Virtual Book Club: 'Metropolitan Stories' (2021)
When
3.00 – 4.00pm, Wed 22 Sep 2021About
Discuss art, life, culture and creativity from the comfort of your own home at the QAGOMA Members Virtual Book Club or join us at one of the meetings at the Gallery. The titles on the reading list until November connect to, contextualise and discuss the ideas presented in ‘European Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York’, organised by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in collaboration with the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art and Art Exhibitions Australia. Metropolitan Stories: A Novel (2021), by Christine Coulson Session 1: Sat 18 Sep, 3.00pm | On-site Session 2: Wed 22 Sep 3.00pm | Virtual Session 3: Thu 23 Sep, 10.30am | On-site From a writer who worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York for more than 25 years, comes an enchanting novel that shows us The Met that the public doesn’t see. Hidden behind the Picassos and Vermeers, the Temple of Dendur and the American Wing, exists another world: the hallways and offices, conservation studios, storerooms, and cafeteria that are home to the museum’s devoted and peculiar staff of 2200 people – along with a few ghosts. A surreal love letter to this private side of The Met, Metropolitan Stories unfolds in a series of amusing and poignant vignettes in which we discover larger-than-life characters, the downside of survival, and the powerful voices of the art itself. The result is a novel bursting with magic, humour, and energetic detail – an ode to lives lived for art. Virtual Book Club: Free for Members / $5 Members' Guests On-site Book Club: $12 Members / $17 Members' Guests (includes refreshments) Members receive 20% off current and past Book Club titles from the QAGOMA Store. 'European Masterpieces' Reading List -The Goldfinch (2013) by Donna Tartt -The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velázquez (2016) by Laura Cumming -The Birth of Venus (2003) by Sarah Dunant -Metropolitan Stories: A Novel (2021) by Christine Coulson -Sudden Death (2013) by Álvaro Enrigue, translated by Natasha Wimmer -Girl in Hyacinth Blue (1999) by Susan Vreeland