SOMETHING ABOUT MARY Gallery Exhibit About Mary Magdalene Opens 9/21

Fourteen contemporary artists have created works about Mary Magdalene for Gallery Met, inspired by the company's new production of Puccini's Tosca, which opens the 2009-10 season on September 21. The exhibition Something about Mary Features original works by Hugh Bush, Paul Chan, Francesco Clemente, George Condo, John Currin, Rachael Feinstein, Barnaby Furnas, Elizabeth Peyton, James Rosenquist, Julian Schnabel, Dana Schutz, Shahzia Sikander, Rudolf Stingel and Francesco Vezzoli. Artists Marlene Dumas and Kiki Smith are lending previously created works on the same subject. The exhibition opens on September 22 and runs through the end of January.

Conceived and organized by Gallery Met Director Dodie Kazanjian, the exhibition takes its cue from a plot point in the opera. In the first scene of Tosca, the painter Mario Cavaradossi is returning to work on a portrait of Mary Magdalene when his lover, the singer Tosca, enters and realizes he's chosen another woman as his model; his Magdalene's eyes are blue and Tosca's are brown. With this in mind, Ms. Kazanjian asked the artists to come up with their own visions of one of the Bible's most famous figures.

"Artists throughout history have portrayed Mary Magdalene" says Kazanjian. "Why not get a contemporary crop to do so? When I approached these artists to create something for the exhibit, they responded with enthusiasm and came through magnificently."

One of those artists was James Rosenquist, who last April lost about $14 million worth of art, archives, every tube of paint, and piece of canvas when his Florida home and studio burned to the ground. His painting Tosca 2009 is his first work since then; that painting has also been reproduced as the front-of-house banner for the Met, announcing the new season.

Gallery Met is free and open to the public six days a week. The hours are Monday through Friday 6:00 pm through the last intermission, and Saturdays from noon through the last intermission. In February, Gallery Met will present another exhibition, the work of artist William Kentridge, in connection with the premiere of his new production of Shostakovich's The Nose. For more information, visit www.metopera.org/gallerymet.

About Gallery Met

The Arnold & Marie Schwartz Gallery Met is a showcase for the contemporary works of art that reaffirms the company's long history of relationships with major visual artists. Gallery Met, directed by Dodie Kazanjian since its inception in 2006, is made possible through an initial $1 million donation by Marie Schwartz, an Advisory Director on the Metropolitan Opera's Board. Located in the south side of the lobby of the opera house, Gallery Met also has an outdoor component of its exhibitions: artist-designed banners that hang on the façade of the opera house to coincide with new productions. This season's opening banner is Tosca 2009 by James Rosenquist, announcing the new production of Tosca. The program began in the 2007-08 season with Barnaby Furnas' evocative Final Flood III, for Peter Grimes, followed by Francesco Clemente's banner for Satyagraha and the banner by George Condo for La Fille du Régiment. The 2008-09 season began with Walton Ford's banner for La Damnation de Faust, followed by Dana Schutz for Il Trovatore, with Cindy Sherman's banner for La Sonnambula rounding out the season.

Gallery Met opened in September 2006 with Heroines, an exhibition of works inspired by the 2006- 07 season's new productions. The artists represented included Cecily Brown, John Currin, Richard Prince, David Salle, Wangechi Mutu, and others.

Gallery Met's first solo exhibition, Stage Fright by Argentinian artist Guillermo Kuitca, kicked off the 2007-2008 season, and was followed by Hansel and Gretel, presenting artists from The New Yorker and the contemporary art scene. The works, based on The Brothers Grimm story, were on display during the run of the new production of Humperdinck's fairy tale opera. In conjunction with the Met premiere of the Philip Glass opera Satyagraha during the 2008-2009 season, Gallery Met exhibited 18 portraits by Chuck Close of his composer friend in the exhibition Chuck Close Philip Glass 40 Years. That summer, Gallery Met presented eight portraits by Francesco Clemente in an exhibition called The Sopranos. The exhibition featured portraits of the divas who figured prominently in the Met's 2008-09 season, with a hardcover catalog of Francesco Clemente: The Sopranos available in bookstores. Last season, Gallery Met presented a solo exhibition by Canadian artist David Altmejd, coinciding with the premiere of John Adams's opera Doctor Atomic, followed by the exhibition From the Met to the Met: Anselm Kiefer and Wagner's "Ring". In the first collaboration between the Metropolitan Opera and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wagner-inspired works by contemporary artist Anselm Kiefer were shown to coincide with the revival of Otto Schenk's production which was making its final run at the opera house.

In February, following Something about Mary, Gallery Met will present another exhibition, the work of artist William Kentridge, in connection with the premiere of his new production of Shostakovich's The Nose on March 5, 2010. This will coincide with a major retrospective of his work at the Museum of Modern Art.