Editor’s note: This summer, Hilton Kramer, accompanied by The New Criterion’s Executive Editor, David Yezzi, interviewed the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philippe de Montebello, in his office overlooking Central Park in Manhattan.

THE NEW CRITERION: You are coming up on your thirtieth anniversary as director of the Metropolitan Museum. Clearly, the museum world has changed dramatically during your tenure. What would you say is the most pronounced difference between when you began and now?

PHILIPPE DE MONTEBELLO: Well, I was appointed in May of 1977, and I would have to say it’s a different world, to the point that, knowing everything I know, were I offered the job again I’m not sure I would take it. Let me look at it on two levels: the degree to which it has become bureaucratized (I don’t know if there is such a word, but now there is) and legalized, with a paralyzing near-zero risk-tolerance level, and the degree to which financial issues dominate everything we do.

Question number one is not “What is the worth of a project?” but “How much will it cost?” With this attitude comes an increasing amount of bureaucracy and paperwork. So, the job has become hugely administrative, and over the last thirty years I can measure, simply by looking at my calendar, how much less I deal directly with works of art (which is why I’m here) than ever before.

TNC