Met Gala Publicizes 2023 “Looting and Plunder” Theme

In a last-minute announcement simply weeks earlier than this 12 months’s Met Gala that’s sending its star-studded visitor listing right into a tizzy, the Costume Institute on the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork has issued a brand new theme for the annual fundraising profit. Scrapping their plan to pay tribute to the late designer Karl Lagerfeld, organizers revealed that the 2023 theme might be “Looting and Plunder,” a topical nod to the latest spate of headlines associated to the museum’s holding of illicitly trafficked antiquities. The information was shared in a press launch despatched to media at precisely 4:59pm on Friday.

In step with a acknowledged dedication to make the expertise as genuine as potential, choose A-list friends might be permitted to don looted artifacts from the museum’s assortment, a lot of which have but to be seized by the Manhattan District Lawyer or are simply retrievable, as they’re nonetheless caught in customs. Whereas some celebrities are scrambling to adapt their outfits to the eleventh-hour theme change, Kim Kardashian has already referred to as dibs on any objects from the museum’s African wing.

Anna Wintour, Vogue editor-in-chief and namesake of The Met’s Costume Heart, mentioned in an interview that she couldn’t resist the “distinctive alternative to interact with a few of the most lovely objects within the museum’s trove of pillaged artwork.” (Wintour has co-chaired the gala since 1995, across the similar time that looting intensified in some components of Southeast Asia, a truth she known as “a enjoyable coincidence.”)

When reached for remark by Hyperallergic, a Met Museum spokesperson responded with a facepalm emoji.

“This is able to be a very good time to remind folks that I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MET GALA,” reads a press release attributed to Met Director Max Hollein. “Frankly, I’ve at all times felt slightly cringe about the entire thing, however they’ve actually outdone themselves this 12 months.”

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As soon as generally known as the Costume Institute Profit — a reputation the museum is begging the Institute to reinstate, in keeping with a number of sources — the Met Gala is the principle supply of funding for the division’s programming and acquisitions. The celebration raked in a report $17.4 million in 2022, although this 12 months’s determine may very well be even larger due to a concurrent fundraising public sale of a trove of invaluable Pre-Hispanic treasures that can happen at Christie’s.

Whereas many invitees have voiced their enthusiasm in regards to the likelihood to put on Native American headdresses with out being accused of cultural appropriation, some friends are opting to skip the “Looting and Plunder” theme altogether in lieu of a political assertion. US Consultant Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for example, has already introduced on Twitter her intentions to sport a white robe with the phrases “Museums Are Not Impartial” scrawled in purple.