The Met's employee art show features more than 600 works. The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Eileen TravellFew artists are able to get work placed in prominent museums like New Yorks Metropolitan Museum of Art. But for many years, the Met has been staging special exhibitions featuring an unexpected group of artists: its own staff.Titled Art Work: Artists Working at the Met, this years show features more than 600 piecesincluding paintings, etchings, ceramics, embroidery and digital artmade by 640 Met staffers, according toHyperallergics Maya Pontone. The exhibition showcases work by staffers in a variety of roles, including security guards, technicians, librarians, designers and volunteers.Christopher Fahey, a storeroom specialist who helps handle and install artworks and artifacts, tells the New York Posts Raquel LaneriIts a beautiful thing, he says. Were all getting a lot out of working here, but [the Met is] also getting a lot from artists working here. All Met employees are given the opportunity to contribute to the show. The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Eileen TravellFahey is a poet and mixed-media artist from Queens on top of his day job, per the New York Post. For the show, Fahey is displaying an intricate sculpture made out of a piece of redwood found in the trash. Hes been working on the piece for two years.The Met has been staging exhibitions of staff art since 1935, and they usually take place every other year. The show is designed, hung, presented and guarded by that same staffsome of the worlds bestwho also design, hang, present and guard the 1.5 million works in its full collection, writes the Financial Times Lilah Raptopoulos.Historically, these shows havent been open to the public. But in 2022, the museum allowed any interested art lovers to see it for thevery first time. This year is only the second time in history that Art Work is open to all museumgoers.Daniel Kershaw, an exhibition design manager, tells Hyperallergic that the number of staff artworks on view has nearly doubled this year in comparison to previous years.Because of the amount of press that it got last time and the opportunity for the public to see it, everybody decided that they want to put something in, he says. Its just a lot of fun. Kershaw has an architectural model for a future exhibition on view in the show. This year's staff show is the biggest ever for the museum. The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Eileen TravellAmanda Rothschild, who works in the museums technology department, echoes this sentiment, saying that many Met staffers find connection through their art.Theres definitely a community around art in the museum thats different from other places, she tells Hyperallergic. The exhibition features one of Rothschilds paintings: a retro image of a sink that she noticed in a Greenpoint coffee shop surrounded by cool blue tiles.Some of the employee pieces are inspired by artifacts at the museum. Armia Malak Khalil, a senior security officer, has created a small sculpture inspired by Ushabti, ancient Egyptian statues that were placed in burials to help the deceased in the afterlife.Khalil, who is from Egypt, immigrated to the United States in 2006. He also has a wooden bust on view in another exhibition at the Met, Flight into Egypt.Its the first time one of us guards is in a major exhibit, he tells the New York Post. Theyre all so proud of me.Art Work: Artists Working at the Met is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York through December 1.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Art, Artists, Arts, Ceramics, Contemporary Art, Digital Art, Exhibitions, Exhibits, Museums, New York City, Painting, Sculpture, Visual Arts