Lightning Devastates Guggenheim-Acquired "Second House" by Richard Prince

PrinceHouse.jpg
Second House, 2003. Interior view. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. © Richard Prince

The Guggenheim has been having a bizarrely off-kilter year: First, the theft of a Goya from a truck that was transporting it from the Toledo Museum in Ohio to the Guggenheim's blockbuster Spanish paintings show. The painting was subsequently recovered, but neither the name of the shipper nor any arrests of those involved in the theft have ever been announced.

Next, the cancellation of the museum's plans to be only American venue for another blockbuster involving the same Spanish master, Citizens and Kings: Portraiture in the Age of David and Goya, the last exhibition co-organized by its late curator, Robert Rosenblum. The Guggenheim had to pull out of the three-museum traveling show because the extensive restoration of its aging Frank Lloyd Wright building involved "unforeseen exterior restoration work, including the replacement of lights, the reinforcement of the apron slab, and exterior concrete repair," a Guggenheim spokesperson told CultureGrrl at the time. A substitute venue had been sought but, apparently, not found.

And now, as reported yesterday by Artnet, a planned Guggenheim acquisition, Richard Prince's "Second House" in Rensselaerville, NY, has been destroyed. Walter Robinson writes:

On June 28, 2007, lightning hit the building, sparking a fire that reduced the wood structure to ashes.

[The Guggenheim later responded to my request for confirmation and comment, and said that the lightning strike was on June 27, not the 28th and that the damage was "significant." See further Guggenheim updates and clarifications, below.]

According to the Guggenheim's 2005 press release on the property's acquisition:

Individual Car Hood sculptures in the house have been acquired by several Guggenheim trustees and patrons and promised to the museum for its permanent collection. The house itself, the other works that comprise its contents, and the land on which the house is located have been promised to the Foundation by the artist.

The Guggenheim had planned to "keep the house open to the public five months a year for at least 10 years, after which time the artworks [would] enter the Guggenheim's contemporary holdings as a definitive example of Prince's practice," according to an essay by curator Nancy Spector.

As (bad) luck would have it, the Guggenheim is poised to open a Richard Prince retrospective, Sept. 28-Jan. 9, in which his "Second House" would undoubtedly have played an important role.

UPDATE: My request for further clarification an comment, sent last night by me to the Guggenheim, has just been answered this afternoon. Betsy Ennis, director of public affairs, writes:

We can confirm that on June 27, 2007, Richard Prince's "Second House," an art installation which was gifted by the artist to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 2005, was struck by lightning during an electrical storm. The damage from the fire caused by the lightning was significant and is currently being assessed by the Foundation in consultation with the artist and the insurance company. The suite of Hood sculptures which are being donated to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation were not on the premises at the time.

July 6, 2007 10:56 AM | | Comments (0) |

Categories:

Leave a comment

About

CULTUREGRRL , aka Lee Rosenbaum, is your inside guide to the artworld, consulted daily by the most important museum directors and curators, art dealers and auctioneers, collectors, scholars, critics, journalists and art lovers.
LeeAcrop.jpg

KEEP CULTUREGRRL BLOGGING! Please Contribute (Secure transaction via PayPal):
(You do not need to have your own PayPal account: Click the "continue" link at lower left of the donation page.)

ADVERTISE on CultureGrrl MUSEUMS, GALLERIES, AUCTION HOUSES, ART PUBLICATIONS, ARTS PROGRAMS---Please go here and click the "CultureGrrl" box to place an ad. For more information on advertising, e-mail here. more

LEE ROSENBAUM
I'm a veteran cultural journalist who writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal's "Leisure & Arts" page. I've been a regular cultural contributor on New York Public Radio (WNYC). I've appeared as an art-market commentator on BBC-TV and have published numerous Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. I am author of The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf) and have lectured on cultural property issues at the New Acropolis Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, on deaccessioning at Columbia Law School, the University of Iowa and the annual conference of the Museum Association of New York, and on museum governance and cultural property issues at Seton Hall University. more

Contact me

Click here to send me an email...

more

Archives

Archives: 1980 entries and counting

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:
Michael Conforti Profile
Making Sales Look Stronger
Lee Krasner's "Little Image "Paintings
Ando-Designed Stone Hill Center for Conservation and Clark Exhibitions
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)

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
Her Art Came First: Anne d'Harnoncourt's Labor of Love

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:
Museum of Arts and Design Opens
New Met Director, Brian Lehrer Show
Tom Campbell Named Met Director
Whitney Museum's Expansion
Fake Coptic Art at Brooklyn Museum
Spring '08 Art Auctions
Should Veterans or Newcomers Lead Arts Organizations?
Murakami at Brooklyn Museum
Whitney Biennial
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 Fall '07 Art Market

PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC RADIO:
Philadelphia Museum's "Gross Clinic" Deaccessions
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

Blogroll

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by CultureGrrl published on July 6, 2007 10:56 AM.

Met Pays the Ransom for an Albright-Knox Antiquity was the previous entry in this blog.

Own a Robie House Brick; Sleep in a Wright Prefab is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

AJ Ads

Introducing
AJ Arts Blog Ads

Now you can reach the most discerning arts blog readers on the internet. Target individual blogs or topics in the ArtsJournal ad network.

Advertise Here

[advertisement]

[advertisement]

AJ Blogs

AJBlogCentral | rss

culture
About Last Night
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Artful Manager
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
blog riley
rock culture approximately
critical difference
Laura Collins-Hughes on arts, culture and coverage
Dewey21C
Richard Kessler on arts education
diacritical
Douglas McLennan's blog
Dog Days
Dalouge Smith advocates for the Arts
Flyover
Art from the American Outback
Life's a Pitch
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
Mind the Gap
No genre is the new genre
Performance Monkey
David Jays on theatre and dance
Plain English
Paul Levy measures the Angles
Real Clear Arts
Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture
Rockwell Matters
John Rockwell on the arts
Straight Up |
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude

dance
Foot in Mouth
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Seeing Things
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...

jazz
Jazz Beyond Jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
ListenGood
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Rifftides
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

media
Out There
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Serious Popcorn
Martha Bayles on Film...

classical music
The Future of Classical Music?
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
On the Record
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Overflow
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
PianoMorphosis
Bruce Brubaker on all things Piano
PostClassic
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Sandow
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Slipped Disc
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds

publishing
book/daddy
Jerome Weeks on Books
Quick Study
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera

theatre
Drama Queen
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
lies like truth
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world

visual
Aesthetic Grounds
Public Art, Public Space
Another Bouncing Ball
Regina Hackett takes her Art To Go
Artopia
John Perreault's art diary
CultureGrrl
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Modern Art Notes
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog
Creative Commons License
This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.