NEW YORK, NY.- Galleries, shops, and dining areas at The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be open to the public on September 1 (Labor Day), the next "Met Holiday Monday." This special viewing day is also the last chance for visitors to see two popular exhibitions: Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy, which has already had more than 400,000 visitors since it opened on May 7, and Radiance from the Rain Forest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru.

Met Holiday Mondays sponsored by CIT are extra public viewing days that take place on the Mondays of major holiday weekends, when historically the Museum has been closed.

"As summer draws to a close, I can think of no better place to celebrate the end of the season than at the Met, where our visitors can enjoy splendid works of art in some of the City's most spectacular spaces, both indoors and out," commented Emily K. Rafferty, President of the Metropolitan Museum. "We are pleased to invite the public to enjoy this – and our upcoming Met Holiday Mondays sponsored by CIT – in the presence of great art from around the world."

The special exhibitions on view will be: Superheroes: Fantasy and Fashion, an exploration of the relationship between costumes designed for the movies and high-fashion and sports apparel (final day); Jeff Koons on the Roof, an installation of contemporary sculptures in the Met's dramatic outdoor space, with spectacular views of Central Park and the Manhattan skyline (weather permitting, through October 26), J. M. W. Turner, the first American retrospective of paintings and watercolors by the famed British painter (through September 21); Art of the Royal Court: Treasures in Pietre Dure from the Palaces of Europe, the most comprehensive presentation to date of an extravagant decorative art form favored by princes and popes (through September 21); and Radiance from the Rain Forest: Featherwork in Ancient Peru, a colorful display of South American luxury goods and ritual objects embellished with feathers.

The schedule of upcoming Met Holiday Mondays is: Labor Day (September 1), Columbus Day (October 13), the Monday after Christmas (December 29), Martin Luther King Jr. Day (January 19), Presidents' Day (February 16), and Memorial Day (May 25).

Prior to the beginning of the Met Holiday Mondays program in 2003, the Museum was closed to the public on Mondays for some 30 years.

A different selection of exhibitions will be open on each Met Holiday Monday. The Metropolitan's public cafeteria and several of the gift shops in the main building will be open on all of these special viewing days.