March 2009 Archives

I'm back, art-lings, from the annual conference in Tarrytown held by the Museum Association of New York and the Upstate History Alliance, where the discussion on "Desperation Deaccessions" was possibly the only event in which the attendees (some of whom popped in just for this session) may have been more distinguished and thoughtful than the featured speaker and discussion leader (me).

I have juicy, nourishing morsels to serve up from this 75-minute brainstorming session, but I was disheartened to discover that no CultureGrrl readers responded, while I was away, to my call for Donors 25, 26 and 27 to support the blog by clicking the languishing yellow button on the right. (Okay, I'll settle for 25 and 26.)

Did no one miss me while I was gone?

Did I mention that one of those who popped in (and spoke) at our high-powered conversation yesterday was Carmine Branagan, director of the National Academy?

See you tomorrow (maybe).

I've been invited to vocalize at two deaccession-related speaking gigs in the next few weeks---a sign, I suppose, of the increased interest and anxiety over this issue, touched off by the current financial crisis and the recent controversies at the National Academy and the Rose Art Museum.

The Deaccession Diva's first engagement, as I've briefly mentioned, is at the annual conference (scroll down) in Tarrytown, NY, of the Museum Association of New York and the Upstate History Alliance, where I'll be a speaker and discussion leader Monday morning on the topic of "Desperation Deaccessions: The Temptation to Monetize Collections in Times of Financial Crisis." Since this is a New York-based group, I'll be drawing upon on my native state's abundant deaccession lore to illustrate my analysis. Think of it as another irreverent CultureGrrl photo essay, translated to PowerPoint.

I'll be particularly interested to hear the reactions of officials at NY institutions to the provisions of the far-reaching Brodsky bill, which its author hopes will become a model for legislation around the country.

In mid-April, you'll find me at a university that had a brush with deaccession disaster (from which it has thankfully emerged, so far, unscathed), where I've been asked to speak on: "When Values Collide: Financial Asset or Cultural Resource?" I'm particularly interested to visit this institution, not only to view its art collection, but also to soak up the atmosphere of the place that sent, not one, but two presidents to my own alma mater, Cornell University. More on this engagement later.

While the Diva clears her throat to rehearse, the blog will go silent. When I return on Tuesday, I hope to discover that my "Donate" button has not been idle. I've already flogged the blog exhaustively (and exhaustedly) this week, so I can only hope that someone has noticed. I'm looking for Donor 25 (and 26, and 27...).

Speaking of speaking, I'm ready to hold forth at your next event (wedding? bachelor party?) on issues that you and I have been following on CultureGrrl, not to mention that perennial favorite, "The Art of Art-Blogging." I was actually invited to talk on bloggerdom this month at a museum down south, which had to cut me when its finances went south.

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau

I can't do this justice by merely excerpting it.

You'll just have to read it for yourself, but make sure you're sitting down. It's the press release from Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau describing in hair-raising detail the substance of the 100-count indictment just handed down against bankrupt dealer Larry Salander, who was arrested at his home this morning.

Okay, just one excerpt:

The fraud in each investment opportunity occurred when Salander did not own the work of art he offered for investment in whole or in part, or he misrepresented the actual terms of the investment. The misrepresented terms included: inflation of the purported cost (cost fraud), the sale of greater than 100 percent interest in a single work (oversale), the fabrication of the existence of the pre-sale (ghost investment), failure to pay the return when the money came in on the purported investment, or the misrepresentation of the amount payable to the investor (fraudulent retention).

The press release outlines some of the specific deals and identifies some of the alleged victims, including estates of major American artists.

Is Larry the artworld's Bernie?

Goudstikker heir Marei von Saher at the "Reclaimed" press preview

The most fascinating object in the uneven, possibly problematic traveling show now at the Jewish Museum, New York, Reclaimed: Paintings from the Collection of Jacques Goudstikker (to Aug. 2), is now online and searchable. It's the small, meticulously annotated inventory notebook (have patience; it loads slowly) in which the late dealer listed the bulk of his gallery's holdings. Goudstikker is thought to have left behind some 1,400 works, most of which were seized by the Nazis. He died in a fall off the ship on which he was fleeing the Nazi-invaded Netherlands in 1940.

That notebook became the roadmap for the quest by Goudstikker's sole surviving heir, Marei von Saher, to reclaim the expropriated works. In the biggest-volume restitution of works expropriated during the Nazi era, the Dutch government in 2006 handed over to von Saher some 200 old masters. She consigned more than 100 of those for auction at Christie's the following year, in sales held in New York, London and Amsterdam.

And therein lies the problem: I value this exhibition as an important and moving visual documentation of expropriation and reclamation, although (with important exceptions) many, if not most, of the approximately 50 works on view would not have made the cut for a traditional, quality-based museum exhibition. What unsettled me was the possible commercial subtext: Given the past sales, I couldn't help wondering if I was attending a preview for future sales, in which the allure of the offerings would be enhanced by the imprimatur of the host museums (which include the show's first venue, the Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT, and three other institutions to which it will travel).

At the press preview earlier this month, I asked von Saher's lawyer, prominent cultural-property attorney Larry Kaye (whose team is still working to find and retrieve some 1,000 Goudstikker works), whether any of the pictures on the Jewish Museum's walls might later be sent to market. His lawyerly reply:

I don't think there are any plans at the moment to sell any works.

Similarly, Anne Scher, the Jewish Museum's director of communications, told me:

No sales of the works in the exhibition are planned.

But Karen Levitov, the museum's associate curator conceded that the museum didn't feel it appropriate to extract assurances from von Saher that the works would not be sold at some point in the future.

In a press release issued in March 2007, Kaye's law firm, Herrick, Feinstein, reported that the Dutch government had purchased from von Saher four of the restituted paintings. She donated to the Netherlands a fifth---the hauntingly eerie "Child on Its Deathbed" by Bartholomeus van der Helst, 1645, which I saw at the Bruce Museum but which is not on view in New York. Levitov told me that Peter Sutton, the Bruce's director and organizer of the show, had "tried to negotiate that loan for us" but couldn't get it. The Jewish Museum's version does include several works that were not at the Bruce.

As I've previously stated here, I recognize that restituted art is the family's to do with whatever it likes, including cashing it in. But a public-spirited disposition of such art (such as donating a good portion of it for public display, to commemorate the victim's legacy) would underscore the point that righting the wrongs of Nazi persecution is, above all, an issue of justice, principle and honoring an ancestor, not personal gain.

Back to the interactive notebook: Just added this week to the exhibition's website, it allows you to flip through its pages or click on thumbnails to get to corresponding notebook entries. But this nifty resource is compromised by a frustrating navigation experience: Its content extends beyond the borders of the screen. You have to keep shifting back and forth and up and down, by scrolling, to play this computer game. Levitov assures me that the techies are now laboring mightily "to shrink it down a bit more."

What's more (as also occured with the in-museum version of the interactive notebook), when I clicked on the thumbnail (left column, fourth from bottom) of Ferdinand Bol's "Louise-Marie Gonzaga de Nevers." the notebook opened to an entry for an entirely different work---a landscape. And when I then hit the "click to view image" link on that landscape entry, I saw a an image of an angel with lute, described as "copy after Hans Memling."

I alerted Karen, who assured me she'd tidy up this digital disarray: "We're trying to get all the bugs out."

Here's an image of the notebook:

Titian, "Flora," ca.1516-18, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, in BMFA's "Titian Tintoretto Veronese" exhibition

In my post on Antiquities Diplomacy: More Italian Loans to the Getty, I stated that the patience of Michael Brand, the Getty's director, "in crafting antiquities collaborations with Italy, rather than arranging immediate compensatory loans (as was done when the Metropolitan Museum and Boston Museum of Fine Arts relinquished their objects) is finally paying off handsomely for the Getty."

George T.M. Shackelford, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts' chairman of European art and curator of modern art, responds:

Come up to Boston to see Titian Tintoretto Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice (through Aug. 17) and you will see how wonderfully our not "immediate" but instead long-term collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Culture has turned out. Because of our ongoing relationship, and because of their confidence in the thesis of this exhibition, they helped us to obtain truly major loans that otherwise might not have happened.

Speaking of which, the credit line for that show says: "The exhibition is presented under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic." In addition, President Giorgio Napolitano on Mar. 7 awarded BMFA Malcolm Rogers a medal as "Commander of the Order to the Merit of the Italian Republic," for "fostering...the cultural cooperation between the MFA and Italy"---a reference, most likely, to this:

Robert Workman, speaking at the Crystal Bridges site dedication

Crystal Bridges, Alice Walton's museum-in-construction in Bentonville, AR, has added three contemporary works to the small selection of acquisitions listed on its website.

But it has lost its director, Bob Workman.

In a Jan. 26 announcement that fell under my radar (and maybe yours), the museum disclosed that Workman, who became the museum's executive director more than three years ago, "has decided to step down as executive director of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art so that a new director can be in place as the museum transitions from construction to its opening and for years thereafter."

Crystal Bridges' announcement also states:

Workman has agreed to continue with the museum until Dec. 31, 2009, to oversee major projects and to assist in the transition to the new executive director. During the transition period, day-to-day operations for the museum will be handled by the museum's executive management team.

Little reason is given for this abrupt, unexpected departure, other than a cryptic statement that he had "decided to leave because he could not make a commitment to stay well beyond the museum opening and therefore thought the museum would be better served if he left this year."

When I queried Workman recently about his surprise decision to quit, he would only say:

Over the past few weeks, I have moved from day-to-day operations to working on a number of specific projects, such as plans for the museum library as well as writing assignments. This was an amicable separation initiated entirely by me. I remain deeply committed to the goals of the project. After working five years [first as consultant, then as project director] on a project of this magnitude, I am interested in taking a break and evaluating my options, which include remaining here in Northwest Arkansas.

As for his future plans:

I want to keep my options open for the near term, and see what possibilities develop.

The museum was scheduled to open in 2010, but Carla Scallan of Fayetteville's KSFM-TV reported on Mar. 12 that the museum's planned 2010 opening "is no longer set in stone. He [Workman] says due to the complexity of the project, they no longer have a specific date set for the completion of the museum."

Although the museum's Careers web page makes no mention of the director search, on Feb. 18 it posted a new spot for a Curator of American Art, reporting to chief curator Chris Crosman.

Workman has a distinguished museum track record, including the deputy directorship at the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, where he oversaw its $39-million renovation and expansion. Some of his professional colleagues have looked askance at collecting activities that occurred at Crystal Bridges on his watch, including Jan Muhlert, director of the Palmer Museum at Penn State University, who knew Workman from her time as director of the Amon Carter.

For my 2007 Wall Street Journal article on The Walton Effect (in which I characterized Alice's pursuit of objects at other institutions as that of a "hovering culture vulture, poised to swoop down and seize tasty masterpieces from weak hands"), Muhlert stated:

"It's worrisome that they would be considering purchases of this kind." Ms. Muhlert expressed disapproval that "any of our colleagues would take advantage" of a museum's selling for purposes other than "replenishing the collection."

You can hear Workman discuss his departure here, in an interview with Kyle Kellams of "Ozarks at Large" on KUAF, the University of Arkansas's public radio station.

Meanwhile, several of collection's works are out on loan to other museums, including Asher B. Durand's "Kindred Spirits," controversially sold in 2005 by the New York Public Library. That iconic painting is temporarily back in its former home city, displayed at the Metropolitan Museum through May.

In a departure from the Crystal Bridge's customary collecting habits, which lean heavily towards traditional, figurative American art, the museum recently revealed that it had acquired work by Mark di Suvero, James Turrell and Ted Jones.

Ted Jones?

The Benton County Daily Record tells us that he's an "instructor" (actually, adjunct lecturer) at Fisk University. That financially strapped institution and Walton have long been seeking court permission to complete a deal whereby Crystal Bridges would buy a half-share in Fisk's Stieglitz Collection for $30 million. Fisk has also loaned to Crystal Bridges a collection of prints for an exhibition, Proof Positive, now at the museum's Massey outpost.

Here's the new Jones acquisition:


Ted Jones, "Saul and Jesus on the Road to Damascus," 2005, Crystal Bridges Museum

David Rockefeller

In reponse to my inquiry last week about the prolonged absence from the Museum of Modern Art's galleries of Picasso's early Cubist masterpiece, "The Reservoir, Horta de Ebro," 1909, Kim Mitchell, the museum's spokesperson, informed me late Friday afternoon that the painting (a fractional and promised gift to MoMA from its honorary chairman, David Rockefeller) "will likely go on view again sometime this year."

That would certainly be a welcome development. But why has it remained unseen for four years, when it had been intended to make up for the loss of another 1909 Horta Picasso, bequeathed to MoMA in 1979 by David's brother, Nelson?

MoMA's ex-Nelson "Houses on the Hill, Horta de Ebro" was sold in 2003 to the late dealer/collector Heinz Berggruen, who must have been amazed at his good fortune in acquiring a work that no sensible museum would ordinarily part with.

The absence of David's Picasso from MoMA's walls became even more problematic after the passage of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which requires that museums accepting fractional gifts have "substantial physical possession of the property" during the donation process.

Here's what MoMA spokesperson Mitchell told me:

After the law was passed in 2006 with new provisions regarding fractional gifts, MoMA refined its policies with respect to, amongst other things, compliance with the possession requirements of the law by instituting annual curatorial department reviews of all fractional gifts to assess their physical presence and to determine what is needed from an exhibition, educational or research-related perspective and to evaluate requests made by donors of fractional gifts.

Regarding the details of fractional gifts like the Horta painting, our policy is not to disclose specifics of the transaction (i.e., percentages, terms of donation, location of work when not at MoMA). We deal privately with the donor on these details on a case-by-case basis.

Regarding the annual review by curatorial depts, the goal is to fulfill the museum's mission by keeping the work on view and in use for exhibition, museum research and educational purposes for a period of time that is roughly commensurate with the fraction given. The review is conducted annually, and it takes the above factors into consideration in weighing our discussions with the donors about possession.

So for example, if a work was fractionally given to us in 1991 [as was David's Picasso], we would look at that entire exhibition history, the museum's current needs and its future plans.

What's wrong with this (aside from the lamentable loss of Nelson's full-time, permanent-collection Picasso) is the utter lack of transparency regarding fractional gifts. MoMA says that its "mission" is to keep partly given works "for a period of time that is roughly commensurate with the fraction given." But the museum declined to answer my question as to whether David has by now given MoMA more than the original 10% interest that he bestowed in 1991. So we have to take on faith that its future display (unlike past display) will be commensurate with the partial gift, whatever that is.

How many other museums have been disregarding the letter or spirit of the new law on fractional gifts? We don't know, because museums don't publish lists of such objects, along with the degree of the museum's fractional interest and how many months of the year the objects are physically on museum premises. It seems to me that fractional disclosure needs to become full disclosure.

What's more, the recent changes in the law make MoMA's bad idea of 2003 look even worse now. Some museums that had been counting on the completion of fractional gifts initiated before the enactment of new law (which also sharply decreased the tax advantages of incremental donations) are now finding that donors are having second thoughts.

One of the comments that didn't make it into my posts (here and here) excerpting my recent interview with Richard Armstrong, the Guggenheim Foundation's new director, related to his experience, when he was director of Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art, with a fractional-gift donor who got cold feet because of the new law:

We exchanged back the object for some cash. We gave back the interest in the object....I don't think it's very widespread but it happens. It's one of the realities.

This is not to say that David Rockefeller is going to renege when MoMA gently suggests that it needs his Picasso for regular display on its own walls. I think the odds that MoMA won't ultimately receive full ownership of David's Horta masterpiece are slim to nil. 

It's just to say that nothing's permanent until it's permanent. A fractional or promised gift is somewhat speculative. It's no substitute for something a museum fully owns.

Italian prosecutor Paolo Ferri

Why was I perusing Italian newspapers last weekend?

I stumbled across Corriere del Mezzogiorno's article about the imminent loan to the J. Paul Getty Museum of two bronze statues excavated at Pompeii because I had been searching (in vain) for Italian newspapers' take on this new development in the never-ending trial in Rome of Marion True, the Getty's former curator of antiquities, who is accused of trafficking in looted antiquities.

As reported by Elisabetta Povoledo of the NY Times, the defendant on Friday went on the offensive:

Sounding calm and sure of herself, Ms. True said the Getty had always followed proper procedures when buying objects on the international market, contacting Italian culture officials to determine if there were liens on specific artifacts. "I didn't have the right to make informal inquiries" in Italy, she said....

The defense plans an object-by-object rebuttal of the prosecution's case for each of the 35 artifacts that Ms. True approved for acquisition and that the Italians say were looted.

But what really struck me was that Italy's witness for the prosecution, archaeologist Daniela Rizzo, toned down the anti-True rhetoric. Povoledo quoted from Rizzo's testimony:

"Your cooperation has always been very positive," [Rizzo] told Ms. True, who sat with her lawyers. "But you are an archaeologist, a scholar and a great expert, and you had the knowledge to recognize objects that could have come from Etruria."

Perhaps "a closer, more direct collaboration with Italian archaeologists would have been more useful than to return objects over time," Ms. Rizzo said.

Perhaps. But this suggestion seems to fall considerably short of an accusation of criminality, which is what True is still charged with, despite earlier indications by Italian prosecutor Paolo Ferri that the case would be expeditiously resolved, thanks to the Getty's 2007 agreement to relinquish 40 objects to Italy.

Meanwhile, there's been no official announcement from the Getty or the Italian Culture Ministry about the two itinerant Apollos, reportedly coming from Naples. The LA Times likewise said nothing about them in its report on the Florence collaborations. I can only assume that Fuani Marino of Corriere didn't just make this up. (Here's the ministry's announcement about the upcoming Chimaera of Arezzo show, whose bronze-beast centerpiece bronze beast is coming from Florence.)

All that the Getty press office would tell me yesterday about the Apollos was this:

No official word on the loans from Naples, but we'll be sure to keep you in the loop as that develops.

If the Corriere report is correct, that should "develop" in a matter of days.

"Chimaera of Arezzo," Etruscan (from Arezzo,) 400-375 B.C., Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Florence
Photo: Fernando Guerrini

But wait, there's more!

I've not yet heard from the J. Paul Getty Museum about the upcoming loan of two bronze Apollos from the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, about which I've just posted. But hot off my inbox is a Getty press release about loans from yet another Italian museum, the National Archaeological Museum of Florence. The two museums have just announced a "long-term collaboration" between them, which, according to the Getty's director, Michael Brand, "will bring several of [the Florence museum's] greatest treasures to Los Angeles for the first time. They will become centerpieces of a series of special exhibitions."

The centerpiece of the first exhibition is the "Chimaera of Arezzo" (above)---an Etruscan bronze, 400-375 B.C., described by the Getty as a "life-sized" [can a mythical creature be life-sized?] depiction of a monster, comprised of a lion, fire-breathing goat and serpent. The show, opening July 16, "narrates the life and afterlife of an Etruscan icon."

The two museums will also collaborate on an exhibition of ancient Greek, Roman and Etruscan bronzes and a third exhibition devoted to the Etruscans, with loans from Florence and other Italian and international lenders. (Dates are to be determined.)

It looks like Michael Brand's patience in crafting antiquities collaborations with Italy, rather than arranging immediate compensatory loans (as was done when the Metropolitan Museum and Boston Museum of Fine Arts relinquished their objects) is finally paying off handsomely for the Getty.

[And my CultureGrrl "Donate" button is also paying off, though not quite as handsomely. Thanks to today's benefactor from New York---my 24th backer!]

The Getty Villa, Malibu

UPDATE: More Italy-to-Getty loans (from Florence) here.

In what the Italian newspaper Corriere del Mezzogiorno calls "the first element of stable, collaborative relations" between the Italian Culture Ministry and the J. Paul Getty Museum, two bronze statues of Apollo, both from excavations at Pompeii, are due to travel to the California museum tomorrow, on loan from the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. Luisa Melillo, the Naples museum's head of conservation and restoration, will travel with the statues.

The Corriere article is sketchy on details (and my Italian language proficiency is sketchier), but one of the bronzes is called "Apollo lampadoforo" and the other, "Apollo saettante." Their stays at the Getty "will not be of the same duration." The former, recently restored, will be immediately put on display. I gather (but await confirmation) that it will be sent back, within a year, after the Getty completes the restoration of "Apollo saettante," which will then be displayed in the Getty's galleries. Its loan period will be a maximum of five years.

The "lampadaforo," 10-20 B.C., is thought to depict an athlete and was found in 1925 in Room 15 of a home of Efebo. Its name (having to do with "lantern") relates to its adaptation for the illumination of nighttime banquets. You can see a large photo of that statue in situ here. Corriere, at the first link in this post, has published small photos of the statue in both its unrestored and restored states.

The "Apollo saettante" ("saetta" is an arrow or thunderbolt) is attributed to Pompeii's sanctuary of Apollo.

Is the "lampadoforo," which looks magnificent, the "one particular object" that Michael Brand, a year ago, told me he was "looking at as a potential first loan," pursuant to his museum's 2007 agreement with Italy?

In our Antiquities Q&A, Michael, you told me that I'd be "the first person" you'd tell when the first antiquities loan was determined. But an Italian newspaper has beaten you to it. And now everyone's going to be asking you for the details.

I'll update with further information and, I hope, photos from the Getty, when available.

In the NY Times' "Talk to the Newsroom" feature, assistant managing editor Richard Berke writes:

Michael Kimmelman, our brilliant Berlin-based chief art critic, recently asked whether he could make a costly---and arduous---trip to Baghdad to review the national art museum there. The answer was, Yes! We have still to work out the details, but how many news organizations these days are even able to consider such an expense---much less have a critic based in Berlin in the first place?

Wow, that NY Times must be flush with money! And what other NYC-based publication would have its "chief art critic" based in Germany, galluping all over Europe? (Oh no, not another of those equine metaphors!) Shouldn't Roberta Smith be named "acting chief art critic" while Michael prances around the globe?

Now that they're in on the secret that Kimmelman may be sent to cover the newly reopened museum in Baghdad, other editors have a heads-up and can try to dispatch someone to make that "costly and arduous" trip first---maybe even someone with deep expertise in ancient Near Eastern antiquities. Or does Abdul-Zahra al-Talqani, media director of Iraq's office of tourism and archaeological affairs, have a Times-first policy too?

While the Times labors to arrange Michael's flight and hotel, cyberspace travelers can go right now to the (sort of) reopened museum, via its partially opened website (click links on left) and this CNN video.

Eric Gelber, the news editor of artcritical.com, an online art magazine, is also a blogging cartoonist at EAGEAGEAG, where he recently responded graphically to my report on how Sam Sifton, cultural news editor of the NY Times, rides herd over the nags and throughbreds in his stable of writers:



Actually, Eric's graphic was a little too graphic. I always strive to comport myself according to the NY Times' well-bred blogging standards, which were reduced to writing only last month (finally!) by assistant managing editor Craig Whitney. (Maybe HE could have modeled the Whitney's tee shirt.) Conforming to Times style, I tastefully cropped Eric's art (with his permission) to remove any trace of "obscenity and vulgarity."

I'm going to have to be more vigilant, though, about making sure that I don't include in my blog "something [that] could easily fit in a satirical Web site for young adults," which the Times, in its infinite wisdom, regards as beneath its dignity. The Gray Lady and CultureGrrl know that the proper target-audiences for our blogs should be the middle-aged and elderly. Who needs those satirical young adults, anyway?

If you're below 40 and you really insist on seeing the unexpurgated version of Eric's Sifton satire, you'll just have to go here.

There's no harm in sugar-cube rewards for bloggers or critics. (Speaking of which, many thanks to the latest CultureGrrl benefactor, from Washington, D.C., who sweetened my Sunday by hitting my "Donate" button!)

But wait! What's that attached to Sam's boot?

Giddy-up, Cotter!

Picasso, "The Reservoir, Horta de Ebro," 1909, Museum of Modern Art, fractional and promised gift of David Rockefeller
© 2009 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

In 2003, when the Museum of Modern Art sold its seminal Picasso, "Houses on the Hill, Horta de Ebro," 1909, which was bequeathed to it in 1979 by Nelson Rockefeller, it justified this astonishing disposal of an outstanding, early Cubist masterpiece on the grounds that it had a comparable one---"The Reservoir, Horta de Ebro," 1909 (above), promised to the museum in 1970 by David Rockefeller, who in 1991 gave MoMA a 10% fractional interest in the work.

In my 2004 Wall Street Journal article detailing several highly problematic MoMA deaccessions, I noted that the museum had substituted a work that it didn't completely own yet for one already ensconced in its permanent collection. Still, I had expected that MoMA would display David's Picasso frequently, if not continuously, since it was meant to make up for the lamentable loss of Nelson's. What's more, the law now governing fractional gifts states that the museum should take "substantial physical possession" of such works during the donation process.

Imagine my shock when I asked MoMA's press office, earlier this week, to tell me when David's Picasso has been displayed during the last three years, and received this reply:

The painting is not currently on view. It was last on view during MoMA's "Painting and Sculpture: Inaugural Installation," between Nov. 20, 2004 and Mar. 14, 2005.

In other words, this Cubist masterwork, of the highest art historical importance, has been inaccessible to MoMA visitors for four years. The importance of the Horta pictures was best described by one of the world's most distinguished Picasso scholars, John Richardson, in an interview for my WSJ article. I then wrote:

This painting [Nelson's sold "Horta"] is "at the heart of Picasso's Cubism," asserted prominent Picasso expert John Richardson. It is one of "the rarest things in the world," he said. Its original owner, Gertrude Stein, regarded Picasso's Horta landscapes as "the beginning of Cubism," Mr. Richardson wrote in his biography of the artist. In an interview, he decried its sale as "one of the most appalling bits of deaccessioning. I'm still shuddering and shaking."...

Mr. [Glenn] Lowry [MoMA's director] observed that there would be "nothing wrong" with having both pictures, "if we were a Picasso museum." The sale proceeds of the other painting were applied to purchases of works deemed "more essential to the collection."

In one detailed query and two follow-up e-mails this week, I have sought comment from MoMA regarding the status of David's Picasso and the museum's failure to exhibit it for the past four years. I was first told that I would have an answer yesterday morning...then yesterday afternoon...then this morning. I got another e-mail today at 1:45 p.m., saying that I should have a reply soon. I can't wait any longer. I will update during the weekend or on Monday.

So where is the ex-Nelson Rockefeller, ex-MoMA masterpiece now? It's in the Berlin museum founded by the retired Paris dealer who purchased it, through Acquavella Galleries, from MoMA---the late, Berlin-born Heinz Berggruen. The price, I was told by two knowledgeable sources at the time of my WSJ article, was about $12-15 million. The Museum Berggruen's website describes the Horta Picasso as "one of the most significant" works in its collection:


Picasso, "Houses on the Hill, Horta de Ebro," 1909, Museum Berggruen, Berlin

Maybe I need to hawk the CultureGrrl tee shirt. I'll even throw in an autographed photo. (In the meantime, many thanks to the faithful reader from Penn State who today clicked my "Donate" button!)

Future of Arts Journalism panel, left to right: Sree Sreenivasan, Marian Godfrey, Sam Sifton, Alisa Solomon

Had I not been getting my mother out of the hospital last Thursday, I would have been in the audience for the panel discussion on The Future of Arts Journalism at Christie's. (Actually, "Blithe Spirit," the Noël Coward play that I did manage to attend later that night, was decidedly more entertaining. Did I mention how much I adored Rupert Everett, who is to "debonair" what Angela Lansbury is to "dotty"?)

Had I been there, I might have asked the following question of the panel (which consisted of Sam Sifton, cultural news editor of the NY Times; Marian Godfrey, senior director of culture initiatives, Pew Charitable Trusts; Alisa Solomon, director of the arts and culture masters degree program at the Columbia University School of Journalism):

Why haven't an actual arts journalist (as distinguished from an editor) and an arts blogger been included on a panel whose subject is "the future of arts journalism"?

I commented in advance about the conspicuous absence of bloggers in an e-mail to the panel's moderator, Columbia Journalism professor and resident techie Sree Sreenivasan (on whom you can directly blame my own journalistic transformation). He granted that my plaint was a "good point" and said he would "pass it on."

There was no need for me to assume the role of gadfly that night. The part was admirably filled by the redoubtable Jason Kaufman of the Art Newspaper. He quizzed the panel's headliner, Sifton, about something that I have repeatedly criticized---the penchant of sources to release news first to the Times, later to the rest of us.

How does the Times get sources to play favorites? Sam explains:

We bully them, essentially. We say we want that material before you give it to someone else: "Give it to us first!" And we broker our million-plus readers into getting that information. The notion that there would be, in return, favorable coverage? You know, the arrogance of power is, no: It's not going to work that way....

There was a time when the Times said, "If you give it to the Art Newspaper first, we're going to bury it. I think we're much more sanguine about it now. Which is not to say that I want you to get it first! [He then pointed mock-threateningly at Jason.]

But this wasn't Sam's only did-he-really-say-that moment. His characterization of his underlings was so startling that even the unflappable Sree felt moved to ask, "Do you have to go back to the office tomorrow?"

Here's what the Times culture editor thinks of Carol Vogel, Roberta Smith, et al.:

It's comfortable to think of them as sort of workhorses and show ponies. You can put the reporters in the saddle and get them to do everything. With a critic, you offer a sugar cube and some ribbons.

Then Sree broke in with his question, and Sam replied:

They know it's true.

If you're incredulous, you can hear it all for yourself by clicking this post's second link, which takes you to the complete discussion, online.

What Sifton said that was of greatest interest to me is that there is "only an 8% or 9% overlap" between the Time's online audience and its hardcopy readers. Couple that with the fact (as reported by the paper's public editor, Clark Hoyt) that the number of NY Times clickers now exceeds the number of page-turners, and you can tell where the future of all journalism (not just arts journalism) is headed.

Speaking of which, you can now hear a great sucking sound, as gifted, displaced mainstream-media arts journalists are drawn into ArtsJournal (here, here and here). To be sure, it's a great outlet, but in the words of panelist Alisa Solomon, "We haven't quite figured out the business model."

CultureGrrl's business model is, sadly, no role model. My most recent call for donations elicited an overwhelming response of...1. Apr. 23 will, astonishingly, be my three-year anniversary. That seems like a good time by which to reevaluate this project.

Is anyone reading me? I KNOW you're out there. The 1.2 million hits I've received to date must be coming from somewhere.

Sunil Iyengar, the National Endowment for the Arts' director of research and analysis, responds to Artists' Jobs: Even Worse than NEA's New Report Suggests (and I respond to his response, below):

I wanted to try to clarify our team's perspective on two important issues you raise:

First, know that we would have welcomed a chance to run a comparison of fourth-quarter 2008 "art-related income" with that of the 2007 quarter, but those data were unavailable at the time of our study. We used, in our view, the most directly applicable numbers to tell the story of artist employment over this turbulent period.

The measure is imperfect insofar as it excludes self-described artists who have a primary job (in terms of number of hours worked) as a non-artist. Still, it is the best available national data tool, tracking artists as a distinct category of workers for more than 30 years. Further, having obtained unpublished data about quarterly employment rates from the Department of Labor, we thought the public should see how the trend fares for artists.

The second clarification addresses perhaps a misunderstanding. In your Mar. 4 posting, you state: "If the NEA really cares about the plight of unemployed artists, its action plan to address the findings of its own research report should be to reinstate individual artists' fellowships."

As you are aware, the NEA is currently prohibited by law [scroll to p. 5, "Grants to Individuals"] from awarding funds directly to artists. Despite this inability, the NEA demonstrates its concern for essential needs of artists through the funding of touring programs that have employed thousands of actors, dancers, and musicians; through playwright development programs to create new work; and through teacher-artist training to provide professional development, to name a few initiatives.

By funding organizations, in fact, the monies often can benefit more artists than would a grant to a single artist. For example, a $30,000 grant to CityFolk in Ohio benefits more than 140 folk artists. A $30,000 to the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire helps provide residencies for eight artists. A $10,000 grant to the Cantata Singers in Massachusetts supports their commissioning series of work about oppressed peoples.

CultureGrrl comments:

If "a great nation deserves great art," as NEA's logo (above) proclaims, then NEA needs to provide direct recognition and support to the people most responsible for our nation's "great art"---our individual creative artists. This is important not only for the direct financial benefit to the recipients, but also for the ripple effect that this recognition can have on the artist's career and on our nation's regard for the creative profession.

Through its chairman (if only it had one), NEA should ask Congress to rescind its ban on most individual artists' fellowships (the exceptions to the ban: literature fellowships, national heritage fellowships and American jazz masters fellowships). That prohibition became effective in 1997 (and is carried forward each year in NEA's appropriations bill), in a very different political and cultural climate from the one in which we find ourselves today.

By the way, while I certainly have nothing against cultural journalists (purporting to be one myself), why is our federal arts agency spending money on a program for journalists that could more appropriately be applied to support the arts and artists?

You can read it online now. But do you really want to?

The NY Times' special section on museums in tomorrow's (Thursday's) newspaper may be your thing if you're fascinated by institutions with a pop-culture focus (Motown, chocolate, Woodstock, mobsters), efforts to appeal to untraditional audiences (children and Alzheimer's sufferers) and, of course, strategies to cope with the financial crisis.

All this, while of some interest, is somewhat removed from the concerns that serious scholars, curators, museum directors and museumgoers regard as central---activities like collecting, exhibiting, interpreting, researching, conserving. But that's so boring, when you can discuss the rewards of "rewriting the signs" at the John Dillinger Museum in Hammond, IN (who knew?).

I'm sure (although I haven't seen them yet) that the section boasts a truly engaging array of museum ads. I mean, who can ever forget the Getty's two-page rhinoceros spread of two years ago?

Maxwell Anderson at the IMA

Maxwell Anderson, director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, responds to my call (in yesterday's post, Deaccession Heaven: Indianapolis Museum of Art Does It Right) for him to make the technology behind his state-of-the-art deaccession database "available to the entire field immediately...if not sooner":

We are committed to the use of open source tools and standards whenever possible, and would be pleased to partner with peer institutions on any web extension, from the deaccessioning database to the Dashboard to other new projects in the pipeline.

Memo to every art museum in the country: Hold Max to this!

I just got this save-the-date invitation from Bernard Tschumi Architects, so I guess the much-delayed New Acropolis Museum in Athens really IS set to have its "public opening ceremonies" on June 20.

Here's my CultureGrrl photo essay of the museum-in-(slow)progress, from my visit last March, at which time the announced opening date for the facility (which had been intended to be up and running for the 2004 Olympics) was September 2008. But meeting that deadline was already being described then by insiders as highly doubtful.

At the bottom of my photo essay, I mentioned that a director for the new museum had yet to be chosen. Dimitris Pandermalis, below, president of the Organization for the Construction of the New Acropolis Museum, has thus far been its guiding light. Politics are said to be a major factor in such appointments in Greece, and the culture minister who was in office last March, Michalis Liapis, has been replaced by Antonis Samaras.

So I checked yesterday with a spokesperson for the project and was informed:

At this stage, the announcement of the name of the director of the museum is still pending. We will post the announcement on our website when it occurs.

The Legislature notes attempts in New York and elsewhere to monetize museum collections and the asserted use of those monies for purposes other than the protection and expansion of collections. The Legislature further finds and determines that such practices are inconsistent with the interest of the people of the State, are inconsistent with requirements of governing documents, accreditation standards, and accepted museum practices, and, if unchecked, will permanently endanger the integrity and existence of museum collections handed to us by earlier generations as a sacred cultural and ethical trust.

And here are some of its key provisions:

Each museum shall publish a register of the contents of its collection.

No museum may dispose of an item or items in its collection except as set forth in this statute and in its mission statement and collections management policy and not until the item or items have been deaccessioned.

Proceeds from disposal of an item in its collection shall only be used for purposes set forth in this statute.

No item in a museum's collection may be used as collateral or may be capitalized.

A museum may deaccession an item in its collection only if one or more of the following criteria have been met: (a) the item is inconsistent with the mission of the museum as set forth in its mission statement. (b) the item has failed to retain its identity (c) the item is redundant (d) the item's preservation and conservation needs are beyond the capacity of the museum to provide; (e) the item is deaccessioned to accomplish refinement of collections as required by and/or stated in its collection management policy. (f) it has been established that the item is inauthentic (g) the museum is repatriating the item or returning the item to its rightful owner; (h) the museum is returning the item to the donor, or the donor's heirs or assigns, to fulfill donor restrictions relating to the item which the museum is no longer able to meet; (i) the item presents a hazard to people or other collection items.

Any museum disposing of an item must make a good faith effort to sell or transfer such item to another museum in New York State. If such sale or transfer cannot be accomplished a museum must make a good faith effort to sell or transfer such item to another public museum.

Proceeds from the disposal of an item or items from a museum's collection may be used for the acquisition of another item or items for the museum's collection and/or for the preservation, protection or care of an item or items in the collection. In no event, however, shall proceeds derived from the disposal of an item or items from a museum's collection be used for traditional and customary operating expenses.

I imagine that even the mainstream museum establishment may have problems with some of these provisions: Unlike the Association of Art Museum Directors' SUGGESTED criteria for objects to be deaccessioned, the bill (like the Regents' amendment) says that objects can be deaccessioned ONLY if one or more of the listed criteria (i.e., redundancy, condition problems, etc.) are met. However, allowing sales that are intended "to accomplish refinement of collections" can permit just about anything.

More controversial may be the requirement of a good faith effort to sell or transfer deaccessioned items to a museum within the state, or, failing that, a public institution elsewhere. I'm in favor (on the grounds that museum-quality works in the public domain should stay in the public domain), but I suspect many, if not most, museums would say this could seriously limit the amount of money that they would be able to obtain for an object.

UPDATE: Robin Pogrebin has now posted an online report about the new bill, to be published in tomorrow's NY Times. Her piece also provides an online link to the bill's complete text, here.

Targeted for sale: Bernard Buffet, "Paimpol," 1968, Indianapolis Museum of Art
Estimated value: $50,000

I can't believe I'm seeing this. Have I just died and gone to Deaccession Heaven?

No, I haven't myself been deaccessioned (yet) and the Indianapolis Museum of Art's newly launched Searchable Database of Deaccessioned Artworks truly does exist in real cyberspace. It's everything I asked for in this post and at the end of my 2005 NY Times Op-Ed piece, For Sale: Our Permanent Collection....and more.

So what does state-of-the-art deaccession disclosure look like?

First, the IMA publicly posts its deaccession policy. (That seems to me the FIRST reform that the Association of Art Museum Directors should have insisted upon in its recent accord with the National Academy---a published deaccession policy conforming to AAMD guidelines.)

Next, the IMA posts not only all the works it has recently sold but also those it has targeted for sale, in advance of their actual disposal, providing an opportunity for public comment. (Here's the entry for the Buffet, pictured above, whose auction sale date has yet to be determined.)

The IMA's database makes public comment easy: The entry for an object brings up not only details about the work and (in many cases) a photo, but also a clickable "Comments" link, allowing concerned museumgoers to register their reactions (or objections) online. If anyone actually thinks Buffet's "Paimpol" belongs in an art museum, speak now or forever hold your peace.

If a work has already been sold, the object record tells you when and where, along with the price. If (like the Buffet) it hasn't yet been sold, it tells you when and where it is scheduled for sale (if that's been determined), along with estimated value. If it was offered for sale but failed to sell, the database says so.

IMA's deaccession listings, which go back to 2007 (when the museum began its collections-evaluation project), are searchable in many useful ways. One improvement they should consider, though, is providing an alphabetical list by artist---a relatively simple refinement, given what's already been achieved. (You can already type an artist's name in the search box and come up with work by that artist.)

There's one refinement already planned by IMA that I never thought to call for: specific details on how sale proceeds are applied. The museum plans to link sold works in its database "to artworks newly acquired by means of the relevant funds."

The one big omission that I hope can be addressed is the failure to provide any explanation as to why a work is being relinquished---issues of quality, condition, etc. The public should be told why a work is being removed from the public domain. The drawback to such disclosure is that a description of a work's shortcomings could compromise its performance at auction. But most buyers already realize that if a museum is selling a work, it's usually (although, alas, not always) because that object doesn't belong in the museum.

All we need now is for every other museum director in the country to follow Maxwell Anderson's inspired lead. This should become the Association of Art Museum Directors' new gold standard for deaccession transparency.

I hope Max will make this technological advance available to the entire field immediately...if not sooner!

I haven't heard why the video feed didn't work from last night's Rose Art Museum Symposium, which featured the opening salvo in the War of the Roses, but here's the next-best thing---television coverage of the proceedings by New England Cable Network. That's family spokesperson Meryl Rose, whom you see below:

The Forebears: Bertha and Edward Rose, founders of the eponymous museum

Below in its entirety is the statement signed by 67 members of the family of Edward and Bertha Rose, founders of the endangered Rose Art Museum. These demands were to have been delivered, shortly before this posting, to Brandeis University's president, Jehuda Reinharz. A Rose Museum board member, Meryl Rose, is expected to discuss her family's position at the beginning of tonight's program at the museum.

You can watch it live, beginning at 6:30 p.m., here.

Rose Family member Fred Hopengarten told me today that the family has no immediate plans to litigate. But it has retained Boston attorney Terry Dangel, whom it may ask to file suit or seek an injunction if Brandeis doesn't soon address the family's concerns to its satisfaction.

The Roses are putting their faith, for now, in negotiation with the university's administration and possible intervention by David Spackman, chief of the Non-Profit Organizations/Public Charities Division of the Massachusetts Attorney General, whose office is examining the situation.

Here's what the Rose Family seeks:

STATEMENT OF THE ROSE FAMILY

We speak on behalf of over 50 living members of the Rose Family. The current Brandeis University administration intends to close the Edward and Bertha C. Rose Art Museum, and to sell the art works in its renowned collection.

We Object.

We urge the current university president and the trustees to restore the use, budget, staffing,and activities of the Rose Art Museum until a final decision is issued by a court.

The university is effectively closing the museum before the Attorney General or any court has ruled that closing is allowed. This is being accomplished not only by a premature announcement of closure, but also by withholding the Rose's own money---and cutting its staff, resources, and activities.

"Re‐purposing" the museum is closing by another name. It would not be the Rose. Any other understanding of the university's current plan is disinformation. The administration wants to control money given to the Rose for museum purposes, to sell precious works of art, and to close the museum.

We Object.

We, the Rose Family, protest the plundering of the Rose Art Museum and its collection. Ed and Bertha Rose not only funded the planning and construction of the museum, but also set up three funds, separate from the Brandeis endowment, to perpetuate the Museum: the Rose Maintenance Fund, the Rose Museum Endowment Fund, and the Rose Endowed Purchase Fund. The existence and mission of the Rose benefit art, culture and education---locally and worldwide. The Rose offers students and the public a prized modern and contemporary art collection.

The art has been put on the auction block. The museum has been put on the chopping block.

We Object.

We seek:

1. Immediate renewal of contracts with the Museum Director and all his staff. Those salaries are paid from dedicated funds donated to or raised by the Museum---not from the general budget of Brandeis.

2. Authorization for the Director to prepare and install the next exhibit, to open when the Hans Hofmann exhibit comes down in May. Otherwise, the walls will be bare and there will be no exhibitions. Brandeis will have effectively closed the Rose Art Museum.

3. A promise that Brandeis will not sell any art belonging to the Rose.

4. A commitment that Brandeis will honor the donors' intentions that there be a public art
museum at Brandeis, and the Rose is that museum.

The museum is not for closing; the art is not for sale.

Robin Pogrebin

In her National Academy update in Saturday's NY Times, Robin Pogrebin lost me at the first sentence:

In December the National Academy unleashed a firestorm of controversy when it announced that it was selling two important Hudson River School paintings to pay its bills.

Announced??? As anyone who has followed this controversy surely knows, the Academy never "announced that it was selling" anything. Thanks to my tipsters, I discovered, after the fact, that it had secretly sold its important Church and Gifford. I disclosed this in the first post of what turned into an extensive investigative series for CultureGrrl. My initial report is what "unleashed" the "firestorm." The Times itself, in its first catch-up story, directly credited me with the scoop. It then promptly decided to fuhgeddaboudit.

Once I finish composing this post, I'll draft a proposed NY Times correction and send it here. ("Good luck with that," says my inner skeptic.)

There are so many misstatements in Pogrebin's Saturday piece that it could use not just a correction but a do-over.

Let's start with her mini-scoop:

New York Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, a Westchester County Democrat and Brandeis alumnus, has introduced legislation with the State Board of Regents to set deaccessioning guidelines for New York museums.

As of this morning, that legislation had NOT yet been introduced, I was informed by Clifford Siegfried, the New York State Education Department's assistant commissioner for museums, who has been working hand-in-glove with Brodsky on this project. Siegfried and I had an in-depth talk two weeks ago about the bill and the NY State Board of Regents' position on deaccessions and use of proceeds. He told me he would send me Brodsky's final text "as soon as everyone signs off." When I know, you'll know.

Siegfried also told me he hopes to attend my Mar. 30 session on "Desperation Deaccessions: The Temptation to Monetize Collections in Times of Financial Crisis," which will be part of this month's annual conference (scroll down) of the Museum Association of New York and the Upstate History Alliance, Mar. 29-31 in Tarrytown. Brodsky also indicated he hopes to participate in that discussion.

But back to Pogrebin: She also asserts that Brandeis University "reneged on its plans" to close the Rose and sell the art, whereas it merely revised its plans---substantially repurposing the Rose as an "art center," not a museum; possibly selling some, but not all, of the art.

She also reports that "Lawrence A. Larose...last June resigned as chairman of the [National] Academy's advisory board to protest the art sale." If so, that resignation was premature, since the Academy's members first voted to sell the art on Nov. 19, 2008. Carmine Branagan, the institution's director who oversaw the deaccession process, arrived at the Academy in July.

Speaking of my tipsters, I've long been meaning to publicly thank Linda Norris, a blogger and managing partner of Riverhill, a Treadwell, NY-based consulting firm for museums, historical agencies and community organizations. It was she who alerted me to the NY State Regents' emergency amendment, put aside for now, that would have permitted deaccessions to stave off bankruptcy.

And speaking of "unleashing firestorms," I was informed that my Norris-sparked post on that amendment touched off a blaze of incendiary letters to the Regents, who prudently reversed course.

UPDATE: If you click the first link in this story, you will see that the NY Times has appended to the end of Robin's story a correction of the Brandeis "reneged on its plans" misstatement. One down, three to go. Robin did tacitly acknowledge her mistake regarding the Brodsky bill's date of introduction in her follow-up piece on Tuesday that reported when it was actually introduced.

Michael Rush showing CBS-TV's Martha Teichner around the Rose Art Museum, aired yesterday

Michael Rush, embattled director of Brandeis University's beleaguered art museum, responds to yesterday's post, in which I criticized his "million-dollar babble" during his conversation with correspondent Martha Teichner on CBS-TV's Sunday Morning show:

I respect your passion about sale of artworks. I share this passion. As you know, things that get printed or aired often do not comply with our best intentions. I spent more than two hours at the Rose with CBS Sunday Morning and this one piece of offhanded monetary discussion, which occurred in a parenthetical manner, was what they chose to run with.

All the many, many other things I said did not make the final cut...and, I assure you, I said numerous strong things about the horror of the university's decision to sell artwork. And regarding the evaluation of the collection to begin with, this was totally done within the spirit of believing that deeper awareness of the cultural, historical, and, yes, monetary value of this collection would speak clearly to the university and enhance its pride in the collection and desire to both protect it and have it seen more. (At the time, we were trying to raise money for new storage and exhibition space.) Never for a second did we remotely believe that this crass decision would result.

Many, many institutions speak often of their "great first edition valued at $2 million" or "original manuscript valued at $10 million." These valuations can be sources of great pride and enhancements toward protection. The fact that this ill begotten decision came form Brandeis was NOT based on our evaluations of the collection.

The university had attempted this type of measure before but was stopped by a very influential University Trustee, Dr. Hank Foster, whose wife, Lois, has been involved with us deeply for more than 30 years. Together they endowed essential museum operations and, indeed, the main contemporary exhibition space of the Rose is called the Lois Foster Wing.

Hank died this year. I truly believe that the absence of his wise and supportive voice contributed to the timing of this sorry decision. I really am on your side on this issue of selling artwork.

We'll likely hear more from Michael (as well as from the battle-ready Rose Family) later today, at his museum's symposium on "Preserving Trust: Art and the Art Museum Amidst Financial Crisis," which you can view live here (Mar. 2 date on that webpage is wrong), from 6:30-8 p.m.

UPDATE: One gentle reader has affirmatively and generously answered the call of this post's headline. Thanks to my new benefactor, I'm up and blogging. And the rest of you...?

I hate goading you, art-lings. But whenever I try to wake up and shake down my devoted readers, someone actually realizes that he does value what I do, and decides that it's high time to show support.

Could you be that person?

No one has contributed to my work in the last 10 days. My donor roster is stuck at a mere (though much appreciated) 18. And that bright red advertisement in the righthand column cries out for colorful company. (I fear I've completely ruined my chances, however, for that coveted Sardis Column Cufflinks ad from the Metropolitan Museum.)

I'm almost at the point of declaring another "Day Without CultureGrrl." Stop me before I take a hike. (Actually, not a bad idea!) Pressing that bright yellow button on the right sends an electric shock directly to my flagging blogging brain cells.

You do eagerly await my "War of the Roses" follow-up post, don't you?

Michael Rush taking CBS-TV's Martha Teichner on a tour of the Rose Art Museum (aired today)

This just in from the kin of Edward and Bertha Rose, founders of Brandeis University's Rose Art Museum:

More than 50 members of the Rose family have come together to condemn the actions of the current Brandeis administration in closing the Edward and Bertha C. Rose Art Museum and selling the art works in its renowned collection. A statement will be read at [a symposium tomorrow at the museum]. A copy of the statement will be delivered to the office of the president of Brandeis University on Monday.

Tomorrow's symposium (scroll down) is titled, "Preserving Trust: Art and the Art Museum Amidst Financial Crisis." You can view it live here (along with the Rose Family's pronouncement), from 6:30-8 p.m. tomorrow. (The Mar. 2 date you will see on the viewing page refers to the originally scheduled time; it was postponed due to a snowstorm.)

Speaking of "preserving trust," I wish that the Rose's director, Michael Rush, who staunchly opposes both deaccessioning and redefining the museum as an "art center," would stop monetizing the collection by way of his own comments: In today's CBS-TV Sunday Morning segment, he told correspondent Martha Teichner that "at least 20 works [in the Rose's collection] are worth tens and tens of millions of dollars" and that the museum's entire collection, if sold, would fetch $175 million.

I guess that must be the new recession/liquidation price. The Boston Globe's Geoff Edgers reported in January that Rush had "estimated the collection's value could top $350 million."

Rush should stop second-guessing the market and concentrate on his proper function of touting the collection's artistic and educational value. He should, on principle, decline to discuss a museum collection's financial worth (which is not quantified on most institutions' balance sheets, because collections are not properly regarded as liquid assets). All this million-dollar babble just activates the salivary glands of sale proponents, such as Brandeis trustee Ralph Martin, who said this on today's CBS report:

We've frozen salaries, we have a hiring freeze, we've cut expenses. If one of the compromises you're prepared to make is we may have to sell some select works of art, I think most of the community [will] understand that.

It was, unsurprisingly, Rush's dollar-denominated comments that made the lead in CBS's online report of today's segment (which links to CultureGrrl's report that first exposed the National Academy's stealth deaccessions, also discussed by Teichner).

Rush was responsible for the museum's misguided decision to ask Christie's to appraise its collection, because (as Rush told Brandeis Magazine two years ago), "I'm confident that, after its real estate, art is the university's largest financial asset, and I want everyone to know it."

I want everyone to forget it.

Regarding the National Academy brouhaha, Teichner reported that "last Wednesday, the National Academy agreed to meet AAMD's demands." That's not exactly how I read the joint statement between the Academy and the Association of Art Museum Directors, which reports that the Academy will not sell two relatively minor works that it had planned to jettison, but falls short of stating that the Academy will never again liquidate works to defray operating expenses or debts. Carmine Branagan, director of the Academy, so far appears to be sticking by her statement to me that when it comes to future art disposals, one should "never say 'never.'"

For its part, AAMD has not yet agreed to lift its sanctions against its members' collaborating with the Academy on exhibitions and other projects. This peace process is still a work in progress.

From Teichner, I learned for the first time that the Association of Art Museum Directors boasts an "ethics enforcer," as she dubbed Bill Eiland, head of professsional issues for AAMD and director of the Georgia Museum of Art. Do the "enforcer's" perp-catching perks include a shiny badge and billy stick?

If there is actually such a thing as an AAMD ethics cop, I think it's the person who met with Branagan before the fact in an attempt to head off any desperation deaccessions and was incensed by her disregard of his counsel---the association's president, Michael Conforti.

The Met's satellite store at New York's JFK Airport, Terminal 8

Last month, the Metropolitan Museum announced that it was closing 15 of its "under-performing satellite shops around the country" and had also "instituted a museum-wide hiring freeze." (Eight of the 15 stores had already closed.)

The action seemed counterintuitive, because shops are supposed to help the bottom line. In fact, they've been hurting it, and the problem predates the current global financial crisis.

Yesterday the Met issued a further anouncement that it was cutting merchandising staff by 74 positions, "effective immediately. These staff reductions...are in addition to the 53 positions eliminated in recent months through the closings of eight satellite Museum stores."

The museum's statement acknowledged "significant recent downturns in its merchandising sales." But the fiscal deficiencies of the glitzy boutiques that hawk a huge array of often pricey reproductions (not to mention adaptations of Met objects for scarfs, cufflinks and other wearables) are not all that recent: After running a neglible profit in fiscal 2007 ($318,000 on gross revenues of $77.64 million), the Met's retail operations were in the red for fiscal 2008 (which ended June 30).

Let's go to the Met's 2007-8 annual report. (Scroll to the last page.)

Note Q in the financial statement shows that in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, merchandise operations produced $75.55 million in revenue. Deducting merchandise costs and expenses of $76.99 million, retail operations yielded a net LOSS of $1.44 million.

Apparently the mere job freeze announced last month for non-retail areas is now deemed insufficient to meet current economic challenges: In yesterday's statement, the Met revealed that it "also anticipates the additional need to reduce the rest of its full- and part-time work force by approximately 10% in all other areas of its operations [including, presumably, curatorial staff] before...July 1."

It's sad for Tom Campbell that, through no fault of his own, his most visible acts since becoming the Met's new director in January involve major cutbacks and a new advertising campaign.

As you can see from the prior post, I'm (very happily) back in the blogging business, after having endured Medical Wednesday and Thursday at the hospital. Putting my mother through a difficult test was tough, but had a happy ending: We had indications that she might have had a recurrence of something no one wants to recur, but, so far, this appears to have been a false alarm.

"Relief" is too weak a word.

CultureSpouse and I immediately celebrated by consuming a tasty, frothy, easily digested Broadway bonbon---one of the last preview performances of Noël Coward's "Blithe Spirit," featuring that formidable force of nature, Angela Lansbury, doing "dotty" as only she can (and done up, for good measure, in a semblance of her "Sweeney Todd" hairdo). With one exception (we'll see if the critics agree), the pitch-perfect actors have fused into a bang-up comedic ensemble.

Today I celebrated with CultureDaughter (home on spring break), by dragging her to pass judgment on the mother-of-the-groom dress that I've chosen (not the very expensive one that I previously showed you---scroll down). My arbiter of fashion and her boyfriend (in a sling after Joyce led him down a treacherous ski jump) gave it three thumbs up.

That's probably more about me and my family than you wanted to know. (And I'll bet you just can't wait for the end-of-summer wedding photos!)

Martha Teichner, correspondent for CBS News' "Sunday Morning"

CBS-TV's Sunday Morning news show this week will feature a report on the National Academy's and Rose Art Museum's art-disposal controversies---"The Art of Survival: Deaccessioning Artworks" (Scroll down to the bottom of the list of this Sunday's stories.)

Here's the description of the segment:

With arts institutions across the country increasingly feeling financially squeezed, some are turning to selling their art works to pay off expenses. Martha Teichner visits the National Academy, which has been punished by the Association of Art Museum Directors for its sale of two paintings. We also go to Brandeis University where their announced plans to close the Rose Art Museum and sell off its collection set off a firestorm of criticism and protests, forcing the University to rethink its plans.

You can find the time (way too early) when Sunday Morning airs in your area here. (My Sunday morning doesn't start till Sunday afternoon.)

Let's see if they've updated this report to include the late-breaking developments in the Academy story.

Dan Monroe, chairman of the AAMD's Art Issues Committee and director of the Peabody Essex Museum---one of those who met this week with Carmine Branagan, director of the National Academy

The National Academy, in discussions this week with representatives from the Association of Art Museum Directors, agreed not to sell the two works---by John White Alexander and Robert Blum---that it had targeted for disposal along with the two far more important works---a Church and a Gifford---that it did sell last fall to defray debts and operating expenses.

In a joint statement issued late yesterday afternoon by the previously estranged National Academy, New York, and the Association of Art Museum Directors, both sides indicated progress but not closure in resolving the issues that led AAMD's leadership in December to urge the association's members not to collaborate with the Academy on exhibitions or other projects. The rapprochement resulted from the meeting this week about which the Academy's director, Carmine Branagan, had given me advance word last week.

Both sides described as "productive" the discussion on "how the Academy could achieve financial stability and institute policies to preclude deaccessions for operating funds, and how AAMD could assist in this process."

Among the plans:

The Academy will begin a process to restructure its governance practices to: include more rigorous fiscal oversight; institute a comprehensive fundraising program incorporating board involvement and a professional development team; formulate a strategic, long-range plan which will include a financial plan and a strengthened collections management policy.

Michael Conforti, president of AAMD, who did not attend the meeting, commented afterwards:

By taking swift action to change its course, the National Academy is demonstrating a commitment to protecting the works of art it holds in public trust and simultaneously moving towards a financially secure future. We look forward to working with the National Academy and providing our support as they implement the initiatives they have described.

The joint statement ends on this hopeful note:

On the basis of these pledges and actions---and to assist the National Academy in realizing these goals---members of AAMD will meet with the Academy's leadership over the coming months to provide guidance and support as it institutes these essential changes. Once accomplished, these initiatives will help the National Academy regain its footing as a member in good standing of the American art museum community.

So maybe Carmine will get her loans from AAMD museums for the upcoming Zorn/Sargent/Sorolla show (scroll down) after all. And maybe a lose-lose can ultimately become a win-win.

Personal Note: I would have given you this news (which hit my inbox yesterday afternoon) sooner, but my mother was in the hospital yesterday (and will be coming out later today, if all goes according to plan). I've been with her.

The late Daniel Terra in the now defunct Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, 1987

I'm a little late getting this news, which I discovered from a Feb. 18 post by my French blogging buddy, Didier Rykner, in his Art Tribune. Didier reported that the Musée d'Art Américain Giverny (MAAG) had "closed its doors to make way for the Musée des Impressionismes. The Terra Foundation no longer wished to either manage or finance this establishment."

Elizabeth Glassman, president of  the Terra Foundation for American Art, informed me that MAAG had closed on Oct. 31 and a new museum in the Terra-owned building, the Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny (MDIG), will open on May 1. "The Terra Foundation remains very involved in the new museum," Glassman added. MDIG, she said, "will be overseen by a team of cultural partners and the French government, including the Department of the Eure, the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Musée d'Orsay, the Région Haute-Normandie, the Fondation Claude Monet and the Department of Seine-Maritime."

The foundation, which retains and makes loans (especially to the Art Institute of Chicago) from the 750-work American art collection of the late Daniel Terra, President Reagan's ambassador-at-large for cultural affairs, has shifted its focus from museum operation to grantmaking and exhibition partnerships with other museums. Terra's pride and joy, the foundation's flagship museum for his collection in Chicago, closed its doors in 2004. Its traditional, largely figurative collection attracted anemic attendance.

The foundation, on its website, claims:

Today, the Terra Foundation for American Art carries forward the vision of Ambassador Terra, building on his tireless efforts to bring American art to ever-widening audiences.

But the founder's conviction that the nation's heartland merited its own museum dedicated to America's artistic heritage was the core of his "vision." There's been a big mission shift.

As I said in my 2004 Wall Street Journal article on endangered single-collector museums (including the Terra):

The founders often unwittingly thwart their own desires, failing to create enduring plans for professional management and outside financial support. Too often, the administrators and board members entrusted with the collection's postmortem stewardship are impelled less by the founder's vision than by fiscal and administrative expedience.

All of this should give pause to other collectors now considering the creation of museums solely dedicated to their personal collections. The works may not be consigned to storage, as many might be in a larger, more traditional museum, but the assurance of an arrangement that will last for posterity sometimes trumps the possibly fleeting glory of an eponymous institution.

The National Endowment for the Art's recently unveiled report about the "sharp increase in unemployment" among visual and performing artists' makes the job situation look bad.

Actually, it's worse.

Based on recent U.S. Census Bureau surveys that were conducted on behalf of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the report's findings apply only to those for whom art is their "primary occupation." People who view themselves as artists but who work for more hours a week at a different job aren't counted. The report DOES include self-employed artists, such as the painter who earns his living by selling his work. (I suppose that to become an "unemployed artist," he has to put down the brush.)

A better measure of how the recession is affecting artists would be a comparison of art-related income in the last quarter of 2008 to that in the last quarter of 2007. But the new report is concerned not with income but with the recession's "impact on jobs." This relates to the goal of the federal stimulus package---to preserve positions that are now "in jeopardy or [have been] eliminated."

Artists' income IS discussed, however, in NEA's more voluminous Artists in the Workforce: 1990-2005, belatedly issued in May 2008 (when its figures were already out-of-date).

Here are some fun facts from that report:

---There are (or were in 2005) about 2 million artists (i.e., people for whom art is the primary occupation).

---Some 35% of those were self-employed (compared to only 10% of the total workforce). But in the subcategory of "fine artists, art directors and animators," a much larger portion, 55.6%, was self-employed.

---Median income of artists from 2003-2005 was $34,800. But you have to read the fine print: Income is the total that the artist received from ALL sources, not just art.

---Median income of full-time artists was $45,200, compared to the higher median income for full-time (general) professionals of $52,500.

---Some 45% of all artists did not work full time all year. Their median income was $20,000.

What all this means is that, art-stars notwithstanding, choosing a career in the creative arts, more often than not, involves financial sacrifice.

And that's why NEA needs to prevent more self-employed artists from declaring themselves "unemployed," by reinstating artists' fellowships that help make it possible for them to keep on creating.

Louis Garnier (Medallions by Simon Curé; Later additions by Augustin Pajou), "The French Parnassus," 1718-1721; Pajou additions, 1762 and 1777, Musée National de Versailles

I guess James Draper and Ian Wardropper didn't really need me to protect them from Ken Johnson's bashing in the NY Times after all:

Finally, the Metropolitan Museum's Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution gets the review it deserves!

Barrymore Laurence Scherer writes in today's Wall Street Journal:

The glories of French bronze sculpture and the saga of France's adoption and cultivation of an art form once dominated by Renaissance Italy are brilliantly illustrated by a new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

And on it goes in that laudatory vein. Scherer even calls the Garnier "French Parnassus" (dismissed by Johnson as "the show's weirdest piece"), a "confection," just like me!

Do I get some credit for being quick?

Noortman Master Paintings, Maastricht

The NY Times isn't touching this one with a 10-foot pole.

I need to be careful too, so all that I'm going to do, for now, is link to this story from Great Britain's Times, which quotes a detective making damaging allegations about the late Maastricht old masters dealer, Robert Noortman, whose gallery was acquired by Sotheby's in 2006, shortly before his death.

The account in the NY Times' "Arts Briefly" column, which cites the London Times story as its source, makes this sound like a straighforward painting-recovery story:

Dutch police have recovered eight paintings, including works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro, that were stolen from the Noortman gallery in Maastricht in 1987, The Times of London reported....Prosecutors said police were able to find the paintings, two of which were badly damaged from being folded, after a recent attempt was made to sell them back to the insurance company that had paid a substantial settlement after the 1987 theft.

But David Charter's story in the British newspaper, which shows a photo of a creased canvas by Jan Brueghel the Younger, is much more complicated. Late last night, I e-mailed queries to both Sotheby's and Noortman Master Paintings (now run by Robert's son, William). If I receive any reply, I will append an update to this post.

UPDATE: Here's a much more detailed, eyebrow-raising report, Dutch Art Sting with a Twist, from the Abu Dhabi-based newspaper, The National.

Larry Gagosian

NOTE: I was holding this piece for tomorrow morning, but since ArtJournal's newest blogger, Judith Dobrzynski, this evening discusses what she calls, "the most interesting arts story in Sunday's New York Times," I thought I should weigh in now with my contrarian view.

The long profile of mega-dealer Larry Gagosian by David Segal, on the front page of today's NY Times "Sunday Business" section, should more appropriately have been published in the "Styles" section.

The lead alerts us to what we're in for---a sartorial description, a reference to Larry's bevy of "gallerinas," and innuendo, made repeatedly in the article but never substantiated, suggesting that the current art-market decline might cause Larry's art empire to "flame out" (in words from the end of the article).

Here are Segal's opening paragraphs:

At an opening at his Madison Avenue gallery a few weeks ago, Larry Gagosian wore a dark suit with a window-pane pattern and a look on his face that said, "Don't ask."

He stood near the reception desk, beside several of the many gallerinas he employs, as a few hundred people milled around a collection of new photographs by Alec Soth and a cache of paintings by Andy Warhol that he bought last year, reportedly for $200 million. In an art market that has recently gone Code Xanax, neither he nor his gallery radiated any hints of distress---though hints of distress have never been the Gagosian style.

I have no idea of how Gagosian's business is doing, but neither, apparently, does Segal:

No dealer rode the art to the same thin-air heights as Mr. Gagosian. Which might mean he has the farthest to fall...

...or maybe not. "Thin air" is what this "business story" is made of.

Segal refers to "the size of his [Gagosian's] commission," but never gives us any indication of what it is. He declares: "It's telling that he is not a member of the Art Dealers Association of America, an invitation-only group." But what exactly this is "telling" us, we aren't told. I suspect his non-member status could have something to do with his penchant for draining top talent from other galleries and for "pitch[ing] paintings that weren't even for sale, knowing that if the offer were large enough, the owner would thank him," as Segal describes Gagosian's method of operation.

Segal's piece closely tracks this superior piece, published last spring by Sarah Douglas in the Economist's "Intelligent Life" magazine, which gets into much greater financial detail about the deals done by its subject. It's as if Segal had noted Douglas' sources and worked his way down some of that list, adding updates to reflect the recent art-market decline. He did, however, dig up a few new interviewees---most notably comedian/collector Steve Martin and a former Gagosian girlfriend, who laments that "falling in love, marriage" are "not his priorities." We even get the name of someone to whom he remained briefly married after a quicky Las Vegas ceremony. I'll spare you further details (but Segal won't).

The source with whom neither the Times nor The Economist managed to connect is the eminence gris himself. The fact that Larry "loves to see his name in the New York Times," as collector Eli Broad told Segal, doesn't seem to have helped this particular Times reporter.

In my own most recent Gagosian encounter, I sought his comments after Sotheby's weak Nov. 12 contemporary art sale, where he bought two Serras. He brusquely brushed me off.

I was more successful, though, when I contacted him at the time of the 1999 "Sensation" dust-up at the Brooklyn Museum, when critics decried the fact that several prominent dealers who represented artists in that controversial show had provided financial support for it.

Here's my report on what Gagosian then told me, which appeared in my Brooklyn Hangs Tough article, published in the January 2000 issue of Art in America:

Of the 38 dealers contacted by [Brooklyn Museum director Arnold] Lehman to be patrons of the "Sensation" gala, several purchased blocks of tickets for the benefit dinner, including Larry Gagosian, who paid $10,000 for a table.

"It was a no-brainer," explained Gagosian, who represents Damien Hirst and Jenny Saville, two artists in the show.

Gagosian, who considers Saatchi "one of my best friends," told A.i.A. that he had also recently spent $10,000 to support a gala at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., and he had split with two other dealers the entire cost of a recent lavish Guggenheim Museum dinner in New York.

"This seems like normal art-world business as I know it," commented the dealer. "It's just common sense. If I can afford to be helpful, it's a win-win situation: It helps the institution and it helps the artist. I don't think it contaminates anything. They're not doing the show based on the $10,000 I gave them."

He added that he never contributes "direct exhibition support" to museums and that he does not believe that "Sensation" will have "any impact, negative or positive" on the market for the artists' works. Potential purchasers "already knew these artists," he asserted.

Scruples against dealers' providing "direct exhibition support" for shows of work by their artists now seem almost quaint. Gagosian, for example, was among several dealers who openly provided support (scroll down) for LA MOCA's celebrated Murakami show, which traveled to Brooklyn and to Frankfurt's Museum for Modern Art. It has now touched down at the Guggenheim Bilbao. His generous but self-interested museum philanthropy didn't get into today's article, however.

There is undoubtedly a fascinating business story to be told about Gagosian's international art empire. But today's Times piece isn't it.

Inside (and outside) the Nasher Sculpture Center

If you connect the dots in my Q&A with Jeremy Strick, published yesterday, you will note that I found (literally) 10 different ways of asking him what mistakes he made that contributed to LA MOCA's near-fatal financial crash. Jeremy found 10 different ways of admitting that he bore some responsibility, while evading my requests for specifics. Either he doesn't know, or he won't say.

In the end, LA MOCA's deposed director seemed to blame the trustees, the economy and the museum's "broken [financial] model" more than himself.

He is, as self-described, "always optimistic." And he's already brimming with ideas on how to reinvigorate, even transform, the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas. When he talked to me about his vision, he hadn't yet sat down (does he ever sit down?) in the director's chair. He began his new job this week.

Strick may have found the perfect outlet for his manic energy at this enchanting indoor/outdoor space that's been in a holding pattern for two years, since its founding director, Steven Nash, left for the Palm Springs Art Museum. The month of Nash's departure, March 2007, was also when Raymond Nasher, the center's founding chairman, died. Ray not only gave his extraordinarily rich collection to his eponymous institution, but had masterminded and funded the construction of its justly acclaimed Renzo Piano-designed facility.

Once the settlement of Nasher's estate is finalized, Strick may have some $100 million of endowment money to play with. As you might expect, he has no shortage of ideas on how to use it.

According to Strick, the Nasher had virtually stopped collecting after the death of its founder, who "was acquiring till the end of his life." Jeremy wants it to be a "living, growing collection" significantly expanded its scope.

He told me:

We're thinking about sculptors' drawings and photographs, and also thinking about media that are not represented in the collection---installation work, ceramics, land art, electronic media.

The Jerem-ized exhibition program may range even farther afield:

I want to think about the field of sculpture very broadly and think about the chronological parameters. Since the collection has a chronological focus [19th century to the present], you might want the exhibition program to be more expansive---to go backwards in time.

The collection is about modern and contemporary sculpture. But I think the intention of the sculpture center is always to provide context to that. I think we should be open to the notion of expanding the chronological field as well as to addressing sculptural practices in the exhibition program that aren't currently represented in the collection.

Specifically, he said, colleagues recently asked if he'd be interested in a show they were organizing on a 16th-century sculptor. "It's an interesting question," he observed.

This job represents coming full-circle for Strick, who began his curatorial career at the National Gallery, Washington, where his first assignment was to work on the 1987 exhibition of works from the Nasher Collection. With a more secure financial base than he had at LA MOCA, he hopes to spend less time chasing donors, more time contemplating art.

"The Nasher," he said, "represents to me the potential to return to the notion of being more of a curator, which I find appealing."

Carmine Branagan, director of the National Academy

Following up on the Association of Art Museum Director's stated willingness to "revisit its decision" blackballing the National Academy for its desperation deaccessions, and taking it up on its offer to meet with "the National Academy's leaders to clarify their intentions for the future of the collection," Carmine Branagan, the New York institution's embattled director, will talk with AAMD representatives next week.

Branagan told me:

I actually see this as an opportunity to set things right at the Academy and also to engage in a meaningful dialogue with the AAMD about being a proactive advocate for museums.

I think that Carmine Branagan's telling AAMD how to advocate for museums is going to be a non-starter.

For the time being, none of AAMD's member museums appear to be breaking ranks by collaborating on exhibitions with the Academy, notwithstanding this comment to CultureGrrl before AAMD's midwinter meeting by Malcolm Rogers, director of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Several AAMD members (including the BMFA) had promised loans to the Academy's Zorn/Sargent/Sorolla show (scroll down), scheduled for 2010, but all bets were off once institution's important Church and Gifford paintings hit the market. (Still no word on who bought those.)

Branagan informed me:

There are no AAMD members who are lending to us or borrowing from us. Ouch!

As I've said here and here, that seems to me excessive punishment. And AAMD's further stricture against its members' collaborating with the Academy on any project, however worthy, still strikes me as an assault on academic freedom.

However, my guess is that, at minimum, AAMD will insist on a learned-my-lesson pledge from the Academy that it will never again sell art to pay debts or operating expenses.

In her Q&A with me in her office before I broke this story in December. Branagan answered my question about whether this would be the last such deaccesssion by stating:

You and I know that you never say "never."

I think this discussion will need a very skilled mediator.

Jeremy Strick, taking his place in the "Bronze Crowd," 1990-91, by Magdalena Abakanowicz, at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas

When LA MOCA's financial survival was looking doubtful, I placed a call to the office of director Jeremy Strick, requesting comment. I had pleasant memories of a far-ranging conversation we had over lunch during a group press visit to MOCA, arranged at the time of last February's opening festivities for the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Jeremy had then told me:

Michael [Govan, LACMA's director] has raised the bar for philanthropy in the arts in a way that's been beneficial to all of us.

Not beneficial enough, apparently. Upping his trustees' annual price of admission to $75,000 did not begin to stanch the hemorrhaging of endowment money that ultimately led to Strick's flight from the prestigious but impecunious Los Angeles institution to a financially secure, if less artistically venturesome, haven---the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas.

Unsurprisingly, my call last fall to Strick was not returned.

So I was happy when Jeremy, on his own initiative, contacted me a couple of weeks ago for another far-ranging conversation. I was particularly pleased that he was willing to expound not only on his characteristically grandiose ambitions for the Nasher (where he has just assumed the director's post this week), but also on what had gone amok at MOCA.

Since I promised you something "juicy," I'll tackle Strick's MOCA musings first. I should preface this by saying that the following reflects The World According to Jeremy. MOCA trustees, patrons, staffers and interested observers may see things differently (and are invited to say so in BlogBacks). But it's useful and instructive to hear the former director's account of the financial crisis that spiraled out of control on his watch.

Q: In his article in the Dallas Morning News, Michael Granberry described you has having "lofty artistic credentials but also a clouded legacy of financial management." Can you address that? How did you let what happened at MOCA happen, and to what extent was it the result of your own management?

A: I think that the situation at MOCA was, at one level, fairly simple: It always substantially underfunded. We never enjoyed the resources of government funding. And there was a very small endowment. We had to rely to an excessive degree upon contributed income, which always has a significant degree of risk. When you rely on that for 70% to 80% of your income, you're gambling. In some years, it worked and in other years, it didn't.

I think if you look at the kind of programming we did, the quality of the exhibitions and their impact, we ran a tight ship. The budget was always quite low compared to other institutions in Los Angeles that had a program of similar scope and quality. It was always a struggle. I feel as a director, I have to be responsible for the fact that there were things I just was not able to fix.

Q: Did you try and how did you try?

A: [I tried] every day. I can't take exclusive credit for the triumphs, but if I'm going to take some credit for what we achieved, I also have to admit that I wasn't able to fix the problems.

Q: Is there anything you feel you could have done better, if you could rewrite that period in your life?

A: I think about that constantly. There are things, going back, that I would have done differently. That said, the basic choices I made were the correct ones. The decision was to focus on quality and make this one of the great museums in the world.

Q: You say there are things that you would have done differently. What are they?

A: I don't know if there's any one thing---a decision here, a decision there. But I think the structural challenge was such that I don't think those decisions would have made a big difference.

Q: But was there a point when you saw that you were hemorrhaging money?

A: The endowment went down over the years through a combination of spending and investment loss. The endowment at its height was $38 million. That was in 1999-2000.

Q: And what was it at the time of your departure?

A: It was $6-7 million.

Q: That speaks for itself, in a way. Was there a time when you really should have put on the brakes or made sure that this hemorrhaging didn't continue? Were fiscal controls necessary at some point?

A: If you look at the history, there were cyclical elements: There were a couple of economic downturns. Spending had been ramped up prior to those and when they came, there were commitments that we had and that we kept. There were really key moments when we had big losses and we cut back. There were moments when we cut back very dramatically. The budgets went up and down. Unfortunately, we weren't able to adjust quickly enough when there was a downturn.

Q: So you're blaming it on the economic cycles?

A: I would say that's one element. There are multiple reasons, but truly if you look at the numbers, they followed the cycles.

Q: The LA Times said that you spent $7.5 million in restricted funds, and suggested that you diverted them from purposes for which they were intended. Is that true?

A: The funds that were restricted were spent according to the purpose for which they were described. But we were spending principal [not just income]. It's not as though the funds designated for educational programs were diverted to pay for acquisitions or exhibitions.

Q: Every museum has a percentage that they give themselves [for expenses] from endowment each year, but you were going beyond that percentage?

A: That's exactly right.

Q: You had been talking to the Nasher before the crisis at MOCA came to a head. Would you have left MOCA regardless of how that situation played out? Were you really intent on going to the Nasher or was that your fallback position?

A: I was really intrigued by the Nasher. I was looking toward my 10th anniversary at MOCA and was very proud of what the museum had done. I loved so much of it. At the same time, there were things that I hadn't solved. And if your relying on income for 80% of your budget, you're spending most of your time doing fundraising. At the Nasher, it's about 10%.

Q: When you left MOCA, were you told to leave?

A: It was a mutual understanding---mutual and amicable.

Q: Do you think the board wasn't doing its job in providing sufficient funds?

A: I think that the board wanted the museum to do what it was doing and to be at the level it was at. The board had to find a way to make that happen.

Q: And it didn't?

A: Evidently not. Some worked very hard and some were extremely generous.

Q: What would be your advice to the next director of MOCA?

A: Talk to me!

Q: What are the lessons that you feel are to be learned from this episode?

A: I think that directors and boards have to take a hard look at what their ambitions are and what the resources are to achieve those ambitions, and make sure that those are aligned.

Q: Should you have made sure they were more carefully aligned before going ahead with your ambitious programs?

A: Certainly I was always optimistic. But I think at the same time, one of the particular challenges we had is that it was the program that generated the income. The times that we cut back, it didn't change the ratio of income to expense.

We were operating on a broken model. It was the programs and exhibition that we oriented our fundraising around. If you have a financial foundation, then you can cut back on programs. But if all your income is connected to those programs, you can't cut back.

Q: How will MOCA be changed by all this?

A: It's in a period of some retraction right how, which is necessary. What is important to recognize is that the museum now has a better financial foundation [thanks to Eli Broad's bailout] than it's ever had in its history. Even if you take the $3 million a year for five years [part of Broad's $30-million package], that would take an endowment of $60 million to generate [assuming a customary spending rate of about 5% of the endowment, annually]. An additional $15 million is to be matched by another $15 million from the board.

So truly, for the first time in its history, MOCA has a financial foundation on which it can operate. It never had that before. Reductions are unfortunately necessary. But my hope is that out of this period of retraction, it will rebuild.

You've got the core there: You've got the collection; you've got great curators; and you've got a great education staff.

COMING SOON: Strick's vision for the Nasher.

I just got back from sulking, only to discover that two faithful readers have responded admirably to the CultureGrrl Challenge---one with a small donation, one with a large one. I'm equally moved by each. Many, many thanks!

As for the rest of you: Do you read me?

Courtesy of my benefactors, it looks like you'll be consuming tomorrow that "juicy post" I promised. It has to do with someone whose name begins and ends with first and last letters of "juicy."

I guess that gives it away, doesn't it?

No ads are decorating my right column. No one has hit my "Donate" button since Monday. I do want to warmly thank my 14 faithful readers who have deemed this blog worthy of support in the two weeks since the CultureGrrl Fund Drive began. As for the rest of you who hit my blog 64,500 times last month: Please do not take this Grrl for granted!

Unless someone rises to this challenge, it's a CultureGrrl blogging holiday, at least through tomorrow (maybe longer).

And I had such a juicy post planned...

From NEA's just-released report: Artists' 4th-quarter unemployment rates in 2007 (blue) and 2008 (orange), compared to rates in general workforce and professional workforce

Just in case you live a sheltered life and think that performing and visual artists are doing great in this recession, the National Endowment for the Arts is here to set you straight.

NEA's latest research report, Artists in a Year of Recession: Impact on Jobs in 2008, tells us that "artists, like other workers, are facing sharp increases in unemployment." (Surprise!)
Among the "key findings":

---The artist unemployment rate grew to 6.0 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008

---129,000 artists were unemployed in the fourth quarter of 2008, an increase of 50,000 (+63 percent) from one year earlier.

---Their unemployment rate is comparable to that of the overall workforce (6.1 percent) but twice that of the "professional" workers (3.0 percent) category in which all artists are grouped.

Happily, NEA has just released its guidelines for its $30-million infusion to help support "projects that focus on the preservation of jobs in the arts." That money comes from the $50 million appropriated to NEA in the federal economic stimulus package. The remaining $20 million will be adminstered by state, regional and jurisdictional arts agencies.

Unhappily, individual artists need not apply for the economic stimulus money. Applicants must be state or local governments, recognized tribal communities or nonprofits that have already gotten money from the NEA during the last four years.

If NEA really cares about the plight of unemployed artists, its action plan to address the findings of its own research report should be to reinstate individual artists' fellowships. But first, President Obama needs to appoint a new, politically savvy NEA chairman.

For another in the continuing series of exhibitions demonstrating why disposing of important works from the collection of Brandeis University's Rose Art Museum collection should be a non-starter, we now take you to Cézanne and Beyond at the Philadelphia Museum.

Below, on the left, is a Rose-owned painting in that show. On the right, the painting that hangs to its right:














Left: Jasper Johns, "Drawer," 1957, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University
Right: Paul Cézanne, "Curtain, Jug and Compotier," 1893-4, Private Collection, Chicago

Johns takes a disembodied drawer (which could be an allusion to Cézanne's tables with drawers, like the one on the right) and he does something else with it---camouflages it with the same scumbled, mottled application of paint that forms the background of this and many other Cézanne still lifes. Like the other artists in the show, Johns purloined talismans from the master and made them completely his own.

In the past few months, we've seen a mini-display of important Rose loans, including here and here. These works should remain in the public domain, at the institution that the donors intended to benefit.

Meanwhile, Brandeis president Jehuda Reinharz, caught in an astonishing series of flip-flops, is now resorting to the time-honored blame-the-media gambit. There is only word for his disinformation campaign---"chutzpah."

In an e-mail sent Thursday to Cousin Debby and other Brandeis alums, Reinharz asserted:

Unfortunately, there has been a great deal of misinformation circulating in the media regarding the Rose....The Rose is NOT going to close. [It was Reinharz, not the  ink-stained wretches, who first disseminated this supposed "misinformation." The administration's initial statement explicitly announced "the decision to close the museum"]....

We are pleased to share the news that a donor recently stepped forward to help fund the continued operations of the museum. [The museum itself, unlike the university, was not in financial trouble in the first place, although it may be, now that the administration has alienated its support base. Who IS the new Mystery Donor, we all wonder.]

The Board of Trustees voted to authorize Brandeis to sell a limited number of pieces in the collection---if the need arises in the future. Nothing will be sold into the currently depressed art market. [This is the first time I've heard Reinharz say unequivocally that the university intends to wait out the price slump. By the time the art market recovers, the overall economy and university's financial situation may well have improved too.]

Notwithstanding these assertions, as the Rose's own renegade website still defiantly states:

The decision to close the Rose and sell art work has not changed. It's only been semantically modified.

The intention, as stated by Reinharz's latest missive, is to repurpose the museum "as a teaching and exhibition gallery." This is consistent with another important campus-wide initiative---to encourage staff and faculty to "join Weight Watchers on campus." It appears that the museum may likewise slim down.

But some of the Rose's fat-wallet donors may be beefing up in a different way. My friendly source in the Rose Family, Fred Hoppin' Mad Hopengarten, informs me that his clan (better termed "mishpocheh") is planning a conclave next week to discuss the situation and their possible response.

John Hechinger of the Wall Street Journal reports:

Hopengarten...said he was canvassing relatives to pursue legal options to oppose the Brandeis plan. Mr. [Jerry] Fineberg [a former Rose chairman, who gave $2 million for the museum's new wing] said he is consulting a lawyer and plans to ask for his big donation back and "give it to a real museum."

Nevertheless, I must concede that Reinharz is onto something. In his e-mail, he said this about the future:

We envision a day when the Rose will host additional events, welcome more visitors from both on and off campus, and exhibit student and faculty art alongside some of the collection's notable works.

The Elephant in the Rose is that, until the current crisis, relatively few students, faculty and members of the local community actually went there---a failing discussed in this article by Maxwell Price in a student newspaper, the Brandeis Hoot.

If there's any constructive lesson that college and university museum directors around the country can take away from this sorry saga, it's that they must reach out, early and often, to the entire community, on and off campus, making sure that everyone understands and experiences the great resource that their institutions and collections can be for a rich educational and cultural life.

A university museum's constituency shouldn't consist merely of art and art-history specialists.

[More CultureGrrl coverage of the Rose: here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.]

Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, "Denis Diderot," 1777, Musée de Louvre

While we're on the subject of bronze-related ambushes...

Ian Wardropper and James David Draper: I've got your back:


Draper's back. (Wardropper's front)

They're the chairman and curator, respectively, of the Metropolitan Museum's department of European sculpture and decorative arts, who must have been caught off guard by a brash attack from Ken Johnson in his NY Times review of Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from Renaissance to Revolution---a luscious assemblage that I savored but hadn't originally intended to write about.

If you relish the fluidity and expressivity of the bronze medium for its intricate detailing (as in the wrinkly, unsparingly honest Diderot portrait bust, above), its lustrous patinas and its ability to morph from the simplest shapes to the most intricate, complicated forms, you should find this show appealing for:

...its compelling sensuality


François Girardon, "The Rape of Proserpina," 1693, Heckscher Museum, Huntington, NY

...its bursting energy


François Lespingola, "The Child Hercules Strangling the Serpents Sent by Juno," ca. 1675-1700, Abegg-Stiftung, Riggisberg, Switzerland

...and its rich historic associations, including this celebratory confection glorifying such legendary French cultural forces as Racine, Molière, Corneille, La Fontaine, Voltaire and Lully:


Louis Garnier (Medallions by Simon Curé; Later additions by Augustin Pajou), "The French Parnassus," 1718-1721; Pajou additions, 1762 and 1777, Musée National de Versailles

But this rare feast of seldom-explored material lost Johnson before he crossed the threshold. He wrote:

If French bronze sculpture of the 17th and 18th centuries is not your thing, you probably have plenty of company [including, one assumes, Ken]. For nonspecialists, "Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture From Renaissance to Revolution" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art will be a tough sell....

[The works] in this exhibition display a cold impersonality, cramped imagination and slavish obeisance to the official culture of their times. This is not art discovering new possibilities of romantic individualism but a conservative, backward-looking genre that affirms and celebrates imperial power and order.

I'm certainly a "nonspecialist," but didn't see those negative attributes that Johnson so broadly assigned to these works on both artistic and political grounds. If Ken can't stomach art commissioned by the politically and economically powerful, there's a broad swath of art history that he needs to avoid---both personally and professionally.

The scene at Christie's Saint Laurent/Bergé auction at the Grand Palais, Paris

As if coping with a severe art-market slump weren't difficult enough, Christie's, basking in the afterglow of its recession-defying Saint Laurent/Bergé sales, now has to contend with the brazen guerilla sabotage of the bidding for two of the sales' star lots.

A previously reliable megabucks Chinese buyer reportedly placed the winning bids on the two bronze animal heads that had once belonged to a fountain at Beijing's Summer Palace. He promptly reneged on the $40.24 million total purchase price, saying he did it "on behalf of all Chinese people."

Chinese lawyers had unsuccessfully attempted to stop the Paris sale through legal means, saying that the heads had been stolen during the 1860 looting of the palace, and should be returned.

The most detailed account of what happened and why comes from China's Xinhua news agency, which also published photos from the brief Beijing press conference of Cai Mingchao, whose last-minute registration to bid was accepted because he was a known and trusted buyer. Cai is a collection advisor of National Treasure Funds of China (NTFC), which is "registered under the name of the Ministry of Culture for the purpose of repatriating looted Chinese artifacts," according to the Chinese news agency. He "also runs a cultural company in Xiamen....He bought a bronze Buddha statue at a Sotheby's auction for 116 million Hong Kong dollars ($14.95 million) in 2006, and brought the rare treasure back to China."

Xinhua also reports:

An unnamed officer with NTFC said Cai successfully registered as an individual bidder on the day of the auction at Christie's because of his good reputation. Usually, bidders are required to register several days before an auction.

So much for good faith.

Interestingly, China's official news agency did air the viewpoint of a countryman opposed to Cai's "patriotic" action:

Gan Xuejun, general manager of Beijing Huachen Auctions Co. Ltd., said Cai's method of foiling the auction was improper and he sacrificed his reputation as a well-known antiques collector.

"I'm very surprised. Cai's reputation and future career could be ruined. Cai made the choice in an urgent situation for the country, but I personally do not support such behavior," Gan told Xinhua.

Christie's at this writing won't comment, beyond its beside-the-point official statement:

As a matter of policy, we do not comment on the identity of our consignors or buyers, nor do we comment or speculate on the next steps that we might take in this instance. Our terms and conditions of sale are clearly set out in our catalogues and website, and ownership of any Lot does not pass to the buyer until full payment has been received by Christie's. Only at this point will the Lot be released to the buyer.

"Released to the buyer"? One can only assume that the auction house is considering enforcing its claim against Cai in court. They may also be hedging their bets by contacting any legitimate underbidders. But potential buyers might well be spooked about becoming party to an escalating international incident.

Whatever happens in this instance, the damage to the integrity of the auction process could have lasting implications. Both Christie's and Sotheby's may need to tighten pre-auction registration procedures, especially on high-priced lots.

Before the non-sale of the Chinese bronzes came to light, the three-day series of auctions was said to have fetched $483.8 million. The winning bids for the bronze rat and rabbit are still recorded on the auction house's website (here and here) as "Price Realized."

They need to delete those works from the list (as they do with other works that fail to sell), or at least append a very large asterisk.

UPDATE: Mark McDonald of the NY Times weighs in from Hong Kong with more details here.