Shrink These Links: MASS MoCA Woes, Global Hermitage Shrinks, Russians Fear Legal Claims on Art Loans

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---Want the FULL story of the MASS MoCA mess? Geoff Edgers of the Boston Globe is you man. His 3,500 words on the subject, plus narrated slide show of the installation- and de-installation-in-progress, are here. The thing that bothers me most about Debacle Büchel is the financial and reputational damage to an institution that has been such a positive, creative and supportive force for the artworld and for artists since it opened in 1999.

---Maybe the concept of the Global Museum---intended to share the art, build "the brand" and exploit the collection as cash cow---is not all it's cracked up to be. John Varoli of Bloomberg reports:

The State Hermitage Museum...said it is closing its branch in London because of funding problems and rising exhibition costs. The five Hermitage Rooms opened in November 2000 in the 18th- century Somerset House next to the Thames, sharing space with the Courtauld Institute of Art. (At this writing, I could find no evidence of this planned closure on the websites of the Hermitage or the Courtauld Institute.)

The Hermitage hasn't been much of a presence lately at another of its outposts, the Guggenheim Hermitage in Las Vegas. The last Hermitage show left the building in September 2006. The current show in the Las Vegas facility, Modern Masters from the Guggenheim Collection, opened at the end of July and holds the fort until the end of April.

---In other London-Russian news, the Hermitage, Pushkin, Tretyakov, and State Russian museums are concerned that works to be loaned to an upcoming Royal Academy exhibition could be seized by claimants. Charlotte Higgins of the Manchester Guardian reports:

The British government has been asked by the RA to send a letter to the Russian authorities assuring them that the works loaned to the UK will be protected from seizure by companies with a financial claim against the Russian state....Legislation is in progress, and should come into effect early next year, according to a spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), though it will probably not have received royal consent by the time the exhibition opens in January.

October 23, 2007 7:33 AM | | 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 October 23, 2007 7:33 AM.

Detailed Analysis of the New Fractional Gifts Bill was the previous entry in this blog.

Latest Developments in Maier and Fisk Deaccession Attempts is the next entry in this blog.

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