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!