May 2007 Archives

That was quick. Here's the story, from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

A particularly complicated passage in "Sequence," 2006, Collection of Richard Serra

It's not often that you see seen-it-all art journalists and critics walk through an art installation with jaws permanently dropped. But when I first realized, while perambulating Richard Serra's three new tours de force, that my crooked mouth had slackened into a torqued ellipse, I looked around me and discovered that my colleagues wore matching expressions of dazed awe.

It's not that we haven't seen Richard Serra installations before. Among other places, I've experienced great examples at Dia:Beacon and at the Guggenheim Bilbao (but not Bilbao's current, permanent installation, The Matter of Time, for which I've only seen the models, when they were shown in in New York).

But this was a different order of magnitude from the already high achievement of this artist. The three pieces installed on the Museum of Modern Art's second floor (as part of the artist's retrospective, opening Sunday) were, as director Glenn Lowry told me at the press preview, made site-specifically: They were designed to fit perfectly into MoMA's loft-like contemporary gallery, the floors of which had been expressly designed by architect Yoshio Taniguchi to bear the mega-ton force of Serra's steel behemoths.

What's more, as this now mellowed and astonishingly press-friendly artist told us during a long, informal briefing conducted beside his most ingeniously convoluted work (above), his latest efforts are enhanced by technological advances that enable these giant sheets of steel to be bent in more interesting ways than ever before.

Everyone, as Serra observed, experiences these pieces differently: Composer Philip Glass, for example, told Serra they were musical. To me, careening through the exhibition's magnum opus, "Sequence," felt like skimming over ever-changing undulations of water.

I'm not the first to say this, but it is an enormous loss that these three site-specific pieces will be seen at this site only until Sept. 10. There's no keeping them: The Los Angeles County Museum, thanks to patrons Eli and Edythe Broad, has already snapped up one of the three. Lowry told me that MoMA has no current plans to acquire from this show. It already has two other major Serras (one a gift of Jo Carole and Ronald Lauder, the other a fractional and promised gift of Leon and Debra Black), both of which look incongrously industrial on the elegant marble floor of MoMA's usually sedate sculpture garden, where they have been installed for the retrospective.

This is exactly what MoMA QNS (the museum's loft-like space in Long Island City, which displayed its collection and exhibitions during the Manhattan construction) should have been repurposed for---the long-term exhibition of site-specific installations. That idea was at one time considered and then dropped. Let's see what they can do with the new space in the next planned expansion, on the lot to the museum's west.

Meanwhile, enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime art thrill while you can, and try to get there when things are not too crowded, so that you can feel the magnetic pull of the metal, instead of the jostling of the flesh. It's very rare that I leave a museum in a trance, feeling that my entire day and spirit have been transformed by the experience.

This was one of those days.

It took them almost three months, but The Montgomery County Commissioners has finally gotten around to hiring an attorney, Mark Schwartz of Bryn Mawr, pursuant to their resolution to seek "proposals from law firms to explore legal strategies and options" to keep the Barnes Fourdation from moving to Philadelphia.

He faces a formidable challenge: A court case has already been decided, allowing the move, and Philadelphia's movers and shakers are solidly behind it.

Real estate mogul Jerry Speyer yesterday was elected chairman of the Museum of Modern Art's board of trustees, succeeding Goldman Sachs' Robert Menschel, who held that post for only two years. Marie-Josée Kravis remains president. And yes, Glenn Lowry remains MoMA's director.

The press release, announcing other changes as well, is not yet online, so I'm posting it at the link below.

At this writing, even MoMA's own website listing of its board hasn't caught up with the changes.

Tyler has just scooped me on the possible ownership shift at Art in America, a story that broke today in the NY Post. But I've got the inside scoop on the venerable magazine, for which I'm a contributing editor.

AiA staffers today attended a meeting about the future of Brant Publications, which bought AiA in 1984. My source for most of the following information is an official spokesperson for the umbrella company, who declined to be identified by name.

The spokesperson said that, contrary to what was indicated by the Post, only part of Brant Publications is in play---the half-stake owned by Peter Brant, who is a "silent partner" with "no operational role." The spokesperson also indicated that Sandra Brant, his ex-wife, intends to retain ownership of her half-share and remain publisher of AiA, as well as president and CEO of Brant Publications (which has retained Allen & Co. to seek possible buyers for Peter's share).

Sandy has informed staffers that she remains committed to the magazines (which also include Interview and The Magazine Antiques) and she called this is a good opportunity to grow the company. The operative bywords, she says, are: "Business as usual."

Darn. And I was hoping that they'd increase freelancers' rates.

UPDATE: In thinking more about this, I think it's fair to say that offering a half-stake owned by a "silent partner" might seriously reduce the field of potential buyers, who might prefer to acquire some significant editorial influence in return for their investment. Who knows how this will ultimately play out?

I've speculated enough on this fascinating, rumor-inducing question. Now it's your turn.

Reader Dorothy King, a London-based archaeologist, gets the ball rolling, in response to my Timothy Potts musings.

King writes:

I adore Potts almost as much as you do, and hope he does go to the Met. A couple of other rumors doing the rounds are that he or his wife miss London and will come back here: The National Gallery is open and the British Museum will be in a few years.

Dorothy, I don't "adore" Timothy, especially when he doesn't return my phone calls. But let's keep those juicy rumors flying. After all, why should I be the only one playing this guessing game?

So I ask my savvy readers: Who do YOU think should, or will, succeed Philippe at the Met and why? Keep it pithy and send it here, for publication on CultureGrrl.

(Memo to my many museum-director fans: You're all permitted to self-nominate!)

I probably read the NY Times too closely for my own good.

But when they said that the new public editor, Clark Hoyt, was going to assume his post effective May 14, I expected to see his first column in the May 19 Sunday "Week in Review" section, or at least by the week after that. I've come to enjoy these incisive internal critiques, which began in 2003.

Earlier this month, I wrote that I was glad the Times had opted to maintain the position of official internal irritant, after the scheduled departure of Byron Calame, who had frequently locked horns not only with reporters but also with executive editor Bill Keller

Now I'm wondering if the position still exists but the regular column doesn't.

The Corrections page does assure us, however, that a public editor is somewhere on the case:

Readers dissatisfied with a response or concerned about the paper's journalistic integrity may reach the public editor at public@nytimes.com or (212) 556-7652.

I was concerned about the integrity of the public editor position, so I called the number. I got a recording telling me to limit my comments to 30 seconds. Dissatisfaction must be brief.

Has Clark been confined to fielding irate phone calls and e-mails, or will he get let loose to write thoughtful and pointed critiques? We'll keep watching the PE's former space in the Sunday opinion pages.

Speaking of "Promises of the Times," the spluttering ArtsBeat blog, which had originally billed itself as "all culture, all the time," has fallen silent again, as of May 18. We can only hope that one of its art writers gets to blog the European art fairs and festivals this summer. But it looks as though only the music festivals may qualify for blog treatment:

Coming Soon: opera in Spoleto, pop at Bonnaroo and more.

It's the "more" that I'm most looking forward to.

UPDATE: I e-mailed this post to the public editor, and got the following automated response:

Thank you for contacting the Public Editor. An associate or I read every message....If a further reply is warranted, you will be hearing from us shortly. Some messages to the Public Editor may be published in his column or online. Please let us know if you do not want your message published.

So, perhaps "his column" will indeed, at some point, exist. Oddly, the "I" of the above message is unidentified in the e-mail.

Clark, come out of your closet!

Kimbell Museum Photo

Saturday's follow-up article in the Dallas Morning News about the resignation of Timothy Potts' (above) from the directorship of the Kimbell Art Museum makes it clear that my Number Two Pick for next director of the Metropolitan Museum is officially in play. (Number One, Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, is unlikely to cross the pond.)

Michael Granberry reports:

Dr. Potts, 48, hinted Friday that he may embark on a job elsewhere.

"I'm thinking about that," he said. "Like many directors, I do get offers from time to time, and there are things that I'm seriously considering."

Given my deserved reputation in some corners of the museum world (particularly at 81st and Fifth) as an annoying nuisance, my polishing Potts might actually tarnish his chances. A more serious potential deal-killer: We still don't know where the blame lies for his too-sudden flight. Despite the publicly amicable divorce, departures of long-term, respected museum directors simply don't happen this way---on short notice, with no immediate exit strategy---unless there's been a falling out.

I've been trying, of course, to get Potts to talk with me (but I'm sure that he must talk to Carol Vogel first). On Friday, after the news broke, I was informed by press spokesperson Mindy Riesenberg that he was gone for Memorial Day weekend, but "he has your number with him, and if he has a minute, he'll give you a call, but don't hold your breath, to be honest." I breathlessly awaited his call, but now Mindy herself is gone until Thursday, and Potts is said to be "out of the office this week" (presumably exploring job prospects and/or avoiding the media).

Still, what are the chances that the Met may now be ready to fire up its much anticipated director search?

I asked The Question of both the museum's board chairman, James Houghton, and its director, Philippe de Montebello, at the press preview last month for the new Greek and Roman galleries. (Why haven't I told you this before? I guess I was waiting for a moment like this.)

A while back, Philippe had told me that he did not wish to retire until he had successfully overseen the renovation and expansion of the Greek and Roman galleries. Now that that he's done that, and in light of the fact that, in July, it will be 30 years since he became the museum's acting director, I dared to ask again.

His response:

I'm still here. I'm not God. I live from moment to moment.

Houghton was slightly more enlightening:

There are no plans to make plans. Sure he's going to have to retire at some point, but we're not thinking about that yet. And he's got several projects: He's got the American Wing. He's healthy, so we'll keep him going. You know, he's exactly my age and we were classmates at Harvard.

Well, that settles that. And actually, it's not just the American Wing that remains unfinished. It's new galleries for modern photography, for Oceanic art, for American Indian art, for 19th-century European painting and sculpture, the renovation of the Wrightsman Galleries for French decorative arts....This takes us at least into the winter.

After that, who knows what the dean of American art museum directors may yet have up his sleeve?

My recent posts (here, here, here and here) about possible sales of American art from the Maier Museum of the financially pressed Randolph-Macon Woman's College have struck a chord with some of the college's constituents.

---Karri Boyer Aston, Class of 1999, writes:
As an alum of R-MWC, I am embarassed by the college's actions and upset by the ongoing secrecy surrounding the fate of the Museum's art collection---especially in light of the fact that the college continues to promise to keep alums informed of any decisions. I appreciate you sharing information with your readers, and hope the college will follow suit, but I'm not optimistic.

---Emily Fincher, Class of 2009, writes:
As a student of Randolph-Macon Woman's College (soon to become Randolph College), I am outraged by the many things that have been happening to my college in the past year and I am glad you chose to highlight one of them in the article you wrote.

If there is anything done by the student body to try to stop the auctioning off of the Maier museum, it will be small and most likely ineffective, but I will support it whole-heartedly and hope that the Lynchburg community, the state of Virginia, and all art enthusiasts worldwide will feel the same.

I was just thinking of calling James Beck for his opinion about the Raphael portrait of Lorenzo de' Medici, to be offered July 5 by Christie's, London. Now I can't.

Always provocative and often right (think the "Michelangelo of Fifth Avenue," maybe the Metropolitan Museum's Duccio, and, to my mind, the Sistine Ceiling's scrubbing), Beck was a master gadfly and debunker of artworld orthodoxies. His bully pulpits were his professorship at Columbia University and ArtWatch International, the watchdog group of which he was founder and president.

As for the Raphael---the seller, New York dealer Ira Spanierman, had bought it in 1968, "when there were doubts about its authenticity," writes Louise Jury of the London Evening Standard. And I learned from U.K. blog Art History Today that Beck had regarded the painting as "a crude variant of what was originally a large, standing three-quarter length state portrait," as blogger David Packwood paraphrased the art historian's 1975 article in the Burlington Magazine.

In its press release about the painting, Christie's notes that it "was the subject of attributional debate with regards to both the artist and the sitter from 1862," but is "now accepted by all major scholars of the artist."

Beck's last book, published just a few months ago, From Duccio to Raphael: Connoisseurship in Crisis (European Press Academic Publishing), takes issue with several high-profile attributions, including the Met's Duccio.

I'll miss his erudite, righteously indignant rants.

UPDATE: An appreciation in the London Times, unsigned online but written by Michael Daley, director of ArtWatch U.K., is here.

While the Barnes Foundation pares down its architect shortlist for its planned moved to Philadelphia, access to the preferred site for the project, currently occupied by a youth detention center, remains in doubt.

Dave Davies and Mark McDonald of the Philadelphia Daily News report:

Mayor Street and the Fairmount Park Commission have taken the first official steps to transfer a choice site on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the Barnes Foundation for its prestigious art collection, but the biggest obstacle to the move from Lower Merion remains unresolved.

Plans to build a new center at a five-acre West Philadelphia site have been blocked by Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, and so far the Street administration hasn't come up an alternative plan for the roughly 100 delinquent kids housed at the center.

Rita Giordano of the Philadelphia Inquirer further informs us:

The lease agreement [for the land] would set a target date of May 30, 2008, for the city to vacate the site. Derek Gillman, president of the Barnes Foundation, told the commissioners he hoped to open in Philadelphia by the end of 2009.

That sounds like a rather tight window for construction, installation and opening. If the site is not available by May 30 of next year, the Barnes has the option of backing out of the project.

Maybe then they'd be able to devote a good chunk of the money they've raised to continuing at a different site---the one they're in, which is where they should stay..

Between the pool and the barbecue, you might enjoy watching this video, "500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art," morphing artists' notions of feminine beauty.

If you liked that one, you might also enjoy 80 Years of Female Portraits in Cinema, from the same YouTube contributor (both accompanied by Bach unaccompanied cello).

This is sudden and unexpected:

Timothy Potts, director of the Kimbell Art Museum for almost nine years, has announced his resignation, while "offering to stay until Sept. 1, to allow time for his successor to be identified and to ensure a smooth transition," according to the just-issued press release.

The Kimbell had recently announced its selection of Renzo Piano as architect for its new facility (here and here), to be located across the street from its celebrated Louis Kahn building.

If you've read this post, about who should (eventually) succeed Philippe de Montebello at the Metropolitan Museum, you know how highly I regard Potts. There's got to be more to this surprising story than what's contained in the sanitized press release, linked below.

Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell

Carol Vogel in today's NY Times takes the Randolph-Macon ball and moves it down the field.

Vogel reports:

"We're looking to see if there are other entities who might want to partner with us so that we don't have to lose the collection," said Virginia Worden, an alumna and the college's acting president. "We have had auction houses come and evaluate the art and are talking to every institution we can."

In return for a financial payment to the college, for example, a partner could share ownership of the collection.

Vogel also confirmed that Alice Walton did indeed visit the Lynchburg, VA, campus to view the Maier Museum's collection, on behalf of her planned Crystal Bridges Museum.

Like Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Fisk University had also been hoping for some kind of arrangement where it could sell some art and keep it too. Nobody bit.

Maybe, as in the Fisk deaccession controversy, what's needed is a proactive attorney general, ready to defend the public's interest in the public's patrimony.

Bob McDonnell, please call your Tennessee counterpart, Robert Cooper!

"Peacemeal," Albert Alotta, 1967, Film still
Courtesy the artist and the filmmakers cooperative

Bummer. The Whitney Museum's "Summer of Love" show (to Sept. 16), which devotes two full floors to psychedelic relics of limited artistic or sociological value, does have a modicum of documentary interest. If it were augmented with some Jimi Hendrix guitars and John Lennon poetry, it might just work for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or the Experience Music Project. But not the Whitney.

Unlike the acid-droppers (perhaps the target audience for this show), I DO remember the Sixties. But this is not how I want to remember them. Organized by the Tate Liverpool (with the Whitney, mercifully, as its only American venue), this presentation emphasizes the self-indulgent solipsism over the social consciousness and activism that energized a watershed era.

I won't bother enumerating the inanities, which I imagine will be adequately skewered by others. In case you somehow find yourself at the Whitney, dazed by all that dayglo, let me direct you to a few things that I actually DID appreciate:

---Jimi Hendrix's "Flower Demon," watercolor on paper (hung as a scroll), 1966. Who knew?

---The fanciful "Chair Transformation Number 12," 1969-70, a familiar but always fun object by the artworld's merry prankster, Lucas Samaras.

---Rauschenberg's "'Signs," screenprint, 1970: collaged images of Joplin, Robert Kennedy, the dead Martin Luther King, peace demonstrators, soldiers. This concentrated retrospective of the Sixties captures the zeitgeist better than all the album covers and light shows put together.

---Speaking of light shows, there was one that did turn me on: the subtle-hued, ethereally wispy, slow-motion "Luccata (Opus 162)" by Thomas Wilfred, a progenitor who, as the label tells us, "began to create optical-mechanical devices using the physical properties of light---refraction, reflection and color---in the 1920s." Joshua White, hanging out at the press preview and sporting a "Summer of Love Artist" sticker, told me that an installation of one of Wilfred's works at the Museum of Modern Art in the 1950s was the inspiration behind his Joshua Light Show productions at New York's favorite mecca for second-hand toke, the Fillmore East. (Yes, I do remember.)

After that, go see something at the Whitney with a lot more substance---the riveting Gordon Matta-Clark retrospective (closing soon: June 3).

By the way, do you think the failure to focus on Peter Max, the graphic artist perhaps most famously associated with "psychedelic style," was a conscious curatorial attempt at quality judgment?

Far out.

Attorney Donn Zaretsky has posted on his Art Law Blog his letter to MASS MoCA regarding its dispute with his client, Christoph Büchel, over the artist's aborted mega-installation.

Zaretsky writes:

The essential point to understand is that the Visual Artists Rights Act is there to prevent the exhibition of works of art that have been distorted or modified---and the museum is doing exactly that....No amount of "tarp" can cover that up....If the museum follows through on this plan [to display the incomplete, covered-up work], rest assured that we will seek all available remedies, including for all past violations (on which see the May 23 "Exhibitionist" blog post by the Boston Globe's Geoff Edgers, wondering "who hasn't" already seen the show).

Messier and messier...

There's been a persistent rumor in Lynchburg, VA, that Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, who is acquiring American art for her planned Crystal Bridges museum, recently visited the campus of Randolph-Macon Woman's College to view holdings of the Maier Museum, which the financially strapped college may be putting on the market.

It turns out that the college's collection has long been well known to Walton's premier art advisor, John Wilmerding, who is about to retire from his professorship at Princeton University: He was one of the authors for the 1990 catalogue of an exhibition drawn from the Maier Museum's collection and circulated by Art Services International: American Art, American Vision.

Go figure.

Preparing to pack his bags to leave Minneapolis for the Morgan, William Griswold assured me that he's not a museum-hopper:

This is my retirement job. The Morgan is in my blood and in my heart.

Then, in the next breath, the 46-year-old acknowledged that he had "had every intention to stay here [in Minneapolis] a long time" and added, "I know there are bigger jobs" than his new position. Time will tell.

At the Morgan, he hopes to "bring out more of the collection and fill the Morgan with art," enlivening spaces that he feels are now under-used. He is particularly interested in expanding the 20th-century and contemporary collections, as a way to "build audiences and build appreciation for the other material in the collection."

Meanwhile, back in Minneapolis, he vows to "roll up my sleeves and work harder than ever during the next six months." The board and staff, he said, have been "amazingly supportive" of his pending departure.

Did they have a choice?

(For more coverage, see the Minneapolis Star Tribune here and the NY Times here.)

Photo by D. Applewhite

Thanks to the Art History Newsletter, I just learned that John Wilmerding (above) this summer is leaving Princeton, where he is professor of American art. At his May 4 retirement dinner, he revealed that he is also giving Princeton nearly 50 works from his Pop art collection, now on display (to Aug. 12) at the university's art museum (which had previously described it as an anonymous promised gift). It includes paintings, sculptures and works on paper by such artists as Indiana, Katz, Lichtenstein and Wesselmann.

In 2004, Wilmerding announced that he was donating 51 19th-century American works to Washington's National Gallery, where he had been curator of American art, senior curator and deputy director. He is now a member of its board of trustees.

"John has been characteristically modest about his activities as a collector," said Earl Powell III, director of the National Gallery, at the time of the announcement.

Perhaps this "modesty" had something to do with not wanting to invite questions such as the one raised by the Art History Newsletter in connection with Wilmerding's latest gift:

Has anyone written about the phenomenon of art scholars and curators who also collect?

Actually, the Association of Art Museum Directors has---in its Professional Practices guidelines, which Wilmerding has presumably followed:

No private collecting by the director [or] curators...can by permitted if such activity conflicts in any way with the collecting interests of the museum. The museum must have the opportunity to acquire for its own collection any work of art offered to the director or any member of the museum staff directly or indirectly involved with the museum's collecting program.

Throwing off the professorial yoke may free Wilmerding to devote more time to another of his many activities---helping to form the collection of Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, to be housed in her Crystal Bridges museum, which is scheduled to open in 2009 in Bentonville, Arkansas.

According to Robert Workman, executive director of that museum:

Dr. Wilmerding continues as an advisor to Crystal Bridges, as we work to refine the Museum's permanent collection.

Griddle Griswold in a Minneapolis Moment

As fast as you can flip a flapjack, William Griswold (above, at Opening Day for his expanded museum) is leaving the Minneapolis Institute of Arts [via], where he became director less than two years ago, to take charge at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York.

"I'll be there at the beginning of next year," he told me by e-mail last night, adding that he was "excited to be back in New York." He succeeds Charles Pierce Jr., who oversaw the institution's recent Renzo Piano expansion and in January announced his intention to retire.

Griswold had previously been head of the department of drawings and prints at the Morgan. He's also worked at the Metropolitan Museum and at the J. Paul Getty Museum, where he rose to become acting director and chief curator.

In his own Director's Statement on his current museum's website, Griswold notes: "June marks the first anniversary of the opening of the MIA's expansion."

Now there's going to be a lot less for them to celebrate.

I knew he was (deservedly) a rising star, but this is almost unseemly haste. Now Minneapolis has two top visual arts spots to fill. And I doubt that the Morgan will be Griswold's last stop.

Architectural Rendering of the New Detroit Institute of Arts

Believe me, I'm as much against "dumbing down" museum installations as the next cultural snob. I rant about this regularly.

So when I attended a press lunch last September in New York, presided over by director Graham W.J. Beal, describing plans for the expanded and renovated Detroit Institute of Arts (closing May 27 and reopening Nov. 23), I was duly skeptical about their stated intention to rethink the permanent collection's traditional installation. "Thematic approaches," such as the misconceived installation (now repudiated) that Ned Rifkin engineered when he was director of the High Museum in Atlanta, always get me nervous.

So I buttonholed George Keyes, the Detroit museum's chief curator, and, in my usual blunt manner, directly asked him the "dumbing down" question that now seems to be animating the blogosphere (here and here). He explained the installation concepts to me in more detail, and they appear to be art-history based---nothing like the dreaded "peoples, places, things" approach. Installation by chronology and cultures, he assured me, were not being abandoned. But within each traditional area, certain areas of focus were being highlighted. For example, the African galleries were to include a section on "Arts of Leadership and Status." Nothing wrong with that.

When Mark Stryker, author of Sunday's article for the Detroit Free Press (which has occasioned all this hand-wringing) e-mailed me on May 1 to ask for my take on the installation plans, I replied that I didn't "feel comfortable opinionating for an article about a facility that I haven't seen myself yet."

I still feel that way. For now, I'm willing to suspend disbelief. And, by the way, "labels in plain English" (as Stryker describes them) are not necessarily such a bad thing. It all depends on what that "plain English" is saying.

Yet another Congressional investigation of the Smithsonian---this by the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

Brett Zongker of the Associated Press reports:

The inquiry comes a day after The Associated Press reported that Robert Sullivan, a former associate director at the National Museum of Natural History, said Smithsonian officials softened last year's "Arctic: A Friend Acting Strangely" exhibit....

Among other things, the exhibit's text was rewritten to inject more uncertainty into the relationship between human activity and climate change, Sullivan said. The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming sent a letter to the Smithsonian requesting all letters and e-mails about the exhibit.

It's always been hazardous for federally funded institutions in our nation's capital to try to mount exhibitions on politically charged topics: Remember the Enola Gay at the National Air and Space Museum. Remember "The Cultural Landscape of the Plantation," which was taken down from its original venue, the Library of Congress, to be reinstalled at a branch of the local public library.

Mr. Acting Secretary, what have you to say about this contretemps, which occurred on your watch as director of the Natural History Museum?

Philadelphia Museum's Perelman Building

"Hello, SalaryGrrl!" Anne d'Harnoncourt cheerfully greeted me at the Philadelphia Museum's New York press lunch yesterday. (No word on whether she's gotten her pay raise yet.)

I took the occasion of sitting next to the director to ask if her museum was indeed going to deaccession a work or works by Eakins to help pay for "The Gross Clinic," as had been publicly hinted recently by Alice Beamesderfer, associate director of collections.

D'Harnoncourt conceded that donations towards the $68-million purchase price had "tapered off" and that an Eakins deaccession was likely. A final decision, she said, has yet to be made. (The joint purchaser of "The Gross Clinic," the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, has already sacrificed one of its Eakinses, "The Cello Player.")

The director and her staff had lured us away early from the Metropolitan Museum's two exhibition press previews ("The Clark Brothers Collect" and Neo Rauch) to feed us chicken, a smorgasbord of upcoming exhibitions and, especially, a preview of the Sept. 15 opening of the Perelman Building across the street from the main building.

Renovated and expanded by Gluckman Mayner (Richard Gluckman's architectural firm), the Art Deco building will become an outpost for modern and contemporary design, costume and textiles, photographs and changing installations in a large multi-purpose gallery (first up: sculpture from the collection). D'Harnoncourt seemed particularly excited by the building's new library---four times the size of the former one.

The exhibition schedule is an eclectic mix of potential blockbusters---"Renoir Landscapes" and Frida Kahlo---and lesser knowns: William Johnson, William Ranney, Antonio Mancini.

Not a word was uttered about the plans for Frank Gehry to renovate and expand the flagship building. (Right now, he's got some other problems.) Maybe they felt there was just so much that we scribes could digest at one meal.

MASS MoCA has a distinguished track record for collaborating amicably and productively with artists creating highly ambitious projects to full its gargantuan main installation space. Those pieces, including Tim Hawkinson's "Uberorgan" and Cai Guo-Qiang's "Inopportune," sometimes have an ongoing life at major institutions, after their fabrication and display in North Adams, MA.

So today's NY Times report by Randy Kennedy on the expensive, knock-down, drag-out debacle involving Christoph Büchel's partly completed project, "Training Ground for Democracy," comes as a cautionary tale, demonstrating that sometimes trust between an artist and an institution just isn't enough. I imagine that Wharton graduate Joseph Thompson, director of MASS MoCA, will from now on be more rigorous in specifying allowable costs and other conditions, prior to engaging future artists to use his institution's generous space and resources.

Meanwhile, he's got to deal with Büchel's attorney, Donn Zaretsky, who, it appears, will be meeting MASS MoCA in court. The institution wants permission to show the project in its unfinished state. So far, there's been no public talk, from either side, about seeking any monetary damages. And not a word about the situation (for understandable reasons) appears in Zaretsky's own Art Law Blog.

Zaretsky did tell Kennedy: "To me, this is an unheard of, unprecedented act, for a fine-art museum to go to court to try to show an artist's work in an unfinished state."

MASS MoCA is making the best of a bad situation by showcasing the work behind its many happy-ending installations, in Made at MASS MoCA, a documentary project opening Saturday, .

Earlier reports on the dispute, by Geoff Edgers of the Boston Globe, are here and here. (The latter includes the artist's specific demands.)

UPDATE: Another Edgers story in the Globe, the day after Kennedy's, is here.

UPDATE 2: Starting May 23, Edgers is posting by installments, in his Exhibitionist blog, Büchel's side of the story, sent to the Globe in March.

Click the link below for MASS MoCA's press release, not posted on its website at this writing (as far as I can see), which explains the situation from its side.

The recent news about the Smithsonian American Art Museum has not been good, and it's got nothing to do with criticism from Ned Rifkin or the report from the ad hoc committee of experts that Rifkin, the Smithsonian's undersecretary for art, had appointed to review the Smithsonian's art institutions.

As Joi Preciphs reported yesterday in Bloomberg, SAAM got the Lunder Conservation Center (as part of its recent renovation) but not the Lunder American art collection. That's going to Colby College's art museum in Waterville, ME. Peter Lunder is a Colby alumnus.

According to Colby's recent announcement:

More than 80 works from the gift, which has an estimated value of more than $100 million, are currently on view in the museum....In 2013, the museum will open a new wing with galleries dedicated to the permanent display of works from the Collection....

The gift comprises more than 500 objects, with 464 works by American masters including John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, George Inness, William Merritt Chase, Winslow Homer, Paul Manship, Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffe, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Alex Katz, and Jenny Holzer. A crucial area of the collection is 201 prints by James McNeill Whistler.

Lunder had endowed SAAM's new conservation facility. Let's hope he's also endowed Colby's museum, so we don't later have another Fisk or Randolph-Macon situation. (He and his wife, a Colby life trustee, did endow an American art curatorship at the Maine museum.)

And here's some more SAAM spam: The Washington museum has just proudly announced that "American Art," its scholarly journal, has bestowed its 2006 Patricia and Phillip Frost Essay Award upon Michael Clapper, associate professor in art history at Franklin & Marshall College, for his article, "Thomas Kinkade's Romantic Landscape," appearing in last summer's issue.

THOMAS KINKADE??? The very same Thomas Kinkade whom the NY Times described as having "no champions in the high-art world, not even among those who endorse other popular antimodernists"?

Maybe there's been a wave of Kinkade scholarly revisionism since the Times article appeared seven years ago. I must have missed it.

Now that the self-declared "most collected living artist" has aroused prize-winning academic interest, maybe you'll want to own your very own Thomas Kinkade Gallery. Just make sure to scrape together "the estimated investment cost of "about $80,000 to $150,000." Then you, too, can market his "variety of genres, from Plein Air to Impressionism to Romantic Realism."

What, no Minimalism?

UPDATE: Click the link below for readers' comments on the Kinkade accolade. Maybe I should actually READ articles before I criticize them!

Quite a few museums are already in the blogosphere (such as those listed in my blogroll in the righthand column), but the J. Paul Getty Museum is trying a new twist: exhibition blogs tied specifically to its temporary shows. First up: Looking at Animals, billed as "a discussion about animals in art and the imagination." It's pegged to the current Oudry's Painted Menagerie of giant rhinoceros fame.

For some reason, they are not also tying it to another animal-related show now up, Medieval Beasts.

The "bloggers" are experts (including Getty staffers) selected by the museum to post their thoughts. Readers can append their own animalistic comments.

The financial success of the Albright-Knox Gallery's collections-management failure continues to grow: Hammer total for the 24 works from the Buffalo museum's Thursday and Friday disposals at Sotheby's was $5.98 million ($6.84 million, with buyer's premium). On June 7, it sells antiquities, including its much admired Bronze Figure of Artemis and the Stag, estimated at $5-7 million.

The highlights from Thursday's African, Oceanic & Pre-Columbian Art sale are here. The highest-priced Albright-Knox lot from Friday's sale of American Indian Art was a Zuni Polychrome Pictorial Jar, selling for $57,000 (with premium), against an estimate of $15,000-20,000. Results from the museum's two previous sales this year at Sotheby's are here.

Albright-Knox director Louis Grachos told Colin Dabkowski of the Buffalo News that this result "bodes well for the future of the endowment and the gallery."

But I think it bodes ill for the future of responsible museum stewardship of collections that they hold in the public trust.

I don't blame the auction houses for abetting this: I recognize that their job is to provide an efficient marketplace for authentic works with good title, not to enforce museum ethics. I was therefore pleasantly surprised, during my recent conversation with Marc Porter, the president of Christie's, to learn that considerations of appropriate museum practice can sometimes can enter into his auction house's business decisions:

We would counsel museums about what could be a norm in the culture with respect to the way in which cultural property is managed. And I think we're an important voice in this. We have told institutions that their proposed method of deaccessioning was not something that we would recommend, and we have decided not to participate.

I, of course, asked Porter if his decisions "not to participate" had included the Albright-Knox sell-off. He, predictably, refused to say.

I invite readers' comments on the Albright-Knox sales and on the question of whether auction houses should take responsibility in assessing the propriety of museum disposals. I, for one, don't blame Sotheby's for taking the business. I just wish that it hadn't.

Click link below for readers' comments.

A recently completed financial review of Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Lynchburg, VA, a copy of which was obtained today by CultureGrrl, provides more background on the threat posed by the college's shaky finances to the integrity of the American art collection of its Maier Museum. The museum's holdings include pictures by Bellows, Cassatt, Hopper, Lawrence, O'Keeffe and Sloan, among others, and rumors have been flying that some of its most signficant works are in play.

The financial review, dated May 7 and prepared for the college by Larry Goldstein of Campus Strategies, cited what it called an "alarming statistic" from the college's fiscal 2006 audited financial report---"that the college financed in excess of 40 percent of its operating expenses from endowment spending. This is a staggering percentage."

The report further noted that "the College recognizes the seriousness of the situation....By admitting men in the fall of 2007, RMWC will embark on a new chapter in its history--one that, if coupled with other structural financial changes, has the potential to reverse the recent financial downturns that have been experienced."

And then the kicker:

Finally, as is already under consideration, the College must realize a substantial financial inflow through the leveraging of a portion of its art collection. The amount realized should immediately be added to the College's endowment to increase the amount of money available for operations through the endowment spending rate....

Equally, if not more, important will be the receipt of the cash from the arrangement prior to December when SACS [the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, an accrediting body] will meet to review the College's status. Failure to realize the dramatic cash infusion to the endowment likely will result in the College being placed on probation.

In a column on Friday, Michael Paul Williams of the Richmond Times Dispatch, noted that "one art professor, Laura Katzman, has already quit in protest" against the possible disposals. He then quoted Randolph-Macon spokesperson Brenda Edson on the controversy, and appended his own final comment:

"If the college doesn't succeed, the museum won't be there at all," Edson said. "It's painful to consider we might have to raise funds with the art collection. But we are doing our best to put the school on sound financial footing."

But at what price?

Sorry you didn't get to see the auction action on the Warhol car crash and the Rockefeller Rothko?

Now, thanks to online video clips, you can:

Warhol's "Green Car Crash", selling at Christie's.

Rothko's "White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)" at Sotheby's.

Production values and entertainment value are much higher in the former, which was produced by Christie's itself. (The Sotheby's clip is from a contributor to YouTube.) Don't miss the cry of "Here!" at $61.5 million---the sound of dealer Larry Gagosian making a comic cameo appearance in the serious Warhol war.

We may need to pause to catch our breath, but the auction market never stops.

The Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, scored unexpectedly large windfalls for its deaccessioned masterpieces at yesterday's African, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian art sale at Sotheby's: Its bronze Benin Head of an Oba fetched $4.74 million against an estimate of $1-1.5 million and its Aztec Stone Figure of the Goddess with Tasseled Headdress, Known as Chalchiuhtlicue, sold for $1.22 million, compared to an estimate of merely $100,000-150,000. (Prices include buyer's premium; estimates don't).

Some 14 Albright-Knox lots were sold yesterday, with more today at Sotheby's American Indian art sale, just concluded. More details to come.

This is the moment when art-market observers are called upon to tell the astonished public how to regard seemingly extravagant expenditures for paint on canvas.

We hear such insights as: "Art is worth what people are willing to pay for it." "There are lots of very wealthy people who want art." And that favorite question of party-pooping pundits: "When is the bubble going to burst?"

The best take on the past two weeks that I've seen thus far comes from veteran art writer Martin Gayford in today's Bloomberg, who opines:

Has the art world gone crazy?

There is, inevitably, the shock expressed by those who feel that the crudity of finance sullies the purity of art....The appropriate response to such concerns is phooey.

To which I would only add that while the shocked response of the general public over the excesses of the super-rich is a time-honored tradition, there IS something new about the current bull market in art---that it's continued so strong for so long.

Just about every veteran art-market observer (myself, to my profound embarrassment, included) has been predicting for quite some time that the "bubble" was about to burst.

The question we now must ponder is whether there is a real sea change in the art market: Will there always be enough masterpiece-minded money around, somewhere in the world, to support prices at current or higher levels?

I'll have to leave that question to the economists. What I do know is that if a correction does come, the auction-house specialists had better be prescient in anticipating it. Price guarantees and other forms of leverage work to the houses' advantage in a bull market, which is why all the hand-wringing in the press about the risks they took this season proved to be hogwash.

But if the market heads south, the bull market-driven presale estimates and the financial risks of loans and guarantees suddenly become very dangerous. We've seen this happen before. It's always tempting to believe that the good times will roll forever. That belief has always proven wrong.

The auction-house experts had better have their ears to the ground and their hands ready to pull the emergency brake.

"Where am I now?" the usually quick-minded, fleet-of-tongue Christopher Burge poignantly queried, momentarily sidetracked in the onslaught of bids early during Christie's record-breaking contemporary sale last night. Baffling the crowd, he had unaccountably dropped $1 million off the bidding for Lot 9, the Philip Guston, which he confidently placed at $4.4 million, despite the fact that he had already just taken a bid at $5.4 million.

"A senior moment here!" he murmured, more to himself than the crowd. Then he promptly got back on track and headed towards the $5.8-million finish ($6.54 million, with buyer's premium).

Another glitch in the bidding occurred for Warhol's "Lemon Marilyn," which ultimately fetched $28.04 million (with premium), the second highest price of the night. This time the perpetrator was seasoned dealer Larry Gagosian, whose extensive auction experience didn't stop him from making a bid and then taking it back, at the $25.5-million level. Gagosian laughed at his own giant breach of auction protocol, while Burge searched in vain for another $25.5-million taker.

"You can still do it again, if you like," Burge wheedled.

Nothing doing. It got knocked down at $25 million.

UPDATE: A reader has shared with me his personal experiences with the spring auctions, and I invite other readers also to e-mail your experiences or comments related to these sales. You can read them by clicking the link below.

I don't usually think of myself as a news-you-can-use type of reporter, but I guess my WSJ article and CultureGrrl post, about the new availability of cash for redeeming auction-house antitrust settlement coupons, have inspired strenuous bouts of spring cleaning in some households.

Auction client Lee Zuckerman writes:

Thanks so much for reminding me that I have been sitting on THOUSANDS of dollars of auction-house settlement coupons. I dutifully filed my claim in 2003, received my coupons, tucked them away in my safe deposit box, and then just forgot about it altogether.

As I was digesting the Journal late last night, I came upon your piece and proceeded to tear my apartment apart in search of the coupons I assumed would never be redeemable for anything other than more transactions with Sotheby's.

I managed to resurrect my claim forms at about 3 a.m., and was able to contact the administrator directly this morning to confirm my good fortune. Then off to the bank where I found my coupons, and was able to send the whole lot off today. With luck, I should have checks for a significant sum in a couple of weeks.

Seriously, had it not been for your article, the bloody coupons would have been gathering dust in my safe deposit box well beyond the time of their expiration.

Contemporary art buyers hadn't blown their wad at Sotheby's Tuesday night. They were just getting started.

Several records that had just been achieved at Sotheby's (Cecily Brown, Morris Louis, John Baldessari, Hans Hofmann) were toppled last night at Christie's. The Rockefeller Rothko's $72.84-million price still stands as the auction record for any contemporary work, but just barely:

Andy Warhol's "Green Car Crash" (Sandy Heller's comments notwithstanding) sold for $71.72 million, trouncing the artist's previous record of $17.38 million and almost tagging the Rothko.

Some 26 new auction records were set, and the $384.65 million sale total far surpassed Sotheby's $254.87 million record contemporary art auction of the night before. Perhaps most extraordinary was the 99% sold rate by dollar; only four of the 74 lots failed to sell.

But what most impressed me last night, observing the intense prizefights from ringside, was the depth of the market: For numerous lots, bids were flying in from all over the room and the telephones, making auctioneer Christopher Burge work so long and hard that by the end of the sale he was admonishing slow megabucks deliberators to "speed it up."

The price list is here. The online catalogue is here.

While fielding the thick-and-fast bidding, Burge had an uncharacteristic "senior moment" (as he called it during the sale). Veteran dealer Larry Gagosian appeared to have one too, while bidding unsuccessfully on Warhol's "Lemon Marilyn" (which became the second highest-priced Warhol at auction at $28.04 million).

But more about all this craziness tomorrow.

Whatever you may feel about the impressive success of Sotheby's contemporary sale last night, the stock market seems to be nonplussed. Sotheby's publicly traded shares have continued the fall that began on May 8, which was the day of its big Impressionist/modern sale and the day after its announcement of solid first-quarter results.

As of 11:10 a.m., the stock was at $44.97, down from its closing price of $52.40 on May 8.

I can only think that (CEO William Ruprecht's comments about quality-over-quantity notwithstanding) when it comes to investors' mindsets, market share still counts. Although it's unlikely to top Sotheby's top price last night---$72.84 million for David Rockefeller's Rothko---Christie's does stand a good chance of making Sotheby's $254.87-million sale total (including buyer's premium) a very fleeting record for a contemporary art sale. The estimated hammer total for tonight's sale is $225-305 million, to which the buyer's premium will be added.

The focus will be on Warhol, whose "Green Car Crash" is estimated at $25-35 million. I had to laugh when I read art consultant Sandy Heller's comments to ABC News about that work. ABC reports:

Sandy Heller, who advises collectors on purchases, said that while it "is a great piece," it is also "a very tough image" that some might find hard to live with.

"It's hard to put an image of impaled figure in a burning car in a home where you have little kids," Heller said.

Isn't he the one who advises hedge fund mogul Steven Cohen, whose decomposing Hirst shark is again discussed in today's Wall Street Journal?

We can only wonder whether Heller may have the best interests of one of his Warhol-loving clients at heart. As I wrote many years ago in my book, "The Complete Guide to Collecting Art":

The most disparaging presale remarks about a work sometimes come from the person who winds up purchasing it. When dealer Richard Feigen was commissioned by a collector to buy an Impressionist painting that Feigen considered "an exceptional work of art," he actively tried to discourage other people. "I did not extol the painting when people asked my opinion and I tried to put people off it, if they were people to whom I did not have a fiduciary responsibility....

I got the painting for about 60 percent of what the client was prepared to pay. He was ecstatic."

Here are the just-released facts and figures, hot off Sotheby's presses:

The 1950 Rothko, "White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)," at $72.84 million (including buyer's premium), set a record not only for the artist but also for any contemporary work at auction. (The previous Rothko record was $22.42 million.) Since David Rockefeller stated that he was going to donate the proceeds to charity, there should be some very happy beneficiaries.

Among the sale's 14 artists' auction records (with buyer's premium) were: Bacon ($52.68 million), Basquiat ($14.6 million), Rauschenberg ($10.68 million), Wesselmann ($5.86 million).

Tonight's sale totaled $254.87 million, including the buyer's premium---a record for a contemporary art auction. The hammer total was $225.41 million, within the presale estimate of $196.8-$265.1 million.

Despite generally strong prices, big-money buy-ins of three Pollocks and a Richter did take a significant toll on the results. Also left stranded: de Kooning's "Untitled (Woman)" of 1966, unsold at $3.5 million against its $4.5-6.5 million estimate.

In all, nine of the 74 works failed to find buyers.

The official price list is here. The online catalogue (enabling you to match the prices to the works) is here.

One interesting sidelight: Auctioneer Tobias Meyer announced at the beginning of the evening that "interested parties" might be bidding on Lot 22, the Bacon. According to the catalogue's "Conditions of Sale," such parties may be "providing or participating in a guarantee of the lot." In other words, someone (such as a dealer or collector) unaffiliated with Sotheby's may have helped to back a guaranteed price for the Bacon (along the lines that I described in my Wall Street Journal article today). Since the painting far outstripped its presale estimate (and, presumably, its guarantee), the gamble should have paid off handsomely for the guarantors, who typically take a large percentage of the price in excess of the amount that they guarantee to the seller.

I wonder if there were any questions about the Bacon's "interested parties" at the post-sale press conference. We'll have to read Lindsay tomorrow.

I won't be able to give you the same kind of blow-by-blow blog tomorrow night for Christie's, as I did tonight for Sotheby's (in my prior post): Their sale, estimated to bring a hammer total of $225-305 million (higher than tonight's estimate) won't be webcast.

And Christopher Burge is SO ready for prime time!

Francis Bacon's "Study of Innocent X" has just gone for $47 million (hammer price); estimated at "more than $30 million." Stay tuned for Pollock next.

First big buy-in of the night: Pollock's "Number 16, 1949," unsold at $17.5 million against an estimate of $18-25 million. Stayed tuned for Rockefeller's Rothko next.

Rockefeller's Rothko sells for $65 million hammer price, against an estimate of "more than $40 million." The next three works, including another Pollock, (estimated at $12-16 million), were bought in, as if the crowd needed to catch its breath.

Rauschenberg "Photograph," a 1959 combine, sells at $9.5 million, below its low estimate of $10 million.

Lots of interest in Wesselmann's "Smoker #17," selling for a hammer price of $5.2 million, outstripping its estimate of $2.5-$3.5 million. Haven't they heard about the new movie ratings?

Uh-oh, another unsold Pollock at $2.6 million, against an estimate of $3.5-4.5 million.

A Yayoi Kusama from 1959 more than triples its estimate at $1.35 million.

Earlier in the sale: Basquiat defies his estimate of $6-8 million. Hammer price: $13 million.

Also earlier in the sale, Richter's 1967 painting of two nudes was a big casualty at $7.75 million, unsold against an estimate of $9-12 million.

Darn, unlike last week's evening sale, they turned off both the audio and the video of the webcast as soon as the auction ended. No unguarded moments. Actually, there was one: "Who executes the order?" auctioneer Tobias Meyer whispered to someone who walked up to the podium, shortly before the Bacon bidding began. Probably unheard by the attending audience, this was picked up by the webcast mike.

We'll get the official tallies (including records, with buyer's premium) soon, but, Pollocks and the Richter notwithstanding, prices compared very favorably with presale estimates, and bidding (except for those dramatic decisions at the highest price levels, for the Bacon and Rothko) seemed generally brisk.

For images and more information about all these works, go to Sotheby's online catalogue here.

Just a reminder: You can watch the auction action tonight, as I will, from the comfort of the computer screen. "The Price is Right" starts at 7 p.m., Eastern Auction Time. If you really want to watch the paint dry, you can view the countdown to zero-hour on the already live link on Sotheby's website. Can we stand the suspense?

My friendly colleague Lindsay Pollock of Bloomberg has just suggested that I pick up "a bucket of popcorn to accompany the show."

She also took the occasion to tease me, saying that she, too, beat me to the Rothko story. She even helpfully provided the link.

Cancel the popcorn. I want a double-scoop rhubarb sundae with bitter-herb topping.

As Tyler Green has just commented, it's about time that the J. Paul Getty Trust added some trustees with art expertise.

Unfortunately, two of its three new appointees (announced here)---Paul LeClerc and Neil Rudenstine---have the wrong kind of art experience: They were the prime movers in the New York Public Library's deplorable disposal of Asher B. Durand's "Kindred Spirits": the former as the library's president and CEO; the latter as the NYPL trustee who wrote the Ad Hoc Art Properties Committee report recommending the sales. (I wrote at length in the Wall Street Journal about the Durand disposal here.)

That leaves Frances Fergusson, former Vassar president, who, among her "many other [unnamed] responsibilities" alluded to in the Getty's press release are memberships on several corporate boards: HSBC USA (and its principal subsidiary HSBC Bank USA), Mattel and Wyeth. Also unmentioned in the release: She is an architectural historian.

Sotheby's officials may think they deserve all the credit for snaring David Rockefeller's Rothko (above), estimated to bring more than $40 million at tonight's auction. But I think it was really all about CultureGrrl's karma:

"Number one in sales does not mean number one in profits," Bill Ruprecht, Sotheby's president and CEO was telling me, during a wide-ranging interview in his office for my article, Tricks of the Auction Trade, in today's Wall Street Journal. "There's a confidence and certainty within our organization about the parts of the market that we wish to be really good at."

Just at that strangely appropriate moment, a young woman knocked, entered and handed him a note on a slip of paper, accompanied by a highly significant look.

"I'll be right back. I really am sorry," said Ruprecht, seeming genuinely contrite for interrupting a mere reporter. He promptly returned and picked up the thread of our conversation, as if nothing had happened.

At the end, while I sat outside his office, waiting for some catalogues to be bestowed upon me before my departure, Bill circled back and for the first time betrayed obvious excitement as told me that in two weeks he would let me know what had actually transpired during that brief phone call. As he turned to leave, I beseeched him, in vain, to come back immediately and tell me the news at that very mome