Ouroussoff Uses Bully Pulpit to Bully Riley

Will someone please pull Nicolai Ouroussoff off Terence Riley? This feud is getting tiresome.

In praising the Museum of Modern Art's appointment of Barry Bergdoll as its new chief curator of architecture and design, the NY Times' architecture critic just couldn't resist using his bully pulpit to pummel Terry one more time.

Saying that MoMA's architecture and design department had become "listless" and "sadly adrift," with "faltering energy" (okay, we get it), Ouroussoff criticized two of the department's most recent shows, "New Architecture in Spain" and "Safe: Design Takes on Risk" (both very favorably reviewed elsewhere), as "largely forgettable." Even this tsk-tsking Timesman had previously found things to praise in reviewing those shows. (And he's too young to be THAT forgetful!)

Riley, meanwhile, is having his moment in the sun as head of the Miami Art Museum. He will "oversee the planning and development of a new state-of-the-art Museum Park facility and sculpture garden on Biscayne Bay," with a little help from a recently passed $100-million bond issue, according to the museum's January announcement of his appointment.

Curator to director---that's a step up...and also far enough down the coast from the Times' hegemony so that Ouroussoff's wild punches can no longer connect.