Met Gala draws stars, protests over wealth and elite sponsorship
Stars and protest signs collided outside the Met as Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman and Venus Williams helped steer a gala that funds the Costume Institute.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual fashion benefit again turned New York’s most watched steps into a fundraising engine for The Costume Institute, whose gala receipts provide its primary annual support for exhibitions, publications, acquisitions and operations. With Beyoncé, Nicole Kidman and Venus Williams serving as co-chairs and Anna Wintour in a leadership role, the event remained both a celebrity showcase and a powerful example of how fashion now drives museum money, star branding and mainstream culture.
This year’s gala was tied to “Costume Art,” the spring exhibition that opens May 10 and will inaugurate the museum’s nearly 12,000-square-foot Condé M. Nast Galleries beside the Great Hall. The new space expands the museum’s fashion footprint inside an institution whose Costume Institute collection includes more than 33,000 objects spanning seven centuries of dress and accessories. That scale helps explain why the gala matters beyond the red carpet: it bankrolls the department while setting the tone for what fashion and fame will look like in the year ahead.
Outside the museum, the night’s glamour ran headlong into anger over wealth and influence. Protesters gathered holding giant letters spelling “TAX THE RICH,” along with banners that called the event a “Resistance Red Carpet,” and, in some cases, “eat the rich.” The demonstrations reflected growing criticism of elite sponsorship at a moment when a museum benefit, not a public forum, has become one of the most visible stages for the concentration of money and cultural power in American life.
At least one protester was detained while trying to enter the event, underscoring the tension between the gala’s tightly controlled access and the public backlash around it. That contrast was sharpened by the economics of the night: ticket prices were cited at $100,000 each, even as most celebrities attend as guests rather than paying that amount themselves. The result is a spectacle that depends on exclusivity while selling itself as institutional philanthropy.
For the museum, the gala is indispensable. For critics, it is a yearly reminder that the same system that funds art also fuels the gap between access and exclusion.
Know something we missed? Have a correction or additional information?
Submit a Tip
