August 2009 Archives

The Getaway Car

Today I'm nursing sore feet and basking in the afterglow of my son's and daughter-in-law's(!) wonderful wedding, for which the sun miraculously appeared (vanquishing the threat of Tropical Storm Danny), just as our guests were arriving.

Also miraculous was the ability of a hair dryer to vanquish the dark stains from an entire glass of vodka and orange juice, accidentally spilled during the cocktail hour by my friend down the entire length of my gown. Yikes!

While you're waiting for me to emerge from my post-celebration haze (and the dry cleaners), please note an important new addition to my middle column: an opportunity to quickly and easily place classified ads on CultureGrrl. (You can also continue to purchase more elaborate display ads on ArtsJournal's ad form: Click the CultureGrrl box there.)

Galleries and museums that flood my inbox with more exhibition announcements than I can possibly handle: Here's your opportunity to get that information (and a link to your website) up on the highly respected and influential site read by an involved and distinguished artworld audience.

You can also take the opportunity to send your best wishes to the bride and groom. (Just kidding!)

Where's CultureGrrl's penetrating commentary when you really need it? Patience, art-lings!

UPDATE: Due to my own technological stupidity, there was a glitch in my "Buy Now" button for classified ads. It has now been fixed, so...Buy Now!

Update on my son's wedding, this Saturday evening on Long Island:

Blogging will hereby be suspended, as we excitedly approach Wedding Weekend---our son Paul's marriage to the fabulous Lisa. The only writing I'll do over the next few days will be (mercifully brief) remarks for the rehearsal dinner and the Main Event. The only website I'll be anxiously scanning is this one. ("Thunderstorms LIKELY"?!?)

Saturday, you'll find me at the chuppah, not the computah. The fiancés planned most of the festivities themselves. My main assignment (aside from the rehearsal dinner) was compiling a list of dance music that will make aging Boomers feel sprightly---even those with hip replacements.

There's some good news about that: CultureSpouse was miraculously able to cast aside the Celia Cruz Memorial Cane (scroll to bottom) less than three weeks after surgery. He's ready to rock, not to mention walk down the aisle with me and our son.

See you in September, art-lings. In the meantime, gaze upon this happy couple:


For a better look, click the photo!

Who needs a NY Times wedding announcement, when you can post an idyllic engagement portrait on CultureGrrl?

Send me a micro-donation of either $1.50 (for the day) or $15 (for now through September), via my "Buy Now" button, below, and I'll shoot you these links: Georgia O'Keeffe Museum's new director; arts under Obama---"tool of the state"; upcoming arts-related conference call with White House and NEA; Rocco Landesman's second interview as NEA chair; Jerry Saltz's NYC wanna-sees; art-investment fund claims success.

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Knox Martin, "Venus," 1970

Back in the 1970s, an organization called City Walls, precursor of today's Public Art Fund (both of which were founded by the late Doris Freedman), sponsored the creation of site-specific public artworks to enliven New York's streetscape.

One of those was Knox Martin's 12-story-high mural, "Venus," above.

That hard-edge abstraction has always had a hard-knock life. John Canaday, then NY Times art critic, who allowed that "we are lucky that it is as good as it is," nevertheless wrote this diatribe against Martin's mural specifically and the public-art movement in general:

I wish City Walls, Inc. would go soak its head. If City Walls and other outdoor mural sponsors had their way, New York would become one vast art gallery of mammoth wall paintings, and I feel about such programs much the way I feel about the piped-in music that we are forced to hear in lobbies....

Whether I am listening to music or looking at painting, I want to be able to decide where, when and what. These paintings, including Mr. Martin's as an example, don't allow the choice....They are designed less to delight the eye than to assault it.

But that indignity was nothing compared with the fate "Venus" has now suffered at the hands of architect Jean Nouvel and Cape Advisors developers. Their luxury apartment tower, 100 Eleventh Avenue, is chockablock with Martin's mural and, while still under construction, has already permanently obscured all but a sliver of his lively composition.

Curbed NY, the real estate blog, noted more than two years ago that the mural was about to be hidden from view and recounted some of its history.

Since 1970 Venus has been a New York City landmark, a precursor to the Chelsea art scene, and beloved and recognized by all New Yorkers.

In 1998 Venus was "refreshed:" repainted with a weather resistant acrylic paint developed especially by the Golden Paint Company, a paint guaranteed to last at least 75 years. Golden Paints donated the paint and the Public Art Fund again supported the project.

In May 2008, with the development of the adjacent site proceeding, the indignant 85-year-old artist decided it was time to stage a paintbrush protest. A sign for the project then partially blocked the view of his work, but Martin knew what was coming---a near-total eclipse of "Venus."

Below is a recent (tattered) sign for the project, jutting out from the incomplete tower. Just behind it, to the left, is a glimpse of Knox's recent addition:
,


And here's Martin in action: Caught on a webcam at the construction site just after dawn, the doughty codger ascended by cherry picker up the side of the mural wall, and began painting a giant rendition of his first name on its left edge.

Look closely, and you will spot him working, against the blue patch:



Now he's almost done:



The year-old view that you see above is not what the site looks like today. Below is what you now see, looking north up the street from Frank Gehry's IAC building, past Nouvel's tower-in-progress, to the nearly effaced mural:

Janet Landay, executive director of the Association of Art Museum Directors, responds to AAMD Examines the Value of Art Museums to Society (What About the Art?):

All of us at AAMD [Association of Art Museum Directors] agree with your assertion that the focus of art museums is and should be on art. AAMD, however, is a membership association of art museums. One of our roles is to support our constituent organizations in spreading the word about art museums and the field as a whole.

Our member art museums continue to build their collections, present diverse art exhibitions and offer art-based programs; they remain committed to serving the public even during a time of economic challenge. Our members use art---from their own collections, or borrowed from the collections of others---to demonstrate, over and over again, the importance of art.

As a membership association of art museums, the AAMD promotes art regularly, by enabling our members to share information about art, collections, exhibitions, and scholarship with each other. We also look for ways to demonstrate the kinds of roles that museums have in their communities, and that includes exploring the impact of our members' wide-ranging programs in the aggregate.

Send me a micro-donation of either $1.50 (for the day) or $15 (for now through September), via my "Buy Now" button, below, and I'll shoot you these links: company facilitates micro-donations for bloggers; aborigines successfully protest Sotheby's sale; deaccession plans jeopardize government funding for a British institution; big sale of Sotheby's stock by auction firm's CEO (two links).

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Jade disc (bi), Eastern Zhou Western Han Dynasty, 3rd-2nd Century B.C., Metropolitan Museum

While I was looking for updates on the website of the Association of Art Museum Directors, I surfed over to what has, for many months, been a one-object Object Registry of "archaeological material and ancient art [recently acquired by AAMD member institutions and] lacking complete provenance after November 1970." The registry was created pursuant to the association's year-old revised guidelines for acquisitions of such material.

Lo and behold, there are now three new entries on that registry---all from the Metropolitan Museum. Good for the Met: With entries that are comprehensive and transparent, it has helped to make this registry actually serve a purpose, rather than serve as cultural-property window dressing.

The three Met objects come from three diverse cultures. What I particularly like about these entries, as distinguished from that of the Portland Art Museum, is that they give clear, detailed "reasons for acquisition as an exception to the 1970 rule." The Met not only provides information about each object's known history (including ownership, exhibitions and when the object was first published), but also why it represents an important addition to the Met's collection (thus making it worth the risk that a claimant may come forward).

Here, for example, is an excerpt from the entry for a jade bi (disc) from China (pictured above), acquired by the Met for $121,000 from a March 2008 auction at Christie's:

This work has provenance established to at least 1984, when the work was published and offered for sale at public auction. This work fills a major gap in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's comprehensive collection of Asian art because the Museum has no other bi of this type from the 3rd century B.C. in its collection and because of the work's excellent quality and condition.

To read the Met's entries on AAMD's registry for the two other sculptures---an Olmec (Mexico) seated figure and an early medieval Jain enthroned Jina (India), go here and here.

Janet Landay, executive director of AAMD

Even more besides-the-point than defending the worth of art museums on the basis of economic-impact arguments (how much financial activity they generate in their communities) is defending them as social service agencies. But that seems to be the thrust of a new initiative just announced by the Association of Art Museum Directors.

In his Wall Street Journal Cultural Conversation with me, published last January, Michael Conforti, AAMD's president (and director of the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA), said that one of the chief goals of his presidency would be helping the American public to appreciate "the importance of art museums to society."

It appears that AAMD is beginning to put that plan into practice. But instead of emphasizing the cultural and intellectual value of museums (which seemed to be Conforti's thrust when we spoke), AAMD now seems more interested in focusing on what it calls "the non-traditional programs offered by museums that frequently go unnoticed."

Over the summer, AAMD gathered more than 150 case studies of how museums "improve the lives of people in their communities"---not by displaying and elucidating great art, but through such auxiliary activities as:

---Cultivating and donating food crops
---Improving medical students' diagnostic skills
---Altering teenagers' attitudes about smoking

These are worthwhile programs. I've got nothing against museums' working for the greater good. But shouldn't their main promotional thrust be towards defining and defending the value of their central mission?

In a letter posted on AAMD's website last week, executive director Janet Landay listed six of the many projects that have been compiled (including the three noted above). She then stated:

The ultimate goal of this initiative is to develop a series of community impact reports---incorporating stories, data, and maps---to demonstrate a compelling aspect of the significant contributions art museums make in communities throughout the country. When the project is completed, AAMD will post the reports on our website, part of our ongoing effort to lead the public discussion about the value of art museums in society.

We can only hope the reports make clear that the chief value of art museums to society is preserving, displaying, studying and elucidating ART.

As Philippe de Montebello said at the January 2008 press conference announcing his plan (now reality) to retire from the directorship of the Metropolitan Museum:

We are not a "museum art." We are an "art museum." Art is first.

I have no doubt that most, if not all, museum professionals around the country believe this. What I don't get is why they feel a need to downplay the art in public pronouncements about why museums matter.

NY State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky

The recently released proposed final regulations governing deaccessions by museums and historical societies chartered by the NY State Board of Regents are a big step in the right direction. But they don't go far enough.

What's missing is a key provision of the bill introduced in the State Legislature (and later revised) by Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, which would regulate deaccessioning by all museums in the state, including those older institutions chartered not by the Board of Regents but by the State Legislature.

The Brodsky Bill would require that museums publish registers of deaccessioned objects and also "list an item for actual or potential [emphasis added] deaccessioning" on a new, statewide, online registry created by the Board of Regents and publicly accessible. This can realistically be accomplished, as the Indianapolis Museum has so effectively demonstrated under director Max Anderson's leadership.

Why does the public have a right to get a heads-up about plans to dispose of works from the public patrimony? The definition of "public trust" in the Regents' proposed final regulations says it best:

"Public trust" means the responsiblity of institutions to carry out activities and hold their assets in trust for the public benefit [emphasis added].

We eagerly await the NY Times' catch-up story, which at this writing is absent from its pages (and its website). These new rules are highly newsworthy: They will have major impact on museums around the state and, potentially, around the country, because of their possible use as a role model.

I invite CultureGrrl readers who e-mail comments on these proposed regulations to the State Board of Regents (deadline: Sept. 25) to also send me a copy (or key excerpts) for possible publication. Just click my "Contact me" link in the middle column.

And and while you're scanning that middle column...did you also notice my yellow button? Clicking that will perk up drooping CultureGrrl, the blogger who never sleeps (as witness last night's post-midnight post!).

James Dawson, chair of the NY State Board of Regents' Cultural Education Committee, which oversees museums

Get ready to draft your comments, deaccessionistas!

The NY State Board of Regents has just come out with its Proposed Permanent Amendment that would govern deaccession practices of museums and historical societies chartered by the Board. (Institutions chartered before 1890 are under the auspices of the State Legislature, not the Board of Regents. The Brodsky Bill, pending but stymied in State Legislature, would address the deaccession practices of all the state's museums, including the oldest ones.)

The proposed regulations will be published in the State Register on Aug. 26, but the full text is already available for download online. Public comments can be snail mailed (3097 Cultural Education Center, Albany NY 12230) or e-mailed (no later than Sept. 25) to David Palmquist, head of museum chartering for the State Education Department. The Regents will vote on the proposal at their meeting on Oct. 19-20. The effective date of the rules, if adopted, will be Nov. 12.

This amendment, amplifying the temporary one first approved last December (here and here), would prohibit use of deaccession proceeds for operating expenses, payment of outstanding debt, or capital expenses (other than those for historic buildings designated as part of an institution's collection). Proceeds cannot be used as loan collateral, and "collections shall not be capitalized" (i.e., listed as assets on an institution's balance sheet). They can be used only for the acquisition, preservaton, protection or care of collections.

Like the rules approved last December, the new version is more stringent than the deaccession guidelines of the Association of Art Museum Directors. AAMD lists criteria that "might be contemplated" by museums considering disposals. The Regents' rules dictate, rather than suggest. They state that an institution may dispose of an object ONLY if one or more of the following criteria (a longer list than in the previous version) is met:

---The item or material is inconsistent with the mission of the institution as set forth in its corporate purposes, mission statement and collection management policy.

---The item or material has failed to retain its identity.

---The item or material has been lost or stolen and has not been recovered.

---The item or material is redundant or duplicates other items or material in the collection of the institution and is not necessary for research or educational purposes

---The institution is unable to preserve or conserve the item or material in a responsible manner.

---The item is deaccessioned to accomplish refinement of collections as required by and/or stated in its collection management policy.

---The item has been established as being inauthentic.

---The institution is repatriating the item or returning the item to its rightful owner.

---The institution is returning the item to the donor, or the donor's heirs or assigns, to fulfill donor restrictions relating to the item which the institution is no longer able to meet

---The item presents a hazard to people or other collection items.

The "refinement of collections" justification, above, could cover a multitude of sins. Still, this is a major regulatory push and, as such, is likely to provoke push-back from museums that would prefer the state not to impose strict controls over collection management.

I believe that government oversight (not just in New York, but throughout the country) is needed now more than ever, as the temptation to monetize collections for a quick fix becomes increasingly hard to resist. I've lost confidence in the ability of the field to regulate itself. It's time to call in the reinforcements.

UIMA@IMU: University of Iowa Museum of Art's temporary, renovated new digs

In the continuing saga of the University of Iowa Museum's recovery from the devastating June 2008 flood, its new "visual classroom" elsewhere on campus, displaying more than 500 works (including about 250 works on paper), will open for student previews this Saturday. On Sept. 8, it will begin its schedule of regular visiting hours for the public. Other spaces on campus have been repurposed for African art and temporary exhibitions from the museum's collection.

According to the museum's chief curator, Kathleen Edwards (as quoted in the university's press release), the works in the new display were selected "with potential teaching use in mind....It's clear students and faculty have missed the experience original works of art can provide."

Some 90% of the $1 million needed to renovate the 4,000-square-foot Richey Ballroom in the historic Iowa Memorial Union came in the form of flood relief from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); the rest was funded by the university and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The bulk of the museum's collection, including its precious and celebrated Pollock, will remain displayed or stored at the Figge Art Museum, Davenport (see the first two links in this post), until a new permanent home in Iowa City (the university's location) becomes a reality.

When exactly will that be? Your guess is as good as mine. I've got a query pending with the museum about the status of its relocation plans. If there's been any substantial progress, I'll append an update to this post.

Michael Govan talks lobster at last year's opening of LACMA's Broad Contemporary Art Museum

The short answer to the question in the above headline? Yes.

The LA Times has been casting a harsh spotlight on the compensation of Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, who reportedly is receiving nearly $1 million this year in salary, deferred compensation and benefits.

Alan Zarembo and Mike Boehm (at the first link above) seem to be trying to make a case out of it:

In good times, eyebrows might be raised over whether $1 million a year is a fair wage for a director of a nonprofit museum. But in the midst of a recession that has forced budget cuts and layoffs at museums around the country, the issue becomes more loaded....

His compensation, about a 50% increase over that of his predecessor, places him in an elite group of art museum directors who for the most part preside over institutions more prestigious and many times richer than LACMA.

I'd say that Govan is 50% better than his predecessor and, by virtue of his energetic, creative, principled and effective leadership, he undeniably belongs in the "elite group of art museum directors." Don't pay him what he deserves, and he just might consider other options.

When I interviewed him in February 2008, at the opening of LACMA's Broad Contemporary Art Museum, I asked the obligatory Metropolitan Museum-succession question. Unlike other museum hoppers, Govan (rumored to be a possible contender) dismissed the notion of leaving his post so soon after his 2006 arrival, when there was so much yet to be accomplished in LA.

Can you buy that sense of loyalty and responsibility? Yes. As I previously opined here:

But every time a journalist gets hold of information about the salaries of the top officials of major cultural institutions, the resulting story makes these public servants seem overpaid....But I feel that major cultural institutions do well to pay their top officials well. Otherwise the best people will be lost to private industry, leaving culture in the hands of mediocrities.

I'm not the only one who feels this way. So do those who have commented (thus far) on the LA Times disclosures about Govan's remuneration.

Are you ready for this new experiment in my quest for micro-donations?

Several of you have told me that paying $1.50 for one day's worth of CultureGrrl Links is too cumbersome. You can, of course, streamline matters by creating your own PayPal account (at PayPal.com), so the payment process becomes more efficient, rather than a form-filling nuisance.

But here's another option:

Using the drop-down menu and the "Buy Now" button at the bottom of any "Lee's List" post, you can pay $1.50 for the latest batch of links OR $15 for all the links in the current month. During this inaugural phase, I'll throw in all the links, for your $15, from the time of the August purchase until the end of September. (Such a deal!) After that, the $15 is good for links only during the month for which it's paid. (With random end-dates throughout the month, the accounting process would become too administratively cumbersome for me.)

This fee-for-service offer is a separate transaction from the beloved (by me) "Donate" button in the middle column. From now on, I'll throw in the latest day's links from "Lee's List" to whoever donates. After that, links must be purchased separately, through the "Buy Now" button.

A reminder: My selected links are, for the most part, not commonly and easily available on other aggregating sites. They're what I come across in my obsessive scouring of the web, and they're specifically geared towards the interests of CultureGrrl readers.

So let's give it a whirl:

Send a micro-donation of either $1.50 (for the day) or $15 (for now through September) via my "Buy Now" button, below, and I'll shoot you these links:

Museum's stolen painting returned; planned V&A Dundee, Scotland; Lloyd Webber Picasso lawsuit (two links); Interpol's new public database for stolen art; Fisk University's art gallery

At the beginning of October, you'll need to ante up again for the next month's links (or you can use the one-day option, whenever the topics tempt you).

Got it? Get it!

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Don Bacigalupi

Repeat after me: "BAA-chee-ga-loop-ee."

That's the new director of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Don Bacigalupi, who held a press conference yesterday in Bentonville, AR, primarily for local and regional publications. Afterwards, he initiated some one-on-one phone chats with other journalists, including CultureGrrl.

A three-time art museum director (Blaffer Gallery at the University of Houston, San Diego Museum of Art, currently Toledo Museum of Art), Bacigalupi is about to lead a nascent, off-the-beaten-path institution that has attracted its share of controversy but is also one of the most generously funded art museums in the country, thanks to the deep pockets of its founder---Wal-Mart heiress and mega-collector Alice Walton.

Bacigalupi told me:

I guess I've had an interesting trajectory: first, very fast-growing cities in Texas---San Antonio [where he was contemporary art curator] and then Houston; then San Diego, a thriving, fast-growing metropolis; and then a very dramatic change [to Toledo], an old-guard city that's essentially shrinking; and now to a small town [Bentonville] that has grown exponentially because of its business prospects [as headquarters for Wal-Mart].

Although Don's CultureGrrl interview was in the familiar too-early-to-give-specifics vein, it was clear how he convinced Alice (and, tentatively, me) that he was right for the job.

First of all, they hit it off: Walton resides in Texas, and Don said she reminded him of the women he got to know during his sojourn there:

She's fun. She's delightful. She's real down-to-earth and a straight shooter.

He flatteringly compared what Alice is doing in Bentonville to what the Libbey (glass) Family did for Toledo---founding a new art museum to "cultivate the city as it grew." What he values most about Crystal Bridges, he said, is "its vision of integrating works of art with a natural setting and great architecture," as well as "the way that it's being presented as a community resource [scroll down], which is something I've been very involved in."

He noted with particular pride his achievements in boosting the Toledo Museum's local audience, through outreach to community centers and in-museum programs targeted to attract new visitors (such as wine-tastings, tied to art-related programs, targeting young professionals).

But it's not just the locals whom Bacigalupi wants to win over during his next directorship. There's also the crucial task of cultivating contacts with the professional museum community, some of whose members have taken a dim view of Walton's willingness (in my words) "to swoop down and seize tasty masterpieces from weak [institutional] hands," such as the New York Public Library, Thomas Jefferson University and Fisk University---a controversy that I discussed at length in my Wall Street Journal piece, The Walton Effect.

As I revealed in that article, AAMD in February 2007 had shot off a disapproving letter to Fisk regarding its plan (still alive, but as yet unrealized) to sell to Crystal Bridges a half-share in the Stieglitz Collection that had been given to the Nashville university, with a no-sale stipulation, by artist Georgia O'Keeffe.

Bacigalupi noted that Crystal Bridges had already begun building bridges towards future colleagues by lending its masterpieces to other museums, including the painting below that I recently viewed in the newly reinstalled permanent-collection (aside from Alice's loan) galleries for American art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City:


Cropsey, "Backwoods of America," 1858, Crystal Bridges Museum (better image here)

But loans alone can't undo the bad impression left when Walton cloaked herself as a champion of donor intent, while helping other institutions to violate it.

When I asked how he would overcome the misgivings of some professional colleagues, Bacigalupi acknowledged that eventual membership in the Association of Art Museum Directors was his goal and said that he would work towards that through "relationship-building and reputation-building," developed through "collegial and collaborative programs."

There's one other parallel between Bacigalupi's current gig at the Toledo Museum and what he will experience at Crystal Bridges (aside from the similar circumstances of their founding): At both places, his responsibilities include(d) major construction projects. His experience overseeing Toledo's three-year-old SANAA-designed Glass Pavilion was not all smooth sailing, however.

Here's what he said about Toledo's new, completely transparent wing at a recent panel discussion (moderated by the estimable Steve Litt of the Cleveland Plain Dealer) of four Ohio art museum directors (including another now about to flee the state, Timothy Rub), discussing Ohio Arts---State of the State's Art Museums (broadcast June 25 on WVIZ-TV):

Don B.: All of our planning had to be adjusted, both because of the external economic situations and also learning to live in a new building

Steve Litt: We're talking about budget cuts, voluntary salary cuts and layoffs?

Don B.: All of the above. All of our pro forma plans for how that buildng would operate both programaticaly and and financially---how expensive it would be to run---were wrong. And so we had to learn to actually live in the building. I think buildings develop a life of their own as they emerge as part of your program. I think this year is the first year we got it right....It takes some time. All the best planning that we put into it was not the reality.

Crystal Bridges' best planning for its construction is also not going as expected. Bacigalupi acknowledged that the museum would not open next year, as had been anticipated, and that no date had yet been set.

If you want to hear more from Don, here's the full (almost hour-long) Ohio public television show with three other Ohio directors (also including, beside Rub, Sherri Geldin of the Wexner Center, Columbus; Mitchell Kahan of the Akron Art Museum).

That's Bacigalupi you're seeing, in the image below:

Is CultureGrrl "a new model in cultural coverage"?

Maybe. Perhaps not. But this continuing work-in-progress (or lack thereof) is Number 46 of 109 projects vying for that designation (and the generous first prize) at the National Summit on Arts Journalism.

If you would like to see my self-praising pitch to the competition's jurors, go here. If nothing else, it will tell you how I regard what I'm doing, how I'm doing it, and how it's going so far.

If NAJP doesn't fund me, I hope other potential patrons (or news organizations) may stumble upon my pitch and deem what I'm doing to be worthy of support. I am (as CultureGrrl readers already know too well) at that stage in blog-life where I feel I must significantly monetize this project to warrant my continuing such time-intensive work.

Speaking of which, many warm thanks go to CultureGrrl Donors 67, 68 and 69, from Mahwah, NJ; Fair Oaks, CA; and Brooklyn, NY. None of these, alas, are from Paris (or anywhere else in France, for that matter)! I'm not moving on in my geographically diverse donor search (although the above donors ARE farflung!) until I receive a Gallic donation!

"Lecteur--mon semblable, mon frère": Etes-vous encore en vacances?

(Baudelaire---THAT should get 'em!)

A one-minute video (above) of the National Endowment for the Arts' new chairman is now posted on the agency's website, along with the transcript. Here's what he says:

Hello, I am Rocco Landesman. I am honored to serve the country in my new role as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. The Arts Endowment is dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts, both new and established; bringing the arts to all Americans; and providing leadership in arts education.We're at an exciting time in our nation's history. Now, more than ever, the arts matter in America. The arts are central to our nation's civic, economic, and cultural vitality.  The arts reflect who we are and what we stand for---freedom of expression, imagination, and vision.

Arts education is indispensible to raising America's next generation of creative, innovative thinkers.  We will continue to work with our partners to help bring quality arts programs to neighborhoods and communities across the country. I look forward to a new conversation on the arts in America....

...and, especially, in Peoria. This press release arrived on Friday from ArtsPartners of Central Illinois:

On Tuesday, his first official day on the job as chairman, he [Landesman] phoned Peoria. "He has graciously accepted our offer [to explore the town's cultural scene] and has even suggested that he could include a seminar with his visit," [Suzette] Boulais [ArtsPartners' executive director] said. "His comments indicated that he didn't know about theater in Peoria, so our first focus was to let him know we had theater and then some!...We will be settling on a date soon. When Rocco does come for a visit, his plan is to take in some local theater, do an in-service for our arts community and meet with area legislators."

For a dissent from Peoria euphoria, see the PeoriaStory blog, where Elaine Hopkins writes that when he visits, Landesman will discover "a mediocre theater scene. Locals try, but can't match Chicago quality."

Will his upcoming Midwestern sojourn overcome Landesman's big-city bias (if any), or merely confirm it? It's too bad he missed the "old-fashioned grape stomp at Kickapoo Creek Winery on Sunday." You won't find THAT on Broadway!

One indication of how Landesman is playing in Peoria: I searched for his name in the Peoria StarJournal, the town's newspaper. Results: 0.

Don Bacigalupi, new director of Crystal Bridges Museum

[UPDATE: My interview with Bacigalupi is here.]

Don Bacigalupi, director of the Toledo Museum of Art, has just been named director of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, succeeding Bob Workman, who resigned in March. Bacigalupi, who assumes his post in late October, is a specialist in post-World War II American art and popular culture, putting him out of the range of most of the traditional American art collection assembled by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, the museum's founder.

Here's the latest acquisition that the museum officially announced---a Thomas Moran landscape of 1862.

For Crystal Bridges' full press release on the new appointment, go here. For Toledo's release, go here. No word in these on when the delayed museum, designed by Moshe Safdie and originally scheduled to open in 2010, is now expected to receive the public.

Here's what the site looked like last month:

Send a micro-donation of $1.50 my way (via my "Donate" button in the middle column), and I'll shoot you my latest links: Culture Wars revival; fractional gifts (two links); "Afghanistan's" unsung hero; endowment spending (or lack thereof).

There's been a lull on the macro-donation front, because you're all at the pool or the beach. When you get back, please remember that for $5 or more, you'll receive e-mail links to each of my posts, immediately upon posting; for $50, you'll also receive advance notice of posts to come. I know there are a lot more than 66 of you who regularly follow CultureGrrl!

Paris, you've let me down (scroll to bottom)! I forgot: No on is in Paris in August!

Deborah Gribbon

It's taken almost five years, but Deborah Gribbon, who in 2004 resigned her position as director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, over conflicts with the Getty Trust's then president, Barry Munitz, will soon have a new museum gig---interim director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, succeeding Timothy Rub, who will assume the directorship of the Philadelphia Museum.

Cleveland's press release, which just hit my inbox, is here. Steven Litt of the Cleveland Plain Dealer already has the story, including ecstatic comment from the museum's luminaries:

"I'm really so excited I can hardly contain myself," said Michael Horvitz, co-chairman of the museum's board, who spearheaded the effort to lure Gribbon, 61, out of retirement. "This is exactly the right thing for the institution at this point."

You can get a sense of what I think of Gribbon here, where she was Number 6 on my list of (unpicked) picks for the directorship of the Metropolitan Museum:

Deservedly well respected in the field, she's never had a chance to display the full measure of her ability, having been on the leash of the Getty Trust's now deposed president.

In connection with her departure from the Getty, Gribbon received a $3-million monetary settlement of her "claim against the Trust for unlawful 'constructive discharge,' as well as other potential employment-related claims," according to the California Attorney General's 2006 report criticizing Munitz and the Getty's trustees for improper spending and legal violations.

Will the interim director be in line for the permanent spot? Probably not. Cleveland's announcement states:

Gribbon and the leadership of the Board of Trustees have agreed that she can be most effective as Interim Director if she is not a candidate for the permanent director position. As Interim Director, one of her roles will be to serve as an advisor for the director search.

The Italian-language version of Elgin's firman, owned by the British Museum

During his recent conversation with Tate director Nicholas Serota at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Neil MacGregor, the British Museum's director, said this about Lord Elgin's removal from Athens to England of the Parthenon Marbles:

There's no question it was legal because you can't move those things without the approval of the power of the day.

In its online attempt to address "common misconceptions" (scroll to "9") about the marbles, the British Museum makes a similar argument:

Lord Elgin's work was carried out openly and with the support of local officials both Turkish and Greek.

But was this support secured by bribes, as some have alleged? Here's how the British Museum addresses that "misconception":

Presents were given to the Turkish officials in Athens according to the custom of the times and their total value did not exceed £600. Elgin presented his full accounts to the Parliamentary Select Committee in 1816.

If bribes WERE clandestinely paid, one wonders whether they would have been publicly listed in Elgin's "full accounts."

But discussions about the legality of Elgin's removal of the marbles always come down to the 1801 firman (letter of permission) granted to him by the Ottoman authorities then in power.

What does that document actually say?

Let's go to the copy that has come down to us---an Italian-language transcription made for Lord Elgin from the (now lost) original. In 2006, the British Museum purchased that copy of the firman from its previous owner, William St. Clair. The museum put the document on public display from October 2008 to April 2009.

The English translation of the firman and an image of the document itself are posted for all to see on the museum's website, here. The wording of the English-language translation is so convoluted that it seems quite possible that something has been lost in one or more of the two translations. But what has come down to us seems to fall far short of blanket permission for Lord Elgin and his men to hack slabs of the famous frieze from the walls of the Parthenon.

The firman refers to "five English painters," already in Athens, who were commissioned by Elgin "to view, contemplate, and also draw the images remaining" at the ancient ruins. It grants permission for them "to dig, according to need, the foundations to find the inscribed blocks, which may have been preserved in the rubble [emphasis added]."

They were to be allowed to make plaster molds of "ornaments and visible figures" and "to take away some pieces of stone with old inscriptions and figures." They were also permitted to undertake excavations "of the foundations, in search of inscribed blocks perhaps preserved among the rubble" and to remove "any pieces of stone with inscriptions and figures."

It is that last phrase ("any pieces...") that the British Museum relies on---both on its website and in the label that accompanied the firman when it was publicly exhibited earlier this year. In its online argument that Elgin had carte blanche to cart away the marbles, the museum goes on to assert:

There was no exclusion clause concerning removal of material from buildings and walls.

But reading the phrase that permitted removal of "any pieces of stone" in the context of what came before it---the reference to objects "preserved among the rubble"---makes it appear likely that intent of this convolutedly worded edict was to allow removal of loose pieces at the base of the monument, not of the frieze slabs still affixed to its walls.

I'm not the only one of this opinion. In her 2001 book, The Parthenon Frieze, Jenifer Neils, professor of art history and classics at Case Western Reserve, states (p. 241):

The official firman...does not specifically grant authority to remove the superstructure of the temple, but rather to 'carry away some pieces of stone with inscriptions and figures' (presumably those lying around the Acropolis after the explosion of 1687).

It seems clear that Elgin and his henchmen did exceed the authority granted him by the Turks who then occupied Greece, but no one at the time challenged their actions. The generous bribes to Turkish officials, quite customary throughout the Ottoman Empire, allowed Lord Elgin's agents virtual carte blanche on the Acropolis.

You can access it and try to decipher it for yourself, but It seems to me that a close reading of the English translation of the firman undermines, rather than supports, the British Museum's legal argument. Maybe that's why MacGregor is now arguing that the removal was "legal" because Ottoman officials obviously knew what was going on.

In less weighty cultural-property news---the British Museum, on the same page where the firman's translation is published, displays an ad for its museum shop's mouse mat in the shape and image of another of its hotly contested possessions---the Rosetta Stone.

Egypt, which covets that iconic slab, has just opened its Rosetta National Museum. Al-Ahram Weekly reports:

The highlight of the museum is a life-size replica of the Rosetta Stone offered by the British Museum in response to an official request submitted by [Zahi] Hawass to the museum's ancient Egyptian department.

A full-size replica stone is not yet available in the British Museum's online giftshop. But the ever-popular Rosetta Stone Mouse Mat CAN be yours, for a mere £8.99!

The real Julie and Eric Powell, taking a break from cooking, blogging, movie premieres (and editing)

At last, a hit movie about blogging!

I was thoroughly enjoying the entire "Julie & Julia" movie---the parts about the down-to-earth (and sometimes downtrodden) food blogger, Julie Powell, just as much as those about the celebrated progenitor of all those television cooking shows, Julia Child (in an over-the-top, hilarious Streep-ian metamorphosis). Suddenly, towards the end of the two hours, I experienced a jolting "did-I-really-hear-that?" moment.

Julie's husband Eric, whom she describes as a "saint" (for putting up with all that cooking and blogging) is identified, in passing, as an editor at Archaeology magazine.

Eric? Editor? Archaeology?

Could that really be CultureGrrl Donor 52 (not the sheikh; scroll down) from Long Island City (which I recognized, at the start of the movie, as the locale of the Powells' apartment)?

I must confess that I haven't memorized the names of all my benefactors (and I hadn't remembered "Powell") but Eric stood out for his editorial occupation and for the saintly note that he sent me right after clicking my "Donate" button. I had been tempted to ask him to let me publish his kind words at the time when I received them, but had managed to restrain myself.

As soon as I got home from the movie, though, I shot him an e-mail, and now I've gotten Eric Powell's permission to publish his note and to acknowledge how supportive he's been of the blogging life. He's not just Julie's saint, but also CultureGrrl's "patron" saint!

Here's what he had written to me in July:

I'm a big fan. Please don't stop blogging.

I keep trying to slow down my typing, with notable lack of success. Julie is also still blogging, here. Eric claims she "only blogs very occasionally now," but that's not how it looks to me---at least not lately. She's got a new topic, though---her life in the movies!

Her blogging life, as portrayed by actress Amy Adams, rang true to me---using the blog as an outlet, wondering if anyone's actually reading, gradually discovering that there's a growing, devoted audience (and adding a PayPal button to help buy more lobster!).

Neither Eric nor Julie got a cameo appearance, but NY Times writer Amanda Hesser did: She got to play herself, interviewing Julie for this article, which catapulted the amateur cook to fame, a contract for this book, and a movie about her improbable feat of cooking and blogging her way through Julia Child's magnum opus.

Can the CultureGrrl movie be far behind? They wouldn't even have to change the title very much: from "Julie and Julia" to "Lee and Celia"---the ghost in my apartment, who is a strong role model for strong women (and, like Julia, has also been in the Smithsonian!).

Maybe I need to blog my way through every American art museum. In the meantime, though, let's get practical: Are there any more Erics out there? Since we're on the subject of French cooking, how about clicking my "Donate" button from Paris? (Maybe my new fan base, Peoria? Just kidding!)

But seriously: My warm thanks go out to CultureGrrl Donor 66 from Westminster, CO.

You've gotta click the "Read more" jump link on the NY Times' ArtsBeat blog page (10:17 a.m. entry) to find me, but Dave Itzkoff today links thrice to CultureGrrl, in his post on Rock-the-Boat Rocco (my new nickname for Landesman, not theirs).

Top billing in Dave's blog item, With First Interview, New NEA Chairman Stirs the Online Pot, deservedly goes to today's Bloomberg commentary by Jeremy Gerard, who is as tired as I am of the defense of arts support based on the economic-engine argument. I believe, as Jeremy does, that the arts should be supported for their own intrinsic value.

Gerard had previously commented knowingly on Landesman:

Shaking things up is in Landesman's nature.

Today, Jeremy correctly observes:

The payoff for encouraging them [the arts] will rarely be measurable in economic terms.

True enough. But if Rocco's "Art Works" slogan floats the Congressional boat, so be it. The only harm comes if grants are predicated on a project's likely economic, rather than artistic, impact. That's what I strongly dislike about Landesman's notion of providing subsidies for artists' housing---supporting neighborhood gentrification, not cultural vitalization.

Speaking of art as economic engine: Landesman's wife, Debby, is not only "a philanthropic advisor to corporations and foundations," as Rocco's NEA bio describes her. She was also recently a panelist for theater grants that were funded from the $50 million allocated to NEA under the American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Yesterday was Landesman's first day on the job as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Maybe that's why I'm still awaiting answers to the Peoria-related questions (confirming that he's going there and asking for further details) that I posed yesterday to two of the agency's spokespersons. (Both had assured me that responses would be rapidly forthcoming).

East Peoria High School, home of the Eastlight Theatre (to which Landesman was invited)

Yesterday I suggested that Rocco Landesman, the new and sometimes impolitic chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, would do well to accept the the invitation from the office of Peoria's Congressman, Aaron Schock, to visit that town and repair hurt feelings.

Now comes word that Landesman may actually intend to go there.

Marilyn Leland, president of the Peoria Historical Society, informed me late last night:

While locals do make the effort to travel to NYC and Chicago to enjoy theaters there, we've worked hard for a long time to offer a diverse range of theater opportunities. [She mentioned the Eastlight Theater, Peoria Players Theatre and Corn Stock Theatre.] We look forward to showing them to Mr. Landesman, who has graciously agreed to visit [emphasis added].

I have queries in with Congressman Schock's office and with the NEA to confirm this. When I know, you'll know.

Despite my unfavorable review of his shoot-from-the-lip style, I want to reemphasize that I mostly agree with Landesman on substance: He's right, I believe, in wanting to select NEA's grantees primarily on the basis of artistic quality, not geographic diversity. I'll venture further out on a delicate limb to say that I believe the NEA's much vaunted, geographically correct "Big Read" program, duplicating everyone's middle school and high school reading list, should either change its focus to privileging contemporary literature, or else decamp to the U.S. Department of Education.

Do we really need to allocate scarce arts money to get more people to read (or re-read) "My Antonia" and "The Great Gatsby"? Still, that program did manage to funnel NEA money to Peoria: Its public library received $18,000 for the community's literary exegesis of "The Maltese Falcon."

While we're at it, let's also plunge a bare bodkin into NEA's Shakespeare in American Communities program. I'm second to none in my reverence for Shakespeare. I regard as one of my greatest failures as a parent my inability to convince either of my kids that their college educations would be incomplete without a semester with the Bard. But the NEA should not be wheedling communities to "eat your Shakespeare." Ideas for program content should percolate up from grantees themselves, not descend from Washington.

But let's now leave Stratford-on-Avon and fly back to the heartland: Even before he takes off for Illinois, Landesman ought to apologize for an ill-considered comment that was bound to boomerang.

Do they serve crow in Peoria?

UPDATE---Marilyn Leland replies:

We serve lemonade.

UPDATE 2: Suzette Boulais, executive director of ArtsPartners of Central Illinois, has just informed me:

I have had the pleasure of corresponding with Mr. Landesman and he has assured me that once he gets a little more settled on his new job, he would very much like to visit us in Peoria and take in some of our stellar local theater. We very much look forward to his visit.

I'm still awaiting direct word from the NEA.

Send a micro-donation of $1.50 my way (via my "Donate" button in the middle column), and I'll shoot you my latest links: auction house half-year results (two links), Opoku vs. de Montebello; Wolgin Prize; NJ's billboard art.

Speaking of CultureGrrl Donors...
COMING SOON: My tangential connection with the first major motion picture centered on blogging!

Aaron Schock,  freshman Republican Congressman from Peoria

Rocco Landesman, the new chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, virtually guaranteed that there would be backlash against his plans for that agency by shooting from the lip before he had located his Washington office's paper clips. Sometimes the best management style (especially as a government bureaucrat) is to start a new job by patiently elucidating one's ideas and seeking to build consensus, rather than by precipitously ramming change down people's throats. I like Landesman's plans (most of them, anyway). But I disagree, so far, with his method for realizing them.

CultureGrrl readers (below) have already weighed in with objections to his merit-based, rather than geographically driven, priorities for grants---a shift in emphasis that I happen to agree with, even while cringing at his rhetoric.

But first, let's go to the Republican Congressman from Peoria, proud product of that city's school system, who (at 27) is the youngest member of Congress. Landesman, as you will remember, made some unflattering remarks about that Congressman's town in his interview with the NY Times' Robin Pogrebin.

So, is Rep. Aaron Schock shocked? I wasn't able to get direct comment from the Congressman himself, but here's what his communications director, Dave Natonski, had to say:

I find it ironic that the incoming head of the NEA would belittle the contributions of Peoria to the arts community. The term, "Will it play in Peoria?" was created during the height of the Vaudeville arts renaissance, in which, of course, Peoria played a major role.

Perhaps Mr. Landesman would benefit from a trip to Peoria to see a production of "Rent" at the Eastlight Theater and learn about Peoria's historical contributions to the humanities. Additionally, if the Steppenwolf and the Goodman are so superior, they should be self-sustaining.

It seems to me, Mr. Landesman makes a strong case for weaning them off taxpayer funding.

That's just the kind of reaction from a Republican Congressman (or his spokesperson) that Landesman should strive not to provoke. I think the new NEA chairman had better take Natonski up on his invitation, even if he's already seen enough performances of "Rent."

Here's the (more temperate) commentary from CultureGrrl readers.

Michael Ching, Artistic and General Director, Opera Memphis, writes:

Most NEA grants are already more predicated on excellence than geography. If it gets any MORE so, I think the NEA will lose support from states with more modest arts communities.

Arts funding could always be channeled to state arts agencies instead of through the NEA. My company, Opera Memphis has been fortunate to get small NEA grants for the last two years, but I know of a colleague who says he has a mind to complain about the NEA to his Congressperson and Senator because his company can't seem to get funded. He is from a state where the population is small and it's easier to get to his Senator.

A regional company cannot measure up to the Metropolitan/Chicago Lyric Opera standard for excellence in our field. But if art is fulfilling a need, then isn't that need just as great in every state and community? I think that the case for excellence vs. geographical distribution has already been carefully and delicately balanced by the NEA and Mr. Landesman had best be careful lest the arts communities in "Peorias" end up in revolt.

Composer William Osborne writes:

Concerning the geographic distribution of NEA funds, we might remember that culture is by its very nature local. I have lived for the last 30 years in Europe, where public funding for the arts is often 50 to 80 times that in the USA. Europeans thus have a great deal of experience managing public funding systems. They take pride in their opera houses like La Scala and Covent Garden or their Philharmonics in cities like Berlin, Vienna, and Amsterdam, but they make certain that any city with a population over about 500,000 has a fulltime, year-round opera house, spoken theater, and symphony orchestra.

For Europeans, local cultural expression is far more important and meaningful to people than the famous institutions in big cities. Local culture expresses their own identity and ties them to their communities in very meaningful ways that are almost beyond quantification. It's a bit like saying Denver didn't really need a football team because they could watch teams in Chicago or Dallas on TV, or that we need only one newspaper, the NY Times, since it covers "all the news fit to print." (No need for our dear CultureGrrl.)

The necessity for well-funded, locally based cultural expression in the high arts is patently obvious---except, of course, for New Yorkers like Landesman who think the West Coast of the United States is on the Hudson River.

Jean Nouvel at NY City Planning Commission's MoMA/Hines hearing

"Three minutes for ME?" lamented Jean Nouvel, when the speaker's cut-off bell had tolled for him at the NY City Planning Commission's recent hearing on the proposed MoMA/Hines tower. [Previous CultureGrrl posts on that hearing are here and here.]

The French architect had just flown in to lend his Pritzker Prize-winning prestige to the proceedings, but was accorded no more time to discuss his project than any of the other speakers, pro and con, who overflowed the meeting room at 22 Reade St. and also filled the large anteroom. Fortunately, the commissioners' subsequent questions allowed Nouvel some room to expand upon his comments.



The commission's chic chairperson, Amanda Burden (center, above), uncharacteristically reached for her eyeglasses for Nouvel's presentation---the better to see the various photos and drawings assembled on the board behind him.

Like the project's lawyer, Michael Sillerman, who had spoken directly before Nouvel (see second link above), the architect seemed intent on making a very tall structure (the same 1,250-foot height as the Empire State Building without its antenna) seem diminutive:

Height is [only] one parameter of the scale....It's a small building---650,000 square feet. It's not a huge building....In the skyline of the city, it doesn't have the same importance as the other one [the Empire State]. It's slimmer. It's modest, in a way, because it's only a needle.

When one of the commissioners inquired whether there would be any area for public access at the top of the tower, Nouvel first mentioned the Museum of Modern Art's gallery space at the base. Then he answered:

It's very important to have this needle at the end and this immateriality at the end. So we cannot go to the top of every tower. But I think this building will be important in the skyline.

He also touched on the building's "immateriality" when he described the experience within it:

What I proposed here is to have a kind of skeleton. [The information packet for the project calls it a "dynamic structural steel diagrid."]...We arrived very naturally at a kind of random system, a kind of net....When you are inside you have the feeling that there are no mullions. You are really in the sky.

Here's one image of sky dwellers, from the project's information packet:



Chairperson Burden expressed a desire to view a model of the project, whereupon this very schematic one came out of hiding:


100 Eleventh Avenue, describe by Nouvel as "a vision machine"

To its right of this building, just across the street, you can glimpse the edge of Frank Gehry's IAC headquarters (formerly the backdrop for the "boyfriend trousers").

There's something of artistic interest just to the other side of Nouvel's building-in-progress, but it's suffered construction-obstruction. The elderly artist whose 1970 mural is now largely obscured by Nouvel's "vision machine" made his displeasure known in a most unusual, provocative way.

COMING SOON: Knox Nixes Nouvel.

Rocco Landesman

Even a federal agency, in rolling out news of great interest to the entire nation's arts community, has a NY Times-first policy. The official announcement of Rocco Landesman's confirmation as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts states:

Mr. Landesman will not be available immediately for media interviews [emphasis added]. However, those interested in scheduling an interview in the coming weeks should send an e-mail to comm@arts.gov.

That message from NEA hit my inbox at 5:14 p.m. yesterday, whereupon I dutifully e-mailed my interview request.

In today's NY Times (and on yesterday's nytimes.com) we disgruntledly discovered that Landesman would "not be available immediately for media interviews"...except for the NY Times.

In her scoop, Robin Pogrebin wrote:

In his first sit-down interview since his nomination by President Obama, Mr. Landesman's comments suggested that he may nevertheless raise hackles on Capitol Hill after he is sworn in in the next few days.

I completely endorse one of his hackle-raising ideas, relayed by Pogrebin as the de facto pool reporter for the nation's cultural journalists:

Mr. Landesman said he expected to focus on financing the best art, regardless of location.

"I don't know if there's a theater in Peoria, but I would bet that it's not as good as Steppenwolf or the Goodman," he said, referring to two of Chicago's most prominent theater companies. "There is going to be some push-back from me about democratizing arts grants to the point where you really have to answer some questions about artistic merit."

Grants predicated first and foremost on artistic excellence, not geography, would restore the agency's emphasis to where it ought to be. But there's a reason why geography is king: to keep the Congressman from Peoria happy. A sea change in NEA grantmaking has got to be implemented very carefully and communicated compellingly, or Congressional goodwill (already fraying) will be quickly squandered. Announcing his game-changing intentions in a his first press interview may not be the best political strategy.

The signature image on Twitter of "artdetective," my enabler

I'm an ambivalent tweeter. I started because several people said that if you blog, you gotta tweet. The young(er) Bloomberg reporter who successfully convinced me to try it (during our chat at the Met's "Afghanistan" preview) wrote back approvingly that I'd soon become addicted.

Mercifully, that hasn't happened. The last thing I need is another computer-based addiction. (Blogging's quite enough, thank you.)

Yesterday's Twitter outage, which I experienced with the rest of the chirpers, proved how insidious "social media" can be: Some of the 140-character characters were beside themselves; others discovered the joys of real-life pleasures that they'd been missing.

You can get some flavor of this on the whentwitterwasdown thread in Twitterdom. As for me, I'm powering down now and heading to Manhattan to do some planning for my son's (and future daughter-in-law's) wedding rehearsal dinner. The only art I'm going to think about is the art of flower arranging.

And I obviously do need a blogging break: The BlogBack that I posted yesterday from Alan Wallach was so nice that I posted it twice.

But before I go, I must exultantly report to you that ASIA CAME THROUGH, meeting the latest CultureGrrl Geographic Challenge! Many warm thanks to CultureGrrl Donors 64 and 65 from Tokyo (YES!!!) and, from my home state, Newark, NJ.

Let's continue panhandling in Asia over the weekend, shall we? I know I've had readers this morning from Singapore and Jakarta, for example. Go ahead: Click my "Donate" button. Make my day.

Perhaps you'd like to endow a $65 floral centerpiece? (Just kidding. I'll be delighted if you endow a rose petal!)

Send a micro-donation of $1.50 my way (via my "Donate" button in the middle column), and I'll shoot you my latest links: Tennyson, Keats (for all you literary fans), Sifton (several links), MoMA/Hines (two links).

Meanwhile, Canada actually did respond to yesterday's Schnorrer Shoutout: Many thanks to CultureGrrl Macro-Donors from Detroit, MI (that's pretty close) and (YES!!!) Toronto, Canada!

This gambit is getting to be too much fun to stop: I ask for micro-donations and what I get is macro-donations (a few micros, too). One day, a psychologist (or a professional fundraiser) will tell me what this all means. (You like me!)

In the meantime, let's up the stakes: I'm looking for a donation from...ASIA! (Not my biggest fan base, but they're there.) Size of donation doesn't matter (not that I'd turn down triple digits, mind you). $5 and up gets you on my list to receive geographical acknowledgement in my next "Lee's List" and, forever, e-mailed links to my own CultureGrrl posts, the moment they're up. Irresistible, right?

Geographical diversity is what I'm going for here. (Africa's going to be a tough sell. Antarctica? Let's not even go there.)

Remarks by two leading British museum directors---Neil MacGregor and Nicholas Serota---during a recent public conversation (scroll to July 7) at the London School of Economics and Political Science, elicited notable comments from two CultureGrrl readers:

Alan Wallach, Professor of Art. Art History and American Studies at the College of William and Mary, reponds to Serota and MacGregor: Why They Don't Want to Direct U.S. Museums:

England has a social-democratic political culture ("socialist" according to the current U.S. right wing political lexicon) and the English public takes certain prerogatives as rights (e.g., health care, free access to cultural institutions, an effective and relatively inexpensive national system of public transportation, etc.)---prerogatives that are almost unimaginable in the U.S.

Serota and MacGregor have a point when they talk about the English public's deep involvement in museum culture. In the U.S., the public is more accustomed to a culture of competitive individualism, in which financial might usually makes right. Consequently, public service is often not high on the list of museum board priorities, especially since the press, which could promote the public interest in museums, tends to pay little attention to board decisions save for the choice of a new director or, these days, budget cuts. (Museum scandals in the US typically involve the director, almost never the board.)

Meanwhile, hyper-affluent board members, while paying lip to the needs of the museum-going public, often concentrate on advancing their own social and collecting interests. John Wilson is right to observe that "there is a powerful board in America, very often fueled by money." Consequently, the U.S. public has far less influence on programming and museum policy generally than its English counterpart.

Kwame Opoku, frequent commentator on cultural property issues, responds to MacGregor Whopper: Greek Government "Simply Continued Elgin's Practice":

One may take whichever side is deemed reasonable in this debate which has been going on for some several decades but must one insult the opposing side? MacGregor knows very well that the name of Elgin has become synonymous with vandalism following the brutal removal of the Marbles from Athens by Elgin.

That a director of the British Museum can speak in this fashion is a sad commentary on the state of affairs regarding the restitution of cultural objects. The British Museum does not have any more valid arguments against the return of the Marbles, now that the Greeks have built a first class museum, the New Acropolis Museum, responding to the main argument that there was no suitable place in Athens for the marbles. It appears the tactic now is to insult the Greeks to such an extent that any civil discussion will soon be impossible. In the meanwhile, the Marbles can remain where they are: in the British Museum.

But this is a cheap strategy which can buy the British Museum only some breathing space until the majority of the British decide that their long-term interests are not best served by museums with such an unhelpful approach.

I'll have more commentary (my own) on MacGregor's recent assertion that the marbles were legally removed by Lord Elgin, COMING SOON.

(Is there anything new to say about this?)

It's not exactly prime time, but the post on The Art of Blogging About Art in the Art Beat blog (not to be confused with the ArtsBeat blog) of public television's "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" features CultureGrrl (along with the LA Times' Culture Monster and the Poetry Foundation's Harriet). CultureGrrl had the distinction of being the only single-author blog in the bunch.

One passage from my interview with NewsHour's Chris Amico reflects a concern that's been much on my mind of late---the uneasy relationship between blogging and mainstream-media work:

Bouncing between paper and blog means a constant swapping of voice: "Everything has to be short, punchy and to the point" on the blog, she [me] said. "In some ways it's not been for the good. I used to do a lot of long, thoughtful pieces and that has somewhat gone by the wayside.

"In the blog I tend to be very feisty, very pointed, maybe a little irritating sometimes---provocative, I should say---and in the [Wall Street] Journal it might be more straightforward, fact-driven criticism."

Although I didn't mention this to Chris, blogging has the potential to preempt long-form pieces in even more insidious ways. On the blog, I'm aggressively (some would say, obnoxiously) opinionated, and everyone, including potential sources, knows my strong feelings on certain hot-button issues---deaccessioning, cultural-property controversies, the Barnes move, the proposed MoMA/Hines tower, to name just a few. What happens if Lee Rosenbaum wants to do a mainstream-media piece on a CultureGrrl topic, and needs people on all sides to pick up the phone?

What has saved me (for the most part) from being shunned by sources who already know my views is their respect for my serious, longstanding journalistic credentials and my track record for fair, accurate reporting in both genres. This continued ability to get access generally applies to my feisty blog writing as well as to my tamer mainstream forays. People are willing to take their chances with me and my blog in part because CultureGrrl has Google power (prominence in searches) and is very widely read by movers-and-shakers in the field. It matters.

The praise that I cherish most comes from those who have been on the receiving end of my harsh critiques---most recently, a note e-mailed to me by someone on the opposite side of one hot-button issue:

While I do not always agree with your point of view, you do get the facts straight and you write well.

That writer ended by inviting me to see him, to discuss things further. For me, that's as good as it gets.

But getting back to the Art Beat post---as CultureGrrl readers know, I'm not quite as indifferent to trying to support myself by blogging as Chris suggests. The chapter that most interests me in Say Everything, the new book by Salon.com co-founder Scott Rosenberg (which inspired Chris' art-blogging report) is titled, "Blogging for Bucks." A close second is the chapter related to the theme of THIS post---"Journalists vs. Bloggers."

Can we all get along? And can these somewhat conflicting activities peacefully co-exist in one writer? It's still a work in progress.

Send a micro-donation of $1.50 my way (via my "Donate" button in the middle column), and I'll shoot you my latest links: Brooklyn Museum tech, new university museum guidelines, Sotheby's finances (2 links), Guggenheim radio broadcast.

And here's my favorite---The Art of Blogging About Art, featuring:

Sam Sifton

From the NY Times' Culture Editor to...its RESTAURANT CRITIC?!? I had to rub my eyes and read John Koblin's NY Observer article twice. Then I checked my calendar to make sure it wasn't Apr. 1. This, apparently, is for real, art-lings.

Koblin quotes the staff memo from Times executive editor Bill Keller, regarding the designation of Sam Sifton to succeed Frank Bruni as restaurant critic:

It [Sifton's appointment] is eccentric because we are stealing one of our finest editors from one of our most important departments. This is certain to be a cause of anguish and anxiety in Culture, where Sam has run things with great skill, imagination, energy and good humor [as well as with "a sugar cube and some ribbons"]....

We've set ourselves the task of finding a new Culture Editor....And we expect the anguish and anxiety to be short-lived.

The career path works more logically the other way around: Raymond Sokolov had progressed from being the Times' foodie-in-chief to a long, successful stint editing the Wall Street Journal's "Leisure & Arts" page. Now he's back to his first love, writing the occasional WSJ food article and restaurant review.

A still (taken at the site of the planned Philly Barnes) from Don Argott's new documentary, "The Art of the Steal"

Based on the research in John Anderson's 2003 book chronicling the battle over the fate of the Barnes Foundation, Art Held Hostage (reviewed here by Eric Gibson of the Wall Street Journal), a new documentary, "The Art of the Steal," directed by Don Argott, will be shown at the Toronto Film Festival, Sept. 10-19. The festival will also include the North American premiere of a new Michael Moore film, "Capitalism: A Love Story."

According to the Barnes film's description:

The film tantalizes us with the sumptuous imagery of the paintings, and features interviews full of intense conflicting opinions.

The story is full of twists, turns and double crosses. Along the way, multiple questions are raised: How is art best served? Should it be reserved for true connoisseurs or made available to the most eyeballs possible? And who decides?

It's rated PG (for Argott's strong argot?). Bring the childen!

Send a micro-donation of $1.50 my way today (via my "Donate" button in the middle column), and I'll shoot you these links: African art market, Andy Warhol Museum, new book on blogs, Charles Gwathmey obit, Detroit Institute's restitutions.

As expected, I've attracted some criticism for charging for links that other bloggers bestow for free. So let me try to explain:

---First, I'm desperately seeking ways to monetize this blog. Working long hours for free is neither sensible nor sustainable. This "your tips-for-my tips" gambit may not attract sufficient interest, but it's worth a try.

---Second, you'll be tipping me for my web-scouring acumen and my sense of what's most likely to rivet my readers (i.e., You). In general (Gwathmey's the exception today), I'm trying not to duplicate what you'll commonly find on other art blogs or aggregators, although I may include links that later appear elsewhere.

Speaking of just recompense, many thanks to CultureGrrl Macro-Donors 56 and 57, from Vienna, Austria and Norman, OK.

VIENNA, AUSTRIA? Where are all my fans from London, Paris, Rome, Athens (not to mention that recent lone visitor from Saskatchewan)?

Even in the dog days of summer, the Museum of Modern Art and Hines, the real estate developer, managed to assemble their heavy hitters for the City Planning Commission's public hearing on July 22 regarding architect Jean Nouvel's proposed mixed-use glass tower, which would include space for MoMA's expansion.

Art Buchwald, champion museum sprinter

The NY Times editors were so pleased to have one of Michael Kimmelman's sporadic contributions from abroad that they privileged with Page-One placement the peripatetic culture critic's dog-bites-man story about the short attention spans of visitors at the Louvre. This yielded an opportunity to publish an appealing photo of 16th-century Italian paintings arrayed in the museum's Salle des Etats (first floor, Denon wing).

Kimmelman's Big Idea: Museum visitors tend not to linger long enough in front of paintings. Who knew? (Answer: Anyone who's ever commissioned a museum visitors study and then tried to figure out how to get people to look closer.)

Hasn't our intrepid critic (or at least his editors) ever heard of Art Buchwald's Six-Minute Louvre? In Buchwald-ian spirit, the Louvre's own introduction to its 90-minute "Accessible Self-Guided Tour" alludes to the three objectives of the humorist's frenzied art quest.

The Louvre states:

On their first visit to the Louvre, people often want to see the museum's three great ladies---the Venus de Milo, the Victory of Samothrace, and Mona Lisa. As you follow this accessible guided tour, you will (re)discover these and other key works and reflect upon that indefinable notion of "masterpiece."

I had my own six-minute-Louvre experience when I latched onto the museum's guided tour during my very first visit to the museum. After taking a few moments to gaze at the armless lady, my husband and I looked around and realized we'd lost our group. They had progressed so far, so fast, that they were never to be found again...

...which, for us, was probably a good thing.

UPDATE: Yikes! Kimmelman's article has elicited 419 Readers' Comments! What do I know about news judgment?

I know, art-lings. You're anxiously awaiting my report/photo essay on the City Planning Commission testimony by Lowry, Nouvel and other proponents of Jean's Beanstalk, the 85-story sliver that developer Hines wants to plant on a small plot adjacent to the Museum of Modern Art.

But first, let's round out our airing of the opponents' views. Below is a video now posted on the new website of the tenacious NIMBYs of W. 54th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues) and its environs---Say No to MoMA's Empire State-Sized Tower. This 6-minute grenade was lobbed by the Coalition for Responsible Midtown Development, an affiliate of the 54-55th Street Block Association.

Some block! It boasts a number of sophisticated, well-heeled residents who collaborated on the clip. The producer is one of their own---artist Justin Peyser. Needless to say, the proponents of the project dispute the residents' assertions. [More on that later.]

In addition to their misgivings about the MoMA Monster, I agree with the critics' distaste for the north side of the Taniguchi design for the museum's most recent expansion---what I had called (in my 2006 critique) "The 54th Street Prison Wall."

Three years ago, I commented (#7 on my list of gripes):

I was at the City Planning Commission deliberations where they [the commissioners] said they wanted some "transparency" from the [sculpture] garden to the street. Instead, it's "Keep Out."

At this writing, the City Planning Commission is expected to vote on the Hines/MoMA project at its Sept. 9 meeting. (There may be further discussion before that, at one or more of the commission's review sessions.) If it's thumbs up, the tower looms over the City Council, where a vote is likely to occur in November.

And then...?