Last Sunday, New York’s Metropolitan Opera celebrated not one, not two, but three openings. There was “Behind the Seams: Costuming the Met,” featuring more than 20 looks and pieces related to productions in the Met’s 2025–26 season, including Carmen, La Traviata, and Tristan und Isolde. (The exhibit can be viewed by Met ticketholders in the north and south galleries of Founders Hall, on the opera house’s Concourse level.)
There was also the company premiere of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier Clay, a new opera adapted from Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of the same name, about two Jewish comic-book artists who invent a superhero to combat the rising threat of Nazism. And then, relatedly, there was the opening of Gallery Met’s “Super Duper,” another exhibition curated by Donatien Grau, the Louvre’s head of contemporary programs, and longtime Vogue contributing editor Dodie Kazanjian.
“Super Duper,” on view throughout the opera house, comprises new works by more than 20 contemporary artists—among them Roz Chast, George Condo, John Currin, Cy Gavin, Rashid Johnson, Toyin Ojih-Odutola, Anna Park, Nicolas Party, Julian Schnabel, Dana Schutz, Lorna Simpson, and Anna Weyant—each given the same brief: to consider what being a superhero means, or looks like, today. (The show’s only pre-existing artworks are two contributions by the legendary comic artist Art Spiegelman.)
Here, seven artists involved with the exhibition share their answer to the signal.
“In turning the idea of the superhero over in my mind, I came to realize that I am less interested in the grand gestures of the good, the courageous, the exemplary, than in the day-to-day heroism of the commoner. To be incarnated in human form, even under the most favorable circumstances, is an extraordinary act of bravery in itself. The central figure of Rabbit Fighter is one of us. A bit weary and worse for the wear, but still standing.”
“Today’s superheroes don’t wear capes, they wear exhaustion. They’re parents juggling chaos, doctors patching up what’s left, neighbors trying not to give up. Fragile, stubborn, and allergic to cynicism, they don’t fly above crises—they drag us through them. Their only superpower? Caring in a world that finds it deeply unfashionable.”
“I am in awe that western civilization is built on the spectacle of a tortured man, forgiving those who tortured him.”
“Every single one of us has a superhero within our heart, the same one that we all at some point started talking to at a very young age. Superheroes look exactly like us but have a voice warmer than our usual voice. At a young age, when we couldn’t make sense of the sun setting and the sky getting dark, it was the superhero who told us not to worry, tomorrow will be bright again. Or when we weren’t sure if our mothers or fathers would return home after work, it was the superhero who whispered to us, ‘Don’t worry!’ Or when we were told at school that we would become nobodies, it was the superhero’s voice in our heart that told us, ‘Don’t worry, you already are somebody.’ And today, years later, when we ask, ‘Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?’ It’s the same superhero’s voice that warms our hearts by saying, ‘I know.’”
"During COVID, I took care of my family of five and it was a full-time job. I did not have any time to make art and it made me realize why so many women and mothers throughout history have not been able to be artists or other professionals, because they have been taking care of everyone else. Mothers and caretakers are my superheroes.”
“I approached the idea of a superhero quite literally, through the act of painting itself. The palette is bright, colorful, light—with the idea of nature as the ultimate superpower. Nature and the skies carry a kind of healing force. For me, the larger idea is that nature itself can be a savior.”
“My superheroes today are persistent. They sometimes make mistakes but they try again—they correct, rework, start over. They don’t give up. I hope this painting captures that: a mix of frustration and resilience and, as always, a bit of play.”
