Masterpiece-for-a-Day: The Whitney's Speedy Loan of Timeless Gorky
Arshile Gorky, "The Artist and His Mother," 1926-36, Whitney Museum
It's a generous but highly unusual gesture---a masterpiece-for-a-day loan to the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), on the occasion of the 40th-anniversary celebration of St. Vartan Armenian Cathedral, New York.
Tomorrow, the Whitney Museum's iconic Arshile Gorky painting, "The Artist and His Mother" (above) will be temporarily inserted into a larger exhibition, Art @ the Cathedral: Giving Form to Faith, which runs at the cathedral, 630 Second Ave., to June 24.
According to the church's announcement:
It is especially fitting that "The Artist and His Mother" will be exhibited at the Eastern Diocese as this year is the 60th anniversary of Gorky's death, making the Whitney Museum's loan particularly significant to the Armenian-American community....I'm really on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand about this: Dispatching one-day loans raises security and conservation issues, as well as questions about the seriousness of purpose for which they are deployed. On the other hand, it imparts a new, living context to the art and an expanded sense of its meaning and power."It is a great honor for the artists who undoubtedly have been influenced by Gorky to be exhibited side by side with this iconic painting," ... [Vicky] Hovanessian [curator of the exhibition] added. "The Armenian-American community holds this painting as a poignant symbol of Armenian cultural heritage, and the Whitney Museum has enabled us to display this masterpiece in an Armenian institution."
Assuming that all due care is taken, I think I lean towards the latter view in this instance.
June 18, 2008 11:09 AM
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LEE ROSENBAUM I'm a veteran cultural journalist with many pieces in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and major art magazines. I have been a cultural contributor on New York Public Radio (WNYC and WQXR) and have provided arts commentary on NPR and public radio stations in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. I am a HuffPost Arts writer. I've been profiled on the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer's Art Beat and in the Chicago Reader. I've appeared as an art-market commentator on BBC-TV and have published numerous Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. I am author of The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf) and have lectured on cultural property issues at the New Acropolis Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, on deaccessioning at at Investigative Reporters and Editors 2011 Annual Meeting, Columbia Law School, the University of Iowa and a conference of the Museum Association of New York, on museum governance and cultural property issues at Seton Hall University, on arts blogging at American University and on Smithsonian exhibition controversies at Rutgers University.
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moreLEE ROSENBAUM I'm a veteran cultural journalist with many pieces in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and major art magazines. I have been a cultural contributor on New York Public Radio (WNYC and WQXR) and have provided arts commentary on NPR and public radio stations in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. I am a HuffPost Arts writer. I've been profiled on the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer's Art Beat and in the Chicago Reader. I've appeared as an art-market commentator on BBC-TV and have published numerous Op-Ed pieces in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. I am author of The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf) and have lectured on cultural property issues at the New Acropolis Museum and the University of Pennsylvania, on deaccessioning at at Investigative Reporters and Editors 2011 Annual Meeting, Columbia Law School, the University of Iowa and a conference of the Museum Association of New York, on museum governance and cultural property issues at Seton Hall University, on arts blogging at American University and on Smithsonian exhibition controversies at Rutgers University.
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