What was the Met's contemporary art branch that closed in 2020?

The Met’s contemporary art branch that closed in 2020 was The Met Breuer.

The branch occupied the former Whitney Museum building designed by Marcel Breuer on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. It opened in March 2016 as the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s dedicated outpost for modern and contemporary art, displaying works from the Met’s collection through monographic and thematic exhibitions.

Its opening program included a survey of Indian artist Nasreen Mohamedi and the exhibition “Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible,” which explored incomplete works spanning roughly 500 years. The building itself was also part of the attraction: its austere concrete architecture is a landmark of postwar modernism.

The Met initially planned to leave in 2020 because of the expense of the lease and concerns about attendance, but the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the timetable. The museum closed temporarily on March 13, 2020, and the Met announced in June that it would not reopen. The Frick Collection later used the building as Frick Madison during renovations.