Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

He shoulda been there. Ken Price, the category-crossing Los Angeles ceramicist, sculptor, painter and draftsman, had been intimately and enthusiastically involved in planning his dazzling retrospective, which opened last September at the LA County Museum of Art. He co-designed the installation in close collaboration with his long-time friend, architect Frank Gehry. But like the recent John Chamberlain retropective at the Guggenheim Museum, this long-planned exhibition sadly became a posthumous homage to a contemporary artist with a long, … [Read more...]

It's a hopeful sign, but not a complete reprieve. This just in from Mark Stryker of the Detroit Free Press [emphasis added]: The sale of city-owned art at the Detroit Institute of Arts was not part of the plan presented to creditors Friday morning by the city’s emergency manager Kevyn Orr. The report makes no mention of monetizing the museum or its art to raise money to pay down the city’s massive debt. But the report does not rule out the possibility that the museum might be asked to contribute revenue as part of the restructuring … [Read more...]

UPDATE: Here's the Attorney General's full 22-page opinion. There's a ray of hope regarding attempts to monetize the Detroit Institute of Arts' masterpieces to help solve the city's financial ills: This just in from Chad Livengood of the Detroit News: In an official opinion released Thursday [today], [Attorney General Bill] Schuette said Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr cannot sell off all or parts of the DIA’s multibillion-dollar collection to help pay off the city’s $15.6 billion in debts and long-term liabilities. “It is my opinion, … [Read more...]

Serving as director of the Philadelphia Museum since 2009, Timothy Rub may well go down as the AAMD president who went where previous leaders of the nation's premier professional association for art museums feared to tread, in matters pertaining to collecting (and sometimes relinquishing) archaeological material. By his own admission, Rub, who became the Association of Art Museum Directors' president this month, has had a welcome "sabbatical" from dealing with antiquities controversies, because "Philadelphia is the first museum at which … [Read more...]

Of the several issues that I hope Timothy Rub, the new president of the Association of Art Museum Directors, will address, few are as pressing as the development of collegial relationships with source countries regarding both repatriation requests and the disposition of "orphan objects"---those lacking complete provenances that go back at least to November 1970 (the date of the UNESCO Convention on cultural property). As it happened, I attended his provocative October 2011 lecture at the Penn Museum---The Shape of Things to Come: Developing … [Read more...]

When I first met Stephanie Wiles, then the recently arrived director of the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University (where I'm an alum), she told me about exciting new plans to address the chronic problem that many university art museums grapple with---spotty student visitation at an institution that should be appreciated widely (not just by art-history and fine-arts students) as a valued cultural, educational and intellectual resource. A year later, Wiles' wiley ideas for more closely integrating the Johnson's riches with the … [Read more...]

Afsaneh Mirfendereski, a Chevy Chase artist and architect of Persian heritage, responds to Magic Carpet Ride: Corcoran Gallery’s “Sickle-Leaf” Persian Triples Previous Auction Record for Carpets and Rescue Miscue: Outlandish Proposal to Save the Corcoran by Dumping Its Art: Senator [William] Clark [who in 1925 bequeathed to the Corcoran Gallery the Sickle-Leaf Carpet that the museum just sold for $33.77 million] must be rolling in his grave. I learned a huge lesson: Never donate art to private museums.  Or else do so with conditions … [Read more...]

There has not in my memory been another director of the Venice Biennale who has been as widely acclaimed for his creative vision and assured execution as Massimiliano Gioni, the New Museum's associate director and director of exhibitions. From all accounts, he has expertly navigated the challenges of a nearly impossible task---to bring some order to the chaos of the international cutting edge, without blunting the edges, while putting it historic context. Who else could have pulled off such an eclectic, yet coherent, tour de force? Always a … [Read more...]

"$16,000...I mean, $16 million. Hell-o-o-o-o!!! Excuse me, I'm not used to this!" blurted Sotheby's flustered auctioneer and senior consultant for rugs and carpets, Mary Jo Otsea, as bidding on Lot 12 soared today to more than three times the previous auction record for any carpet. (It also set a new auction record for any Islamic work of art.) Sought by at least four bidders in a 10-minute bidding battle was the Corcoran Gallery's prized (now discarded) “Sickle-Leaf” rug, bequeathed to it in 1925 by one of the D.C. museum's key … [Read more...]

As I hoped he would, Timothy Rub, director of the Philadelphia Museum, has hit the ground running in his new gig as president of the Association of Art Museum Directors. His just released Letter to Michigan Governor Rick Snyder goes beyond the usual bromides (which he repeats) that monetizing the Detroit Institute of Art's collection to satisfy the financially Detroit's onerous financial obligations "would violate fundamental principles long recognized by the museum community." He also lays out how taking such a step would "constitute a … [Read more...]

CLARIFICATION: The Whitney's spokesperson, Stephen Soba, took strong exception to what he said were "factual inaccuracies" in this report. I am reprinting the full text of his three objections at the bottom of this post, with my responses. At the Metropolitan Museum's press lunch yesterday, director Tom Campbell broke some news concerning a sister institution: He announced that the transfer of the Whitney Museum's Breuer building to the Met will take place in September 2015, after which the Met will make (unspecified) modifications to the … [Read more...]

In what may be wishful thinking, Samuel Sachs II, who directed the chronically beleaguered Detroit Institute of Arts from 1985 to 1997, believes that the threat to the museum's collection posed by Detroit's dire financial circumstances may be "a lot of smoke but no fire." In a phone conversation yesterday, Sachs gave me a tutorial on Detroit politics and recounted to me the historical background behind the current alarming situation: Although the city and state have withdrawn their financial support for the museum's operations, they … [Read more...]

As those of you who have read this post already know, I've been mostly off-blog since mid-May for good reason---the early arrival of my fabulous (and, of course, brilliant) first grandson, followed by my beautiful (and also brilliant) daughter's wedding in the Washington, DC, area (a good thing, since the weather for the outdoor ceremony was glorious, while here, in the NYC area, it was dismal). With all this excitement, I've missed many big stories that I would otherwise have cogently commented upon---the bravura contemporary art auction at … [Read more...]

The Detroit Institute of Arts' current dire predicament appears to have given Michael Rush, founding director of Michigan State University's Broad Art Museum, traumatic flashbacks to the near-death experience of Brandeis University's Rose Art Museum, which he directed during the period when the Waltham, MA, museum and its collection were endangered by the university's then severe financial difficulties. Here is Rush's response to my CultureGrrl post---From Millage to Pillage? Detroit Institute of Arts Confronts Possible Rape of Its … [Read more...]

Carol Vogel's NY Times report about what appear to have been do-it-yourself alterations under the auspices a previous owner of the Museum of Modern Art's newly restored Pollock masterpiece, "One: Number 31, 1950" gave me traumatic flashbacks to the bombshell article by art historian Rosalind Kraus in the September/October 1974 issue of Art in America. That shocking article had revealed alterations made to the painted surfaces of several David Smith sculptures under the auspices of an executor of the artist's estate, the famed art critic … [Read more...]

To artworld observers, the notion that the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) could be forced, if the city declares bankruptcy, to relinquish its greatest masterpieces to satisfy Detroit's creditors is inconceivable. But the "inconceivable" is beginning to look possible: With the city's bankruptcy now looming as a real possibility, liquidating the museum's rich artistic assets, which are owned by the city, could be the easiest way for the city to raise quick cash for a bankruptcy settlement without disrupting other operations of this … [Read more...]

In my 2008 tribute to the late Sherman Lee, long-time director of the Cleveland Museum, I had stated: He was my go-to person (along with Thomas Messer of the Guggenheim Museum) for brilliantly expressed, cogent and thoughtful quotes defending museum standards and ethics. He was always available, always unafraid to speak forcefully, and always generous with his insights. Now my other go-to person from that earlier era has died at the age of 93. Tom Messer, director of the Guggenheim from 1961 to 1988, was unfailingly available to share his … [Read more...]

A few of my devoted art-lings may have been wondering about my utter disappearance from CultureGrrl and @CultureGrrl during the past few days. Here's why I've abandoned the keyboard, even though I had a lot of posts in mind: The only works of art I've been seeing since Monday evening are the Sol LeWitt mural, above, at New York-Presbyterian Children's Hospital and my fabulous first grandchild, who was born there Monday evening. Already precocious, he arrived almost a month earlier than expected, but in full cry and perfect condition, at a … [Read more...]

The Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA, has just announced that it will discontinue its relationship with the architectural firm of Rick Mather, whose death on Apr. 20 threw the museum's well planned expansion project into disarray. This just in from the PEM: “We are deeply saddened by Rick Mather’s passing. It was a privilege and an honor to work with Rick and his team. He was a gifted architect,” said Dan Monroe, PEM's...director and CEO. “After careful consideration, we have determined the best way forward to complete our … [Read more...]