SAAM Strikes Back

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, on its blog, Eye Level, gives as good as it gets today, by enumerating its accomplishments in direct response to the recent Smithsonian-commissioned report on its art museums. That report, made public two days ago, was sharply critical of SAAM's "intellectual approach to the presentation of the collections and exhibitions, which have suffered from an undue emphasis on social history, politics, and interpretive rhetoric."

The very public rebuttal begins by noting:

The report is silent on many key aspects of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The museum's contemporary art initiatives, national programs, and innumerable collaborations were apparently not known to the Committee. The report does not acknowledge the museum's recent grand opening after a 6 1/2 year renovation of its historic main building, shared with the National Portrait Gallery, which garnered public and critical acclaim. [Actually, it does refer to the "beautifully renovated Old Patent Office Building...whose physical reconfiguration has opened new possibilities of integrated activities and pooled services for both museums.]...

The Eye Level post, written by Jeff Gates, the blog's managing editor (who undoubtedly had a little high-level help), goes on to recount SAAM's initiatives in contemporary art and national programs, although it doesn't address the critique of the presentation of its permanent collection and exhibitions.

It is unusual for museum colleagues to go at it this publicly, but the office of Ned Rifkin, the Smithsonian's undersecretary for art, started it.

I just came back from the Brooklyn Museum's press preview for its new Sackler Center for Feminist Art (more on this later), so all I can say to SAAM's director, Betsy Broun, is:

You go, grrrl!

March 22, 2007 6:31 PM | | Comments (0)

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Me Elsewhere

Highlights from my writings and broadcasts: 


MY BOOK
The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf)

IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA
NY TIMES OP-EDS:
For Sale: Our Permanent Collection (museum deaccessions)
Fashion Victim (Chanel at the Met)
Destroying the Museum to Save It (Barnes Foundation)
Reassembling Sundered Antiquities (Parthenon marbles)

WALL STREET JOURNAL:
Los Angeles' New Broad Museum of Contemporary Art
Philadelphia's New Perelman Building
The Walton Effect: Art World Is Roiled by Wal-Mart Heiress

Tricks of the Auction Trade

The Seattle Art Museum: A Work in Progress

Upside Down and Backward, Yet Tame (Boston ICA)
Edith Wharton's Library Is Now an Open Book
Extreme Makeover: Smithsonian Edition (American Art and Portrait Gallery renovation)
This Museum's Expansion is Simply Effective (Minneapolis Institute)
Truth in Booty: Coming--and Staying--Clean (antiquities controversies)
A Betrayal of Trust (NY Public Library's art sales)
The Lost Museum (MoMA's art sales)
Endangered Species (single-collector jewel-box museums)
Money in Motion (the Guggenheim's finances)
The Fine Art of Genocide? (appraisals of Hitler's art)

LA TIMES OP-EDS:
Make Art Loans, Not War
Museums Can't Compete (public collecting endangered)

ART IN AMERICA:
Refreshing the Smithsonian (the renovated SAAM and NPG)
The Atrium That Ate the Morgan (Renzo Piano's addition)
Hot Pots and Potshots (controversies over museum antiquities)
Musings on Museums (book review of "Whose Muse?")

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO:
Criticism of AAM's Cultural Diplomacy Initiative

NEW YORK PUBLIC RADIO:
Guggenheim Director Steps Down
Philippe de Montebello's Retirement
Fall '07 Art Auctions
Metropolitan Museum's "Age of Rembrandt" Show
Commentary on the Art Market
Tour of Sculpture Gardens, with Slideshow
Audio Commentary on the Met's New Greek and Roman Galleries
Glenn Lowry's Unorthodox Compensation Package
Commentary on the Art Market

PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC RADIO:
Museums' Purchase and Sale of Eakins' Works (about one-third of the way into the program)
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts' sale of Eakins' "The Cello Player"

BBC-TV:
Impressionist/Modern Auction at Sotheby's

more of me elsewhere

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About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by CultureGrrl published on March 22, 2007 6:31 PM.

Bloggers at Loggerheads Again---But Nicely was the previous entry in this blog.

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