodin or a silver bowl by deLammerie. In the past, and in displays at most other museums, individual objects aren’t highlighted. African masks are grouped together on a wall in large number, for example. Maybe it’s because that’s what I’m used to, but I’m a bit put off by the Met’s displaying so many objects in isolation, with nothing around them. Back in the ’50s, when many of these pieces were collected by Michael Rockefeller, the Met wasn’t interested and shunted this material off to ethnographic collections (i.e., the Museum of Natural History). An argument can be made that Western art in the Met was made by craftsmen to look beautiful; whereas what was formerly designated “primitive” art was made strictly for functional–i.e., ceremonial–use following established patterns, and it is the Western eye (or conscience) that has turned it into “art.”
I’m sure this is a much deeper discussion than I can handle at the moment, but I can’t help feeling there is a lot more space and attention given to Asmat and Dogon pieces than comparable products of European or American workshops. And further, that they are here more because of their collectibility than market or royal acknowledgement of their worth.
In sum, I would’ve been happier to see more groupings, without glass and in differentiated galleries.