My WNYC Krens Commentary and Where the Guggenheim Should Go From Here

Thomas Krens

Here's what I said today on WNYC, as well as a few additional comments:

I have no idea if he wants it, but, as I said on the radio, I think Michael Govan of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art would be the ideal next director of the Guggenheim. True, he's been at his current post for less than two years, but job-hopping is not unheard of in the museum world.

My guess is that Govan's heart is in New York and in the contemporary artworld. Maybe he can forge a Guggenheim relationship with a new Dia "satellite" in Manhattan. This could be a win-win.

And if he leaves Los Angeles, he can stop taking a crash course on antiquities issues at the knee of the Getty Museum's director, Michael Brand. Govan's been picking Brand's brains ever since LACMA was raided by the feds, looking for information about Ban Chiang artifacts from Thailand.

But back to the Guggenheim: I believe, or at least hope, that there will be a return to sanity---core mission, core collection, core curatorial expertise. And I think that with the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi (if it actually happens) we will have seen the last of the Global Guggenheim satellites. There also needs to be a return to financial sanity, relying for economic support on a core base of stable friends of the museum, rather than the next new rich guy on the block, looking for a quick fix of cultural and social cachet.

You can read the Guggenheim's press release about Krens' imminent departure here. Here's my previous CultureGrrl critique of Krens' globe-trotting ways. And here's my 2002 Wall Street Journal critique of the Guggenheim's then shaky finances.