Inside the Met's newly reopened Michael C. Rockefeller wing

Despite being restricted to the original footprint, the Met's redesigned Michael C. Rockefeller Wing benefits from removed walls and lifted ceilings, giving a feeling of great openness. The designers-Kulapat Yantrasast of WHY Architecture in collaboration with Beyer, Blinder, Belle Architects and The Met's own design department-have made more efficient use of the gallery space available. This has allowed for a 30 per cent increase in the number of works of art on view, including many more textiles. The primary cultural spheres of the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Ancient Americas have been arranged like island-continents, separated yet connected temporally and geographically, linked through a grand flow of ocean migrations, explorations and trade networks. The Rockefeller wing (MCRW) completes a long evolution of muscology that started with the curiosity cabinets of noblemen, Wunderkammern, beginning around the 17th century. These included fossils, natural specimens and artefacts from remote cultures brought back to Europe by explorers, missionaries and merchants. The British Museum opened in 1753 with artefacts collected by Sir Hans Sloane, who could not bear to see his beloved collection broken up and sold at auction-better to make a museum!

During Captain Cook's three voyages (1768-1779), Indigenous objects were termed 'artificial curiosities', distinguishing pieces of human manufacture from natural specimens. And so, from that impulse came a division of formalised museums: one with a Western perspective on aesthetics, beauty and religious themes, while artifacts of "the Other," were suitable only for display in the ethnographic section of a natural history museum.

This continued for 200 years until the time of Nelson A. Rockefeller (1908-1979), a member of the fabulously wealthy Standard Oil dynasty who served as governor of New York from 1959 to 1973 and vice president of the USA from 1974 to 1977. A prominent art collector and philanthropist, he took a new and revolutionary view. In his collecting, he wanted to emphasise the artistic qualities of the creations from Indigenous world cultures as aesthetic works of art, independent of their context. Initially he offered his collection to the Met, which declined, reluctant to accept these artefacts as works of art suitable for display alongside their great concordance of Western art. In response, he established the Museum of Indigenous Art (circa 1954), renamed the Museum of Primitive Art in 1957.

The story of the disappearance of his youngest son, anthropologist Michael C. Rockefeller, in the Asmat area of Indonesian New Guinea in 1961 is well known; the pain of his loss to his family was beyond measure. Nelson Rockefeller's priceless gift of his entire collection in honour of his son was accepted by the Met in 1969, and a new wing designed by architects Roche-Dinkeloo was built in Michael's honour, opening in 1982. The gift of Asmat bis poles and other artefacts collected by Michael Rockefeller formed the core of the collection.

At the time, the MCRW galleries were state of the art; no one could have imagined they could be improved. But, after fifty years, the great windows were leaking, and there were other conservation concerns. Lighting was an issue. The re-envisioned display opens previously dark and at times claustrophobic galleries into warm, light-filled passages. Textiles are presented as fine art, showcased among masterpiece sculptures, masks and other items of cultural significance. The gallery layout reflects this, evoking the feeling of oceans connecting continents, the current carrying visitors from room to room, island to island.

For this review, I would like to contemplate cloths from the Andes, Indonesia, New Britain and New Zealand, all part of the greater Pacific Rim, then dive into the weavings of Africa. Collectively and individually, they carry compelling aesthetic beauty together with an art-historical and cultural gravitas. The art has meaning.

The new installation of the MCRW is unique among American museums in having a gallery fully dedicated to Ancient Andean Textiles, organised by the combined efforts of conservators, curators and designers to ensure the longevity of these often thousand-year-old textiles. This is a fascinating grouping, bringing out the best of two universal aesthetic lineages: textiles with iconographic versus geometric patterning.

A Chimu tunic with feline iconography offers multiple layers of interest. Woven on the coast of Peru using local cotton combined with fine alpaca thread traded from the high altiplano, it was created using multiple weaving techniques. It probably dates to the Incan conquest of Chimor in the 15th century, a period of transition. Yet the primary red feline patterns and yellow border cats assert royal Chimu identity and could serve in a talismanic manner to ward off evil spirits. Although pumas were found on the western slopes, it is likely that this motif refers back to tales of an all-powerful jaguar deity living in the Amazon jungle on the other side of the high Andes. I wish to acknowledge the high-level textile conservation that went into preparing this tunic to be viewed in the round, and the state-of-the-art windows and cases, designed to allow the most colour, while reducing UV rays to the lowest level possible.

A 7th- to 9th-century Wari tunic fragment featuring a staff-bearing god displays sublime quality of fine alpaca, natural dyes and tapestry weave (see Mary Frame, Andean Four-Cornered Hats, p. 6, fig. 3)-reflecting a religious belief going back to the Chavin, predating this weaving by 1,500 years. Its complexity stands in contrast to the very pure geometric patterns of the Wari feathered panels with yellow and blue macaw feathers, seen in an Incan chequerboard tunic- fundamental geometric patterns with primary colour fields.

Conquest brought in a new religion, with clite Incan weavers adapting to the needs of new patrons, producing a tabard probably made to be placed on a votive sculpture in a church.

Indonesian textiles are well represented as a significant expression of the art of Oceania. Women in traditional Indonesian societies tend to be conservative in their garments, adhering to cultural customary law, adat. The new installation offers viewers a chance to see a tais feto, a woman's tube skirt from Timor with reptilian ancestor figures and laden with silk traded in for sandalwood oil. A lawo butu, woman's ceremonial skirt, from Flores includes early trade beads; and a kain kebat, a woman's skirt from West Kalimantan in Borneo, has some of the most beautiful ikat in all the archipelago.

Seen only in an installation photo is a South Sumatran tapis cumi- cumi with very fine ikat and a pair of bands of squid-like designs finely stitched in silk. Together, stretching the full length of Indonesia, these textiles are fascinating because they include designs alluding to apotropaic talismanic qualities, fertility, ancestral references and quite possibly pleasing decorative designs. And speaking of Lampung, the strongest Indonesian textile in the exhibition is not even a textile. Known as a palepai maju and used as a prestige ceremonial wall hanging, it is a giant woven rattan mat covered in early glass trade beads. This permits colours otherwise not possible with natural dyes, which can be attached to the rattan in a single dot, creating what might be called "animistic pointillism'. After only minimal cosmetic cleaning in preparation for display, the colours of this magnificent object are sublime. It is no wonder it is considered the greatest in the world.

Austronesian culture dates back at least 5,000 years, with linguistics suggesting a grand migration extending from Taiwan though the Philippines, Bornco and Indonesia to Madagascar, and out to Polynesia. New Britain culture features a blend of early Papuan and later Austronesian influences, making for especially compelling meandering patterns on a bark loincloth. Contrast this with a Maori kaitaka aronui, made with a finger-twining technique, using local flax (Phormium tenax) along with dyed wool fibres to create täniko borders. This classical early cape has a pleasing geometric pattern that may have protective properties or may be strictly decorative. Note the ravelled red trade wool thread, which speaks to how quickly prized goods from faraway places could be worked into a traditional weaving.

The Arts of Africa by many measures form the heart of the MCRW, with 500 stunning sculptures from all parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The continent's textiles are too numerous to mention individually, but a great variety of cultural styles, methods and materials are seen here, organised in a progression of technique.

A chief's nogi (wrapper) in barkcloth, from an old missionary museum, was made by the Mangbetu peoples in the Uele River region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with dye used to create geometric patterns. From the Kasai River region of the DRC, a Kuba woman's ceremonial skirt, ncák, recalls the story of a first encounter with a late 19th-century Italian explorer arriving on a motorcycle at the Kuba Kingdom. Most had never seen a white man or a motorcycle, and they came running over, but it was neither the man nor his bike that captured their imagination. Rather, it was the geometric pattern made in the mud by his motorcycle tyre that held them in thrall.

A Te saqwit from the Beja peoples in the Eastern Desert of Sudan is a rare example of a tent divider. They offer privacy, which is hard to come by in the desert. Made of cotton, leather, beads and cowrie shells, this piece is made almost entirely of trade goods that come from regions far from the Beja people. Are these patterns symbolic, talismanic, or are they merely considered pleasing to the eye? In any case, this is an especially brilliant example, aesthetically compelling.

Lastly, I draw attention to an Asante-Akan royal man's prestige cloth from Ghana, made on a horizontal, double-heddle narrow strip loom acquired from the Islamic world and made with imported silk threads. Once again, we see traditional chiefly-status geometric patterns with known names greatly enhanced by the exotic trade silk from which it was woven.

Collectors, donors, curators, conservators, collections staff, architects and so many others helped make this highest of achievements possible and they are to be congratulated. A shout out to Alisa LaGamma, head of the MCRW department and chief curator of African Art; Joanne Pillsbury, curator of Ancient Art of the Americas; Maia Nuku, curator of Oceanic Art; and Christine Giuntini, art conservator for the department. They conceived and then carried out this amazing project.

But what was especially gratifying was to witness at the MCRW opening the deep respect and recognition given to the Indigenous makers and creators of these remarkable works, who were well represented. Those of us present in the audience were able to observe Indigenous blessings, including African dance and song; Oceanic ritualised gift-giving; and poetry in the Mexican Indian language Nahuatl.

The Met team is to be recognised for its efforts; its members consulted with the People, offered a cultural context for the works of art, as well presenting aesthetic objects of universal beauty. In this manner, the Met, very much to its credit, succeeds in 'threading the needle' of balancing the interests of the many stakeholders to this art. The gods are with them; please go to see the show.