More on Eli Broad from Martin Filler (and me)

Broad-ly Speaking at LACMA
More Eli Broad criticism occurs in Martin Filler's brilliantly titled piece for the latest New York Review of Books (Mar. 20), Broad-Minded Museum. (Why didn't my editors think of that?) A key passage:
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art receives substantial public funds and many of its staff members are civil service employees of Los Angeles County. Thus the parties who acceded to Broad's de facto privatization of a big chunk of LACMA--the cultural equivalent of a leveraged buyout, or taking a public company private--have done a grave disservice to the taxpayers of the county, who, whether they like it or not, will be footing the bill for much of Broad's monument to himself.
Broad's insistence on naming LACMA's new contemporary art facility for himself while withholding gifts from his collection, his initial reluctance (eventually reversed) to allow other donors' names on individual galleries, and the presence of large plaques (above) with color photos of him and his wife at the top-floor and ground-floor entrances of LACMA's Broad Contemporary Art Museum are in stark contrast to the situation at London's Tate Modern, involving its own recently announced major contemporary art benefaction. The galleries containing these gifts are not to be called the Anthony d'Offay Rooms. They are "Artists Rooms."
I do believe that major patrons should be allowed naming opportunities if they want them. But that's it. No further self-aggrandizement, as occurs in the above-pictured plaque extolling Eli's business success and endorsing his "lending library" paradigm for big private collections. Here's the last sentence from this memorial:
The Broad Contemporary Art Museum will ensure that the Broads' vision of making great works of art accessible to a broad [pun intended?] public is institutionalized in one of the country's leading encyclopedic museums.
My hope is that Broad's new "vision"---holding works privately in perpetuity and doling them out in temporary, rotating loans to museums---is institutionalized nowhere else.
Categories:
About
ADVERTISE on CultureGrrl MUSEUMS, GALLERIES, AUCTION HOUSES, ART PUBLICATIONS, ARTS PROGRAMS---Join the ranks of CultureGrrl's inaugural advertisers (on right). Please go here to place an ad. For more information on advertising, e-mail here.
LEE ROSENBAUM
Contact me
Click here to send me an email...
Blogroll
About Last Night
Art History Newsletter
Art History Today (U.K.)
Art Law Blog
Art Observed
Art To Go (Seattle)
Artblog.net
Articulations (Smithsonian)
Artopia
Design Observer
A Don's Life
Edward Lifson (Chicago)
Exhibitionist (Boston)
Eye Level (SAAM)
Foot in Mouth (dance)
Illicit Cultural Property
LA Observed (Los Angeles)
Looking Around (Time)
Looting Matters
Modern Kicks
NewYorkology--Architecture
NewYorkology--Museums
NYC Opera Fanatic
Opera Chic
Slog (Seattle)
Tropolism
Walker
AJ Ads
AJ Blogs
AJBlogCentral | rssspecial
the blog of the National Performing Arts Convention
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
rock culture approximately
Rebuilding Gulf Culture after Katrina
Douglas McLennan's blog
Art from the American Outback
John Rockwell on the arts
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude
dance
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...
media
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Martha Bayles on Film...
music
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds
publishing
Jerome Weeks on Books
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera
theatre
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world
Elizabeth Zimmer on time-based art forms
visual
Public Art, Public Space
John Perreault's art diary
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog
