July 2008 Archives

Damien Hirst, "Pharmacy,"1992, Tate Gallery
© Damien Hirst

Someone who signed his name as "Pharmacy" yesterday sent me an admiring but cryptic e-mail that was linked as a comment to my 2006 post, "Sensation!" German-Style. The message clearly had nothing to do with that long-ago review of the "Glitter and Doom" show at the Metropolitan Museum.

But the allusion to "Sensation!", the Young British Artists exhibition that famously included Hirst's shark, and the pseudonym of the sender, which seemed to evoke Hirst's Pharmacy-titled works (including his restaurant in London, whose contents were sold at a Sotheby's auction in 2004), sure made me wonder who sent that message, which I assumed actually referred to Tuesday's post, Damien The Auction: A Career "Retrospective" of Brand New Works.

Maybe after my Banksy investigation, I'm getting too enamored of my new role of private detective. But these double-entendres seem right down the alley of an artist whose words (in his titles) are almost as evocative and thought-provoking as his works.

Speaking of which, here's what "Pharmacy" wrote to me:

Thank you for that very intelligent and thought-provoking comment.
Though I am not sure what you expected me to take from that.

Signature image of the Philippe retrospective:
Peter Paul Rubens, "Rubens, His Wife Helena Fourment and Their Son Peter Paul," probably late 1630s, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Not only are the Metropolitan Museum's more than 84,000 works acquired during the 31-year reign of director Philippe de Montebello going to be celebrated in an exhibition of more than 250 selected objects, but they are also the focus of a graduate art history course, named for the exhibition, offered this fall at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts.

NYU's colloquium (click on "Fall 2008 Courses in Art History and Archaeology" and scroll to the bottom), "Curatorial Studies II: The Philippe de Montebello Years," will be taught by the Met's Byzantine art curator, Helen Evans, who is also coordinating the museum's upcoming show, Oct. 24-Feb. 1.

In case you want to audit (though I doubt you can), here's the course description:

The role of acquisitions in the development of a major museum will be explored through "The Philippe de Montebello Years," an exhibition which recognizes the importance of the more than 80,000 works that have entered The Metropolitan Museum during the three decades of his tenure. Students consider the impact of purchases, donors, new/old fields of collecting on the selection of works and the resulting impact on the character of the Museum.

But wait! This is course is also very hands-on:

Students participate in the final stages of the exhibition's development.

Does this mean that they can take on Philippe's customary role, tinkering with installations after the curators have finished?

No details yet on the first course that Professor de Montebello will teach at NYU after he leaves the Met. Here's what Kathleen Heins, Director of Development & Public Affairs for NYU's IFA, told me:

Mr. de Montebello's appointment will be effective in January 2009, or upon the arrival of his successor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Thus, his first course will be scheduled once we know when he will take up his appointment.

In this post about the vulnerability of the National Gallery and other Washington institutions to flooding if the endangered Potomac Park levee fails, I observed that these facilities "had better have a plan for keeping their treasures high and dry."

Here's what Deborah Ziska, the National Gallery's chief of press and public information, had to say, in response to my query:

The National Gallery of Art continually reviews its emergency preparedness and, in the unlikely event floodwaters do come our way, we have a number of systems in place and additional ones that are ready for deployment to safeguard the art in the Gallery's care at all times.

She also confirmed an alert I got from a CultureGrrl reader---that my description of what happened during the Washington flooding of 2006 was all wet. The problems then were caused by torrential rains, not by a cresting of the Potomac. The National Gallery did close then, due to "the failure of the General Services Administration central steam plant (located across the Mall behind the US Department of Agriculture Building), caused by the flooding," which cut off "the NGA's supply of steam...for three days.

This is not a Hirst: Bull's Head Rhyton, Late Minoan (ca. 1450 B.C.), Herakleion Archaeological Museum

For his audacious, dealer-bypassing London auction of 223 new works (total presale estimate: more than £65 million), Damien Hirst has concocted an instant "retrospective" of 2008 creations, which recap his career's signature styles and motifs---spin art, dots, butterflies and, of course, formaldehyde-preserved beasts. If this isn't "flooding the market," what is?

Sotheby's just-issued press release calls it, "a whole new body of work that covers [i.e., replicates?] the complete range of Hirst's output and more." You can see a five-animal morgue among the images in the press release, as well as nine other pieces to be offered. Sotheby's initial June announcement had only mentioned and illustrated the highest-priced piece---"The Golden Calf," estimated at £8-12 million, complete with 18-carat horns and hooves.

In a priceless podcast, the indispensable Maev Kennedy of the British Guardian newspaper described Hirst's new bullish icon as "cocking a snook at the whole art market." (I'm clueless about British-isms, but that's what her words sounded like.)

As it happens, I today came across an ancient Hirstian forebear (above), at an exhibition of Minoan Crete objects at the Onassis Cultural Center, New York. But unlike Hirst's bull, this ancestor was not made from a real bovine, nor were its golden horns crafted from real gold.

The entire Sept. 15-16 auction seems to be "cocking a snook" at art dealers and collectors, who profit from artists' work by raking in cash from sales and resales. "This time," as Kennedy observed, Hirst is "going straight to auction himself and getting the money himself." (Actually, some of the money may be going from the artist to the auction house as a sellers commission, unless Sotheby's has agreed to limit its take to the buyers premium. And some proceeds are earmarked for various charities.)

Maybe the mysterious "investment group" should consign Hirst's supposed $100-million diamond skull to this sale, so we can finally find out what it's REALLY worth!

But does anyone really want to purchase Microshark---an oil painting (actually titled "Bill with Shark") based on a Jean Pigozzi photograph of Microsoft's Bill Gates, gazing at a signature Hirst predator? (Perhaps Steve Ballmer will take the bait. Proceeds for this will go to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.)

Now (for just $75 million) you can!

Sotheby's International Realty has the listing for the 21,200 square feet of "grand and elegant neo-Italian Renaissance" space that once housed Lawrence Salander's financially beleaguered gallery.

Christopher Gray of the NY Times reported on Sunday that the E. 71st Street townhouse (above) is being sold by its owner, the real estate mogul and art collector Aby Rosen. Salander had rented it for $1.8 million a year, according to the Times.

Pablo Picasso, "Guernica," 1937, Reina Sofia, Madrid

Does Picasso's "Guernica," one of the most celebrated paintings of the 20th century, have "a robust constitution," or is it in "stable but serious" condition?

That depends on whether you ask Manuel Borja-Villel, the director of Madrid's Reina Sofia Museum, who provided the upbeat description (as reported by the Associated Press), or Jorge Garcia Gomez-Tejedor, the same museum's conservator, who delivered the downbeat diagnosis to journalist Jesús Ruiz Mantilla, reporting for the Spanish newspaper, El Pais.

One thing that they both agree on: It shouldn't travel. Ever since it opened in 1997, the Guggenheim Bilbao, in the Basque region, has been unsuccessfully seeking a loan of this powerful depiction of the effects of the 1937 German bombing of the Basque town of Guernica.

The treatment of the painting by the Museum of Modern Art, where Picasso had decreed the painting should remain until democracy returned to Spain, came in for some scrutiny in the El Pais piece. (MoMA returned the painting to Spain in 1981.)

According to El Pais, new x-rays show that the painting still bears traces of a 1974 graffiti attack by Tony Shafrazi (now a Chelsea art dealer). The article also appears to call into question MoMA conservators' treatment of the painting, which "affected it chromatically."

MoMA's spokesperson, Kim Mitchell, declined (via e-mail) to provide details on the condition of the painting while it was in New York. She wrote:

The best way for you to get information on the history and condition reports (including the time the work was at MoMA) is to contact the Reina Sofia directly, since they are the owners of the painting and the originators of the report.

The painting last underwent technical examination 10 years ago, which revealed "129 imperfections, ranging from cracks to creases to marks and stains," according to AP. Another rigorous technical examination is now underway, with results to be reported in 2010.

Although the painting apparently won't be moved from the Reina Sofia, it HAS moved WITHIN it---to a new installation, Guernica in Context, which attempts to evoke its first exhibition at the Spanish Pavilion of the 1937 Universal Exposition in Paris, including works also exhibited there, such as a Calder sculpture, "Mercury the Source" (now on loan from the Calder Foundation), and a film, "Espagne 1936," directed by Jean Paul Dreyfus, written by Luis Buñuel.

In Toronto's Globe and Mail later this morning (but online now), James Bradshaw and Josh Wingrove report on the contents of the legal affidavits in the dispute between the National Gallery of Canada's director, Pierre Théberge, and its deputy director, David Franklin, (who was abruptly put on leave). Franklin's July 16 request for a judicial review of the situation was dismissed by a Federal Court judge and the file was "permanently" sealed. The Ottawa Citizen newspaper promptly announced it would file a motion to have the affidavits made public. Now they are.

The convoluted intrigue at the museum resists summary and defies complete comprehension. You've got to read the the story, and then you'll still have unanswered questions. (I assume there will also be a report in tomorrow's Ottawa Citizen).

Here, from the Globe and Mail, is part of the tangled tale:

The documents detail the planned termination of Mr. Franklin from his post, which Mr. Franklin later challenged in federal court, and a growing rift between Mr. Franklin and gallery director Pierre Théberge.

A sworn affidavit from Mr. Franklin claims his employment was terminated on June 11. On June 13, Mr. Franklin submitted a formal letter of application for the director's job, soon to be vacated when Mr. Théberge's current one-year term expires at the end of 2008. The gallery then withdrew his dismissal and placed him on paid leave on June 16.

In yet another reversal, Mr. Franklin was informed on June 27 that his termination would be reinstated effective June 30. But as Mr. Franklin complains in the affidavit, gallery staff had already been informed that he would not be returning as deputy director.

As late as July 17, the National Gallery was still publicly describing Franklin as its deputy director.

It gets more complicated from there, with other staffers involved in hostilities. Let's just say that this was not a harmonious working environment.

Kwame Opoku, a tireless commentator on restitution issues (one of whose essays recently attracted a rejoinder on Afrikanet.info from Metropolitan Museum director Philippe de Montebello), responds to Michael Conforti Q&A About AAMD and Antiquities:

It is always interesting to hear from those whose work it is to keep records of the past achievements of mankind and society declaring that we must forget the past and look forward to the future. What they are saying is that there should be no archaeology of the acquisition practices of the past.

For the purposes of the new guidelines of the AAMD, it may be sufficient to accept 1970 as the cut-off date for applying more rigorous standards for acquisition. But should one accept that institutions established in the past may not be questioned simply because they are part of an intellectual history? There is a lot that is wrong with Western intellectual history. Must one leave things as they are?

The 1970 UNESCO Convention should not be interpreted as barring the recovery of unlawfully acquired cultural property before that date. That the Convention has no retroactive effect should not be interpreted to mean that it confers legitimacy or approval on acquisition practices before that date or before the effective application date for particular States.

Article 15 of the 1970 UNESCO Convention, which has been conveniently forgotten or overlooked by many commentators, provides as follows:

Nothing in this Convention shall prevent States Parties thereto from concluding special agreements among themselves or from continuing to implement agreements already concluded regarding the restitution of cultural property removed, whatever the reason, from its territory of origin, before the entry into force of this Convention for the States concerned.

In the flood zone: The National Gallery of Art

[NOTE: There is a correction to the first paragraph of this post, here.]

Remember the June 2006 cresting of the Potomac River in Washington, DC, which caused temporary closures of the National Archives, National Gallery, Natural History Museum and American History Museum, not to mention the Internal Revenue Service?

Now, according to the Associated Press, "the threat [of floods] is worsening" for these and other buildings in Washington's flood zone.

Brian Wesley reports:

The nearly 70-year-old [Potomac Park] levee is at risk of failing during a major storm---a catastrophe that could swamp portions of downtown in up to 10 feet (3.05 meters) of water and cause $200 million in damages, according to federal officials. [The flooding last time wasn't caused by a breached levee, just torrential rains.]....

[Washington] officials pledged to build an improved flood control system by November 2009.

We can only hope. Meanwhile, the archives and museums had better have a plan for keeping their treasures high and dry.

This message, which seems to debunk the latest identity theory, is now posted on the homepage of the Banksy website [via]:

Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld have done Vuitton and Marc Jacobs one better. Or, much more accurately, one worse.

Vuitton merely usurped nonprofit museum space for commercial purposes. Chanel will invade a swath of public land to promote its brand: Its players will overtake Rumsey Playfield in New York's Central Park, Oct. 20 to Nov. 9, with "Mobile Art," a futuristic pod designed by Zaha Hadid to display Chanel-commissioned art, "at least in part inspired by Chanel's classic...quilted-style chain handbag" (above), as reported today by Carol Vogel in the NY Times.

Mentioning (as city officials did) this cynical business transaction in the same breath with Christo's and Jeanne-Claude's Gates or Olafur Eliasson's current Waterfalls is an outrageous insult to those laudable public art projects, both of which were artist-generated, without commercial purpose.

In case you have any doubt that Chanel's park perk is an advertising gambit masquerading as an art exhibition, just go to the website that you are encouraged to visit to book timed tickets, click on "Exhibition," then "Inspiration," and you can admire the parade of Chanel products and read the description of what the company's sandbagged handbag artists are up to:

Their unique visions...reveal the multiple facets of this emblematic bag in all the artistic expresssions.

It's all about the pocketbook. But, neither the company, the city nor the Central Park Conservancy would tell Vogel the exact price at which Central Park's public land can be bought. According to Vogel, the fashion company will pay the city a $400,000 "use fee," and "officials familiar with the project, requesting anonymity in deference to Chanel, said that the fashion house was donating a sum 'in the low seven figures' to the Central Park Conservancy."

No such deference should be accorded. The public has a right to know the going price for its parkland. Better yet, it should insist that there's no price high enough to justify allowing Central Park to be used as a billboard.

Why do I bother trying to do serious journalism, anyway?

This post, in which I reported my discovery of a 2004 obit for one Robin Gunningham of Bristol (the same name and town of the person identified as, possibly, the elusive guerilla artist, Banksy) is, at this writing, Number One on the Google hit parade that appears when you search, "Robin Gunningham." (The implication of my discovery is that the cunning Gunningham name-dropper could be a hoaxster, meaning that the true identity of Banksy remains secret.)

I'm not aware of anyone in the mainstream media picking this up. Even Time magazine seems to have bought the far-from-convincing story that originated in London's Mail on Sunday. But there sure has been a lot of Internet buzz created by my little piece of digital detective work. (Suspecting identity theft, I went straight to the high-numbered Google search pages for Gunningham, and came upon the late, lamented Robin.)

You would not believe how much blog traffic is coming to me because of this throwaway item. No one cares a jot about Tadao Ando's concrete or Michael Conforti's antiquities analysis.

What am I doing here? I've learned my lesson.

COMING NEXT: Larry Gagosian unmasked: He is Steve Martin. (Just kidding.)

Michael Conforti, Director of Clark Art Institute and President of AAMD

When we sat down for a chat at the new Stone Hill Center last month, Michael Conforti, director of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, must have thought he was talking with Rosenbaum, not CultureGrrl. He asserts that he never reads blogs (although he's been known to read posts forwarded to him by others).

As the new president of the Association of Art Museum Directors, with a two-year term for a post that formerly lasted one year, Conforti is in a position to implement many of his well-honed principles of museum governance. I was particularly interested to see if he agreed with the premise behind my recent cultural-property posts (here and here), in which I made specific suggestions about what the next steps towards a ceasefire in the antiquities wars ought to be.

CultureGrrl: It seems to me that the next step in the antiquities guidelines should be: "What do you do with the stuff you've already got?" Are you going to develop guidelines about what museums should do about claims?

Conforti: This [the most recent antiquities guidelines issued by AAMD] is focused on prospective acquisitions. My goal at AAMD is to get people to start talking about other things that we can do with one another. What the Italians were very anxious about has now been returned. They feel quite good about that. The point is: What is the Italian public interested in? It's not antiquities; it's Impressionism! We send more objects to Italy on loan than Italy sends to us.

Once you start to talk about things like that openly, in an environment of trust, you're going to have a different conversation. I can't say there will be no more requests for things, but that's certainly not the future of conversation between Italy and the United States. It has to be about other things. I think that's true of many countries. Italy may be a little more willing at this point, because of the particular nature of return. But I think we're going to see that the Americans are now in harmony with much of the rest of the world and we can start engaging with the rest of the world without focusing on what we've done in the past vs. what we might do in the future.

CultureGrrl: Does AAMD have no intention to draw up guidelines about what to do with works already in American museums' collections?

Conforti: We have our guidelines: The guidelines are about [future] acquisitions. We do allow for gifts or even purchases of objects with an unclear provenances after 1970. I think we are doing this responsibly and it won't happen very often, because we are putting them on our website [none are listed yet] and we're very open about that. So there will be a return policy then, if something occurs.

If there are claims for objects with unclear post-1970 provenances, I know that American institutions will respond responsibly, but I'm not sure that's where the future will be. We're talking 30-35 years here, and how much was actually collected and what else do we have to deal with? Is it all about moving those things around, back and forth?

Our world cannot be about dismembering institutions that were established in the past. They're part of our intellectual history. Traditions of associating objects with power were long established, from ancient Roman times to the Renaissance and the rest. We've moved away from that now but to what degree do we go back and change it?

CultureGrrl: What do you want to do with AAMD in the next two years?

Conforti: We have many challenges: the continuation of the communication regarding the new guidelines, and we're in the process of long-range planning. We now have an executive committee of the board of trustees and we're having our first meeting next week [the week of June 23]. Glenn Lowry [Museum of Modern Art], Melissa Chiu [Asia Society], Tim Rub [Cleveland Museum] and I are going to meet in Glenn's office. We will be talking about next stage, particularly our search process [for a new executive director, replacing Mimi Gaudieri] and our long-range planning process. [I later asked Conforti for details about that meeting, after it occurred, but he said that information was confidential.] 

We have an intention to be as open and as communicative with media as we can and that may not have always been as consistent in the past. These are the messages we're anxious to communicate, so that not only the American public but, particularly, Washington knows what great value art museums are to culture. I think we sometimes, in the noise around other things, have missed that.

CultureGrrl: Do you have any interest in the position that I nominated you for?

Conforti: I have no intention of being anywhere but here at the Clark....This [who should succeed Philippe at the Met] is something that museum directors never talk about. Not only don't we talk about it because it's not polite. It's just that there are so many other things to talk about. The last people to ask are the museum directors.

If you haven't had enough yet on the topic of international cultural-property issues, here's a recent KCRW, Santa Monica, radio colloquy between Conforti and James Cuno, director of the Art Institute of Chicago and author of a controversial book on the cultural-property wars:

 

Many new buildings have "punch lists"---things that didn't get done quite right the first time and need to be fixed or replaced. At the new Tadao Ando-designed Stone Hill Center built by the Williamstown Art Conservation Center and the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, the problems involve the window shades and the building material that Ando is most famous for---concrete.

Here's what the shades look like now (at the top of the window, pointed out by Lisa Green, the Clark's director of communications and design):



Lisa told me that the white pull-down shades (none of which were in use in the public spaces during the recent press preview) would be replaced with inserts that will fit within the window frames, to show off the building's design details to best advantage. The color of the scrim in these inserts will be gray instead of white, which she said would allow visitors "to see outside more."

That's the simple part. There are, as I suggested in my earlier Clark/Ando post, significant problems with the appearance of the concrete, not all of which are as easily changed as window treatments.

Green, who conceded that there were some defects, said that Ando had approved the concrete and had had the option to reject it. Still, I doubt this is the level of craftsmanship to which he is accustomed in Japan:


pitting...

Because I've been posting less, I've dropped the ball on a number of recent developments on stories that we've been following. Here's a quick catch-up rundown:

---Jacques Steinberg of the NY Times reports that "construction workers have begun dismantling the scaffolding that has encased the Guggenheim Museum on the Upper East Side of Manhattan for nearly three years." I recently learned from a construction-company source that a ceremony related to this major makeover is scheduled for Sept. 22.

But that doesn't mean that the restoration is almost done. Eleanor Goldhar, the Guggenheim's deputy director for external affairs, acknowledged the Sept. 22 event, but told me: "No completion date is confirmed to me yet." And while part of the Guggenheim at the end of June looked like this (freshly painted, but with visible flaws, such as the chipped edge to the right of the street sign)...



...the bulk of it still looked like this (my shot of the not-so-grand entrance):



---UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, at its meeting earlier this month in Quebec, issued an ultimatum to the French administrators of Lascaux, the famed prehistoric site in Dordogne. WHC called on France to address expeditiously the serious condition problems afflicting the renowned cave paintings, or else risk seeing its iconic but publicly inaccessible site placed on next year's list of World Heritage in Danger.

According to a press release (not online) from the ad hoc International Committee for the Preservation of Lascaux, the WHC has instructed Lascaux's administrators to:

• Make an impact study prior to any further interventions in the cave.
• Invite a WHC mission inside Lascaux to examine the current conditions of the cave.
• Submit to the WHC a conservation report by February 1, 2009 on the specific causes of the damage to the paintings with a view to considering, in the absence of substantial progress in finding out the cause of the damage to the art, the possible inscription of the cave on the 2009 List of World Heritage in Danger.

I could find no information about this development on the WHC's website; my e-mailed requests for WHC's report or comments has not yet been answered. But John Lichfield of the Independent has the story about the recent Lascaux lashing.

---Donn Zaretsky of the Art Law Blog comments on my post about the Vuitton-Murakami Morass and offers his legal analysis (with which reasonable lawyers and bloggers may disagree) of the litigation over the sale of limited-edition canvases at LA MOCA.

---James Reginato in W magazine discusses another of the Middle East's planned new museums---the I.M. Pei-designed Museum of Islamic Art, Qatar. Reginato reports:

Qatar has been just as ambitious [as other Middle East venues] in its aspirations to become a cultural center, but by starting with a focus specifically on Islamic culture, the country has been doing it in a more homegrown way. Unlike Abu Dhabi, furthermore, Qatar is not renting art....

During the past decade, representatives of the Al-Thani family---most famously, an art- and antiquities-obsessed cousin of the Emir, Sheikh Saud---have purchased almost every significant piece of Islamic art that has come on the market. Meanwhile, planning for the country's other major institution, a Qatar National Museum designed by Jean Nouvel, is well under way.

---The Shelby White divestments continue: Maria Petrakis of Bloomberg reports that the American collector, who recently relinquished nine antiquities to Italy (with a 10th to be dispatched in 2010), has now "agreed to return two antiquities from her private collection to Greece. The section of a tomb stele, dating to the early 4th century B.C., and the bronze calyx wine bowl from 340 B.C. will be returned this month."

I particularly like the fact that the stele fragment will be reunited with its lower segment---a nice small-scale precedent for you-know-what.

Speaking of which, Marbles Reunited, the British group lobbying for reassembling the sundered Parthenon frieze, announces that it has named a new campaign director, Thomas Dowson.

---Lots of journalists have been reporting that the New Acropolis Museum in Athens will open in September. But my source at the Hellenic Ministry of Culture tells me the much delayed event won't happen until "late 2008 or early 2009" (unless they postpone again!).

Not Coptic: Limestone Relief of a Paralytic Carrying a Bed on His Back, Brooklyn Museum

For those of you who have heard my WNYC commentary, Fake Art at the Brooklyn Museum, here's more:

Edna Russman, Brooklyn's curator of Egyptian art, told me last week that the problem pieces that will be displayed as part of the museum's Coptic sculpture show, Feb. 13-May 10, were known to have come from Egypt, especially from the village of Sheikh Ibada. The limestone from which they were composed was, in fact, unearthed from authentic Coptic sites.

Those sites, she said, were being dug up "mostly by people looking for papyrus. They threw the stone blocks around." The modern fakes were made "on the remains of very damaged ancient pieces." They traveled first to Europe (primarily Switzerland), then to the U.S.

Brooklyn's 10 outright forgeries and five substantially reworked pieces were acquired in the 1950s through early 1970s, mostly through purchase but partly through gift. By the late 1970s, doubts were already being raised by Thelma Thomas, now associate professor at NYU's Institute of Fine Arts and Gary Vikan, now director of the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. (We can only hope Vikan will soon add an entry about this contretemps to his own very lively and opinionated blog on the Walters' website.)

At first, the American scholars' doubts (which ran counter to the views of respected authorities in Europe) were "just one opinion," Kevin Stayton, Brooklyn's chief curator and vice director for curatorial affairs, told me last week. "It sometimes takes years for conviction to grow in a curatorial body." It's always considered a worse crime to demote a piece that's authentic than to allow a piece to be deemed innocent until proven guilty.

Russman noted that a previous generation of scholars had wanted to believe that the sculptures contained Christian imagery (hence the name "Coptic," which refers to early Christianity in Egypt), but they were "making it up as they went along." The forgeries, with unambiguous Christian references, played to preconceptions of the time.

Brooklyn was already revising its view of the period (4th-7th century A.D.) by the time of its 1997 handbook of the permanent collection, which noted that an illustrated Coptic openwork relief, although "almost certainly" created for a religious building, was nevertheless "completely lacking in Christian iconography." This illustrated "the problems inherent in interpreting 'Coptic' as an exclusively religious designation."

The cardinal rule of fake detection is that spurious works generally remain convincing for, at most, a generation, because they reflect the tastes and prejudices of the era in which they were produced. Stayton told me:

We are now able to look back and see these objects as fakes. But with an object made for our own tastes, we would have a harder time.

The lesson to be learned, he said, is that "we always have to be very careful," examining provenance and thinking "about whether a piece is too good to be true."

Kudos to Martin Bailey of The Art Newspaper for breaking the story, and Kate Taylor of the NY Sun for a fascinating follow-up.

Richard Dearden, Freedom of Information Fighter

The Ottawa Citizen newpaper wants to know what issues are involved in the David Franklin/National Gallery of Canada court battle and it's initiating its own court battle to find out. Federal Court Deputy Judge Orville Frenette on Wednesday had ordered the permanent sealing of the file pertaining to Franklin's application for "a judicial review."

Paula McCooey of the Citizen reports:

Citizen lawyer Richard Dearden [above] says the paper will be filing a motion seeking to unseal the file on the grounds that it infringes the open court principle and Charter guarantees of freedom of the press.

"This is a highly unusual order in that it orders that the registry return to counsel for the parties any and all documents filed in connection with the judicial review application," Mr. Dearden said, adding the media should have been given proper notice about the sealing of the documents so they would have had an opportunity to make arguments against the ban. "There was no need for absolute secrecy in this case."

Fight on, Fearsome Dearden! Citizens (and inquiring Citizen journalists) have a right to know.

My New York Public Radio segment on the Brooklyn Museum's Coptic art fakes was bumped to Monday by an story on Iran (fair enough) but it's up on their website today and I've got permission to post it on CultureGrrl.

For those of you who still want to hear it on the radio, I'm told that it will air at 7:30 a.m. But these things can change (and probably will).

At any rate, you can listen now by clicking the arrow below (or WNYC's website) and I'll post more on the topic next week, after this airs. For now, I'll only add that I stole the quip at the end of my comments from Samuel Sachs II, who, many years ago, was discussing the Minneapolis Institute of Arts' "Fakes and Forgeries" show of 1973 (when he was that museum's director).

I will never call WNYC's studios "shabby" again. Today I visited New York Public Radio's shiny new headquarters, to tape a segment (which, if all goes according to plan, will be aired tomorrow on Morning Edition) about the upcoming Brooklyn Museum exhibition of Coptic stone sculptures, real and fake. I'm no longer caged in a glass booth, but I can't see host Soterios Johnson, even though he sits opposite me, because that plump new microphone is in my face.

I wonder if I'll sound better on the new equipment!

In any event, you can listen live online here tomorrow morning. (I don't know the time yet.) If you're in the New York metropolitan area, tune in to 93.9 FM or 820 AM.

I'll post the link to the audio podcast on CultureGrrl tomorrow, when available.

David Franklin, on leave and in court

When David Franklin suddenly went "on leave" July 2 from his post as deputy director of the National Gallery of Canada, the museum's director of public affairs, Joanne Charette, told me:

The man has a right to his privacy....Eventually, there will be further explanation.

Now there is: Yesterday he went to court against both the museum and its director, Pierre Théberge, who had announced previously that he would be leaving his post once a new director was appointed. Franklin had been thought to be a possible candidate, according to press accounts.

Paul Gessell of the Ottawa Citizen reports:

Deputy Judge Orville Frenette dismissed Franklin's application for "a judicial review." Frenette's short, written ruling did not reveal what Franklin wanted reviewed. The judge also ordered the court file "permanently sealed," denying access to the public in perpetuity....The Ottawa Citizen has learned that Franklin feared Théberge was unfairly trying to fire him or to otherwise thwart his career ambitions.

That last loaded sentence from Gessell's story appeared in the version of his report on Canada.com's above-linked Global TV website, but not on its Ottawa Citizen website.

Whatever the issues, it's a safe bet that we've not heard the last of what Gessell calls "a veritable civil war at the National Gallery."

At this writing, my e-mailed and phoned requests for further clarification from Joanne Charette, the museum's director of public affairs, have not been answered. I will update if more news becomes available.

UPDATE: Charette ignored my detailed questions but has just sent me this press release. It still gives Franklin his museum title and says that he is still working on an upcoming museum show:

The National Gallery is delighted to announce the exclusive presentation of the exhibition "Raphael to Carracci: The Art of Papal Rome," on view May 29 to Sept. 6, 2009.  Deputy Director and Chief Curator David Franklin continues to devote his efforts...to this unique exhibit....

Dr. Franklin has been working hard and focusing his efforts on assembling what is expected to be the largest exhibit of major pieces of art from the Renaissance Rome period (1500 to 1600) ever held outside of Rome itself....

As the exhibition lead curator, Dr. Franklin was released from his institutional duties to support his writing of the main essay and numerous catalogue entries and he is also acting as editor of the exhibition catalogue.

Some enterprising reporter needs to get hold of Dr. Franklin and reveal the real picture beneath the whitewash.

SECOND UPDATE: The chary Charette has just sent me this reply to my follow-up e-mail asking for answers to my questions:

I have communicated all that I can. David Franklin is working on the Raphael exhibition. He will then resume is full duties of Deputy Director and Chief Curator.

That last bit is something we didn't know (and still wonder about).

Three limited-edition "Monogramouflage" canvases in the Vuitton boutique at the Brooklyn Museum's recent Murakami show

I've always thought that ceding a museum's nonprofit space to a for-profit Louis Vuitton boutique (as occurred at the Takashi Murakami retrospective at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the Brooklyn Museum) was a bad idea and an even worse precedent.

But never did I anticipate the negative outcome that has now occurred. As most of you by now probably know, the show has ended but the bad taste lingers on: LA MOCA is now stuck with defending itself in court against a lawsuit by someone who bought limited edition Murakami canvases at the museum's Vuitton shop. The plaintiff, Clint Arthur, says those works lacked documentation legally required in California. (Mike Boehm of the LA Times article describes the lawsuit in greater detail here.)

Unsurprisingly, Vuitton, through a spokesperson, told me that "this lawsuit has no merit" and added: "We intend to vigorously defend ourselves against this baseless litigation." All the same, officials at the Brooklyn Museum, where the show and its handbag emporium have just closed, must be biting their fingernails.

While the show was still open, I asked Adam Husted, Brooklyn's media relations manager, whether there were any signs that his museum might be drawn into a similar lawsuit. (New York's print-disclosure statute was modeled on California's and contains similar requirements for documentation.)

Husted's reply:

The Museum is not being sued and there are no indications that we may be. Vuitton is solely responsible for the store. I believe that the works [the limited-edition canvases] are still on sale, but Vuitton would have to confirm that and whether anything has changed.

Museums cannot afford---ethically or (in light of the possible legal costs) financially---to disclaim knowledge or responsibility for what goes on smack in the middle of their own exhibitions. After what happened in LA, Brooklyn had little excuse for eschewing due diligence---especially since the dispute involved the sale of artworks within the confines of an art museum.

Lisa Phillips annoucing the New Museum Triennial yesterday

Memo to Lisa Phillips: Please change this title while there's still time! While you're at it, consider changing the exhibition concept as well.

At a press breakfast yesterday, Lisa Phillips (above), director of the New Museum, New York, proudly announced next spring's planned opening of a triennial exhibition devoted to international emerging artists. The title occasioned one of those "Did she really say that?" moments. But there it was---in big letters on an otherwise blank screen:



So after the presentation, I had to ask: "Why that title?"

Lisa's answer:

Because he [Jesus] changed things more than anyone before the age of 33.

"Younger than Vincent" might have been a useful, art-related reference to someone of high achievement who died young. But that might have invited invidious critical comparisons between van Gogh's sunflowers and the current crop. For those of other faiths, the Christ-oriented title is apt to be off-putting. And I'd imagine that even some Christian museumgoers may feel uneasy about likening the impact of emerging artists (some undoubtedly more profane than sacred) to that of their savior.

I also found it hard to accept the other premises underlying this enterprise, as elucidated by Phillips: that 33-and-under artists have been neglected by the artworld (what about all those Raiders of the MFA Art?); and that the defining characteristic of the new generation is that it grew up with the Internet. Don't 20-somethings have significant experiences away from the computer?

Another defining concept, Phillips said, was the "collapse of globalization: There are huge cultural divides all over the world," she noted...except, it would seem, on the World Wide Web and in the gospel according to "Jesus," which will explore "how artists belonging to the same age group can develop similar interests and express similar concerns across geographies and nationalities." That sounds pretty global to me.

With the Whitney Biennial (which does not limit itself to new talent) experiencing less hostility in its recent outings, New York needs a new show that it "loves to hate." "Jesus" might be just the ticket. We can only hope that the Spring 2012 triennial will bring us the much anticipated sequel: "Older Than Methuselah."

Meanwhile, my recent viewings of the New Museum's about-to-open After Nature ("a future landscape of wilderness and ruins"), MASS MoCA's similarly themed but less grim Badlands ("works that look beyond vast beauty to address current environmental issues") and the Museum of Modern Art's new exhibition of prefab houses (with an emphasis on spartan efficiency and sustainability for a planet in peril) make me feel like we're mired in a WALL-E moment: This is the way the world ends---not with a meteor, but with our detritus.

Fisk President Hazel O'Leary at a June 27 event to celebrate the university's raising over $8.3 million in the past fiscal year

Whatever happened to Fisk University's Apr. 3 appeal of Davidson County Chancellor Ellen Hobbs Lyle's decision rejecting the school's plan to sell a half-share of its celebrated Stieglitz Collection to Alice Walton for $30 million?

According to Colby Sledge's June 30 article in the Tennessean, "a final decision [in the appeal could take years to obtain."

Good thing, then, that "donations more than doubled from last year, when the school looked like it might run out of operating funds." The newspaper quotes Fisk president Hazel O'Leary (above) saying:

We needed to change Fisk into the business that it ought to be; that has been accomplished. All of that is about improving and trying to overcome a lingering reputation that Fisk can't manage its money.

Better late than never. The university has just met a fundraising deadline to raise $4 million in order to qualify for the final installment of a $2 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. And the good news for art lovers is that Fisk is now "renovating the Carl Van Vechten Gallery, where the Stieglitz collection will be redisplayed on Oct. 6---with an accompanying fundraising gala---after years of storage in the Frist Center."

The administration and trustees should now resolve to continue raising money the old-fashioned way and drop the Stieglitz Collection lawsuit, in order to save the money from legal fees for years of possibly useless wrangling in the Tennessee Court of Appeals. After all, who's to say Alice Walton will still want to shell over her $30 million by the time this protracted case is finally resolved?

I have some questions pending with Fisk's attorney, C. Michael Norton, about the status of the appeal and why it might take so long to resolve. I'll update here if I receive a reply.

I don't claim to know who Banksy is. Maybe he really is Robin Gunningham from Bristol; or maybe London's Mail on Sunday, the newspaper that claimed on Saturday to have possibly identified the elusive guerilla graffitist, is the victim of a hoax.

All I know is that when I Googled the name of the Bristol bloke, I went straight to the high-numbered (less clicked-upon) pages and instantly came up with this---a death notice from July 24, 2004 for one Robin Gunningham of Bristol, who died at age 44. (The Thomas Davis Funeral Home, cited in the notice, is located in Bristol.) The notice says that his mother's name was Pauline. This could explain why "Banksy's" purported mother, Pamela, maintained to the BBC that "she had never even had a son." Banksy has long been believed to hail from Bristol.

I'm no private investigator, and I'll let others sort all this out. All I know is that the photo in the Mail article of the black-haired guy spotted with a paint pot in Jamaica looks nothing like the Mail's other photo of Gunningham as a red-haired schoolboy. (Yes, I HAVE heard of hair dye and perhaps "Robin Gunningham" is a popular name among Bristolians.)

Why don't we just let this prankster stay anonymous? It's lots more fun.

A portion of the famed rock garden at Ryoanji temple, Kyoto

Dana Buntrock, associate professor of architecture, University of California, Berkeley, responds to Clash of Perfectionists: Ando and Conforti at the Clark:

Loved the discussion. Comes down to one question: people or purity? Pure concrete, clean control of movement, etc. Both Ando and the director seem to have related, but not similar enough, stances on the goal.

I think, though, the concrete wall's slashing the scenery, which you complain about, is actually intended to have this effect ("shakkei" or borrowed landscape). What makes it work some place like the famed Ryoanji [the Kyoto temple best known for its rock garden, above, which I, Lee, photographed during my recent trip to Japan] is an appreciation for the wall, too---but appreciation for a simple, fair-faced wall takes time and will only work if the wall can develop some beauty as it ages. Hard, with concrete.

CultureGrrl adds:

When asked about the walls at the recent press preview in Williamstown, Ando remarked that "the wall creates space between you and nature" and imparts "some sense of serene space."

As I mentioned in the above-linked post, I'll soon have more to say about concrete issues at the Clark.

George Wachter, Sotheby's old masters specialist

The Frick Collection, New York, has just taken the unorthodox step of appointing to its board an auction-house official, George Wachter (above), vice chairman of Sotheby's North and South America and co-chairman of old master paintings---the mainstay of the Frick's holdings.

Many museums refrain from appointing art dealers or auction-house officials to their boards because of the possible conflicts between a nonprofit's best interests and a market professional's commercial self-interest. Also problematic is the potential for misuse of the museum's prestige to boost the standing of one gallery or auction house over its competitors. Museums need to participate in the market as acquirers and sometimes as sellers, yet they must maintain their proper position of being a scholarly step removed from the commercial fray.

I have mixed feelings on the question of whether market players should be on museum boards: I believe that there IS a conflict of interest that would have to be vigilantly monitored if a dealer or auction-house official were granted a seat. But one would never say that active collectors should be barred from such positions, and they too have obvious potential conflicts of interest to be guarded against. There is undeniable value in having some people overseeing museums who are market-savvy.

However, I have no mixed feelings whatsoever about how the Frick chose to present Wachter in its press release announcing his appointment. The glowing description of Wachter's market exploits reads like a promotional blurb for Sotheby's, tainting the appointment as unseemly, however noble its intent:

With a strong knowledge of the market, enthusiasm for Old Master paintings, and a gift for developing strong client relationships, Wachter has played a significant role in expanding the North American market to be one of the dominant centers that it is today.

Under his leadership, the Sotheby's January 2007 Important Old Masters sale realized $110 million at auction. This auction still holds the world record for any Old Masters sale in history, outpacing the noteworthy sale in London (July 10, 2002) where Sotheby's sold a Sir Peter Paul Rubens, "The Massacre of the Innocents," for a remarkable $75 million.

Wachter has also played a major role in the sale of the most important collections of Old Master paintings ever to come to auction, including paintings from the Estate of Peter Jay Sharp; the Estate of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr; the Collection of the Late Count and Countess Guy du Bouisrouvray; the Collection of Jaime Ortiz Patiño; and numerous others.

This is great hype for Sotheby's. But what it has to do with the best interests of the Frick is anyone's guess. Interestingly, the collections cited in the preceding paragraph are taken directly from the profile of Wachter on Sotheby's website, but one collection mentioned in that bio was omitted---the works deaccessioned in 1995 by the New-York Historical Society.

I suppose that the Frick and/or Wachter prudently decided that an allusion to his role in that highly controversial museum sell-off might not add to his allure as a new member of the museum's board.

You've got to see this photo on the NY Times' City Room blog.

After a third climber tried yesterday to scale the Renzo Piano-designed jungle gym (scroll to bottom), composed of horizontal ceramic rods on the façade of the newspaper's new headquarters, workers (depicted in the photo) were busily prying off those stunt-tempting rungs.

Sewell Chan reports in today's Times:

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because The Times was still settling on a course of action, said that the company planned to remove about nine feet of the ceramic rods from the bottom of the screen that encases the building. By late Wednesday, the screen had been shortened by only a few feet....Representatives of Mr. Piano could not be reached for comment about the decision to remove some of the rods.

As David Dunlap reported yesterday in City Room, these rods are not just decorative:

Likening it to a "fabric of ceramic," he [Piano] called the screens a "suncoat"---as opposed to a raincoat---that would cut the transmission of light and heat into the interior, thereby permitting the use of clear, rather than tinted, glass.

So much for transparency. The Times reporters may not have succeeded in reaching Piano for comment (or in prying any substantive information from the newspaper's spokeswoman), but hopefully the Times' top brass have managed to make contact with the architect. According to Dunlap:

Michael Golden, the vice chairman of The New York Times Company, said he was determined to find a solution that would not compromise the architecture. "We're going to sort this out within the design sensibility of the building," he said.

Sherman Lee, with two objects of his affection

The last time I saw Sherman Lee, who died yesterday at the age of 90, was when he was in New York as curator of a section of the China: 5,000 Years show at the Guggenheim in 1998, some 15 years after he had retired from Cleveland Museum, where he had been director for 25 years.

But when I was a fledgling art journalist, writing long articles for Art in America and ARTnews magazines about ethical issues involving museum collecting, exhibitions and fundraising, I was always on the phone with Lee: He was my go-to person (along with Thomas Messer of the Guggenheim Museum) for brilliantly expressed, cogent and thoughtful quotes defending museum standards and ethics. He was always available, always unafraid to speak forcefully, and always generous with his insights.

So here are a few quotes from this Lee's Lee files. (Articles are too ancient to be online, to my knowledge.):

From my Jan./Feb. 1977 A.i.A. piece, "The Scramble for Museum Sponsors: Is Curatorial Independence for Sale?":

---Sherman Lee observed that NEA [National Endowment for the Arts] sometimes squanders money on "exhibitions just short of sensational show business."

---Sherman Lee feels that in its move "towards making shows more educational and didactic, NEH [National Endowment for the Humanities] now and then tends to lose sight of the fundamental purpose of an art exhibition, which is not to illustrate history but to allow an art work to be understood and enjoyed as a work of art."

---Sherman Lee..., speaking for those who are less enchanted with the show ["The World of Franklin and Jefferson," which toured internationally to seven major museums, including the Metropolitan], calls it "one of the worst exhibitions ever mounted. It's Marshall McLuhan run mad."

From my book, The Complete Guide to Collecting Art, discussing his museum's heralded 1974 purchase of a purported Grünewald that later was found to be a fake:

---Sherman Lee declared that the dealer had "acted in an honorable and courageous way in handling this matter and was as much taken in by the forgery as we were. He is a reputable art dealer with whom the museum has worked in the past and will continue to work in the future."

And from my November 1978 ARTnews piece, "The Care and Feeding of Donors":

---Sherman Lee...said that his museum "gives advice to anybody who asks for it," but added that his decision to spend considerable time helping a collector or to recommend particular acquisitions "depends on how firmly convinced I am that it will be to the benefit of the museum." In some cases, ...his museum even gets written statements from collectors receiving assistance, in which they set down their intention to make certain donations to the museum. "It's not legally binding," he said, "but it carries a strong moral obligation."

So did he. Sherman Lee was, in his heyday, this country's most respected art museum director, known for putting mission and principles first. Everything else was in service of those ideals.

Steven Litt's obit for the Cleveland Plain Dealer is here. The Cleveland Museum's statement is here.

Michael Conforti, director of the Clark Art Institute, responds to Clash of Perfectionists: Ando and Conforti at the Clark:

[Architect Tadao] Ando and I have great respect for one another (seriously) and there are many examples of our warm relationship. Each of us is looking forward to the work we will do together to realize the Clark's master plan.

For those clicking here from my article, This Tadao Ando Project Is a Berkshires Rental, in today's Wall Street Journal, here's some of the quirky stuff not suitable for mainstream media, as well as some illustrations to accompany my WSJ commentary:

Michael Conforti (left) and Tadao Ando (facing front) in the galleries during the press preview of the new Stone Hill Center

The ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of the Tadao Ando-designed Stone Hill Center in Williamstown, MA, which includes gallery space for the Clark Art Institute and spiffy new digs for the Williamstown Art Conservation Center, was spookily ill-fated. Torrential rains suddenly drenched the scene and many onlookers, just minutes before the ribbon cutting. The first enormous clap of thunder startled us almost precisely at the appointed scissor-wielding moment---the stroke of noon.

Clark director Michael Conforti and Anne-Imelda Radice, director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (who came from Washington for the occasion) managed to muster smiles beneath umbrellas that were supposed to have been "Clark green," but were manufactured in a paler, less vibrant hue.



Umbrellas also figured prominently at the soggy press preview two days before, when we gathered for lunch on the scenic terrace beneath enormous umbrella/canopies, which apparently had occasioned a contest of wills between the director and architect:



"I fought for these umbrellas, Conforti informed us almost at the outset of his opening remarks. "You have no idea of the level of resistance I got to these umbrellas." He went on about this at some length, defending the need for these sheltering canopies (which did have the effect of cluttering the clean lines and obscuring the views of Ando's architecture). Finally, Lisa Green, the Clark's highly accomplished director of communications and design, could no longer restrain herself:

"Enough with the umbrellas!" she blurted.

I saw little evidence of warmth, let alone cameraderie, between Ando and Conforti during my visit. More significant than the umbrella brouhaha: Ando's preference, I've been told, had been to use his customary smooth-as-silk concrete, but he bowed to Conforti's desire for concrete molded to echo the building's wood cladding.

The client-architect relationship is always a complex dance, but we can only hope that enough goodwill remains to get these two through the main event---the planned construction of a new Ando-designed Clark building, behind its existing facility on the main campus.

Here's Ando (left), meeting the press under what he apparently regarded as an unwelcome encumbrance:



The most striking expression of the director's perfectionist obsessions occurred when fellow blogger Ed Lifson and I caught him in the act of micromanaging the plants. We both took photos, with Michael's full knowledge. Ed's image was, of course, better than mine:


Photo by Edward Lifson

Michael had decided that these manzanites needed to be moved a smidge farther from the wall and, as you can see, he's a hands-on guy. When I told a Clark worker (who gave me the name of the plants) about this occurence the next day, she exclaimed, "Those plants are HEAVY!" So I tried lifting one myself and couldn't---whereupon I concluded that I'm a wimp and Michael is secretly pumping iron (or very large flower pots).

Here is the happy result of his labors:



The above photo shows the main entrance. But the door into the building, to the right of the opening, is screened from view (as I wrote in the WSJ) by the concrete outer walls that were molded in acid-etched pine forms to imitate the wood panels of the building, seen through the gap. It's a rather austere first impression, which is why publicity shots of the Clark (like the one published with my WSJ article) are taken from the rear, where the intersecting angles of concrete, wood and glass are more visually striking.

Here's what I called in the WSJ, "the most frustrating design misstep." It's the alluring porch, whose white oak floors extend inside the galleries (as you can see through the glass at the right side of the photo):

My review of the new Tadao Ando-designed Stone Hill Center at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, is scheduled to appear on the "Leisure & Arts" page of tomorrow's Wall Street Journal.

Do I sense another irreverent photo essay coming on? You KNOW I do!

I'll update this post with the WSJ link, when it becomes available---probably later tonight.

UPDATE: You can read it now, here.

NYU President John Sexton

Although NYU's planned college on Abu Dhabi's Saadiyat Island is being billed as a "comprehensive liberal arts campus," it seems to have a distinct art-and-architecture vibe: Mariët Westermann, former director of NYU's Institute of Fine Arts, is vice chancellor in charge of NYU Abu Dhabi; Hilary Ballon, former professor of art history and archaeology at Columbia University, is its associate vice chancellor; Philippe de Montebello (whom you all know) is "special advisor" for the new campus.

But the strong objections that some have raised to the university's megabucks deal with the United Arab Emirates should resonate with museum staffers at the Guggenheim and the Louvre, which are lending their prestige and expertise to planned new museums expected to inhabit the same island.

In New York Magazine's recent article, The Emir of NYU, Zvika Krieger describes the opposition expressed by some NYU professors, "not just to the risk of brand dilution but to [NYU president John] Sexton's wholesale embrace of a regime with a troubling history regarding academic freedom and human rights (not to mention the state of Israel)."

Abu NYU hasn't built its campus yet, but it has built a website. Its admissions page states:

Students will be chosen...without regard to race, religion, gender, nationality, or sexual orientation.

That's a relief...especially since Krieger reports that "homosexual activity is illegal in the United Arab Emirates" (which encompass Abu Dhabi) and "there's the problem of Israelis' being barred from entering the country." Sounds like Israeli and gay students, if any, should think twice before straying too far from campus. Will Abu Dhabi institute a "don't ask, don't tell" policy? Is this climate conducive to the humanistic values of American educational and cultural institutions?

Master planning for Abu NYU, by architect Rafael Viñoly, began last month. Viñoly is also designing the Arab Museum for Modern Art in Doha, Qatar. The first Abu NYU students are to be admitted in Fall 2010.

Meanwhile, in nearby Dubai, also part of the UAE, plans were announced June 21 for "the region's first Museum of Middle East Modern Art," on the banks of Dubai Creek, to be designed by Ben van Berkel's Amsterdam-based UN Studio. It will be part of a $13.5-billion Culture Village, also to include an amphitheatre for performances and festivals, an exhibition hall, smaller museums displaying local and international art, and a shipyard for traditional dhow builders, as well as residential, commercial and retail zones. This museum seems to be racing with the Qatar to be "first": The Dubai version of a museum of Middle Eastern modern art is scheduled to be completed in 2010. The Qatar counterpart opens in 2011

The press release for the Dubai project does not have a link, but here's a photo of van Berkel's design. Look out, tiny earthlings below! The spaceship has landed:


Planned Museum of Middle East Modern Art, Dubai, designed by Ben van Berkel's Amsterdam-based UN Studio

Metropolitan Museum's "Superheroes" catalogue

Iris You, faithful CultureGrrl reader, has given me an assignment:

I'd love to read your take on Why We Need a Hero at Ground Zero.

That's a current NY Magazine "Intelligencer" piece, which has nominated a "'traffic cop' to coordinate the snarl of public agencies, private developers, contractors, architects, and consultants on the [World Trade Center] site."

Who is NY Mag's hoped-for hero? None other than the caped crusader himself, SuperCount.

Yes, now that the Metropolitan Museum's director, Philippe de Montebello is about to burst the bonds of bricks, mortar and bottom lines, writer Justin Davidson wants him to venture where no museum director has gone before---the maelstrom of government bureaucracy and real estate interests that have transformed the World Trade Center rebuilding project from sacred trust to disgraceful bust.

Strangely, Davidson failed to mention the one instance when Philippe actually did, very publicly, enter the debate about the future of Ground Zero---his 2001 NY Times Op-Ed piece, The Iconic Power of an Artifact, in which he argued for "preserving and reinstalling" the "huge, skeletal and jagged steel fragment of the World Trade Center and its facade that still [at that time] stubbornly stands in the midst of the utter destruction of Ground Zero."

It was a sculptural statement more powerful than any art that might be commissioned for the site. But it's been cleared with the rest of the rubble and Philippe's effort to influence that one small aspect of planning at Ground Zero came to nought.

As for the future work that de Montebello IS eminently well qualified for, his upcoming professorship at NYU (for which he will also be "special advisor for NYU's Abu Dhabi campus," according to the press release)---NY Mag published on Apr. 13 a revelatory piece about the university's plans to build its megabucks Abu Dhabi empire.

COMING TOMORROW: MORE ON ABU NYU

David Franklin

[NOTE: This story was updated in a July 17 post, here and on July 18 here.]

The Ottawa Citizen called it a "mysterious disappearance."

Staffers at the National Gallery of Canada learned Wednesday that David Franklin, deputy director and chief curator, had left the museum "on leave." No reasons for his sudden departure have been announced at this writing, but news reports hint at possible friction between Franklin and the museum's director, Pierre Théberge.

When I contacted Joanne Charette, director of public affairs, asking specific questions about what happened and why, I received this response:

Dr. Franklin has not departed from the National Gallery of Canada. He is currently on leave. As you know, he is the curator of our major show next summer---Raphael. I hope this clears up things.

Not really. Charette and Théberge were not available for further comment when I called this morning. I will update this post if I learn more.

Regarding Franklin's so-called "leave," the Ottawa Citzen said this:

Some other employees, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they did not expect Mr. Franklin to return to the gallery.

Franklin was appointed to his deputy directorship in 2001, succeeding Colin Bailey, now associate director and chief curator at the Frick Collection, New York. Franklin had joined the museum in 1998 as prints and drawings curator.

CBC news reports:

Franklin's exit throws two major exhibitions into turmoil. An internationally renowned expert on Italian Renaissance art, Franklin had been co-ordinating the gallery's main summer exhibit for 2009 of Italian Renaissance and Baroque art. He was also the curator of the Caravaggio exhibit slated for 2011 or 2012.

He has been replaced, at least temporarily, by Mayo Graham, who is the National Gallery's director of outreach and international relations.

UPDATE: Joanne Charette just returned my call, but the only thing she would say about the circumstances behind Franklin's leave was, "The man has a right to his privacy....Eventually, there will be further explanation." If left for personal reasons, an official announcement to that effect would have been the most customary and appropriate way of handling an unusually abrupt departure of a high-ranking staffer. Charette says that Franklin still maintains an office at the museum and is writing the catalogue for next summer's "Raphael to Caracci: The Art of Papal Rome."

Black Mold Patches Above a Cow's Horns, Lascaux
Photo, French Ministry of Culture

The official cover-up of the condition problems of the prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux appears to be over.

In a front-page in Tuesday's Washington Post, Molly Moore quoted the French cave's administrator, Marie-Anne Sire, confessing:

Each time we try to resolve one problem, we create another.

Renzo Piano's wood model for the new Downtown Whitney, displayed at today's City Planning Commission public hearing.


Whitney Museum's director, Adam Weinberg, explains the architecture.


The model is wisked back into its crate before I can get a decent shot.


Cross-section of proposed Downtown Whitney. Top three galleries are for permanent collection. Gallery below them (18,000 square feet) is for temporary exhibitions. Terraces provide 15,000 square feet of outdoor gallery space. Ground level---with café, restaurant and gallery space---will be open free to the public.

What a difference a site makes.

I've been to a lot of city government hearings related to cultural construction projects, but I've never been to one where the project is unreservedly embraced, with no one raising a serious concern or objection. The rule in this town is you can't put a spade in the ground without stirring up opposition...

...except for the Renzo Piano-designed six-floor, 185,000-square-foot Downtown Whitney project.

I attended today's City Planning Commission hearing, where the commissioners, community board representative, borough president's representative, neighborhood activists, and administrators for the High Line (the $170-million park under construction on Manhattan's West Side, just north of the proposed Whitney) all lauded the project, as well the sensitivity of Whitney officials and, in particular, its director, Adam Weinberg, in addressing community concerns.

This was in marked contrast to the Board of Standards and Appeals hearing (here and here) for the aborted expansion of the Whitney at its Madison Avenue site.

Weinberg told the commissioners that he would probably know more about the composition of the skin of the building in September. It will likely be a matte, off-white metal surface (shades of Piano's Morgan Library & Museum addition) or a rough stone surface (NY Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff's material-of-choice).

Weinberg also took a jab at the building that the Whitney now calls home:

As much as I love the Breuer building, the darkness of it and the moat scare people who think there are alligators and not art in there.

No wonder Leonard Lauder had to secure an ironclad guarantee!

One thing I hadn't previously heard is that Piano will design (and the Whitney will build for the Parks & Recreation Department, at the city's expense) a 26,000-square-foot, four-floor Maintenance and Operations building for the High Line, which will adjoin the new Whitney building. It will include an elevator from street level to the High Line's elevated promenade, which will be used to transport material up and garbage down.

But what will likely be the most architecturally distinguished M & O building in the city won't be anywhere near completion when the High Line is ready: The park's opening is expected to take place this winter. The Whitney doesn't even plan to break ground until next spring. For now, the work of the future elevator is being done by construction cranes. (For more details on the High Line's final design for its first phase, presented last week, go to Sewell Chan's  NY Times report.)

Jeff Levine, the Whitney's chief marketing and communications officer, told me that he could not release professional photos of the Piano's wood model. It will be exhibited at the Whitney some time in the future, he said. But I managed to snap some amateur shots (above) at the hearing. (Where's Ed Lifson when I really need him?)

Edward Lifson, photographer-blogger

As a photographer, I'm a pretty good writer. But there's one art-and-architecture blogger who really knows his way around the megapixels. That's Ed Lifson (above) of the New Modernist blog, with whom I bonded at the Clark Art Institute's press preview for the Stone Hill Center. He even granted me permission to reproduce on CultureGrrl one of his Clark photos, which was so much better than my own shot aimed at the same subject. (As I mentioned, I can't blog the Clark until I Wall Street Journalize it.)

I was planning this week to post a photo essay, complete with video clip, of the work going on at MASS MoCA (a short drive from the Clark) to install 100 Sol LeWitt wall drawings (up from 50 at the time of the original announcement), from 1968 to 2007, which will be displayed for at least 25 years in one of the contemporary museum's former factory buildings. After the first term, there will be a "generational referendum," when MASS MoCA, Yale University (which owns many of the drawings) and the artist's estate will decide whether to continue the installation for another term, "or get out the whitewash," according to Joe Thompson, MASS MoCA's director.

Shortly before his death in April 2007, LeWitt selected the building from MASS MoCA's inventory of raw industrial space, and also designed the interior walls and layout for the installation. The works come from those given by the artist to Yale, as well as from other public and private owners who have loaned the copyright and the artist's instructions.

The building is now alive with all sorts of music from Motown (my favorite) to...I don't know what, accompanying the drawing, scribbling, sponging and painting by a young, meticulous crew that includes assistants from the artist's studio and college students majoring in studio art and art history. More than 60-strong, these Sol-sters are following LeWitt's detailed instructions for what will become a living memorial to his achievement, opening Nov. 16.

More than $10 million has been raised for the project by MASS MoCA and Yale University Art Gallery, whose director, Jock Reynolds, conceived the project and approached Thompson about using MASS MoCA's space. Joe told me he is now in discussions with other possible lenders about using other spaces in the complex for large-scale, long-term installations devoted to an artist, a private collection or an institution. He has clearly rebounded from the Büchel debacle and is back to catalyzing cutting-edge creative synergies.

Lifson's photo essay (linked above) is far more professional and comprehensive than mine could ever have been, which leaves me nothing more to do than highly recommend it and share with you two images, not redundant with Ed's, that I captured with my non-professional lens:

Fallen Angel: Andrea della Robbia, "Saint Michael the Archangel," ca. 1475, glazed terracotta, Metropolitan Museum

This just in, from a statement issued by the Metropolitan Museum:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is saddened to report that late last night or early this morning, a late 15th-century glazed terracotta relief sculpture of "Saint Michael the Archangel" by Andrea della Robbia (1435-1525), came loose from metal mounts that have long held the framed lunette securely to the wall above a doorway in its European Paintings and Decorative Arts Galleries.

The 62-x-32-inch relief, which has been on view in its current location since 1996, fell to a stone floor and suffered some damage. Preliminary inspection indicates that the relief has not been irrevocably harmed and that it can be repaired and again presented to the public.

That's what they also said about the Tullio Lombardo sculpture of Adam that keeled over in 2002 and hasn't been publicly spotted since. The Met says that it "routinely and thoroughly inspects its pedestals and wall mounts to reconfirm their structural integrity" and "will initiate a reinvigorated museum-wide examination as expeditiously as possible."

And in other broken-object news, the Art Tribune reported earlier this month that an Islamic bowl lent by the Louvre to Quebec's National Museum of Fine Arts for a loan show from the French museum's collection, "The Louvre, Arts and Life," was broken during the show's installation. "An on-the-spot evaluation took place immediately which showed that the work could be restored," according to the Louvre's statement. Here's that piece:


"The Falconer on Horseback" Iran, early 13th century, the Louvre
Photo: RMN / H. Lewandowski

Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, London
© British Museum

This headline on Bloomberg sure got my attention this morning:

British Museum's MacGregor Was Asked to Run the Met, Said No

Who knew? But the much more carefully phrased article by Farah Nayeri seems to indicate that no such thing may have actually occurred. Nayeri writes:

British Museum Head of Press Hannah Boulton...said, "He [MacGregor] was approached by them, he had a conversation with them, but in the course of that conversation he ruled himself out of the job of running the Met."...

Asked today if he was offered the Met job, MacGregor said only that the Met's search committee had "a very large number of conversations with people who were not candidates'' about the Met's future.

Talking to many prominent people in the field is standard operating procedure for headhunters. Some merely have their brains picked; some later discover that they're candidates. A revealing article in last May's ARTnews, "How Headhunters Hunt" (not online at this writing), by the magazine's editor and publisher, Milton Esterow, describes the intricate steps in this elaborate dance.

But back to the British Museum: MacGregor, who has directed it since 2002, has "agreed to lead the museum through 2012," Bloomberg reports. It seems that museums are increasingly trying to lock in outstanding directors who are otherwise likely to have their heads hunted.