Each week, Artful spotlights an art experience or destination that speaks to us right now.
A new phase of New York's reopening arrived last week, with major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art accessible to the public for the first time since March. The return is, for many art lovers, an emotionally charged experience. One place to start processing it all is the roof garden of the Met, where the Mexican artist Héctor Zamora has installed a long, curved wall made of perforated terracotta bricks, like a warmer and friendlier Tilted Arc.
The site-specific piece, called Lattice Detour, would probably have been seen in a primarily political context had it opened just a few months ago. That suggestion is still there, but your first impression of the barrier is of yet another device of social distancing. With time, though, the earthen color and handcrafted texture of the bricks and the permeable, open grid of the structure gradually soothes and relaxes. The Central Park views are still there—if you focus on that backdrop, the grid almost disappears—and the Midtown skyline at the Southern end of the roof deck remains unobstructed. See what you can indoors, and then go up to the roof to breathe fresh air and reflect on the Met's place in the city and our lives.
