Chester Higgins Jr./The New York TimesAlexander McQueen: Savage Beauty,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.The Metropolitan Museum of Art has never catered to the late-night crowd, but on Aug. 6 and 7, the last two days of its blockbuster exhibition “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty,’’ it will keep the show open until midnight. Having combed through the museum’s records, officials there said they believed that this would be the first time the Met has stayed open so late.
The exhibition, which chronicles the work of the British fashion designer who committed suicide last year at age 40, opened on May 4, and its galleries have been mobbed ever since, with people sometimes waiting in lines for two hours. The museum has already extended the duration of the show twice, given access to members earlier in the day and offered $50 tickets to visitors who want to come on Mondays, when the museum is normally closed. But it is not able to keep the show up past Aug. 7 because taking it down will be a complicated and lengthy process and it needs to clear the galleries to begin installing “Wonder of the Age: Master Painters of India, 1100-1900,” which opens on Sept. 28.
By the end of Wednesday, “Savage Beauty” attendance is expected to have topped 550,000.