For more than a century the museum has been one of the country’s most important cultural institutions, and for more than a decade it has also courted controversy.

And that is by design, part of a considered effort to address the challenges that it, along with many other museums, face: how to appeal to a new generation in a climate of persistent financial pressure and the ambition to grow, to do more, to expand its audience. By some measures it has succeeded. By others, including attendance goals articulated by the museum itself, it has not.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/arts/design/08museum.html