(Courtesy poestories.com)

The Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore will reopen in October. The museum closed in September 2012 due to lack of funding. The new museum will focus on the story of Poe in Baltimore, as well as on the house itself.

More from the Huffington Post:

Ann Barton Brown, one of two museum consultants hired to recommend a plan for interpreting the Poe house for visitors, said the assignment proved a welcome challenge.

"We are trying to preserve as much of the spirit of Poe in the house as possible," she said, "so when you go in, you really feel Poe." The narrative, she said, will also talk about what Baltimore was like while Poe was living here.

A room of John Miller statues. (The New York Observer)

This morning arts journalists and German camera crews mingled amidst chunks of icebergs and Jacob Kassay paintings for a press preview of "Expo 1," the new museum-wide exhibition at MoMA PS1.

At a press conference in the Volkswagen Performance Dome, PS1 Director Klaus Biesenbach likened the show, which is actually comprised of several smaller exhibitions, to a world's fair. He addressed the crowd accompanied by Hans Ulrich Obrist, who helped curate, referring to their back-and-forth quote furnishing as a "ping and pong" act ("Okay back to pong now!").

"There's a word in German, erweiterter kunstbegriff, that I think really fits for the show," Mr. Biesenbach said, adding that though the Swiss Mr. Obrist speaks German the two tend to communicate in English.

"It's difficult to translate into English," Mr. Biesenbach added, and made no attempt to do so.

MoMA director Glenn Lowry praised VW's "enlightened corporate support" and Hans Dieter Pötsch, of the VW board, said the museum would continue to receive it through 2015. The press conference itself oozed German efficiency: one woman in a white suit and a pink scarf stood near the podium, and it seemed that her job consisted of producing a completely filled glass of ice-less water from behind a partition whenever someone new took the stage. There was no pitcher in sight, yet she did this with every speaker, placing it next to his microphone.

Triple Canopy has also established a classroom on the upper level where the walls are pierced with metal beams, a reflection of their hope to extend its reach with a series of high-profile talks throughout the summer.

But the bulk of the museum is given over to "Dark Optimism," curated by Mr. Biesenbach, which includes a Steve McQueen video of the Statue of Liberty, a massive crumbling pyramid by Adrián Villar Rojas opposite the classroom and a room filled with smaller silver Jacob Kassay paintings, for a total of what the press release called "approximately" 35 artists. Opposite Mr. Kassay's room there is an impressive collection of high-energy Ansel Adams photographs (waterfalls, etc.) which comprise another show, "The Politics of Contemplation."

Back on the ground floor, Olafur Eliasson has installed chunks of an Icelandic glacier in a refrigerated room for a piece called Your waste of time that, despite that hooplah, manages to be impressively minimalist.

Also not to be missed: "Probiotic," organized by artist and curator Josh Kline, which focuses on emerging artists who all touched on the theme of technology's influence on the human experience.

In that vein Mr. Biesenbach also invited us to the roof of PS1 to see a garden that had been installed there for its recently renovated cafeteria by M. Wells.

"This is too much sun for them here, you see?" a German reporter told a security guard up there, gesturing to a leaf of basil. "It's wilted."

"Yeah, I don't have anything to do with that," said the guard.

Jens Hoffman. (Courtesy Wikipedia)

The curator Jens Hoffmann has been named a senior adjunct curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. He will curate "the museum's major exhibitions," according to the Detroit Free Press, as well as retain his current post as deputy director at New York's Jewish Museum. ("He'll commute to Detroit," writes the Free Press.)

He was hired quietly earlier this year, having already organized a show that visited MOCAD, "When Attitudes Became Form Became Attitudes," which opened in February.

The museum has been staffing up as of late. Elysia Borowy-Reeder started her job as director of MOCAD in April, a position that had been vacant since November 2011.

Thanks to Artforum for tipping us off to the news.

(Courtesy Twitter/Walter Robinson)

This morning the Metropolitan Museum of Art offered journalists an early look at its latest Costume Institute show, "PUNK: Chaos to Couture," which opens tomorrow. The show earned mixed reviews on social media, but nearly everyone took an opportunity to comment on the fact that one room features a recreation of the bathrooms at CBGB. Which is kind of amusing, if unexpected.

"CBGB toilets are installed complete with ciggie butts. Met will never be the same again," wrote Eric Wilson of The New York Times.

"Max Fish is way better," opined Walter Robinson.

There was also some discussion of smells and oral sex that may or may not have happened there.

We've reached out to the museum for comment, but they said they're busy preparing for the Costume Institute Gala tonight. Fair enough.

(Courtesy Sculpture Center)

Young artists take note! SculptureCenter has just announced its open call for submissions to its "In Practice" grant program, which offers $250—and up to $1,500—in production support to young artists who want to try something new in the medium.

Past winners have included Michele Abeles, Fia Backström, A. K. Burns, Michael DeLucia, Aleksandra Domanović, Amy Granat, Joanna Malinowska, Justin Matherly, Virginia Overton, Marlo Pascual, Xaviera Simmons, Valerie Snobeck, Agathe Snow, Josh Smith and Erik Wysocan.

SculptureCenter will be under renovation by the time this year's winners are announced, so they're apparently looking for something unconventional, which is saying something for SculptureCenter.

One of the works in question. (Courtesy the Met)

The New York Times reports that the Metropolitan Museum of Art will return two 10th-century Khmer statues to Cambodia, following "new documentary research by the museum that corroborated Cambodian claims that the works had been improperly removed from their site at the Koh Ker temple complex."

Read the whole story here.

(Getty Images)

To mark the fact that the it is now open seven days a week, the Museum of Modern Art will offer free admission to the first 100 visitors who stop by on Tuesdays this month.

That's May 7, 14, 21 and 28, for you tragic cases who don't own calendars. Get there early, beat the Europeans!

Lou Reed and Zorn. (Courtesy PMC)

The Met has released some highlights of its 2013–14 "Met Museum Presents" program, and there are quite a few gems. Among the concerts and talks are shows in a variety of galleries with new works by downtown avant-garde composer John Zorn (it's his 60th birthday this year and has a lot going on around down), the complete Bartók String Quartet Cycle with guest appearances from the Dirty Projectors' David Longstretch and vocalist Iva Bittová, and conversations hosted by writer Adam Gopnik called "1913: The World Implodes." The full release, rich with the museum's offerings, follows below.

The release:

The fifth floor of 101 Spring. (Photo by Josh White. © Judd Foundation. Licensed by VAGA, New York. © Claes Oldenburg. © Lucas Samaras. Dan Flavin © Stephen Flavin/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Donald Judd Furniture™/© Judd Foundation)

After more than 15 years of restoration work, 101 Spring Street, the cast-iron building in Soho where Minimalist artist Donald Judd lived off and on until his death in 1994, will reopen to the public as a museum in June. “We’re a little giddy here,” Rainer Judd, the artist’s daughter, told a group of journalists last Thursday inside the building, where she grew up with her brother Flavin Judd, who was also on hand.

Judd père bought the place in 1968 along with their mother, dancer Julie Finch. It was a big year for him: he had a show at the Whitney, his first child (Flavin, who’s named for the late artist Dan Flavin) and a cactus collection that was becoming a problem. “There was a certain amount of panic about where was the cactus going to go?” Rainer Judd said. They decamped from their cramped Union Square place for the fixer-upper on Spring Street.

The artist conceived of the building as a permanent installation, and so everything has been reinstalled just as he had it when he died, from the sizable liquor collection to the long row of obsessively organized silverware in the second-floor kitchen. There’s some great art, too. Besides some major Judds, there’s a Marcel Duchamp shovel, a Josef Albers painting and a vertical stack of bricks by Carl Andre. The spaces are tranquil, Spartan and intimate.

The restoration project totaled $23 million, and while there are some emergency exit signs that look new, it’s hard to tell precisely where that money was spent, which makes Flavin Judd proud. “Our biggest goal was to have an old curmudgeon who knew the building walk through ... and say, ‘You wasted all of your money, because I don’t see anything you did!’” That sort of guy, artist David Novros, who painted a fresco on a wall on the second floor, had met Mr. Judd for tacos the day before and given the project his seal of approval. “That’s as good as it gets,” Mr. Judd said.

Carl Andre's 'Manifest Destiny,' 1986, on the first floor of 101 Spring. (Photo by Rainer Judd, courtesy Judd Foundation Archives/© Carl Andre / © Judd Foundation )

The money, for the record, went toward high-tech improvements that render 101 Spring Street legal to inhabit, explained developer Rob Beyer, who served on the Judd Foundation committee in charge of the building. (Judd had a habit of ripping out walls and doors, violating a number of fire codes.) Mr. Beyer spoke fondly of “a smoke evacuation [system] with hidden exhaust equipment and fire-activated robotic smoke baffles.” Another innovation: for Judd’s immaculate fifth-floor bedroom, which has no built-in lights, the architects wired up a floor-spanning Flavin sculpture (a grid of blue and red fluorescents) to serve as emergency lighting.

What would Judd make of the whole thing? “Judd thought architects were assholes and idiots,” said Stephen Cassell, a principal at Architecture Research Office who handled the project. “He never worked with an architect.” ARO used a light touch. “You know that old kung-fu TV show where they walk across rice paper?” Mr. Cassell asked. “This was like that—leave no footprints.”

Nick Gray. (Courtesy facebook.com/hackthemet)

Nick Gray looked sharp as he buzzed around the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Great Hall on a recent Saturday night, greeting members of his tour group and directing them to the coat check. In an immaculate navy blue sweater, striped tie and brown wing tips, the 31-year-old looked like a freshly pressed Ivy Leaguer and exuded a wholesome, open charm.

Once his group of roughly 20 souls had gathered at the base of an Egyptian statue, Mr. Gray asked them to introduce themselves by making a gesture and naming a passion. There were curtsies, twirls and air punches. Passions included Mickey Mouse and Amazon.com. Mr. Gray executed a kung-fu chop and said he was passionate about the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Like most museums, the Met offers official docent tours. Mr. Gray’s “Hack the Met” excursions are not part of these. He belongs to the museum’s young membership group, the Apollo Circle, but his tours are not even remotely sanctioned by the museum (which did not return The Observer’s calls for comment). Nevertheless, he has been steadfastly giving them, free of charge, nearly every Friday and Saturday night for the past year. The operation isn’t exactly underground. There’s a Facebook page and a website, both of which sport photos and iPad footage of high-profile participants: Girls star Allison Williams beaming at the camera, Vimeo founder Zach Klein posing in front of a candy-colored Ellsworth Kelly painting, and sundry venture capitalists, video game designers, models, management consultants, playwrights, poker champions, artists, entrepreneurs, yogis and journalists who have drunk in Mr. Gray’s Met monologues.

“The best part about the tour,” said CollegeHumor.com co-founder Ricky Van Veen, who has known Mr. Gray since they attended Wake Forest University in North Carolina together, “is that it’s almost like an SNL sketch of a Met tour guide who’s pretty good at his job, who knows like 80 percent of the information.” Mr. Gray’s passion for the museum is not the product of an art history degree, nor is it accompanied by art world aspirations: he is a partner in his father’s Alpharetta, Ga.-based company, Flight Display Systems, which installs television screens and other techie toys in military and private aircraft.

Mr. Gray, whose slight frame, bright white smile and cropped golden hair lend him a boyishness that contrasts sharply with the slick-looking guy in a black suit and sunglasses staring down visitors to his website, doesn’t reveal much about the tours in advance. “I think part of wanting to go on his tour was the layer of mystery,” said Charlie Todd, the founder of Improv Everywhere. Attendees, who are either personally invited by Mr. Gray or request a tour on HacktheMet.com, are advised to “dress nice and be on time.” It is also recommended that they bring a flask.

Once the summer-camp-style introductions were done, Mr. Gray taught the Great Hall group some code words. If danger should arise, presumably in the form of a Met official, “samurai” meant split up and reconvene in the cafe by the American Wing. Drinking, he explained, was best done discreetly. “I will tell you when to drink,” he said. “We will refer to our drinking as ‘art appreciation.’ So I will say, ‘this is a great place for art appreciation.’” The briefing done, the members of the conspiratorial little circle put their hands together and raised a rousing cheer: “m-m-m-museuuum!” (Not everything warranted discretion.)

The first opportunity for “art appreciation” arrived in an elevator the size of a closet. After admiring a medieval limestone effigy of the Virgin and Child, the group packed in and awaited instructions. “You have about six seconds to power down a shot of alcohol,” said Mr. Gray. The flasks came out. “There’s no camera,” assured Mr. Gray.

“What is that?” asked a woman clutching a vial of whiskey wrapped in tinfoil, pointing to a camera mounted in a corner.

“That’s nothing.”

The doors opened, the flasks disappeared, and the group charged purposefully through European Paintings. Mr. Gray creates custom routes and rehearses them before each tour. For this one, he’d designed an arty Easter egg hunt, challenging the group to guess which piece in one gallery was the most expensive acquisition. Distracted by the impressive Cranachs, Holbeins and Durers, no one went for the diminutive Duccio Madonna and Child, purchased for $45 million in 2004. “This is the stake in the ground,” Mr. Gray said. “This is where European painting began.”

Then it was on to a sensual Thomas Gainsborough portrait of Mrs. Grace Dalrymple Elliott, who, after leaving her husband and escaping a convent, became a high-class—Mr. Gray faltered. “She worked for her means,” he stated delicately, and then led the group in blowing her a kiss. One wonders what the rumored mistress of Napoleon would have made of the small herd of T-shirt-clad admirers assembled at her feet.

Soon it was back to the elevator—which Mr. Gray refers to as his “office”—for more art appreciation. The group emerged and piled into the Bashford Dean room, a secluded nook of Arms and Armor devoted to its founding curator, to stealthily steal a few more sips. Then Mr. Gray instructed everyone to partner with a tour group member they didn’t know, and the pairs wandered off to explore the medieval weaponry.

A group pauses before Thomas Gainsborough's portrait of Mrs. Grace Dalrymple Elliott. (Courtesy facebook.com/hackthemet)

Mr. Gray, who grew up in Georgia and moved to New York in 2007, discovered the Met two years ago when a girl brought him there on a date. He began leading the tours after realizing how few young people frequent the museum. When he asks peers to name their favorite New York museum, MoMA will get a few nods, but apparently no one ever mentions the Met. “I met someone the other night who said, ‘the New Museum,’” Mr. Gray told the group with a pained expression. His mission, he said, was to make “the best museum in the world” hip for a younger crowd.

Before launching Hack the Met, Mr. Gray threw monthly parties organized around activities like juggling lessons or performances by bands like Freelance Whales. New York magazine dubbed him a self-styled “Lois Weisberg for the Tumblr age.” His Met tours are an extension of that kind of hyper-sociability. “You would think this guy is giving away his Friday and Saturday nights,” said Mr. Van Veen. “But if you think about it, overall he’s becoming more social. While everyone else from 7 to 9 p.m. is getting ready to go out, he’s at the Met, meeting new people and doing his thing.”

His attitude, Mr. Van Veen continued, is anything but elitist. “He has a very populist approach to New York and to socialization. I’ve never heard him say anything like, ‘I don’t think I want that person to be on the tour, I think they wouldn’t be a good look for it.’” Still, participants tend to be up-and-comers. Mr. Gray recently told Mr. Van Veen that his wait list was hovering around 1,000 people and he was considering bringing on more guides. Mr. Van Veen didn’t think it was a good idea: “This is about you,” he said he told his friend. “If people want a tour not led by Nick Gray, they have plenty of options.”

After a breakneck pass through Musical Instruments and Asian Art, the group relaxed in what Mr. Gray called the “boardroom,” slumping into seats around a massive walnut table by George Nakashima. He took a moment to admire the wooden butterfly joints and then whipped out his iPad to lead the group through a Met history slide show, covering factoids like the museum’s square footage and founding date. (He favors PowerPoint as a mode of communication: “Nick is the kind of person,” said Mr. Van Veen, who, “if you run into him and you’re like, ‘Hey what’s been going on?’ he will literally get out an iPad and give you a slide show.”)

The group swept through the elegant rooms in the Wrightsman Galleries and Egyptian Art (pausing at Mr. Gray’s favorite piece in the museum: a 3,000-year-old fragment of the face of a queen, sumptuously carved in yellow jasper, which serves as his Facebook cover photo: “That’s how much I love it”), the American Wing, where Mr. Gray took a moment to telepathically thank the staff for its scholarship, and the Arts of Oceania before finally arriving at the “Switzerland of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” as he calls it: the Petrie Court Café and Wine Bar, which won’t kick customers out, even after closing time. The staff recognized Mr. Gray, who whisked wine orders to a waiter, and six bottles promptly materialized on the long table.

One of those sipping from a long-stemmed glass was Vishal Gondal, the founder of India’s largest gaming company and a Hack the Met convert. “I’ve been to New York and so many places so many times,” he said, “and I’ve never even dreamt of going to a museum. I mean, it’s not even on my short list. It’s not cool to go to a museum. You go to bars, you go to good restaurants.” Many members of the group had never been to the Met before, but glances at the tour evaluation forms Mr. Gray asked them to complete suggested they were eager to return.

After the last of the wine disappeared, the tipsy tour group left Petrie Court and wandered through the empty Greek and Roman wing, gazing wistfully at ancient artworks normally thronged by tourists. The graveyard-shift security guards seemed to know Mr. Gray, and they let the group take its time to meander back to the Great Hall. As the little crowd collected coats and began casting around for evening plans, Mr. Gray reminded everyone that the night was young. The tour, it seemed, would have one more stop: drinks downtown at his apartment.