Irving Finkel

And the Met is definitely a museum of art.

It's called the museum of art.

And that's their priority, design and colour and shape.

To us, to my mind, it's the British Museum.

This is one factor among many others.

And we are not an art museum.

We're not a local museum.

We're not a museum of the history of the bicycle.

We're not a celebration of evil.

We are, as it were, doing, as I see it, the best we could do if, for example, a whole load of Martians arrived in the Great Court.

burst through the front door and said to us um tell us all about this place tell us about the world can you do it fast because we got to leave and if you took them round and said look at this look at this look at this look at this they'd get some picture which wasn't insane the only thing they wouldn't get is a recording of johnny be good by chuck berry but apparently one's been put into space

This is a very comforting thing.

Precisely so.

And it's not a valid criticism to say to us that most of the stuff is not on exhibition, which is what everybody says.

It should go there, it should go there, because it's not on exhibition.

But we're not doing it.

for any other reason than stockpiling for future examination.

See, this is the important perspective that nobody considers.

Because the thing is, when you have something which is contemporary,

If you're a clever journalist or a clever thinker, you can write essays about it, you can talk about it, and you can see it, but you can only see it from the perspective from which you operate.