Museum: Behind the Scenes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
By Danny Danziger (Viking, 2007)
Reviewed by Joan Soderland Hommel

Museum is an intriguing, although sometimes annoying, look inside New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the world’s largest and indisputably greatest museums. If you are looking for a discourse on the Metropolitan’s collection management philosophy, a history of the museum’s many controversies, or inside dish on the museum’s internal political squabbles, this is definitely not the book for you. This is by no means hard hitting journalism. Working from a series of quite genial interviews he conducted with dozens of museum employees, Danziger has fashioned “first person” narratives which emphasize their quirky backgrounds and personalities, how they came to work at the museum, and the diversity of their day to day responsibilities.

The approach is pointedly egalitarian. Danziger intersperses the narratives of administrators, curators, and trustees with those of a janitor, waitress and plumber, among others. Juan Aranda the janitor, we read, loves “Washington Crossing the Delaware” and longs to retire to his home country of Honduras. The waitress, Lorraine Chevallier, wanted to be an opera star, and has a terrible commute. The plumber, George Cuesta, is a former addict who is deeply involved in his church’s community service.

On the other hand, Danziger takes absurd pains to humanize the more scholarly members of the staff. For example, Danziger is quick to tell us that Walter Liedtke, curator of European Paintings, is no “stuffy academic.” Danziger writes, “he can quote from The Doors, and he drives a big pickup truck, so go figure.” The curators are, in fact, a colorful group who hardly need Danziger to make them seem human.

At times, the authorial asides and the constructed personal narratives can seem precious and stilted. However, through the random anecdotes of the participants, we glimpse how the personal histories of the staff have shaped the Metropolitan’s vast collection and formed the museum’s policies and procedures. We also learn quite a bit about the flower arrangements, the choice of items in the gift shop, and what it’s like to walk on the roof. On the whole, this is an entertaining read for those who love museums or those who work in one.