May 2008 Archives

Roger Ebert

Critics face this problem all the time: We all carry around with us certain likes, dislikes, prejudices and personal baggage. That means we may not always be well suited to review everything that comes our way. Yet we do it anyway, usually without revealing our conflicts-of-disinterest. One wonders, for example, how critic Roger Kimball, a champion of "classical realism," will be able to credibly review the work of certain major art movements after categorically dismissing, in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, "pop, op, minimalism, and neo-Dada performance art that have infested the art world like a gigantic flea market."

Full disclosure from me: I rarely watch television and I have never had the patience to view an episode of "Sex and the City" from beginning to end (even though I was a great Baryshnikov fan in his heyday). But I have close (single) friends who are passionate fans and would never accept a phone call from me at the show's appointed hour.

The conqueror of French archaeologists
Photo: French Ministry of Culture

Has Julius Caesar been dredged up from a French riverbed? CBC News reports:

A bust found at the bottom of a river in Arles, France, may be the truest representation of Julius Caesar ever found. The marble sculpture of a man in his 50s, with facial wrinkles and a receding hairline, may have been carved from life. Archeologists say the bust dates from 49 to 46 B.C. when Caesar reigned and the town of Arles was founded. It also resembles official portraits of Julius Caesar from coins struck in his lifetime.

Agence France-Presse reports that the marble sculpture "was found with other artifacts" during excavations directed by French archaeologist Luc Long. And the French Ministry of Culture quickly put its imprimatur on the purported identity of the bust's illustrious sitter. The French news agency quotes a ministry statement that this is "the oldest representation yet known of Caesar" and "typical of a series of realistic portraits from the period of the [Roman] republic."

Mary Beard, Cambridge classics professor and A Don's Life blogger, is not convinced:

This sculpture is, I should say, a very nice piece of work---and looks remarkably good for something that has been at the bottom of the Rhone for a couple of thousand years. There is, I suppose, a remote possibility that it does represent Julius Caesar, but no particular reason at all to think that it does---still less to think that it was done from life....I'm afraid it's "start again" time on the explanations for this one.

Mary's wit and wisdom have attracted her usual coterie of erudite commentators: Some 78 classicists and would-be classicists. have weighed in so far. One wag said of the homely mug:

If I had a face like that, would I want it immortalised in stone for all time?

I came, I saw, I guffawed.

Excerpt from Elliott Carter's first opera, "What Next?"

I didn't make it to last Thursday's well received Metropolitan Opera Orchestra performance of Elliott Carter's 1955 "Variations for Orchestra." But I did see, the night before, both its conductor, James Levine, and the high-spirited, keen-minded 99-year-old Carter himself at the Museum of Modern Art, where they conversed onstage after a world premiere of a filmed live performance, conducted by Levine, of Carter's mysterious, whimsical, "What Next?"---a one-act opera composed when Carter was 94. (That's the age they gave last week, but MoMA's press materials say it was composed in 1997, which would have meant the composer was a mere octogenarian.)

Why had Carter waited so long to compose his first opera?

I was always interested in opera. I just didn't know why they sang!

He finally found inspiration in a scene from a 1971 Jacques Tati film, "Traffic": Six victims (or possibly, in the filmed Carter version, their disembodied souls) emerge from the wreckage of a serious car accident.

Levine, who is music director of the Metropolitan Opera and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, noted that he had always wanted to mount experimental, contemporary opera: "Once I got into a situation where I had more control over it, I made up for lost time." He added that he hoped Carter would compose more such work.

So during the question and answer period, I asked my favorite American composer if he'd take Levine up on the operatic challenge. He replied that he couldn't say, because he'd first have to come up with another idea that, to his mind, called for song. Levine immediately observed how great it would be to be able to present a Carter double-bill. ("What Next?" is about 40 minutes long.)

In case anyone had any doubts about the venerable composer's current state of musical health, he answered a question about whether he had ever thought of creating a work for percussion ensemble by remarking how timely that query was: He had that very afternoon been perusing his printed proofs for such a piece.

Levine and the Tanglewood Music Center (where "What Next?" was filmed) are planning to celebrate "Carter's Century," July 20-24, billing the series of concerts as "the first time a major composer will be present at has own centennial celebration."

We can only hope. Based on the evidence last week---when this difficult, cerebral composer basked in the audience's admiration---it looks like an excellent bet:

It was estimated at $2-3 million. The Latin American sale at Christie's is still in progress, but the "Trovador"'s long song at Randolph College's Maier Museum is, sadly, finished.

MoMA director Glenn Lowry (left) interviews a very outspoken Chuck Close at a recent conference in New York

This just in---a changing-of-the-guard press release  from the Whitney Museum:

In elections held yesterday by the Board of Trustees of the Whitney Museum of American Art, current Chairman Leonard A. Lauder was named Chairman Emeritus, while continuing to be a voting member of the Board....In addition, Fred Wilson was elected Artist Trustee, replacing Chuck Close.

More than most heads of art museum boards, Lauder wielded influence over the Whitney's operations that seemed at least equal to, if not greater than, that of the succession of directors who came and went from the museum during his 14-year chairmanship. The announcement comes a little more than two months after Lauder pledged to give the museum the largest gift in its history---some $131 million---on the unusual condition that it not sell its original Marcel Breuer building when it expands to downtown Manhattan's Meatpacking district. Soon after that announcement, CultureGrrl guest blogger Martin Filler opined that Lauder's strings-attached benefaction may have been "one of his most valuable gifts to the Whitney."

It's going to take two co-chairmen to fill the 75-year-old Lauder's shoes: Robert Hurst, formerly board president, and Brooke Garber Neidich, formerly vice chairman. Neil Bluhm, formerly vice chairman, is the new president.

As for Chuck Close---he was named to the board in 2000 under the prior directorship of Max Anderson. Today's press release hailed him as "the first artist to serve on a board of a major New York art museum." His was originally supposed to have been a one-year rotating artist's spot on the board, but the initial appointment stuck.

Close recently let it be known, however, that he felt disaffected from recent developments at the museum: In public comments during a Q&A with the Museum of Modern Art's director, Glenn Lowry (both above), at the "American Icons" conference that I recently attended at the New-York Historical Society, Close said, disapprovingly, that the museum was dropping the "American Art" part of its full name.

Close further observed:

A lot of the [Whitney's] trustees and a lot of the curators chafed under the idea that it has to be the 'Whitney Museum of American Art.' They wished they could have Kiefer....I think it's an incredible slap in the face of American artists, if we were to suggest that the only museum in the United States solely devoted to the work of American artists can't find enough interesting American art and artists to show. What an insult! It's also our branding; it's our specialness; it's what makes us unique.

My initial surprise at this incautious candor is tempered by the knowledge I now have that he was on his way out. There's no current indication however, on either the Whitney's website or its press releases, that it will be dropping the last three words from its traditional title. In any event, Close is wrong in his assertion that the Whitney is the only U.S. museum solely devoted to the art of this country.

What seems clear, though, is that Close perceives what he considers to be a regrettable impending change in the Whitney's time-honored mission. Time (and the reconstituted board, under director Adam Weinberg's leadership) will tell.

Kathleen Foster, senior curator of American art at the Philadelphia Museum, speaking about Eakins' "The Gross Clinic" at the "American Icons" conference

Critics of the source countries' stance in the cultural-property wars (such as Edward Rothstein in yesterday's NY Times) frequently call into question the assertion by Greeks, Italians, Egyptians and others that context is crucial. Having admired antiquities in both encyclopedic museums and source-country museums, I appreciate the advantages of each and wouldn't want to do without either. But part of the joy of travel is experiencing the special resonance that large concentrations of superlative pieces have when encountered near their original surroundings.

Nevertheless, when I was asked to speak last March at the Athens International Conference on the Return of Cultural Objects to their Countries of Origin, one of the questions that I received in advance from the chairman of my panel---Elena Korka, the head of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture's Directorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities---did give me pause:

In what way does the return of a cultural object to its country of origin and its restoration to its natural and historical context contribute to its better study and research?

She never got around to asking that loaded question during our public discussion, but I had prepared this equivocating response:

To the extent that you have a better concentration of experts and objects in the country of origin, you are probably in a better position to interpret and present these objects in a comprehensive, sophisticated way. But that's not to say that we'd be better off if everything went to its country of origin. I don't believe that's true and I'm not sure that the source countries believe that's true. I don't hear the Italian government say that the Getty Bronze should go back to Greece because it's a Greek sculpture.

I was thinking about the Greeks' insistence on the importance of an object's cultural and historical context while listening on May 16 to an analysis of the Eakins "rescue" by Kathleen Foster (above), the Philadelphia Museum's senior curator of American art, at a conference on "American Icons" held at the New-York Historical Society. She listed the 10 reasons why it was essential that Eakins' "The Gross Clinic" remain in Philadelphia, its city of origin.

Reason #9:

Context adds meaning and importance to a work of art.

In other words, she essentially espoused the source-country argument. Foster noted that the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which is now co-owner of the Eakins with the Philadelphia Museum, "is the most fabulous period frame we could build---an artifact of the same period, with archives and study materials about Eakins as a teacher." And when it returns to the Philadelphia Museum in July from its stint at PAFA, it will "drop into the middle of a hundred other works by Thomas Eakins"---given to the museum by the artist's widow.

Foster added:

The audience brings to an artwork their own experience and emotions. In Philadelphia, that's just a richer chemical reaction....To save "The Gross Clinic" is to defend the excellence of Philadelphia."

True, today's Philadelphians are closer in time to "The Gross Clinic" than today's Athenians are to the artifacts of ancient Athens. But the Greeks' "chemical reaction" is, if anything, more intense. Philadelphians had largely ignored the masterpiece in their midst until preempting its $68-million joint purchase by the National Gallery and Alice Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum became a highly expensive matter of local pride.

Meanwhile, in an Associated Press interview last week, James Cuno reasserted the argument of his new book that cultural property should know no geographical boundaries:

We know that culture has always been fluid, hybrid and mongrel, and has never accepted political borders, and it has linked more people together than it has separated. These cultural property laws...put walls up between peoples.

His obtuseness when it comes to understanding the concerns of source countries, which are motivated not only by politics but also by genuine concern for cultural heritage, is best illustrated by this excerpt from Cuno's AP remarks, in which he responds to an interviewer's observation that encyclopedic museums (which Cuno champions) are "concentrated in the West":

I recognize it's a legacy of the Enlightenment and that encyclopedic museums tend to be only where that legacy reached. It tends to be only Anglo-Saxon areas or where the French Enlightenment took place---France and Russia. That isn't an argument against the principle of the encyclopedic museum. It's an argument for encouraging the development of encyclopedic museums everywhere.

Wow, what a GREAT idea: Why don't we ALL start encyclopedic museums! Even Abu Dhabi, which has the funds for such a feat, knows that it must resort to rent-a-Louvre to get the goods at this late date.

But back to Foster: She concluded her talk with a call for vigilance against what I described (in this Wall Street Journal piece) as "culture vulture[s], poised to swoop down and seize tasty masterpieces from weak hands." Foster commented:

I worry about other icons being movable, as people of great wealth come to pluck them from other institutions looking for money to repair the roof....This is going to be happening again and again. We need to be ready to save our icons.

Speaking of which: Is a Christie's bidder, untroubled by such concerns, going to pluck Rufino Tamayo's Trovador from Randolph College's Maier Museum tonight?

Laden with Leighton? Sarah Jessica Parker at the premiere
Photo from sexandthecitymovieblog.com

It must be because I've proven myself such a fashionista that I've somehow gotten onto the publicity e-mail list for Fred Leighton, the jewelry firm owned by the American Folk Art Museum's financially embattled benefactor, Ralph Esmerian.

Fred Leighton keeps sending me photos of various glamorous celebrities who have borrowed the company's baubles for special events. It was so excited about the coup it scored for tonight's "Sex and the City" movie premiere that it couldn't even wait till the event actually took place before dispatching this prescient report to my in-box at 6:21 p.m. today:

The fabulous foursome of "Sex and the City: The Movie" created a sensation on the red carpet of New York's Radio City Music Hall. In stunning fashions and all wearing unique jewels from Fred Leighton, these ladies delighted their fans with their sensational style.

Sarah Jessica Parker, glamorous in a Nina Ricci gown, chose Fred Leighton's jewels for her special night---at her neck she wore three antique necklaces, a 19th-century diamond riviere necklace, a 19th-century diamond and pearl fringe necklace and a 19th-century gold diamond snake necklace, also a 9 carat diamond solitaire ring and diamond pendant stud earrings (6.76 carats and 8.66 carats each).

Kristin Davis shimmered in 19th-century diamond pendant earrings, a 19th-century diamond bracelet, and a 24.0 carat Alexandrite and diamond ring. Cynthia Nixon chose diamond pendant earrings 6.00 carats (each), a 16.00-carat ruby and diamond ring and a diamond bracelet to complement her Narciso Rodriguez white dress. Kim Cattrall, in a richly beaded Vivienne Westwood cocktail dress, wore old mine diamond pendant earrings and a Tahitian pearl and diamond ring.

Esmerian himself is a notorious borrower: It was a loan he got from Merrill Lynch to help finance his 2006 purchase of Fred Leighton that led to an on-again, off-again Christie's sale, which was to have liquidated some important Esmerian jewelry. According to a NY Times story by Allen Salkin, the jewels had been used "as part of his collateral for $187 million in loans from Merrill Lynch."

Last Thursday at Sotheby's American art auction, Esmerian did manage to cash in on Edward Hicks' "The Peaceable Kingdom with the Leopard of Serenity," which he had once promised to the American Folk Art Museum. It had been offered privately earlier this year through Sotheby's, but failed to find a buyer willing to meet Esmerian's price. It fetched $9.67 million at Thursday's public auction.

Meanwhile, it turns out that a lot of fans at tonight's overbooked "Sex and the City" event were far from "delighted," notwithstanding Fred Leighton's pre-premiere hype. And the four leading ladies don't look all that glamorous in this photo from the hot-off-the-internet report by the NY Daily News, headlined: "'Sex in the City' premier turns ugly."

Couldn't the headline writers get the second word in the show's title right?

Edward Rothstein, in a long think piece in today's NY Times, takes James Cuno's side in the cultural property wars. (I'll have more on that later.) As CultureGrrl readers know, I have a nuanced view on these issues, and don't fit neatly into either camp. Too often, each side in the cultural-property divide exaggerates its position to make its polemical point, rendering reasonable compromise---the only way these issues will be resolved---more difficult.

Here's the response of one CultureGrrl reader, Christian Kleinbub, assistant professor, of art history, Ohio State University, to Cuno Conundrum: Whose Law Is It, Anyway?, my post criticizing Cuno's new book:

I found your reactions to be much more animatedly negative than my own---to a degree that I would say is unfair. First, you criticize Cuno for saying that laws about looting simply don't work, citing the Italian example as evidence that they do. But this seems to me to be a merely academic point on your part. Do you really believe that most countries could have any effect like Italy's? Perhaps Italy is an exception that may be said to prove the rule.

Secondly, I would point out that Cuno himself addresses the fact that some people consider "partage" to be something akin to "pillage." Perhaps it is time for people to reconsider the issue. I sometimes think your sympathies get stretched a bit far, to the point of a certain ultra-orthodoxy. Emotions in these debates are often manipulated by governments and special interests: Is it either honest or intellectually correct to give them a free pass on all occasions?

Finally, I would add that Cuno is hardly the first person to point out that nationalist retentionist policies claiming direct descent from particular peoples sometimes strain intellectual credulity. Just because someone claims a certain heritage doesn't make it so. If we want to make sophisticated arguments about national patrimony, we need to make more objective evaluations of what is at stake. I suspect that this will involve evaluating the emotional nationalist claims of other countries instead of treating them as universally valid.

Wanna be the Metropolitan Museum's next director? For what it's worth, here's the complete official job description (hard to read here, but I'll translate below):



A list of possible candidates was recently submitted to the trustees' search committee by the Met's headhunters, Phillips Oppenheim. (Don't bother looking for the job description on that site; it doesn't even mention the Met as a client.) I was told by two different sources that the candidates' list skews young. Kate Taylor, who has a story in the NY Sun about New York's succession obsession, was apparently told the same thing, and we were both also told that Timothy Rub, director of the Cleveland Museum (who, at 56, is not all THAT young) is on the list. Can he really get up and leave Cleveland before its renovated and expanded facility is functional? Ay, there's the Rub. (How many times has he had to put up with THAT Shakespearean allusion?) The European and American paintings galleries are supposed to reopen later this year, so that's a start.

Formerly director of the Cincinnati Art Museum, Rub was a somewhat surprising choice when he was named to the much more prestigious Cleveland post in January 2006. Cleveland was then already closed for its major Rafael Viñoly-designed overhaul. I've spoken to Rub once and my first impression was favorable. I do know that his views on cultural-property issues differ, at least in one respect, from Philippe de Montebello's (not necessarily a bad thing). Cleveland, of course, has its own cultural-property issues with both Italy and Greece (here and here).

To see a video of Rub describing Cleveland's construction project, holding his jacket casually slung over his right shoulder, Frank Sinatra-style, and expressively waving his hardhat in his left hand, go here. He ends his well-spoken tour with a jaunty, "Pretty cool, huh?" And he does look younger than his advanced years!

With its preference for youth, the search committee apparently disagrees with my recent comment on WNYC's Soundcheck Smackdown that a well seasoned professional, rather than a come-lately, might be the best choice to assume the deanship of American art museums. I guess they're keen on discovering someone who may vie with Philippe for number of years in office.

If you don't think you're quite ready for the Met's top job, the requirements for the next director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum can be found at the above-linked Phillips Oppenheim website. Just click on "Current Searches" and scroll down to "Solomon..." You will discover that "having lived in another country [is] a plus." Will Abu Dhabi become the new main office?

But back to the Met. Here, in full, are the above-pictured document's two paragraphs on "Requirements":

The Director's qualifications should include: a commitment to the Museum's mission and the primacy of the collection; ability to embody its standards of scholarship and curatorial excellence and to articulate and uphold the values of the institution; passionate connoisseurship with a broad, informed appreciation of art or the facility to acquire it beyond an area of specialization; respect for and strong support of curatorial talent; able to represent effectively the institution to its constituents and play a leadership role in the international art world; capacity to lead a large institution and to develop and articulate its strategic course; ability to engage a sophisticated board of trustees; enthusiasm for and effectiveness at cultivating donors, collectors and other supporters; excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to motivate, direct and hold accountable a highly skilled staff in a notably collegial environment; effective abilities delegating and communicating expectations; experience setting rigorous standards and inspiring others to achieve them; record of recruiting and mentoring exceptional professional talent; a practiced, effective and confident decision maker who inspires trust; a doctorate is desirable but not required [as it wasn't of Philippe].

The individual will be: a person of unassailable integrity, diplomatic and tactful; a strong leader who is decisive, fair and a confident and wise delegator; a broad-minded humanist who inspires institutional pride; highly intelligent; a good communicator and an even better listener; flexible and in possession of a sense of humor.

In other words, trustee emerita Jayne Wrightsman was right (but was not my source for the above document) when I asked her about the status of the search, during a chance encounter at the press preview for the Met's new show, Medieval and Renaissance Treasures from the Victoria and Albert Museum. Smiling at me as enigmatically as the Vermeer that she famously donated to the Met, its long-time patron declared:

We're not letting Philippe go. We are going to clone him!

Then she went back to admiring the objects:

Ron Hartwig, the J. Paul Getty Trust's vice president for communications, responds to Getty Operating Deficit Soars: Wood Cuts Jobs, Goats Cut Underbrush:

Sorry, but your attempt to link the Getty's "operating deficit" to our recent strategic move---to reduce and streamline operating costs, both at the Trust and within our four programs, together with programmatic reprioritization, to increase by 25% the amount of funds available to strengthen the focus our Programs put on art---is just plain wrong! There is no link. 

The planning and budgetary issues we just dealt with have to do with the long-term and have nothing to do with our "operating deficit." The Getty is financially healthy now, and with careful mangement of our endowment and the steps we've taken, will be in the future.

 

I'm sorry you found the announcement about using goats to clear the brush on the hillsides surrounding the Getty Center frivolous. Brush clearance to avoid fires is a major issue in Los Angeles and using goats to make the clearance process environmentally sound is applauded locally.

New Hire at the Getty?

The J. Paul Getty Trust, which recently posted its fiscal 2007 annual report online, last year incurred a staggering operating deficit of $49.36 million on a budget of $307.7 million. The previous year, the deficit was $18.29 million on a $293.57-million budget.

This growing shortfall is likely one of the reasons for the recently announced elimination of 114 jobs, including 40 layoffs. Anne-Marie O'Connor of the LA Times recently quoted this explanation for the cuts by trust president James Wood:

The whole goal here is to focus the Getty on the core mission of the visual arts. This is to ensure that we have flexible funds to devote to both building our collections in the museum, the research institute and the library and undertake targeted strategic initiatives where we feel we can really make a difference...

...and maybe also to insure something resembling a balanced budget. The main contributing factor to the spike in the deficit from the previous year was the decline in contributions from $36.2 million in fiscal 2006 to only $2.2 million in fiscal 2007. Because of its already fabulous wealth, the Getty has a hard time soliciting donations.

The endowment, as of the June 30th end of the fiscal year, was a hefty $6.4 billion, compared to $5.6 billion in fiscal 2006, so times are not that tough. Unlike most museums, the Getty reports the total value of its collections on its financial statement---$1.8 billion. Capitalizing collections in this manner is something most museums resist, because they do not regard collections as assets than can be tapped for operations. Getty spokesperson Ron Hartwig acknowledged to me that "most other museums do not list their works of art on their balance sheet. We are taking a look at this."

Despite its vast wealth, the Getty feels compelled to cut back its window-washing to "once a year instead of three times," as revealed by Wood to the LA Times. And I've never encountered a museum press release like the recent Getty Goat announcement: It has hired about 60 of these beasts as landscapers, "to nibble away the flammable brush around its 110-acre hillside campus in Brentwood."

Some of the fired Getty employees may be disgruntled, but at least the new hires are happy. According to Lynne Tjomsland, manager of grounds and gardens, quoted in the Getty's press release:

The goats love their work.

UPDATE: Patricia Woodworth, the Getty Trust's chief financial officer, has informed me that the "large contribution of the Stark Sculpture Collection" in fiscal 2006 is what accounted for the unusually high figure for contributions that year. She added that the Getty's operating results are significantly impacted by the depreciation charge, which in fiscal 2007 amounted to $47.8 million, compared to $45 million the previous year.

Readers respond to Tamayo, the First Maier Museum Deaccession, Offered Next Week:

Erik Neil, executive director of the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, NY, writes:

This is a sad expedient for a college with such a distinguished legacy in the arts. A quick fix now and then in a couple years there will be reports about new financial and management problems. This sale will not solve the ongoing failure of leadership. The current and future students at Randolph College are being short changed.

Roy (Bud) Johns, a collector and plaintiff in the charitable trust suit pending in Virginia Supreme Court, which challenges recent changes at Randolph College, writes:

Bravo for your Maier Museum/Tamayo column and your continuing opposition to such sales. The college's president and board of trustees continue to be inaccurate in their statements. One of the two suits on which the Virginia Supreme Court will rule soon (the breach of contract suit) is strictly about the coeducational issue and not the art. The other, however, the charitable trust suit, definitely involves the art (among other things) and the issues of donor intent.

I never knew Stephen Clark [the famed collector who donated the Tamayo to the Randolph College] but I've read much about him and his brother and I seriously question whether he intended for his gift of this great painting to the impressive permanent collection of a small women's college to end up on the block at Christie's.

I've been shirking my obligation to give you my opinion of James Cuno's new book (above), Who Owns Antiquity?, because I wasn't relishing the prospect of slamming it.

But on Monday, an e-mail hit my inbox from the book's Princeton University Press publicist, sending me links to other articles mentioning the book (including a Wall Street Journal review that found it "excellent" but marred by "surprising factual errors"). The imprudently eager publicist wrote me:

A while back you expressed some interest in Jim and his book and I'd be happy to set up an interview or provide any additional material you may need for the blog.

Okay, Jessica, you asked for it. Let me shred this book by focusing on a few key passages. Cuno keeps hammering at these same points over and over and over again:

All of the [source countries'] cultural property laws in force over the past four decades have not stopped---cannot stop---this [looting and destruction of archaeological sites]. They are a failed regime.

---Tell that to the Italians, who recently issued a report (which I can no longer find online) detailing the degree to which looting has been reduced. This is undoubtedly due to stepped up enforcement efforts within their own borders, but the overriding legal framework regarding cultural property also plays an important part in the overall climate of better protection. In the strictest sense, Cuno is correct: Looting (like any other crime) can never be "stopped." But a move in the right direction is a good start.

The best way to preserve the archaeological record...is to encourage scientific excavation...[and] broaden access to their finds through the restoration of partage.

---Cuno argues repeatedly for partage---the old system whereby American museums were allowed to remove and take ownership of some important objects from foreign excavations in which they participated. Those days are gone. In the view of source countries today, "partage" is a polite word for "pillage." Some archaeologists say that certain objects formerly taken under the cover of "partage" had never been authorized to leave the country. The best sharing that American museums can hope for today is a system allowing objects to leave their countries on long-term loan. Given the heightened cultural consciousness of source countries, outright ownership of co-excavated objects is no longer an option.

Here's Cuno's most outrageously inflammatory statement, which he saves for the epilogue:

I question the premise of nationalist retentionist cultural property laws: that it is the right of sovereign nations to legislate the protection of and access to whatever they consider to be their cultural property, that which they claim to be important to their national identities and self-esteem....Antiquities are ancient artifacts of times and cultures long preceding the history of the modern nation-state. And in all but a very few cases, they have no obvious relation to that state other than the accident of geography: they happen to have been found within its modern borders.

---What gives Cuno the right to dictate to foreign governments what laws they have a "right" to enact about objects within their own borders? Like Cuno, I'd prefer that those laws be modified. And further, I oppose our own country's criminalization of people who import objects that are only considered "stolen" because they violate another country's retentionist laws, which are inconsistent with our definition of stolen property in this country. I think that civil proceedings, not jailings, are more appropriate in such cases.

Other countries' cultural-property protection laws certainly have a political (maybe even an anti-American) agenda. But to dismiss the very real concern and serious commitment of citizens of other nations regarding their cultural heritage, and to insist that their treasures belong to the world despite their countries' laws to the contrary, expresses a degree of insulting condescension and insensitivity that has no place in the director's office of an encyclopedic American museum.
 
Cuno, who is now director of the Art Institute of Chicago, is getting some publicity mileage from his intemperate screed. But I feel it can do neither his own museum career nor the cause of "encyclopedic museums" any good. (Mercifully, he refrains from calling them "universal museums," a vainglorious coinage that lately seems to have gone out of circulation.)

By taking an extremist stance that belittles the deeply felt and legitimate concerns of archaeologists and source countries to preserve archaeological sites and national heritage, he undermines efforts by reasonable people on both sides of the cultural-property divide to arrive at mutually beneficial compromises. And he self-destructively undermines any role he might personally have played in working cooperatively with foreign governments to forge mutually beneficial sharing arrangements.

Except for calling attention to himself, it's a lose-lose book.

Particularly telling is this passage at the end of the indispensable Jori Finkel's NY Times Sunday profile of this self-appointed Cultural Defender of the Western World:

As for Mr. [Philippe] de Montebello's job [as director of the Metropolitan Museum], Mr. Cuno said nobody had contacted him about it. And if the Met were to call?

"It would be impossible not to have a conversation because of the importance of the museum and its role in the profession," he said. (In an e-mail message later that day, he put it somewhat differently: "I have not spoken with anyone at the Met nor do I intend to.")

Philippe's collegial book-jacket blurb notwithstanding, "Who Owns Antiquity?," to my mind, disqualifies Cuno for the premier American museum directorship, where deft diplomacy is a must-have skill.

Before the Fall: Tullio Lombardo, "Adam," ca. 1490-95, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Martin Bailey's report last week in the Art Newspaper about the damage to a 500-year-old panel painting by Domenico Beccafumi at London's National Gallery (which "slipped out of its temporary frame and dropped to the ground," breaking in half) brought to mind a major 2002 mishap at the Metropolitan Museum---the unfortunate fall of "Adam," a 15th-century sculpture by Venetian artist Tullio Lombardo, purchased by the Met in 1936.

According to an account by then NY Times reporter Celestine Bohlen, the marble nude "crashed to the ground in the Velez Blanco Patio..., scattering its arms, legs and an ornamental tree trunk into dozens of pieces." The museum said then that a side of the pedestal appeared to have buckled, causing the sculpture to topple over.

It was then said to be reparable, and Bohlen quoted director Philippe de Montebello's reassuring words:

The figure will stand again on a solid pedestal, and frankly only the cognoscenti will know.

So far, nobody knows: It hasn't been seen publicly since.

Here's what Met spokesperson Elyse Topalian told me when I inquired about the Lombardo guy:

It's still in conservation. The process is a long one and we don't have a date scheduled as yet for when it will be back on view. I'll keep you posted.

Apparently the fallen "Adam" previously suffered removal from display for a different reason. The Met's website entry for the statue confides:

Prudery led to its removal from display around 1810-19, when the monument was transferred to SS. Giovanni e Paolo.

Meanwhile, the sundered panels of "Marcia," the National Gallery's slippery Beccafumi damaged last January, are already together again and returned to the galleries.

I've become an expert on museum issues, on museum problems, on the history of museums, on the nature and purpose of museums. I expect what I'll be doing will be more museological than art historical. It would be closer to what I would call high art appreciation than art history.

---Philippe de Montebello at his January press conference, announcing his imminent departure from the Metropolitan Museum.

I had been really looking forward to marveling at Philippe Unchained.

He had indicated that he would feel less constrained about speaking out more forcefully on major museological issues once he left his Metropolitan Museum directorship and I was looking forward to the end of his self-censorship.

So I was delighted to read, at the beginning of Carol Vogel's article in today's NY Times about Philippe's next chapter---that he would be teaching "the history and culture of museums" at NYU's Institute of Fine Arts...a fine platform for his new bully pulpit.

But then I read the Abu Dhabi part and the consultancy part. Suddenly academic freedom didn't seem so free. As a consultant to "museums abroad that he declined to name," and as another ornament in Abu Dhabi's cultural crown, he'll have the perfect excuse to give free reign to his old habits of reticence and discretion.

We don't exactly know from the Times or from NYU's press release whether Philippe will advise on the megamillion Abu Dhabi museum project. But he'll be teaching there and, according to NYU's press release, he will be "structuring museum placement opportunities for students and graduates." Presumably this will mean a close working relationship with the nascent museums on Saadiyat Island.

Mariët Westermann, director of the IFA and vice chancellor for Abu NYU, alluded to the synergy between the new university outpost and the new cultural district, in her comments to Vogel:

Ms. Westermann said the visual arts curriculum at Abu Dhabi would be "very important," especially because of the ambitious program to build museums in the emirate. Both the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Louvre plan to open satellite institutions in a new cultural district there over the next few years.

In the university's press release, Philippe said:

My courses and seminars will be about ideas, not museum management or practice, but through them I hope to inspire new generations of gifted graduate students in art history to look favorably on opportunities in the museum world of the future."

...which probably means not casting aspersions on places like the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which he once candidly decried in Le Monde.

WNYC had website audio glitches for most of the day. It wasn't just my particular segment that was silenced...dispelling my paranoid fantasy that an ingenious auction minion, embedded at the radio station, had prevented my embeddng this market-analysis podcast on my blog.

Just kidding (I think). Here it is (I hope):

Rufino Tamayo, "Trovador," 1945

The evening Latin American sale on May 28 at Christie's includes one of the four lots from the collection of the Maier Museum, Randolph College, Lynchburg, VA, that were supposed to hit the block last November---Rufino Tamayo's Trovador (above), estimated at $2-3 million. The sales were stalled by a lawsuit filed by opponents, including alumnae. The opponents have now "unsuited" that legal challenge, but maintain that a broader lawsuit still pending in Virginia Supreme Court, which challenges the college's recent transformation from all-women to coed, could also protect the artworks.

Christie's and the administration of the college clearly believe otherwise. In a recent e-mail, Christie's spokesperson Toby Usnik told me:

It is our understanding that the college has clear right to sell the picture with Christie's and we are honored to help them do so.

In an Op-Ed piece last week in the Lynchburg News & Advance, John Klein and Lucy Hooper, the school's administrative president and board president, respectively, wrote:
.

Roman Abramovich

[UPDATE: You can now click on my podcast, at the end of this post. SECOND UPDATE: Oh what a glitchy morning! At this writing, nothing happens when you click the podcast, below. But I'm leaving it up because WNYC says it will fix the problem. We can only hope. THIRD UPDATE: There's now audio up, but it's the podcast for my WNYC auction report from last fall! Patience, Art-lings!]

If you listened this morning to my very rapid-fire analysis of the art market on WNYC, you heard me mention that Roman Abramovich---an orphan, a college dropout and now #15 on the Forbes billionaires list---is said to have bought the two big record-setters in the latest round of New York contemporary art auctions: Francis Bacon's "Triptych," which (at $86.28 million) set an auction record for a work for any contemporary artist; and Lucian Freud's "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping," which (at $33.64 million) set an auction record for a living artist.

The Art Newspaper, which had this scoop on Saturday, reports:

He [Abramovich] has not previously been known to purchase works of art at this level. These purchases demonstrate how the balance of power in the art world is shifting away from the U.S.

Speaking of globalism, Art Newspaper had previously reported that the "Rockefeller Rothko," auctioned last May, had gone to a Qatar sheikh and the Koons "Hanging Heart," auctioned last November, had gone to a Ukrainian billionaire.

Meanwhile, the Big Two auction houses have already laid plans for "Bacon and Freud, the Sequel." Bloomberg reports that Christie's is going to offer in London on June 30 Bacon's "Three Studies for a Self-Portrait,'' estimated at more than £10 million, and Freud's "Naked Portrait With Reflection,'' with a top estimate of £15 million. Bloomberg reports here that Sotheby's has snared Bacon's "Study for Head of George Dyer," for its July 1 London sale, where it is estimated to bring more than £8 million.

Here's the podcast of my three-minute mini-analysis:

Art is long; technology, glitchy.

Due to problems that WNYC had in establishing a phone line, I'm now scheduled to expound on the art market at 8:40 a.m. You'll note that when I inform you about my upcoming radio gigs, I always say, "if all goes according to plan"---because it frequently doesn't!

So tune in, if you dare, to 93.9 FM or 820 AM, or tune in to CultureGrrl later, when I link to the audio.

Can you sum up the current ambiguous state of the art market in a New York four minutes?

New York Public Radio's Soterios Johnson and I will try, if all goes according to plan, tomorrow during the 7 a.m. hour on WNYC's Morning Edition. (I'm not usually even awake at 7 a.m., so we'll see if I can manage to be coherent when caffeinated.)

Those of you who are early risers can hear me at 93.9 FM or 820 AM. Or you can listen live by clicking at the upper left corner of the station's website.

I'll post the audio later tomorrow on CultureGrrl, when the podcast is available.

My guess as to how Judge Stanley Ott of Montgomery County Orphans' Court would rule on the question of whether to reopen the Barnes Foundation case has proven, unfortunately, to be correct.

A bit less expeditiously than he had promised at the Mar. 24 court hearing, Judge Ott yesterday issued his ruling: He stood by his Dec. 13, 2004 decision to allow the Barnes to move from Merion, PA, to Philadelphia, saying that neither the Friends of the Barnes nor Montgomery County had appropriate legal standing to bring a suit requesting that the case be reopened.

In a press release (not online at this writing), Derek Gillman, executive director and president of the Barnes, commented:

This very clear ruling ends the present distraction and we are forging ahead with plans for the new building.

Carolyn Carluccio, deputy solicitor for Montgomery County, said this to me yesterday afternoon in an e-mail:

We are certainly disappointed. I will be meeting with the Chair of the County Commissioners, Jim Mathews, to determine whether it is in the County's interest to pursue an appeal.

There is more than a little irony in this part of judge's ruling:

As the Attorney General and the trustees point out, the County's "special interests" in protecting historical resources and nurturing economic welfare are matters within the purview of the Attomey General's office. That Office...protects the general public, and there is no authority for a second sovereign [i.e., Montgomery County] to participate on behalf of a subset of the general public.

The attorney general's office (as I previously stated in the post linked at the top) did a shockingly inadequate job in protecting the interests of the general public in the Barnes case, as Judge Ott himself scathingly observed in an earlier written opinion. Montgomery County did not seek to discredit the performance of the attorney general's office when it requested reconsideration of the judge's decision, because it did not feel it could properly attack another government entity. I'd call this a "Catch 22."

The Philadelphia Inquirer's report, quoting reaction from Friends of the Barnes, is here. The text of Judge Ott's ruling is here. We can only find it amusing that the judge confides he decided to do a Google search on "The Barnes Foundation," discovering "about 2,590,000 hits." If only he had clicked on Result 37---the CultureGrrl post to which I linked to at the top of this one.

A. Alfred Taubman, Sotheby's former chairman, out of jail and back (as a client) at the auction house last night

Last night was a watershed for Sotheby's, not just because of its many records broken by its Contemporary sale, but also because it was the last day for redemption of the antitrust settlement coupons (issued to compensate clients who were hurt by illegal collusion between Sotheby's and Christie's in setting commission rates). If you still have those pieces of paper, shred them or frame them as souvenirs: As of today, they're worthless.

I don't know how Christie's carried those coupons on its balance sheet, but since Sotheby's is publicly traded, we do know, from its SEC filings, that as of Mar. 31, some $41.8 million of those coupons were unredeemed of the original $125 million, with each auction house then having potential liability for half of those amounts. Sotheby's reflected its $20.9 million share of those unredeemed certificates as a liability on its balance sheet. That means that it should be reporting a one-time windfall equal to the final unredeemed amount in the next quarter. A total of $125 million in coupons was originally issued as part of the antitrust settlement.

A. Alfred Taubman (above), Sotheby's former chairman, who was jailed for his involvement in the commission-fixing conspiracy, was back in good form this month at his old haunts, chatting up other attendees and buying two works at the Christie's Impressionist/modern sale, as he told me when I ran into him before Sotheby's Contemporary sale. He had no clue that this was a landmark day in the antitrust annals. "I wasn't even involved in the operations of the company when I was there," he assured me---the same stance that he (unsuccessfully) took at his criminal trial.

A few other interesting revelations, quoted from the latest Sotheby's Form 10Q:

As of March 31, 2008, the Company had outstanding auction guarantees totaling $301.4 million, the property relating to which had a mid-estimate sales price of $313.8 million. The Company's financial exposure under these auction guarantees is reduced by $41.9 million as a result of risk sharing arrangements with unaffiliated partners. The property related to such auction guarantees is being offered primarily at auctions in May and June 2008. As of March 31, 2008, $88.9 million of the guaranteed amount had been advanced by the Company....

As of May 8, 2008, the Company had outstanding auction guarantees totaling $232.5 million, the property relating to which had a mid-estimate sales price of $239.9 million. The Company's financial exposure under these auction guarantees is reduced by $42.6 million as a result of arrangements with unaffiliated third parties. The property related to such auction guarantees is being offered primarily at auctions in May and June 2008, with the remainder of the property to be offered at auctions in the second half of 2008. As of May 8, 2008, $84.4 million of the guaranteed amount had been advanced by the Company and will be recorded within notes receivable and consignor advances....

At March 31, 2008, consignor advances issued to the one borrower totaling $62.6 million comprised approximately 22% of the net Notes Receivable and Consignor Advances balance. Of this amount, $57.5 million is related to an auction guarantee.

Sotheby's would provide me with no further details about the megamillion loan to one borrower, nor would Bill Ruprecht, its president and CEO, disclose to me the final figure for the amount of the auction settlement coupons that were unredeemed as of today.
Sotheby's stock has perked up a bit since my report last Friday. It was trading at $28.58 as of 12:15 a.m., up 7.04% from yesterday's close.

Why is this artist smiling?

No, the above photo was not taken at the Brooklyn Museum. It's Takashi Murakami, posing in front of his $15.16-million "My Lonesome Cowboy," immediately after last night's Sotheby's Contemporary sale, which set auction records for him and 17 other artists.

When I wrote yesterday about having once seen Robert Rauschenberg at a major auction of his work, it occurred to me that you just don't see artists attending their sales any more. So imagine my surprise when I beheld Murakami (who, happily, has ditched his celebrity stylists and looked very much like an artist), sitting at the back of the saleroom where another example of the raunchiest work in his current retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum sold for an astonishing hammer price of $13.5 million ($15.16 million, with buyers premium), trouncing its $3-4 million estimate. (It comes from an edition of three, plus two artist's proofs.) The price was more than five times his previous auction record. Murakami told me later that none of his works had ever sold for that much privately either.

The artist returned the favor to Sotheby's by himself purchasing the last lot in the sale, Yoshitomo Nara's "Light My Fire," for $1.16 million, setting an auction record for a sculpture by that artist. He looked excited and gleeful as it was hammered down to him.

You can see the similarity in these two Japanese manga-influenced artists' sensibilities. Here's Murakami's new acquisition:



The $362.04-million total made this the highest grossing auction in Sotheby's history. It also outdid Christie's $348.26-million Contemporary total of the night before. But Sotheby's offered 83 works, compared to only 57 at Christie's. After some exciting bidding wars during the first half of the sale, some of the fizz was lost and 10 works went unsold.

The big success was the $77-million hammer price for Francis Bacon's "Triptych," against an estimate of approximately about $70 million. Setting an auction record for any work of contemporary art at $86.28 million (with buyers premium), it sold to a private European collector. Sotheby's has not, at this writing, provided the customary geographic breakdown of buyers.

Also astonishing was the $21-million hammer price (against an estimate of $6-8 million) for a golden Yves Klein, "MG9." At $23.56 million with premium, purchaser Philippe Ségalot, the Paris/New York dealer, set an auction record for the artist. Sotheby's joy was tempered, though, by the failure of the lot with the night's second-highest estimate---a Mark Rothko that had been estimated to bring "in excess of $35 million." It went unsold at $33 million, and, what's worse, the catalogue disclosed that the auction house itself had a direct ownership interest in it.

The one poignant moment of the sale occurred when this lot came around the turntable:


Robert Rauschenberg, "Overdrive," 1963

I had to fight back tears, seeing the earthbound stop signs that, to me, signified the stopping of Rauschenberg's life, and the bird at the top, representing his soul flying free. In writing about another work with (according to the auction catalogue) "many of the same elements" as "Overdrive," Calvin Tomkins once quoted Rauschenberg as saying this:

Look at that. The birds have freed the stop signs.

It set a new auction record for the artist. So what. Read Barbara Rose's appreciation from yesterday's Wall Street Journal, and forget about the financial appreciation.

For the complete price list, go here. The sale was 88% sold by lot, 86.8% sold by dollar value. The hammer total was $320.64 million---within the presale estimate of $288.05-356.65 million. Unless you include the buyers premium (which you should not, since the estimates don't include it), the total did NOT exceed the presale estimate---no matter what Sotheby's, the NY Times or Bloomberg tell you.

Top Lot: Mark Rothko, "No. 15," 1952

You've probably already heard about the bravura performance of Christie's in pulling off a highly successful contemporary art auction last night:

---Second-highest contemporary art auction total ever: $348,263,600
---Record auction price for a living artist, set by Lucian Freud's "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping": $33,641,000
---Auction records set for seven more artists
---Top lot: Rothko's "No. 15," 1952 (above), $50.44 million, the second-highest auction price for that artist (behind the $72.84-million Rockefeller Rothko).

The sale was 95% sold by both dollar value and number of lots, which sounds like a boom, not a bursting bubble. That perennial bear, collector Eli Broad, was quoted at the end of Carol Vogel's NY Times report as saying:

The market is defying gravity. It was amazing.

But wait. I'm amazed too! Did I really see Vogel correctly compare presale estimates to HAMMER PRICES (as distinguished from final prices, including buyers premium), no fewer than FIVE TIMES? Could it be that my point about the need to compare apples to apples is, at last, being taken?

Now if she would just do the same for sale totals. Vogel wrote:

Only three of the auction's 57 lots failed to sell, bringing the evening's total to $348.2 million, well above its $282 million low estimate but below the $398.6 million high.

Actually, the hammer price total, which is the only one that should be compared to the presale estimates, was $309.01 million---still comfortably within the estimate range, but not, as Bloomberg has it, "closer to the top" of the range. That assessment only works if you misleadingly compare presale estimates (which DON'T include the buyers premium) to sale totals that DO include the buyers premium---the apples-to-oranges fallacy.

Lindsay Pollock and Philip Boroff, do you read me?

For Christie's complete results, go here.

On we go to Sotheby's tonight, home of the highest-estimated work in this spring's New York evening sales---Francis Bacon's "Triptych," which the auction house hopes will bring around $70 million. The entire sale is estimated at $291.05-360.65 million, making this a potentially close horse race with its archrival.

John Schaefer, referee for WNYC's "Soundcheck Smackdown"

The undefeated CultureGrrl and my debate opponent, arts consultant Barry Hessenius, floated like a butterfly but didn't sting like a bee as we danced around the unanswerable question posed at yesterday's half-hour New York Public Radio Soundcheck Smackdown (for which I borrowed the empowering Wonder Woman costume from the Metropolitan Museum's display case).

Host John Schaefer (above) asked us who should lead arts organizations---veterans or rookies? The answer, of course, is, "It depends"---on the merits of the candidates and the particular needs of the arts organization. Duh.

Speaking of which, what were all those chauffered limos doing yesterday blocking the entrance driveway of the Metropolitan Museum's uptown outpost, the Cloisters? A security staffer told CultureSpouse, who was taking CultureMom there for a visit, that the Met's trustees were cloistered inside---something that he said very rarely happened in Washington Heights (instead of Fifth Avenue). A Philippe-succession conclave, perhaps? Or just a pleasant change of scenery?

But back to WNYC's unglamorous studios in Lower Manhattan: In the course of playing rope-a-dope, I did make some comments about the Met succession, as well as general remarks praising the Clark Art Institute's director, Michael Conforti; maestros Riccardo Muti and Pierre Boulez; the Morgan Library & Museum's new director, William Griswold; and J. Paul Getty Trust president James Wood (who, unbeknownst to me, while my ears were stuffed between headphones, had just instituted some stringent cost-cutting measures).

What punches did I pull in this title bout? You'll just have to click below and listen:

Robert Rauschenberg at MASS MoCA during installation of "The 1/4 Mile or 2 Furlong Piece," 1999

The above publicity image of the late Robert Rauschenberg is the only photo of anyone other than my own family that I display in my house. (It's taped to a wall in my office.) He inspired me with the breathtaking audacity of his improbable but irresistible inventions and his feisty, rebellious spirit. As a speaker, he was as impetuous and unpredictable as his art. And I happened to be a few feet away during the legendary moment at the conclusion of the 1973 Robert Scull auction at Sotheby Parke Bernet, when Rauschenberg confronted the collector and declared: "I've been working my ass off just for you to make that profit!"

He was one of those artists who always came back into relevance, for good reason: His was a youthful, constantly questing spirit. Just a few months ago, at the press preview for the opening of the new New Museum, senior curator Laura Hoptman told me that Rauschenberg was one of of the main forebears for the artists in the new facility's very favorably received inaugural show, consisting of collages and assemblages by a new generation.

I can't agree with Michael Kimmelman, who seems to imply in his NY Times obit that the above piece, installed at MASS MoCA in 1999, "did not live up to his earlier achievements." I regarded it as an astonishing, ingenious tour de force.

Henri Loyrette, Director of the Louvre

How has director Henri Loyrette changed the Louvre since the Pierre Rosenberg days?

That's what a BusinessWeek magazine reporter based in Paris wanted to know when she called me yesterday for a phone interview. So I ranted about what I've called the "Louez le Louvre" phenomenon---the proliferating megabucks rental shows, whereby the French museum now raises millions of dollars for its endowment and capital improvements, at the expense of sister institutions around the world. Those borrowers accede to this monetization of museum collections in order to snare exhibitions that typically feature a few major masterpieces, a lot of B-listers and, most importantly, the Louvre's glittering (but now somewhat tarnished) aura.

The Paris palace isn't the only "universal museum" playing this game, nor was it the first: The financially pressed State Hermitage Museum has been using its collection as a cash cow far longer. But Loyrette has raised the stakes to new and disturbing heights, dispatching (or soon to dispatch) megabucks Louvre-branded displays to Atlanta, Indianapolis, Seattle, Oklahoma City, Denver, Quebec, Istanbul, Valencia, Verona and, let us not forget, the planned museum in Abu Dhabi, which is paying $520 million just for the right to use the illustrious museum's name. (I've probably unintentionally omitted a few other stops on the treasures-of-the-Louvre circuit.)

As I pondered all this, it suddenly occurred to me that there is a strange and troubling disconnect in the way the world's premier museums regard cultural property, depending on whether it belongs to them or it is owned by the archaeological source countries where important antiquities have been unearthed. The "universal museums" ardently argue that there should be a free international flow of cultural objects---that source countries should abandon their retentionist cultural-property policies because the objects found within their borders are part of world heritage and rightfully belong to all humanity.

But when it comes to the great works of international heritage in their own encyclopedic collections, some of these same museums are behaving not altruistically but avariciously. They want money---lots of it. And they seem to have few qualms about exacting big fees from sister institutions for works that they traditionally had lent collegially in years past. These masterpieces are also, arguably, a part of world heritage over which they happen to have stewardship. If they want the source countries of antiquities to share their cultural wealth, they should strive to be equally generous---not just with reciprocal loans to cultural property claimants, but with loan shows sent, at reasonable cost, to sister institutions around the world.

As Metropolitan Museum director Philippe de Montebello wrote last October in the French newspaper, Le Monde:

Loans must remain free. We understand that certain developing countries require money. But between developed countries, it's unacceptable....I have alliances with all museums. But no exclusivity. In matters of art, I'm a complete polygamist.

But even the Met and the British Museum have not been above using loan exhibitions as cash cows.

Another problem with charging megamillion rental fees is that the lender has to come up with some world-class masterpieces, or the borrowing institution is getting a bad bargain. But if the lender dispatches too many iconic objects to too many places, it is shortchanging its core audience---the visitors who come to the home facility expecting to see those works in the permanent collection galleries.

The typical compromise involves releasing a few superlative pieces to satisfy the renting institution, but also lots of second-tier material. The lending institution's home audience is still unhappy that their masterpieces are frequent fliers---as witness the petition that was signed against the Louvre Abu Dhabi by thousands who expressed their support of an opinion piece written for Le Monde by three prominent artworld professionals, decrying the use of "works of art as currency of exchange."

Knowledgeable people who visit these high-priced traveling shows are also dissatisfied, knowing full well that their renting institutions may be getting some great publicity value from the illustrious lender's imprimatur, but are not getting their money's worth in terms of overall quality (unless the lender is sending only A-list material, drawn exclusively from permanent collection galleries that are closed for renovation).

Rent-a-show may produce great gains for the lending institution's endowment and capital budget. But for the art-loving public, it's a lose-lose transaction. And works reserved for the highest bidders may be unavailable for more serious projects.

Financial exigencies should not trump scholarly imperatives.

Hey, I'm still on the right side of 60!

Nevertheless, I've been asked (partly on the strength of my Elderfield Too Elderly? post) to take the old folks' side in a debate tomorrow on WNYC, New York Public Radio, on the relative merits of youth vs. age in cultural organizations. I warned Soundcheck associate producer Brian Wise that although I oppose age-ism, I have a nuanced view on this subject: Over-65s who are still at the top of their game should not be put out to pasture, but new blood has some good points too!

That waffling apparently did not disqualify me. So (if all goes according to plan) you can hear me tomorrow live at 2 p.m. on Soundcheck. The youth-will-be-served side of this question will be taken by Barry Hessenius, a nonprofits consultant and speaker, who authored a 2007 book, Hardball Lobbying for Nonprofits. Does he play hardball in debates too? Calling Chris Matthews (whose election-related topic on Friday happened to be "Age and race---new focus of 2008?).

Wait! Stop the broadcast! Hessenius' bio informs us that he "represented clients in the music and television industries from 1971 to 1983," after receiving his law degree. That would definitely make him (gasp) even more superannuated than CultureGrrl!

Listen tomorrow at 2 p.m. on 93.9 fm, or hear the live webcast here. I'm not sure yet if I will be able to embed the audio on my blog. If I can, you KNOW I will!

Francesco Rutelli (second from right) at a New York press conference last June where he announced the supposed signing of an accord with Princeton University

Apparently Francesco Rutelli's penchant for pressing for repatriation through the press, rather than through quiet, collegial diplomacy, survives his terminated tenure as Italy's culture minister.

On Friday, the Associated Press made the unexpected announcement that the Cleveland Museum had agreed to send objects back to Italy:

Italy has reached a verbal agreement with a U.S. museum in Cleveland for the return of artifacts Rome says have been looted or smuggled out of the country, a government lawyer said Friday.

Talks between Italy and the Cleveland Museum of Art are near their final stage, said lawyer Maurizio Fiorilli, who has helped negotiate the return of Italian antiquities from several other U.S. museums....

But Fiorilli stressed that that deal was still only a verbal one, although "we are at almost the final phase" of negotiations for a written accord. "There are no obstacles from our point of view," the lawyer said.

Dubious from past experience about Italy's unilaterally announced "agreements," I immediately e-mailed the museum, but received no reply until just moments ago (below).

Happily, the estimable Steven Litt of the Cleveland Plain Dealer did the fact-checking and reported Saturday that the accord was as much of a surprise to the museum as it was to me:

"No agreement has been reached, nor has the museum agreed to transfer any objects to Italy," the museum said in a statement Friday.

Cindy Fink, the museum's director of marketing and communications, declined to comment on Fiorilli's description of a verbal agreement.

Apparently, Rutelli had been behind an earlier AP dispatch which, in Litt's words, had "quoted Rutelli as having said: 'I immediately gave some good news to the new minister. Just these past days we have concluded the agreement---which will be formalized by Minister [Sandro] Bondi---with the Cleveland Museum.'"

Here is the statement that the Cleveland Museum just e-mailed me:

Discussions are continuing between the Museum and the Italian government, but no agreement of any kind has been reached, nor has any timetable been set. A spirit of cooperation and confidentiality has informed the discussions between the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Italian government to date, and we look forward to this continuing.

This episode is reminiscent of Italy's supposed agreement with Princeton University, announced by Rutelli in June 2007 (above), but not finalized until October. The premature announcement had the double advantage of enhancing Rutelli's stature with his countrymen and putting additional pressure on Princeton to close the deal. Similar "agreements" with the Getty Museum were publicized before the real deal was signed.

Lucian Freud, "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping," 1995

"Freud's Heavyweight Nude Gets $35 Million Price," alleges the headline (which may well be rewritten by the time your read this) for today's online art-market commentary by Martin Gayford in Bloomberg.

That's more than you or I know, since the Christie's auction where Lucian Freud's "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping" (above) may flirt with the auction record for a living artist hasn't happened yet.

Gayford merely (and correctly) observed that "the auction house [is] expecting the 1995 work to fetch up to $35 million" when it is offered on Tuesday evening. The current auction record for a living artist was set last November, when Sotheby's sold another heavyweight, Jeff Koons' "Hanging Heart," for $23.6 million.

Sotheby's Stock Chart

There was a lot of news in Sotheby's First Quarter 2008 Earnings Conference Call this morning with investment analysts.

The lead-off revelations: The auction house's revenues ($129.3 million) declined $18.1 million (12%), compared to the first quarter of 2007. There was a first-quarter net loss of $12.4 million ($0.19 per diluted share) compared to net income of $24.3 million ($0.37, per diluted share) for the first quarter of 2007---a $36.7 million decline. First quarters are traditionally weak, with the biggest auctions coming in the second and fourth quarters.

Increased expenses played a significant part in the decline, but Sotheby's said that it was primarily due to lower auction commission margins, as compared to the same period last year. (The auction commission margin equals commission revenue divided by hammer price.) The margin was 13.6% in the first quarter of 2008, compared to 16.6% in the first quarter 2007. Commission margins are typically lower for higher-valued works.

To help boost those margins, Sotheby's will once again raise the fee charged to buyers, effective June 1---25% on the first $50,000 of the hammer price; 20% on the next $950,000 of hammer. (The current buyers premium is 25% of the first $20,000; 20% on the next $480,000.) The charge on hammer price above $1 million will remain at the current 12%.

There was a lot of interesting discussion about guarantees---the amounts that auctioneers sometimes agree to pay to sellers, whether or not the bidding actually reaches those amounts. In the Q&A with analysts, there was a suggestion---uncontradicted by the auction house's officials---that agreements to share a portion of the buyers premium with sellers are sometimes taking the place of guarantees as tools for attracting consignments.

Bill Ruprecht, Sotheby's president and CEO said:

We have been operating in an environment of uncertain economic times over the last nine months, so at the end of last year we focused even more keenly on managing our risks and limiting our exposures to guarantees by taking on fewer deals where we could have exposed our balance sheet to material losses....
 
Our traditional competitor [Christie's] had approximately $80 million more in guarantees than we did in this most recent 10-day period and by our calculations, we are, year to date, the only firm to have had meaningful profitable guarantee experience....Our competitor did not have strong results in the guarantee line.

When I asked Christie's to comment on the accuracy of these assertions, Toby Usnik, its head of public relations, would only say:

We are very pleased with our results for the week.

Sotheby's reported that its year-to-date sale totals, as of yesterday, were up 11% from last year. In his prepared conference call remarks (which you can read here), Ruprecht quietly corrected a claim made at Wednesday's postsale Impressionist/modern press conference: The average value of lots sold on Wednesday was $5.7 million, compared to $4.8 million (NOT $3.5 million) at Sotheby's weak Impressionist/modern sale last November---a less impressive increase than previously announced.

An interesting moment during the Q&A came when one analyst suggested that giving sellers a portion of the buyers premium is a consignment-getting technique now being used in lieu of offering guarantees. The analyst asked Sotheby's to provide regular reports not just on sale totals, but also on the currently undisclosed amount of the premium relinquished to sellers (which diminishes Sotheby's profit). Sotheby's officials did not refute the analyst's assumptions about the use of the rebate in lieu of guarantees, but they did not offer to change the method of reporting, observing that reports of auction commission revenues reflect the impact of the rebates.

Sotheby's stock is not reacting well to this morning's news: As of 11:38 a.m., it was trading at $24.94, down $2.53 (9.21%) from yesterday's close. One analyst asked whether, in light of the disconnect between share price and company health, management might consider a share buyback. The reply:

That's something we would look at and consider.

UPDATE: Usnik of Christie's e-mailed me with this additional observation about Sotheby's analysis of Christie's guarantees:

As a private company, we don't comment on this aspect of our financials, but we can confirm that all objects guaranteed were identified as such in our catalogue.

Italian Culture Minister Sandro Bondi

What I foretold here (thanks to a helpful tip from Louis Godart) has now officially come to pass: Sandro Bondi has been named by the new Berlusconi government to replace The Great Repatriator, Francesco Rutelli, as Italy's minister of culture. (Above is his official portrait on the Ministry of Culture's website.) In addition to being head of Forza Italia, the political party of the recently elected prime minister, Bondi is a senator.

Here's his biography, as published yesterday by ANSA, the Italian news agency. Well connected politically, Bondi only has one cultural credential mentioned here. He is a published poet:

The son of a Socialist lumberjack who was forced to find work in Switzerland, Bondi, 49, is a former Communist and trade unionist who met Berlusconi through the sculptor who designed the premier's mausoleum.

He became a fervent acolyte of the charismatic mogul and has served as lightning rod for criticism of his boss in his role as Forza Italia spokesman.

He claims to appreciate the many satirical imitators of his priest-like style of dealing with journalists. Bondi is one of Berlusconi's closest aides and biggest fans but is still so in awe of his boss that he addresses him in the formal 'Lei' rather than the familiar 'tu' form. An ex-journalist and published poet, Bondi is proud of his humble background but even prouder of Berlusconi, to whom he has devoted many of the semi-serious poems that have gained a cult following in the Italian edition of Vanity Fair.

A philosophy graduate whose thesis was about an Augustinian preacher, Bondi is a devout Catholic whose books include "Secularists and Believers, a Common Faith" (2006) and "Forgiving God" (2007). He has a fear of heights and hates flying.

"Hates flying?" Does that mean he won't be following in the footsteps of his predecessor, who winged across the Atlantic to major American museums in order to formalize restitutions and compensatory loans?

Simon Shaw

Relief and satisfaction were palpable among Sotheby's Impressionist/modern experts at their press conference (which was viewable online) after tonight's big sale.

The sale's hammer price totaled $208.63 million ($235.33 million with buyers premium) for 52 lots, within a presale estimate of $203.9-280.1 million. (One lot was withdrawn before the sale, which is why the estimate range is lower than what I reported previously.)

Christie's hammer price and the number of lots it offered last night were higher---$246 million for 58 lots. But Christie's percentage sold by value (82%) and by lot (76%) fell short of those at Sotheby's---90% and 79%, respectively. Christie's hammer total fell short of that auction house's presale estimate range.

Americans took home 67% of the sold lots tonight at Sotheby's, compared to only 32% last night at Christie's. Go figure.

David Norman, worldwide co-chairman of Sotheby's Impressionist/modern department, exulted that last night's 90% sold total by dollar value was in line with what one would expect "when the market is strong and booming." The key, he said, was "keep the estimates appealing, choose the right property and promote it with zeal."

And maybe also bring in Simon Shaw (above), who arrived in February from Sotheby's, London, to become the head of New York's Impressionist/modern department. Shaw, who was chief spokesman during tonight's postsale press conference, emphasized that the average value of sold lots tonight was $5.7 million, compared to $3.5 million at Sotheby's lackluster Impressionist/modern sale last November.

"The decisions we took were vindicated this evening," Shaw crowed to the assembled journalists---those on the premises and those of us online. We who watched from home got to hear someone warn Shaw and Norman, before the start of the proceedings, that the microphone for online transmission was already live. Shaw immediately quipped:

I was just about to sing some Celine Dion.

"My (He)art Will Go On," perhaps?

For my coverage of the sale while it was still in progress (including record prices and the priciest of the buy-ins) go here. For Sotheby's official auction results (with buyers premium), go here.

The Big Lot, Léger's "Study for 'The Woman in Blue,'" 1919 (above), achieved a hammer price of $35 million---at the low end of its $35-45 million presale estimate, but enough to set a new auction record for the artist. There have been two unsold lots in the front 20. Only two sold below estimate.

More to come. It's not over till it's over.

UPDATE: More records, more buy-ins. Munch's "Girls on a Bridge," 1902, set an auction record for the artist, with a hammer price of $27.5 million. A new auction record for a Giacometti painting was achieved by "Portrait of Caroline," 1963, with a hammer price of $13 million. There have been a total of five unsold lots on the front 30.

SECOND UPDATE: There's only one big-ticket buy-in in this sale: Léger's "La Partie de Campagne," unsold at $10.5 million, against an estimate of $12-18 million.

At least the online headline is accurate, but even Carol Vogel, who in her NY Times post mortem emphasized the positive aspects of last night's so-so results at Christie's Impressionist/modern sale, could not possibly have agreed with the editors' headline (above) on Page B2 of today's newspaper:

Sale Results of Impressionist and Modern Art Exceed Expectations at Christie's

As you know from my late night post, the auction made a hammer-price total of $246 million, compared to a presale estimate of $287-405 million. By no measure did it exceed the auction house's professed expectations, other than for only eight of 58 lots that did exceed presale estimates.

Why Vogel and many other art-market scribes persist in comparing the $287-405 million presale estimate (which predicts total hammer price and DOES NOT include the buyers premium) with the $277.28-million final total (which DOES include the commission paid by buyers) defies reason. As CultureGrrl has already observed too many times, this statistical sophistry plays into the auctioneers' desire to make results look better than they really are, but it's comparing apples to oranges. Presale estimates must be compared with hammer prices to be meaningful, not misleading.

Even the higher total, inflated with the buyers premium, fell short of the auctioneers' hammer-price estimate. And the record-setting Monet did not exceed its presale estimate, as Vogel suggested in reporting the $41.4-million price with premium. She reported that Christie's presale estimate for the Monet was $35 million. It's possible that's what they told her after the sale, but last Friday, Christie's had e-mailed to me the various unpublished estimates, and the Monet was pegged at $35-40 million. Its $37-million hammer price last night fell squarely within the estimate, not above it.

I'm cautiously pessimistic about Sotheby's sale tonight. But given last night's iffy indications, there will be a lot of people, some with paddles, with an interest in having this sale to turn out well. Perhaps Sotheby's experts are doing whatever last-minute maneuvering they can to secure a low percentage of unsold works. We'll soon find out.

Top Lot: Monet, "Le Pont du Chemin de fer à Argenteuil," 1873, $41.48 million

Last November's anemic results at Sotheby's evening Impressionist/modern sale in New York did little to dampen the art market's overall ebullience. So I won't go so far as to say that Christie's lackluster performance tonight signals a market correction.

But even though it gave itself an exceptionally wide spread for its total presale estimate---$287-405 million---it failed to hit the target, achieving a hammer total of just $246 million ($277.28 million with buyer's premium). Some 14 of the evening's 58 works failed to sell: Two "vans" were among the vanquished---a racy Van Dongen of a gypsy dancer, estimated at $12-16 million, and a van Gogh landscape from 1887 that the auctioneers had thought would bring $13-16 million.

The sale was 82% sold by value, 76% by lot. Europeans enjoyed their currency advantage, taking home 52% of the sold lots, compared to only 32% for the dollar-disadvantaged Americans.

The big work of the evening, Monet's "Le Pont du Chemin de fer à Argenteuil," 1873, achieved a hammer price of $37 million, against an estimate of $35-40 million. Its $41.48 million total price (with buyer's premium) set an auction record for the artist. Auction records were also set for Rodin, Giacometti and Miró.

Only four of the unsold works bore guarantees (undisclosed prices that Christie's and/or third-party guarantors agreed to pay the owner, even if the works did not sell). The priciest of those was the van Dongen. The record-setting Monet had also been guaranteed.

For the full list of results, go here. Works that have "Estimate" (rather than "Price Realized") in the righthand column are the ones that failed to sell.

Another fizzle: Apparently the Wall Street Journal's "On the Block" is not going to weigh in "from the auction floor and updating this blog with the latest sales and sightings during and after the evening auctions," as it had promised on its website and as I reported earlier today. They removed that online phraseology, and they have posted nothing about tonight's results at this writing.

So I've broken my promise too, blogging tonight when I said I wasn't going to (although I did not actually attend the sale).

If it manages to turn in a better performance tomorrow, Sotheby's has a chance to improve its competitive standing.

Francis Bacon, "Triptych," 1976, on exhibition at Sotheby's

After attending Sotheby's annual stockholders meeting  this morning (as a journalist, NOT an investor), I prowled the Sotheby's showroom, watching auctioneer Tobias Meyer adroitly woo clients in front of Bacon's "Triptych" (above): "I've been waiting a long time for this," he told one Bacon admirer with whom he spent considerable time.

After that conclave concluded, I received his impressions of the current level of buyer interest at a time when "consumer confidence" has been called into serious question:

I anticipate that the great things will do extremely well. The rest? We will see.

Much, he acknowledged, will depend on buyers from "emerging markets," such as Asia and Russia:

They are hard to predict. We don't know what they will do until the night. The 20th-century art collectors on Fifth Avenue we can predict. There's a dialogue there....[The emerging-market buyers] are not as passionate as the good American collectors. They are still skittish. They may not have any Cubist paintings, they may not be interested in Cubism, but they want a trophy and there it is.

Last fall, when much was said about the probable impact of global wealth, American buyers still predominated. Now the auctioneers anticipate that the weak dollar will stimulate European bidding. As Bill Ruprecht, president and CEO of Sotheby's, commented at today's annual meeting:

The dollar feels very cheap as a currency to buy in, if you buy from a Euros perspective or a Sterling perspective.

He also noted (as I also recently discussed here):

In an environment of very uncertain economic times, we have focused most keenly on managing our risks and limiting our exposures to guarantees, by taking on fewer deals where we exposed our balance sheet to material losses. Sales to date continue to be strong in their reflection of the steady demand for great works of art against a turbulent backdrop.

I have not heard about similar risk-reduction strategies from Christie's, but they don't need to be accountable to importunate stockholders. One of the questions today at Sotheby's annual meeting was why the price of the stock remains so depressed. In his introductory remarks, the auction house's chairman, Michael Sovern, had ruefully observed:

Would that our stock price took full account of the fact that 2007 was a record year for our great company. We realized a return on equity of 47%, fueled by the highest revenues in company history---$918 million---and the highest operating income in company history---$276 million.

But neither Sovern nor Ruprecht could answer the question as to why the stock, trading in the 50s as of early November, has since then been stuck in the 30s and now the 20s. No matter how well Sotheby's has done before or since, it's had a hard time living down the failure of one important work to sell at its big Impressionist/modern sale last November. Its shares plummeted in the immediate wake of the fabled failure to find a buyer for the late van Gogh landscape, "The Fields." (It still has not been sold.)

No matter how well it has done in its London sales this year, Sotheby's could use a very solid showing tomorrow night in New York to solidify its competitive footing. Its evening Impressionist/modern sale is estimated at $207-$284 million for 53 works, compared to Christie's $287-$405 million for 58 works.

In keeping with my "Blog Slog" commitment to post less and get out more, I will not be covering the upcoming sales at the frenzied, real-time pace with which I've previously attacked them. (I will, in fact, be at a major museum's press dinner tonight, instead of balancing catalogue and notepad at my usual perch at the Christie's Impressionist/modern sale.) I will eventually weigh in if I feel I can provide some counterbalance and commentary beyond the observations of the dedicated art-market press.

But never fear: The Wall Street Journal's On the Block is on the case. It will weigh in "from the auction floor and updating this blog with the latest sales and sightings during and after the evening auctions of Impressionist and modern art on May 6 at Christie's and May 7 at Sotheby's. We'll also be on hand for the post-war and contemporary art auctions on May 13 at Christie's, May 14 at Sotheby's, and May 15 at Phillips."

You go, Kelly Crow.

For two excellent pieces of presale reporting and analysis in today's Wall Street Journal, go to Crow's article here; Alexandra Peers' here.

One of the scholarly offerings at the Metropolitan Museum's "Superheroes" bookshop

It's too bad that Philippe de Montebello's successor couldn't have been in place by now. Then PdM's record for excellence wouldn't have been marred by his Director's Forward for the catalogue of the Metropolitan Museum's Superheroes show, opening Wednesday. Extolling "the influential reach of comic-book superheroes on contemporary tastemakers" is not a worthy parting message for the dean of American art museum directors. If only he could have taken his bow after the openings of the current Courbet and Poussin exhibitions. It's for overseeing such sweeping, scholarly shows that we want to remember him.

Instead, we now have "Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy"---an enterprise whose foolish wall texts make WhitneySpeak sound lucid. Its inept attempt to impart the weight of intellectual seriousness to thin air casts the much maligned Star Wars (organized by Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and seen in 2002 at the Brooklyn Museum) in a more favorable light.

The Met's wall text includes these memorable passages:

Just as Superman's costume proclaims him a super man, Spider-Man's costume proclaims him a spider man.

With his thick neck, bulging tendons, and throbbing veins he [the Hulk] suggests the turgidity of male arousal.

In the conflict between good and evil---the basis of traditional superhero narratives---comic-book heroes are enlisted to fight the good fight, which usually involves upholding American utopianism as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

The two primary paradigms of superherodom are the superpowered superhero and the non-superpowered superhero.

I think the label writers may have read too many comic books. At least the show is up-to-the-minute. It includes Robert Downey Jr.'s cladding from the new megahit, "Iron Man":



But back to the unfortunate Philippe, who got stuck writing (or at least signing his name) to:

Superman's blue unitard, flowing red cape, and distinctive "S" emblem, Batman's black cape and bat cowl, ...Wonder Woman's red bustier and star-spangled shorts, not only proclaimed their amazing powers, but they also provoked new designs in avant-garde haute couture, ready-to-wear, and high-performance sportswear....The visitor will not be surprised to find the Thierry Mugler motorcycle bustier, with its polychrome handlebars and sideview mirrors, evoking Ghost Rider.

Actually, I WAS pretty surprised---both by Philippe's professed fascination with such things and by the Mugler muddle (especially its headdress, fashioned from Coke cans):



So what about the show itself? Its outlandish designer fashions (again with the Coke cans)...



...made Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman costume seem subtle and tasteful:



But I did find a must-have fashion statement for everyone on my Fathers Day list, courtesy of John Galliano:



"With its...fetishistic hardware and enormous hose-pipe phallus, it both reflects and represents the pulsing force of the virile body," the wall text informs us, apropos the above "ensemble."

Of course by now you've suspected that these curmudgeonly comments are a bunch of sour grapes. I did, however, get to see the red carpet for last night's gala, co-chaired by George Clooney and Julia Roberts before they did---in the afternoon:



The red carpet-ers were still hard at work as I flew over Fifth Avenue on my magic notepad:



Poor gorgeous George never got his chance to admire this legendary superheroine:
 


His loss....Had I been invited, I probably would have donned this Mugler stunner:

Sotheby's ad for fashion plates

We impecunious art-market scribes are a bearish bunch. Most of us can't afford a square inch of a van Gogh, so we may enjoy a certain charge of schadenfreude from envisioning the eventual comeuppance of those who can pay for the whole painting. As Marion Maneker recently wrote, in an astute article for Slate:

How can you tell that it's nearly auction season in the art market? When the press begins predicting an imminent crash....Everyone wants to be the first to identify the next crash.

Hey, I did it first, almost two years ago, after which, as we all now know, the market continued its unabated surge. This was tremendous prescience on my part: Eventually, I'm quite likely to be right.

Now along comes Carol Vogel, in yesterday's NY Times "Arts & Leisure" section, making some dramatic assertions about the current state of the market:

The creative business maneuvers adopted by the auction houses to land big consignments and encourage buyers speak of desperation. Sotheby's and Christie's are at the point where they are often willing to forgo profits just to win commissions [did she mean, "consignments"?] and beat out the other on sales totals. In addition to the guarantees granted to sellers, which in some cases this season are said to be even higher than the works' sales estimates, the two companies are buying works of art outright, advancing sellers money ahead of the sales and in rare cases even becoming involved in sellers' real estate transactions.

These confidential deals are so abundant that it is difficult to judge whether a strong evening sales result is a smoke screen. But if profits dry up, such face-saving strategies can't last forever.

This disturbing description of auctioneers-gone-wild is unsupported in Vogel's story by factual evidence, let alone named (or even unnamed) sources. Advances against sales and even auction-house ownership of some works are nothing new and are publicly acknowledged by the auction houses. But the suggestion that the guarantees, in some cases, exceed the presale estimates is astonishing, if true. (Guarantees are the amounts that the auctioneers, in some cases, agree to pay to consignors, even if bidding falls short.)

I'm not saying that Vogel is wrong. I'm sure that a professional of her stature would not engage in baseless conjecture. I'm just saying that a prominent journalist, alleging that a "smoke screen" may be concealing the true state of the art market, needs to provide readers with something less vaporous than her own unsubstantiated say-so.

The screen that I'm concerned about is more opaque than mere smoke: It's the lack of transparency about third-party guarantors (such as dealers or private collectors), who in some cases commit to placing an irrevocable bid to support an auction price. Their incentive, aside from supporting market levels, is a share in the auctioneer's profit if the bidding exceeds the amount of the guarantee.

We don't know which works have received bids from third-party guarantors, nor are we informed when these market-bolsterers are the winning bidders. We do know, from the published conditions of sale and from presale announcements, that guarantors bidding on certain lots may be "interested parties," who may (according to Sotheby's, but not Christie's "conditions of sale") have knowledge of the "confidential" reserve (the seller's minimum price). What we don't know about these third parties is specifically who they are (i.e., the artist's dealer or the representative of the artist's estate); whether they are indeed bidding; whether they do (unlike most bidders) know the level of the reserve (below which the object won't sell); whether they are the winning bidders.

With all these confidential side deals going on, with auction houses' possessing direct financial interests in certain works and in certain private galleries, and with sellers sometimes receiving even more than hammer price (thanks to confidential arrangements for the auction houses to hand over to some sellers an undisclosed portion of the buyers commission), we've come a long, troubling way from the traditional clearcut role of the auction house as disinterested broker between buyer and seller. The IRS used to regard auction prices as the best gauge of fair market value---the price paid by a willing buyer to a willing seller, with neither side under compulsion and both sides possessing full knowledge of the facts. But has "fair market value" now become unfair market value? A lot of boundaries have been blurred.

On a lighter note: Christie's won the product-placement wars by scoring a page-wide reproduction at the top of Vogel's article---the Bacon triptych that it will offer later this month. Sotheby's, however, took matters into its own hands by placing a full-page NY Times ad (above) yesterday for the central panel of its larger, higher-estimated Bacon triptych in the "Styles" section---more commonly associated with fashion and jewelry ads. Do the same people who crave Prada and Harry Winston want to accessorize with a harrowing depiction of "a headless body...savaged by a swirling bird of prey" (as the Sotheby's catalogue describes this panel)?

I guess the auctioneers understand their target market better than I do.

Chic for a Sheikh? Mark Rothko's $72.8-million "White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)," 1950

While we're waiting for some contemporary art auction records to be set later this month, The Art Newspaper claims to know the names of big winners of auctions past. Sarah Thornton reports:

Ever since their culture minister, Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al Thani, was arrested and investigated (and then pardoned) for alleged misuse of public funds, the collecting clan (whose cultural assets include Al Jazeera) has been keeping a low profile. But we can reveal that they are now major players in the modern and contemporary market acquiring, among other things, Mark Rothko's "White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)," otherwise known as the "Rockefeller Rothko," which sold at Sotheby's in May 2007 for the world-wide record price of $72.8 million--the most expensive post-war work of art to sell at auction ever....

When "Hanging Heart (Magenta/Gold)" was bought at Sotheby's New York for $21 million hammer price ($23.6 million with buyer's premium) by Gagosian for Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian billionaire with a taste for high-impact figurative work, it...made [Jeff] Koons contemporary art's uncontested top dog.

So Sarah, since you know so much, who bought the Guennol Lioness?

COMING SOON: AUCTIONEERS GONE WILD? UNFAIR "FAIR MARKET VALUE"

Not quite ready for prime time: Some of Christie's Impressionist/modern wares at yesterday's press preview

So is the art market getting shakier, as we head into the next two weeks of big evening auctions in New York? Kelly Crow in today's Wall Street Journal describes the jitters in tentative terms:

With a weak American economy and global fears over rising fuel and food costs, New York's chief auction houses are bracing for a potential art-market slowdown.

One way to judge what the experts think is to see whether Sotheby's and Christie's have pulled back on guarantees---the amounts that they commit to pay for certain consignments, whether or not the bidding actually reaches the amount of the guarantee. In a down market, these guarantees carry bigger risks.

At yesterday's press preview of the two big sales, Guy Bennett, Christie's co-head of Impressionist and modern art, claimed that there had been no change in his house's willingness to grant guarantees. He pointed to Vuillard's "Fillettes Se Promenant," estimated to bring $7-10 million, as a work that Christie's had guaranteed "because we believe in it."

Sotheby's, as a publicly traded company, provides more transparency on its degree of commitment to guarantees: Its April 2008 Investor Briefing (scroll to p. 11), revealed that "in light of current economic realities, Management has adopted a more cautious approach to its guarantee portfolio. The current maximum level of guarantees has been brought back down to $350 million from the previous $500 million in late 2007."

Sotheby's most recent annual report had indicated that its guarantees totaled $185.2 million as of Feb. 19, 2008. As I mentioned at the above link, its guarantees totaled $902 million in 2007; $450 million in 2006; only $131 million in 2005.

But let's get down to basics: Have you cashed in your auction antitrust settlement coupons that are set to expire on May 15? Art-lings, what are you waiting for?

Renzo Piano's design for the new downtown Whitney
Courtesy of Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Cooper, Robertson & Partners

In a press release dated today, the Whitney Museum misleadingly said that it "today released plans" for its "new six-floor, 185,000-square-foot building" in downtown Manhattan's Meatpacking District. Actually, it released those plans earlier than today...to Nicolai Ouroussoff. I can't tell you how many times I've asked Whitney officials, from director Adam Weinberg on down, to let me know about the design for the new facility at the earliest possible moment (all the while knowing that my efforts would be futile).

The Whitney's preferred co-releasor, in his NY Times article today, favorably appraised a design that "forms an impenetrable block facing the West Side Highway. [Actually it's West Street, Nicolai; the highway does not extend to Lower Manhattan]. But as you study the form more intently [preferably with the architect or Whitney officials at your side], more layered meanings emerge."

Maybe so; I've (belatedly) received the press release describing such amenities as "approximately 15,000 square feet of rooftop galleries...on various levels of the building, allowing for dynamic outdoor exhibitions. A dramatically cantilevered entrance along Gansevoort Street will shelter a public plaza that is destined to become a popular outdoor gathering space....The new building will engage the Whitney directly with the
bustling community of artists, gallerists, students, educators, entrepreneurs, and residents in Chelsea and Greenwich Village."

I'm cautiously optimistic, not because of a four-page press release and a few drawings, but because I've always thought Piano's most brilliant museum work occurs when he has free reign to design a freestanding building (Menil, Beyeler, Klee, Nasher), rather than an add-on to an existing institution (High, Morgan, Los Angeles County Museum).

Speaking of the Nasher, what was Ouroussoff thinking when he wrote:

Mr. Piano plans to use a weblike structure of delicate steel, glass and fabric scrims for the roof on the top-floor gallery: the kind of intricate lighting system he has created before, in projects like the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas.

Unlike his famously elaborate (and expensive) lighting-control roof systems for other museums, the Nasher's is simple and elegant---an aluminum mesh of slanted openings that admit ample, indirect natural light. Most sculptures, after all, are not light-sensitive. Nasher was a guiding force in creating this porous covering. As the Nasher's website says:

The Nasher Sculpture Center represents Ray Nasher's vision to create an outdoor "roof-less" museum.

The cost of giving Ouroussoff first crack at this story appears to have been to invest him with a sense of mission to singlehandedly redraw Piano's designs. Among other fixes, he asks the architect to change his choice of material to be used for the cladding. First he asserts that "the building's faceted surface seems hewed from a massive block of stone." We later learn, however, that this material is the preference of the critic, not the architect:

Mr. Piano...said he was leaning toward a steel frame structure covered in welded steel plates....But the massive form of the downtown design suggests a building drawn from a single block rather than one built of individual structural pieces. That image would probably be strengthened by cladding the building in a stone compound. A concrete exterior could also form a psychological bridge between the new museum and the Breuer building, making a trip downtown feel more like a homecoming. Mr. Piano certainly has the skill to resolve these issues.

What don't they just name Ouroussoff as architect and be done with it?

What I find most astonishing about the Whitney's approach to this project is that, according to Ouroussoff, museum officials have "yet to define the relationship between the two buildings. (One possibility is that the Breuer building will be used for exhibitions that focus on one aspect of the collection or a single artist, with the core of the collection relocated downtown.)"

In any museum project that I know of, the plans for use of the building are developed in close coordination with the architectural plans. Different uses might dictate different types of spaces. You would think that the Whitney wonks would have already sorted these issues out. Maybe they actually have, but aren't ready to tell us yet.

The museum hopes to raise $680 million in total, for construction and endowment, with "anticipated opening in late 2012." Some of that money has already been raised in the campaign's "silent phase," but my queries as to how much have not been answered. (I will update here if and when I get that information.)

Sandro Bondi

According to Louis Godart, advisor on culture to Italian president Giorgio Napolitano, Sandro Bondi (above) is likely be named that country's new minister of culture, succeeding the high-profile activist, Francesco Rutelli. Bondi is head of Forza Italia, the political party of Silvio Berlusconi, the recently elected prime minister.

Rutelli is not only losing his post as Italy's notably successful repatriator of cultural property (as well as that country's deputy prime minister). He also just lost the election runoff for a job he had held previously---mayor of Rome. He will stay in politics, however, as a member of the Senate.

Rome's new mayor-elect is Gianni Alemanno, who beat Rutelli with 54% of the vote,  Elisabetta Povoledo of the NY Times reports that Alemanno is the city's "first rightist mayor since World War II."

Causing consternation is this report from Rome by John Hooper of Great Britain's Guardian:

On Monday night, the area around Rome's city hall rang to chants of "Duce! Duce!", the term adopted by Italy's dictator, Benito Mussolini, equivalent to the German "Führer". Supporters of the new mayor gave the fascist Roman straight-arm salutes.

Alemanno, however, has promised to be the mayor of all Romans. He yesterday sent telegrams to both the Pope and the Chief Rabbi. Rome's Jewish community was shaken by the prospect of a mayor with Alemanno's record.

Alemanno was once a neo-fascist youth leader. One of his first acts as Rome's new mayor was to declare that "[Richard] Meier's building is a construction to be scrapped." He was referring to the architect's controversial 2006 Ara Pacis museum, a modern enclosure for the 2,000-year-old altar commissioned by Roman Emperor Augustus. (Scroll down at the above link for a slideshow of the Meier project.) It looks like Alemanno's been reading too much Nicolai Ouroussoff, not enough Joseph Giovannini.

Where's the Great Repatriator when we really need him?


Francesco Rutelli speaking with Philippe de Montebello in three languages, during a visit to the Metropolitan Museum, November 2006