Just When the Whitney Thought It Could Proceed with Its Expansion...

this happens. Crank up the lawyers!

Funny, when I called Jan Rothschild, the Whitney Museum's communications chief, on another matter late yesterday afternoon, she didn't mention this late-breaking development (although she knows, from this and this, that I'm very interested in the building plans).

Today Rothschild told me that the Whitney's lawyers had just received their copy of the lawsuit filed by the Coalition of Concerned Whitney Neighbors, Defenders of the Historic Upper Eastside and the Hotel Carlyle Owners Corp. The plaintiffs object to the appearance of the Renzo Piano-designed expansion and to the zoning variances granted by New York City's Board of Standards and Appeals.

I had called Rothschild yesterday to ask this:

Why, when I finally caught up with the museum's wonderful "Full House" exhibition yesterday, were only two picture hooks and a small card on the wall where Pollock's "Number 27, 1950" was supposed to be?

Turns out it was taken down yesterday for relining, and was to be rehung today. Just my luck. And it's being taken down again Sept. 18, four weeks before the rest of the works on that floor, to go into the museum's "Picasso and American Art" show, opening Sept. 28

More on the conservation of Pollock---including recent work at the Williamstown Art Consevation Center---next week, when CultureGrrl takes you back to the Berkshires.