September 2009 Archives

If you're curious what I've been doing and thinking about this week (during my blog freeze), you can follow me on my Twitter page.

If you miss me (as I do you), you might give a second thought to supporting this blog.

Yesterday, the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, would have been a no-blogging day for me under any circumstances.

As for the rest of this week...close readers of CultureGrrl may remember (scroll down) that at the beginning of last week (Sept. 21), I stated that if I didn't receive THREE donations (of any amount) by Sunday (Sept. 27), I'd take this week off.

My warmest thanks go out to CultureGrrl Donor 74 from Upperville, VA, Repeat Donor 75 from Boston, and...

...See you next Monday (probably). I'm open to BlogBacks this week, if any of you would like to fill in for me with trenchant comments on the stories we've been following.

I'm also open to your encouraging me to return: I'm loafing, but my "Donate" button still works!

Meanwhile, here's the most fun I've had online in a while---five videos [via] from Barbra Streisand's intimate performance Saturday night at the Village Vanguard in New York.

I'll miss you, art-lings. As Barbra says, "Ne me quittes pas."

It turns out that my analysis of the NY Times' cultural coverage (here and here) was more timely than I knew.

In Tuning in Too Late, the NY Times' Public Editor's column today in the "Week in Review" section, Clark Hoyt casts a critical eye on the paper's recent tendency to ignore stories broken by other news organizations (particularly conservative ones) and by blogs. The examples he cited were the ACORN and Van Jones controversies.

My own critique (motivated by a concern for journalistic standards, not political ideology) was pegged to what I know best---the absence of coverage on the paper's arts pages of the Yosi Sergant firestorm (fueled by the conservative news media) and two other important stories---the Cleveland Museum's desire to deviate from donor stipulations, and the NY State Board of Regents' proposed final regulations for deaccessioning---extensively covered (here, here, here and here) on CultureGrrl (which some Times' culture writers do read) but unaccountably missing from "All the News That's Fit to Print."

Regarding the Regents' proposed regulations, for which the comment period closed on Friday, David Palmquist, head of museum chartering for the Regents, informed me:

I am drafting a compilation of all comments for use by State Education Department management, our attorneys and the Regents. The purpose of the public comment period is to inform us as to whether our constituents and the general public are in favor or not in favor of a proposed regulation, and to allow us an opportunity to revisit, discuss, amend, postpone, rescind or go forward with a proposed regulation. Therefore it's not possible today to predict what will be finally advanced and voted on.

If voted on and approved at the Regents' next meeting, Oct. 19-20, the new regs would take effect Nov. 12, according to this announcement.

But back to Hoyt. Today he told Times readers:

Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, agreed with me that the paper was "slow off the mark," and blamed "insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio." She and Bill Keller, the executive editor, said last week that they would now assign an editor to monitor opinion media [blogs included?] and brief them frequently on bubbling controversies.

So they're pleading ignorance? You mean to tell me that these newshounds didn't know from the get-go that these "controversies" were "bubbling"? I don't buy it.

Speaking of bubbling controversies, on Sept. 9, I received an e-mail from Joshua Miller of Fox News, who wanted to talk to me about the Aug. 27 NEA conference call led by the White House's Kalpen Modi, which was meant to to drum up artists' support for the Obama Administration's "United We Serve" initiative.

To read the full text of the e-mail that I sent Josh in reply, click the link below.

Jehuda Reinharz

Peter Schworm of the Boston Globe has the story:

Brandeis University president Jehuda Reinharz, after months of sharp criticism [my link, not theirs] over his financial stewardship and plans to close the university's renowned Rose Art Museum, announced yesterday that he will resign at the end of the academic year.....

Reinharz dismissed suggestions that he is resigning under pressure arising from the museum controversy, saying he strongly considered stepping down in summer 2008 before signing a five-year contract extension. At 65, Reinharz said he felt the time had come to move on.

Still, he may remain be in charge of the university and the Rose for a considerable period: The Globe reports that he "will stay on until a replacement is chosen, potentially up to June 2011."

More on this in the student newspaper, The Justice.

UPDATE: More on the university's website, which includes Reinharz's plans for the future, as described in his letter to the president of Brandeis' board:

I plan to continue to serve in the nonprofit arena at the national and international level where I can address issues facing the Jewish community. I have already been approached by two foundations to run their organizations at the conclusion of my time at Brandeis.

[NOTE: The first part of my memo to the new NY Times culture editor, Jon Landman, was picked up yesterday by the Poynter Institute's Romenesko aggregator, which means that it was "cc'd" to media mavens at news organizations around the country. UPDATE: Now this post has been picked up by Romenesko too!]

My suggested solution to the flaw in the NY Times' cultural coverage that I discussed in yesterday's post is easy: There's no reason for the paper's cultural journalists to turn their backs on a major arts story just because someone has beaten them to it. All they need to do is cover it better---in more depth, with more expertise. With their large roster of deeply knowledgeable, experienced writers, and with the unsurpassed access to sources that comes with the newspaper's clout, they've got a leg up on the competition, even when they enter the race late.

More difficult to remedy is a more insidious deterrent to enterprising journalism: The Times' culture cadre has become accustomed to having its scoops handed to it on a silver platter. Cultural institutions that want the Times to give them extensive, favorable coverage feel compelled to give news and access to the Gray Lady first.

This was evident again yesterday, when the Times posted online the welcome news that San Francisco mega-collector Donald Fisher had reached an agreement with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to house his holdings for at least 25 years in a new wing. Although I knew about that announcement last night from Carol Vogel's online account, the press release didn't hit my own inbox until 9 a.m. this morning. It was headed, "Release Date: September 25, 2009" (today). I don't object if arts writers from the hometown publications are given the story before out-of-towners. But why is the Times allowed to jump the gun?

That New York's premier paper applies pressure to enforce a "Times First" policy was explicitly acknowledged by Sam Sifton, Landman's predecessor as culture editor, in recent public comments about his staff's shakedown of news sources:

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.

Which brings us to the least easily remedied and most serious problem with the Times' arts coverage: When you grow accustomed to having stories spoonfed to you by arts institutions and even government officials, complacency sets in. If you can usually get the news first without even trying, you lose the motivation and energy to ferret out stories yourself---particularly those that sources hope will escape your attention. Before long, you become an extension of the artworld's PR apparatus. When people make a deal to give you the news first, it's easy to feel that you owe them respectful or even favorable treatment.

That's an inherent danger for all beat reporters: If you investigate and criticize an institution or an individual too much, you may fall out of favor with a source whose cooperation you must rely on for the news you need to report. Despite the risk, the Times can overcome such difficulties better than most, thanks to its preeminence and its reputation for professionalism. Being fair and thorough counts for a lot, even with sources who haven't liked everything you've written.

For that reason, it is inexplicable to me why the Times has allowed itself to co-opted by the art auction houses, reporting prices in a manner that makes sale results appear better than they actually are.

It's also hard to understand why the Times missed the important story of the final proposed regulations of museum deaccessioning being promulgated by the NY State Board of Regents. It was no secret that the Regents were considering new, far-reaching deaccession guidelines. They have been widely circulated in the field. But nobody proffered that text to journalists on a silver platter as NY Assemblyman Richard Brodsky did when he introduced legislation to regulate museum deaccessions. The Brodsky bill, languishing in the legislature, made it into the Times. The Regents' regulations, more likely to be adopted imminently, didn't.

All of this is to say that the Times' culture staff needs to engage in coverage dictated less by invitation, more by initiative. Given the fact (as the paper's Public Editor reported last February) that the Times' online audience is larger than the hardcopy holdouts (and there's little overlap), its reportorial enterprise needs to be 24/7. That's especially true of the sluggish ArtsBeat blog, which should be up-to-the-minute, but is usually behind the news by hours or, sometimes, a day or more.

Take the recent release of the report of Brandeis University's Committee on the Future of the Rose Art Museum. That news was on the website of the Boston Globe (which is owned by the Times) on Tuesday afternoon. But the story didn't surface on ArtsBeat until 2:37 p.m. Wednesday and it finally made it into the newspaper yesterday, two days late. Neither the Times nor the Globe linked to the full text of the report. For that, you had to go to CultureGrrl.

That said, there are only four news websites that I open every morning in my Internet browser's "Quick Tabs"---ArtsJournal (which hosts CultureGrrl); the Wall Street Journal's Arts & Entertainment page; Bloomberg Muse; a foreign-based art news aggregator (which I'll keep to myself); and the NY Times Arts page.

The Times is still the gold standard for New York City arts coverage. What is needed to shake its culture staff from its reportorial torpor is some serious hometown competition---something it lost a year ago, when the NY Sun, with its feisty arts staff, folded. But there's some good news for cultural news buffs: Rupert Murdoch has indicated that his Wall Street Journal will soon launch a New York-only weekly arts section.

That wake-up call should provide the most effective tonic for what now ails the Times.

[Full disclosure: I freelance on art and museums for the WSJ's "Leisure & Arts" page and I've also published many articles in many sections of the NY Times.]

It seems that Yosi Sergant, strongly criticized for his participation in a "United We Serve" conference call, didn't last long in his new post as "New Media and Special Projects Advisor, Communications."

This just in from Sally Gifford, communications specialist for the National Endowment for the Arts:

This afternoon Yosi Sergant submitted his resignation from the National Endowment for the Arts. His resignation has been accepted and is effective immediately. On Monday, Jamie Bennett will begin his work as the NEA's Director of Communications. He comes to the NEA from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs where he was the Chief of Staff in the Office of the Commissioner.

I hope this lesson was not lost on Kalpen Modi, Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, who orchestrated another problematic, arts-related "United We Serve" conference call that I listened in on.

And in another bit of good news, Rocco Landesman, NEA's chairman, visits Peoria on Nov. 6!

Jon Landman, NY Times' incoming culture editor

[NOTE: The second part of my Landman Memo is here.]

What if a tree falls in the forest and the NY Times isn't the first to hear it?

When it comes to cultural coverage, that often means that the news didn't happen...at least not on the pages of the NY Times. My guess is that this tendency is intensified by the Times' own news guidelines, which appropriately require a reporter who arrives at a story late to credit the publication that got there first. When you consider yourself the nation's premier news source, do you really want to disclose that the LA Times or (shudder) a mere blog scooped you? Can we just pretend that this particular bit of news didn't happen? When it comes to cultural reporting, the answer is often yes.

With the shift from Sifton to Landman as the NY Times' editorial arbiter of culture, it's time to give Jon my unsolicited (and probably undesired) evaluation of what's wrong with the Times' cultural coverage and how to fix it.

Let's start with the what's missing. I'll go with what I know---several important stories I've been following lately, which have been non-events in the pages and webpages of the "paper of record." I highlight these not to hype my news-fielding ability, but to show how much the august news organization must be dropping the ball, if a sole practitioner keeps scooping them from left field.

First and foremost are the following two stories, AWOL from the Times, but of major significance to the future of art museums in this country:

---The Cleveland Museum of Art's application for court permission to deviate from the written stipulations of now deceased donors that their money be used for art acquisitions, not museum expansions. This story was broken by Steve Litt of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. But as far as I know, CultureGrrl was the first to highlight the egregious disregard of donor intent inherent in the museum's action, as well as the likely chilling effect on the confidence of potential future donors that their wishes will be honored. This is not just a Cleveland story: It raises concerns of national artworld importance.

I followed up with a close analysis of the will of Leonard Hanna, the most munificent of the donors who figure in Cleveland's court application. His written stipulations show that he had carefully considered (and reconsidered) how he wanted his bequest spent and he articulated his requirements clearly and unequivocally. The Wall Street Journal weighed in on the Cleveland story. Not the Times.

---In the Times' home territory, the NY State Board of Regents last month disseminated a proposed permanent amendment that would prohibit museums and historical societies from applying deaccession proceeds to operating expenses, payment of outstanding debt, capital expenses or loan collateral. (I broke that story here, commenting further here.) If the regulations become final, institutions chartered by the Regents (the vast majority in the state) will be prohibited from using deaccession proceeds for anything other than the acquisition, preservation, protection or care of collections.

This proposal, now in the comments phase, is not only of major significance for anyone in New York State who cares about museum governance. If adopted, it could serve as a prototype for the rest of the country.

Another missed story, of less consequence but nevertheless widely discussed in conservative-leaning media, is the National Endowment for the Arts' Yosi Sergant flap, which resulted in this week's statement by NEA's chairman, Rocco Landesman, dissociating himself and his agency from the deposed communications director's actions and reaffirming the nonpartisanship of NEA. The Times' only coverage related to this contretemps came in yesterday's paper and was prompted by the White House's issuance of new guidelines that mandate a separation between grantmaking and politics.

Those of us who are intensely interested in the fate of the Barnes Foundation would have welcomed a detailed Times review from the Toronto International Film Festival of Don Argott's The Art of the Steal, the new muckraking documentary about the planned relocation of the fabled collection to Philadelphia. (I guess, like me, they'll get around to covering it when it's screened next week in New York.)

A bit of inside baseball (but significant to readers who are interested in museums and/or WW II-related compensation) is the Association of Art Museum Directors' new online registry listing American museums' restitutions and retentions of objects claimed by Nazi-era victims or their heirs. Again, ignored by the Times.

But let's leave behind the rarefied realm of visual-arts news and travel to the boundary-defying "Peace Without Borders" Juanes concert last Sunday, which reportedly attracted more than one million fans in Havana. The Times' failure to assign a reporter or reviewer to an event as important for its political as its musical overtones is hard to comprehend. This oversight only reinforces the perception that the Times is not nearly as attuned to interests of its Latino readers as it is to those of its non-minority audience.

The Times' Miami-based Damien Cave, who did publish a preview of the concert and its ramifications, was reduced to tweeting the event (on his own site, not that of the NY Times), by watching its live broadcast. What even Damien missed, but the Miami Herald caught, was Juanes' cry of "Cuba Libre!" ("Free Cuba!") at the end of a concert that had been billed as non-political, but nevertheless (as Cave DID point out) was replete with pointed innuendos.

All that the Times managed to publish about this watershed pop-cultural happening was this Associated Press report, not in its Arts section, but buried (probably because of deadline exigencies) on Page A8 in the "Americas" section. That account was edited to shorter length than what had been filed by AP's reporter, Paul Haven.

Why is it Timesworthy when the NY Philharmonic performs before a rigidly selected audience in North Korea, but not when a pop idol from the U.S. energizes an astonishingly enormous Cuban audience?

These are just some of the very recent errors of omission (the ones I'm most familiar with) that should be pondered by the new regime at the Times' culture desk. The first step is to understand why this is happening with such disturbing frequency. The second is to develop an action plan to see that it doesn't.
 
COMING SOON: How to Improve the NY Times' Arts Coverage.

It took a while, but the National Endowment for the Arts' staff directory now lists a new title for the embattled Yosi Sergant, whose indiscretions got him bumped from his position as communications director. His new post:

New Media and Special Projects Advisor, Communications

So who's the new communications director? Beats me.

While they're in the process of filling vacancies, Broadway theater producer Rocco Landesman, NEA's new chairman, will surely want to do something soon about the open slot for NEA's director of theater and musical theater. That one should be interesting!

The final 27-page report of Brandeis University's Committee on the Future of the Rose Art Museum, dated Sept. 18, was released earlier today. You can read it here. Both the Boston Globe and The Justice, the university's student newspaper, today covered the report and the museum's current situation.

Bear in mind that the committee is merely advisory. It has recommended retaining the Rose as an art museum but it ducked the crucial question of whether some of its art should be sold to address Brandeis University's financial crisis.

Rocco Landesman

It took a while, but Rocco Landesman, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, has done the right thing---dissociated himself and his agency from the loose-cannon actions of Yosi Sergant, who lost his position as NEA's communications director over his unauthorized indiscretions. What's more, Landesman explicitly reaffirmed the non-partisan nature of NEA and its grantmaking.

Here's the full statement, hot off my inbox. [UPDATE: It's now posted on NEA's website.]:

STATEMENT FROM NEA CHAIRMAN ROCCO LANDESMAN
September 22, 2009

As chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, I would like to clarify the issues concerning an August conference call in which an NEA employee participated. Here are the facts.

Fact 1: The former NEA Director of Communications helped organize and participated in an August 10th conference call to introduce members of the arts community to United We Serve and to provide them with information on how the Corporation for National and Community Service can assist groups interested in sponsoring service projects or having their members volunteer on other projects.

Fact 2: The former NEA Director of Communications acted unilaterally and without the approval or authorization of then-Acting Chairman Patrice Walker Powell.

Fact 3: This call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda and any suggestions to that end are simply false. Rather, the call was to inform members of the arts community of an opportunity to become involved in volunteerism.

Fact 4: Some of the language used by the former NEA Director of Communications was, unfortunately, not appropriate and did not reflect the position of the NEA. This employee has been relieved of his duties as director of communications.

Fact 5: This call was completely unrelated to NEA's grantmaking, which is highly regarded for its independence and integrity. Artistic quality, excellence and merit are the guidelines for decision-making; favoritism or political affiliation plays no role in NEA grantmaking.

Fact 6: The NEA is a successful, independent federal agency that has supported the best of the arts and arts education for nearly 45 years. We take our responsibility to the American public very seriously and are committed to upholding this public trust.

Although my time here has been brief---in fact I arrived at the agency on August 11th the day after the conference call---I am proud to lead the National Endowment for the Arts, proud to work with its capable and energetic staff, and proud to play a role in enhancing the quality of life for the people of our great nation.

This statement comes a day after Patrick Courrielche posted on the Big Hollywood blog the complete audio and transcript of the Aug. 10 conference call that sparked the Glenn Beck-fueled firestorm over politicization of the NEA. I had listened in on a subsequent conference call that neither involved NEA nor promoted any controversially partisan actions, but that did strike me as an inappropriate attempt by the White House to recruit artists to participate in and promote a Presidential initiative.

Now can we all please move on...to the symposium on arts issues that Landesman says he plans to hold soon in Peoria?

Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh

The Andy Warhol Museum is one of the sightseeing stops for participants in this week's G-20 Summit for the top-level discussion of economic issues. It's not on the itinerary of the heads of state, however. It's a lunchtime diversion for their spouses, who will get a chance to savor Pittsburgh's varied cultural riches while the fate of the world is decided (or not).

The just published Spousal Program, detailing the activities planned for the powers behind the presidents, says this about the time they will spend Friday at the Warhol (which, by amazing coincidence, is now showing: "Drawn to the Summit: A G-20 Exhibition of International Political Cartoons"):

Spouses will have the opportunity to silkscreen one of Andy Warhol's images of a flower onto a tote-bag that they can then take home with them as a memento of their visit to the museum.

Another highlight of the tour will be the opening of one of Andy Warhol's heretofore sealed Time Capsules. Mr. Warhol is famous for having stored over 600 time capsules---each containing a variety of objects ranging from the mundane to the inspired. This is a chance for modern history to spring to life before the eyes of the First Lady's international guests.

The time capsule may inspire a "whatever" response from puzzled onlookers. It's one of some 612 boxes in which the artist stashed whatever random ephemera happened to come his way---everything from newspaper clippings to financial records to business cards. We can only hope that they don't discover therein another autographed nude photo of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, as was recently found by an archivist hired by the Andy Warhol Foundation to sift through those capsules.

But what we all REALLY want to know is:

What will Carla Sarkozy be wearing?

WSJ's illustrator, Ismael Roldan, at work

The excitement that art professionals seem to feel feel about getting their inexpertly photographed portraits published on CultureGrrl is only exceeded by the thrill of getting immortalized by one of the Wall Street Journal's illustrious illustrators. But some of those likenesses have been truer than others.

The ones that, to my eye, have always uncannily captured not only the features but also the essence of their subjects were created by Ismael Roldan, 45, whose untimely death was reported today on the WSJ's "Leisure & Arts" page.

They were so good that the Clark Art Institute's director, Michael Conforti, whose eye is better than mine, asked for Roldan's original after my Cultural Conversation with him appeared in the paper. (I'm not sure whether he got it.)

Who wouldn't like this?

Send a micro-donation of either $1.50 (for the day) or $10 (for links through October) via my "Buy Now" button, below, and I'll shoot you these links: Complete transcript, audio and commentary for the controversial conference call that included NEA's Yosi Sergant; AAM's Museum magazine's article supporting deaccessions for operations; Krementz photo essay on O'Keeffe show; yet another big Turner show; detailed info about the 2009 MacArthur "Genius" Fellows (strong visual arts contingent).

I'm STILL no genius (although Mark Bradford, Rackstraw Downes and Camille Utterback are) and I've lowered my price (from $15) for the monthly batch of links, because I've reduced the frequency of these offerings.

LEE'S LINKS

Today's Links $1.50 This Month's Links $10.00

Director Don Argott's muckraking film about the battle over the Barnes Foundation, "The Art of the Steal," which recently premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, now has a distributor [via]---Rainbow Media, which is the umbrella company for IFC, AMC and Sundance channels, among other entertainment entities. Selling the North American rights (reportedly for a "substantial six figure advance") in these economically uncertain times was no small accomplishment [via].

Meanwhile, we eagerly await an update from the Barnes Foundation about how much money it has now raised for its controversial move to Philadelphia, as well as information about the design by architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien and the latest construction-cost estimate. All that information was scheduled to be released this fall.

But alas, no distributors, new advertisers or donors have provided backing for CultureGrrl lately (with one notable exception, CultureGrrl Donor 73---a two-time benefactor to whom I extend my warmest thanks).

So I'm changing my "business plan" from begging to blackmail: If three benefactors don't discover the whereabouts of the yellow "Donate" button in my middle column by next Sunday, I'm taking next week off for bad behavior. That means, among other things, that you won't get my own take on "The Art of the Steal," for which I hold a ticket to the Sept. 29 screening at the NY Film Festival.

And don't even think about getting a ticket for yourself: It's sold out!

Léger, "Smoke over Rooftops," 1911, returned in 2008 by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to heirs of Alponse Kann

In the Association of Art Museum Directors' continued chronicling of good news about museums' good works, it has just launched a Registry for Resolution of Claims for Nazi-Era Cultural Assets. (Grammar check: The cultural assets aren't "Nazi-Era"; the gaps or other issues related to their provenance are.) The registry lists restitutions and retentions of such objects by institutions belonging to AAMD, and it also provides a useful compendium of links to international sources of information on works with incomplete Nazi-era provenances.

But the registry itself is incomplete. According to AAMD's description:

The registry lists objects restituted and settlements made since June 4, 1998, the date the report was adopted.

The label from my Celia Cruz CD

During my New York Public Radio debate last week with Nick Gillespie on WNYC's "Soundcheck Smackdown," I strongly defended prospective visits from this country to Cuba by both classical (the NY Philharmonic) and pop (Colombian-born Juanes) musicians.

But I kept thinking:

What would Celia say?

The ghost in my apartment, the late Queen of Salsa, Celiz Cruz, was one of this country's most celebrated exiles from Castro's Cuba. Her last months were spent where I now live. To my complete surprise, you can glimpse my living room, terrace and view of the Hudson River in a 2008 documentary about her life and music that aired this month on WNET, New York City's public television station. (You can view the whole film here, by clicking on "Celia the Queen," upper left.) Pedro Knight, her widower (who died in 2007), was interviewed in front of what's now my (non-working) fireplace and he is also shown gazing out from the terrace.

At the time of Celia's death in 2003, the NY Times reported:

The Cuban government did not allow her to return in 1962 for the burial of her mother. She never again tried to go back.

Celia didn't talk politics and rarely spoke English. In the film she declares that she "left because we disagreed with the system," but also that "all my songs are happy. I never sing about protest." That's not entirely true, however: One of her signature songs was the emotional "Cuando Sali de Cuba" ("When I Left Cuba"), in which protest is implied, if not explicitly stated.

I'd like to think that although she herself was permanently estranged from her beloved homeland, she would have been just as tolerant of others' musicians overtures as is Cuban singer Gloria Estefan, who gave her views about Juanes' trip shortly before his concert yesterday in Havana.

Damien Cave of the Times reports:

Ms. Estefan has said that she and her husband, Emilio, will not return to Cuba until it is a democracy, but she rejected the idea that Juanes should cancel his project. "We've learned to live with others' ideas," she said.

According to Paul Haven's Associated Press report on yesterday's concert:

Juanes insisted the concert was about music, not politics. "It is one more grain of sand for improving relations through art," the singer said upon arriving in Havana late Friday.

But before leaving his Key Biscayne home for Havana, the Latino pop star was the object of "death threats, CD smashing protests and boycotts," Haven reported.

From the AP account, the concert seems to have been a happy lovefest, with an astonishingly huge audience of a million or more Juanes worshippers. Our government gave its permission for the trip and then let the music and musicians weave their magic.

That seems like the right approach to me. Maybe I need to get a Juanes CD. He's so important that he's even been a Scholastic student's workshop project!

Barbara Buhler Lynes. Georgia O'Keeffe Museum's curator, at Whitney's press preview for O'Keeffe Abstraction show

Back in July, I reported that the Tennessee Court of Appeals had ruled that the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, lacked "standing to participate" in the court battle over whether Fisk University could sell to Alice Walton's Crystal Bridges Museum a half-share of its Stieglitz Collection. I then wrote that I had "not yet received a response to my question to O'Keeffe Museum about whether it intends to appeal."

Now I have.
 
Last Friday, the O'Keeffe Museum quietly filed an application with the Tennessee Supreme Court to appeal the Court of Appeals ruling. (I've not seen any press accounts of this yet.) The Santa Fe museum is seeking to be allowed to continue pressing its legal arguments that if financial circumstances had made it impossible for the university to comply with the conditions of O'Keeffe's donation, the artworks should be handed over to the museum. as successor-in-interest to O'Keeffe.

At the Whitney Museum's press preview for its delicious Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction show, which opened yesterday, Barbara Buhler Lynes, curator of the O'Keeffe Museum, hotly contested the notion (most dramatically expressed by Jock Reynolds, director of the Yale University Art Gallery) that her museum was opportunistically trying to loot Fisk's collection. She passionately defended her museum's mission to champion intent of the artist/donor, who had stipulated that the collection at Fisk should be displayed intact and that nothing could be sold. Lynes helped organize the "Abstraction" show, which will travel next May to her museum.

I also spoke with Dale Kronkright, the O'Keeffe Museum's conservator, who worked on and reframed some of the paintings now at the Whitney. Kronkright alleged that he had seen some works in storage from Fisk's Stieglitz Collection (a past lender of works to the O'Keeffe Museum) that were "scraped, dented and torn."

The Court of Appeals had ruled that any interest that Georgia O'Keeffe (or any supposed successor-in-interest, such as the O'Keeffe Museum) had in the Stieglitz works ended at her death.

I've been trying to get a copy of the O'Keeffe Museum's latest court filing. If and when I succeed, I'll let you know if there's anything new and interesting to report.

Sleeping Watchdog: Ohio's Attorney General, Richard Cordray

According to recent press accounts, the Cleveland Museum has been publicly justifying its request for court permission to divert income from four acquisition funds to its capital campaign on ghoulish grounds---a theory that the deceased donors, were they alive today, would have wanted their money to be tapped to complete the museum's expansion. Never mind that they had expressly designated that money for art purchases, in the documents that established their trusts and endowments.

That may be how the museum's officials are spinning their unorthodox move to the press and the public, but that's not how the museum's case has been presented in its court filings, which include the donors' original documents as appendices. Cleveland's lawyer must have surmised that since judges don't have jurisdiction over the Great Beyond, they might have difficulty admitting arguments founded on speculation regarding beliefs of the deceased that were never committed to writing. In fact, the legal documents that they did leave behind unambiguously contradict such speculation.

Rather than channeling the wishes of the dead, the museum's brief asserts that the donors could not have foreseen the circumstances in which the museum now finds itself. If the museum doesn't expand, the donors' desire that acquisitions bought with their money be adequately displayed and properly cared for will be thwarted, the museum argues.

This ignores the fact that the benefactors may well have been quite aware that the museum would have future capital needs, but nevertheless wanted their money to go for precisely the purposes for which they designated it.

In no place is the donor's intent clearer than in mega-supporter Leonard Hanna's last will and testament, as revised by his second codicil.

Of the four purchase funds whose income Cleveland now hopes to tap for up to $75 million over the next 10 years, Hanna's is by far the largest: It distributed a net income to the museum in fiscal 2008 of $10.1 million, compared to $1.2 million, $1.7 million and $3.6 million from the three other funds now before the court.

In his will dated Nov. 7, 1952, Hanna made various specific bequests, leaving the remaining assets to the Cleveland Museum. Of the museum's money, $1 million was to be applied to general endowment, with the rest going to a purchase fund.

The will's text shows that Hanna had seriously pondered (and later rethought) the question of whether the money from his purchase fund should be applied to future capital projects. The 1952 will explicitly permitted withdrawals from his purchase fund for new construction, if two-thirds of the trustees voted in favor. This vote, however had to be taken "within seven years [emphasis added] from the receipt from my Executor of the approximate amount to be delivered to the Museum under this bequest....Unless the foregoing privileges are exercised by the Museum within the seven-year period hereinabove mentioned, they shall be deemed to be waived [emphasis added]." In other words, after that seven-year period, the money could no longer be applied to capital projects.

But there's more:

By the time of the second codicil to his will, dated Oct. 11, 1955, Hanna had changed his mind regarding the question of capital expenses. He REVOKED the above-quoted provisions, substituting new language that divided his bequest to the museum into two equal parts---general endowment funds and purchase funds. The income from the PURCHASE fund was designated for acquisitions (with no seven-year exception for capital expenses). The ENDOWMENT fund, on the other hand, COULD, by two-thirds vote, be applied to capital projects.

All of this demonstrates that Hanna clearly foresaw the museum's possible expansion needs and was equally clear about which of his funds could be and which could NOT be used to address those needs. Hanna's purchase fund, not his general-endowment gift, figures in the museum's current petition to Cuyahoga County Probate Court. Another of the four purchase funds at issue, the J.H. Wade Trust, stipulated that if the museum failed to "observe the terms and conditions [i.e., designation for acquisitions] imposed upon it by this agreement," the museum would forfeit its right to the money.

Despite all this, Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray has bought the museum's argument, abdicating his responsibility to safeguard donor intent and enforce the terms of the benefactors' trusts and bequests. In his article that broke the news of the museum's court petition, Steve Litt of the Cleveland Plain Dealer quoted Cordray providing this astonishing justification of Cleveland's dicey diversion of purchase funds to its expansion project:

It doesn't do much good to buy art once you run out of space, because you're going to stick it in the basement.

This line of "reasoning" ignores not only the donors' enforceable legal documents but also the fact that few if any museums expect to display permanently everything that they own and all that they acquire. Some objects are arrayed in the galleries; many are kept behind the scenes for study, loan and temporary display in changing installations and exhibitions. That's the way it is in Cleveland and always will be, no matter how large the museum grows.

What we haven't heard yet is whether any heirs of the donors have been heard from. I have a query in to the museum's press office as to whether any objections have been voiced or briefs filed by family members.

I'll update here (or in a new post, if warranted), if and when I receive an answer.

In the meantime, the Association of Art Museum Directors, which yesterday told me that it was awaiting the court decision before deciding what, if anything, to do about this deplorable situation, should take a forceful stand now.

At stake is the confidence of present and future donors that museums can be trusted to honor their wishes and will not try to circumvent them, once the donor is safely underground, through posthumous mind-reading. Cleveland's actions, unchecked, would set a dangerous precedent that could have a negative impact on future benefactions, just when museums need help the most.

UPDATE: This hit my inbox late this morning, but I've only just returned to my e-mails after another press-preview day. James Kopniske, spokesperson for the Cleveland Museum, writes:

No one, heir or otherwise, other than the named parties (KeyBank and the Attorney General) has entered an appearance in the case or filed any papers with the court. The museum has worked closely with KeyBank, the trustee for two of the funds involved and the Attorney General and both have filed answers with the court consenting to the museum's request.

Mary Schmidt Campbell

She didn't get appointed to the chairmanship of the National Endowment for the Arts, as I had once recommended. But Mary Schmidt Campbell, dean of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and former executive director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, has just been tapped by President Obama to be vice chairman of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

Newly appointed co-chairmen are Margo Lion and George Stevens Jr., who were co-chairs of candidate Obama's Art Policy Committee. Lion is an adjunct professor at Tisch and member of Schmidt Campbell's Dean's Council there. Michelle Obama is honorary chairman of the President's Committee.

I guess this way Mary doesn't have to leave her day job.

Eric Gibson

This is a press preview-intense time of year. But before I run off to the Whitney, I must direct you to a forceful piece by Eric Gibson in today's Wall Street Journal, Ghosts in the Museum, which takes the Cleveland Museum to task for seeking court permission to partially fund its expansion by tapping the income from endowments restricted by their donors for acquisitions, and also proposes a compromise solution.

The Gibson revelation that I found particularly shocking is that Cleveland's chairman, Michael Horvitz specifically mentioned one of the four targeted benefactors, Leonard Hanna (from whose endowment the bulk of the sought funds would come), as someone who would NOT have rolled over in his grave over this gambit.

Gibson, questioning Cleveland's "communing with the dead," writes:

Had Hanna disapproved of such an action, says Mr. Horvitz, "we believe that the terms of his trust would have reflected that, but they did not. So we believe that he envisioned that possibility and that it was OK with him."

I ended my Cleveland Desecrates Donor Intent post of Sept. 1 by promising to follow up with a closer examination of the museum's "Complaint for Declaratory Judgment." I've got to get that off my back burner. Manna from Hanna will figure prominently in that stew.

But the Association of Art Museum Directors, which had told me it was reviewing the Cleveland situation, is not getting this off its own back burner. It's executive director, Janet Landay, had previously told me (as I reported in the Sept. 1 post) that AAMD had begun a review of Cleveland's actions, which "should be completed in the next few weeks....AAMD will decide after that review whether or not we will make a statement."

This statement, just in from Landay:

We won't have anything more to add until the court decision.

I just got back home from WNYC's Soundcheck Smackdown and I'm very glad to be back in the company of my husband, who occasionally DOES let me get a word in edgewise.

It appears from the comments posted on New York Public Radio's website that I won by a knockout (or rather, that the loquacious challenger, Nick Gillespie, lost it). I haven't listened to myself yet, but I know there's at least one smart move I made in this slugfest: I highlighted Nick's passing remark about his opposition to federal support of the arts.

With that did-he-really-say-that? moment, he lost all his points with most of the listeners who are involved in the artworld or who care about the future of the arts. Still, we agreed on one crucial point: Initiatives for specific cultural programs abroad should come from the bottom up, not the top down. The concepts and programming should emanate from artists and cultural institutions, not the government. As I said near the beginning, it should be CULTURAL diplomacy, not cultural DIPLOMACY. The culture comes first.

I may have more to say about some of the posted comments later. But for now, let's listen together, shall we?

John Schaefer, host of WNYC's "Soundcheck"

Now that I've been pummeled on my own blog by a CultureGrrl reader, I'm going to take some more punches on New York Public Radio's "Soundcheck Smackdown" (on which I've come out swinging once before). This time, my assailant will be Nick Gillespie, editor-in-chief of Reason Online, on the topic of "the effectiveness and appropriateness of music [and also, I hope, art!] as a diplomatic tool." WNYC's preview for today's segment is here.

Which side do you think I'm on? As usual, my views are a bit nuanced. But you can look here and here for some clues.

If all goes according to plan, Nick and I will be duking it out on New York Public Radio's (WNYC's) Soundcheck with John Schaefer, 2-2:35 p.m. on 93.9 FM in the NYC area, or live on the web (if you click the top red arrow in the lefthand column, here). I'll post the audio on CultureGrrl later today, after it's available online.

Jon Landman

I could find nothing about this yet on the NY Times' own website, but John Koblin of the NY Observer has the story: Jon Landman, the paper's deputy managing editor for digital journalism, has been named to replace new restaurant critic Sam Sifton as culture editor. Landman had this culture post once before, during a year-long, 2004-5 transitional period that ended in Sifton's editorship.

The announcement by Times executive editor, Bill Keller, published by the Observer, says nothing else about Landsman's culture creds.

What Keller does say is this:

I doubt anyone will question that Jon brings to the Culture Department a strenuous intelligence, an inspiring vision, a gift for getting the very best from people and -- no small thing as our competitive landscape shifts---a keen appreciation of what culture journalism can be on the Web.

If you want to get some more flavor about the Times' new culture editor, go to his own Talk to the Newsroom page from 2006, when he was master of all things digital.

Photographer Jill Krementz, whom I often encounter snapping the art, curators and viewers at museum press previews, is now associate editor for New York Social Diary, for which she does photo essays. She is perhaps best known for her children's book, A Very Young Dancer, the most famous of her "very young" series.

Now, more than 30 years later, it's time for the "very old" series: Here's her take at "Blake" on A Very Old Art Critic:

I was afraid that some readers would interpret in the following manner my criticism (here and here) of the National Endowment for the Arts' recent involvement in the President's "United We Serve" initiative. In these politically fractious times, I'm sure that CultureGrrl reader Eric (who asked me to withhold from publication his last name and other identifiers) is not alone in his response:

Just read about your coup d'état against some poor guy [my link, not Eric's] over at the NEA. I bet you're a proud culture girl for that! Nice work supporting lunatics like Glenn Beck for a little publicity! Frankly, I think you are aiding and abetting these same people who would happily see you in the same position. It's clear you are no artist, just another right-wing hack looking to make a name for yourself by tearing down others and this administration.

Stop pretending you are some sort of Democrat, or even an independent. Your actions speak loudly about where you stand in the culture wars. I hope that Sen. [Tom] Coburn [my link, not Eric's] has given you a nice congratulatory phone call, but I hope even more that progressive artists shun you and the crackpot ideas you seemingly support.

"Right-wing"? I'm wing-less. "Hack"? That's your call.

Send a micro-donation of either $1.50 (for the day) or $15 (for links through October) via my "Buy Now" button, below, and I'll shoot you these links: Farnsworth Museum to auction donated Wyeths, benefiting new Wyeth Endowment; Vermeer restitution claim; new book on WWII Monuments Men; the Rocco Landesman interview you shouldn't miss.

LEE'S LINKS

Today's Links $1.50 This Month's Links $15.00

While we're talking about my so-called business model, there's a new survey saying that only 51% of newspaper publishers think that the public will pay for access to online content. What percent of bloggers think readers will pony up? I don't even want to know.

But here's my exception to prove the rule: Many warm thanks go to CultureGrrl Donor 72 from Westminster, CA.

Outshown by Canada and Asia, France has proven a no-show in the CultureGrrl Geographic Challenge. Since I posted today about Pennsylvania and Indianapolis, could someone perhaps click my Donate button (middle column) from the Keystone State and/or the land of the Hoosiers? (I'll still accept a late entry from Paris, if you're feeling generous today!)

Have you noticed that my middle column is now accepting classified ads? Exhibition announcements from museums and galleries are most welcome!

Indianapolis Museum of Art (Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion)

Remember the kerfuffle over the Los Angeles County Museum's failure to provide bilingual labels for its 2007 exhibition (organized by the Philadelphia Museum), The Arts in Latin America: 1492-1820?

It appears Indianapolis has learned from LA's mistake.

Already up on the Indianapolis Museum of Art's website for its upcoming Sacred Spain: Art and Belief in the Spanish World (Oct. 11-Jan. 3) is a Spanish-language description of the show. The press release for the exhibition (which will feature some 70 works from 17th-century Spain) is also translated into Spanish. The exhibition labels will be bilingual.

I knew that Los Angeles has a substantial Latino population. But Indianapolis?

Katie Zarich, the museum's director of public affairs, fills us in:

Indianapolis does have a substantial Spanish-speaking population, which has grown rapidly over the past several years.

This raises another question: Should labels for the Metropolitan Museum's Vermeer's Masterpiece: "The Milkmaid" be translated into Dutch?

Just kidding. But there is a serious issue here: How far should museums go with this? I think that if there's a major foreign-speaking concentration of immigrants in a museum's locale, outreach efforts should include speaking that audience's language in wall texts or translated handouts, educational materials and audio guides.

UPDATE: Indianapolis will not only have a Spanish-language audio guide; it will be debuting TAP, a new iPod Touch/iPhone delivery system that provides "expert interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, on-location shoots, musical selections, x-ray imagery and other surprises" (brewing Spanish coffee?), with rentals available for those of us benighted low-techies without our own devices.

Director Don Argott

From the Toronto International Film Festival's even-handed description of the new documentary about the Barnes Foundation, "The Art of the Steal," it was difficult to discern whether the film itself was also even-handed or took sides in the contentious dispute over whether the collection of Albert Barnes should be moved from Merion to Philadelphia, contrary to his written stipulations.

Now we know.

The movie had its first of three public screenings at the festival on Saturday. Martin Knelman of the Toronto Star reports (scroll down):

This muckraking documentary, directed by Don Argott, chronicles a plan to move the legendary Barnes collection of post-Impression paintings to Philadelphia from its sleepy suburban home (contrary to the will of Dr. Barnes) as if it were the greatest art crime of all time. The film plays like a non-fiction version of a Frank Capra populist fable, portraying proponents of the move as evil, greedy, power-hungry monsters. Those already familiar with the complex facts of the case are less likely to be seduced by the film than those who are not.

I'm intimately familiar with the "complex facts," and we'll see whether or not I'm "seduced" when the film appears at the New York Film Festival later this month. Some recently got an advance look at a NYC screening for critics, but I purchased my tickets when they went on public sale yesterday. If all goes according to plan, I'll be in Row F of at Alice Tully Hall (checking out the acoustics again) on Sept. 29.

The NY Times yesterday posted a brief video of Argott talking about his film, where he asserts that he tried to be fair to proponents of the move.

Here's CBC New's report [via] on the Toronto premiere, including comments about the filmmaker:

In making the documentary, director Don Argott made a lot of powerful enemies in the city of the Liberty Bell. At the Q&A following the premiere public screening at TIFF, Argott jokingly wondered if Toronto could offer the filmmakers artistic asylum.

I'm willing to bet the Friends of the Barnes Foundation would be happy to offer him a safe house.

UPDATE: Here's Todd McCarthy of Variety's review of the film [via].

Rocco Landesman, NEA's Chairman

Last night I sent a series of questions to the Sally Gifford, Victoria Hutter (press spokespersons) and Yosi Sergant (former spokesperson) of the National Endowment for the Arts, asking (among other things) to what post at the agency Yosi has now been reassigned and why that change was made.

I also asked to be told who made the decision to change his assignment, who had originally appointed him to his former post as NEA's communications director, and when he assumed that post. My own first communication from him in his federal position was dated July 13, when he described himself as "newly appointed." Rocco Landesman was confirmed as NEA's new chairman more than three weeks later, on Aug. 7.

I received this reply to my detailed queries from Gifford, NEA's "communications specialist" (who did confirm that Sergant is "still an employee at the NEA"):

We cannot comment further at this time.

This must mean, among other things, that Sergant's current title as a public servant is classified information. (At this writing, he's still listed on NEA's website as its director of communications.) I think someone needs to provide more transparency about what's been going on lately at an agency that, last I heard, is not engaged in top-secret missions.

Gifford also sent me the following prepared statement (already quoted elsewhere) about the agency's now controversial involvement in "United We Serve" conference calls:

On Aug. 10, the National Endowment for the Arts participated in a call with arts organizations to inform them of the President's call to national service. The White House Office of Public Engagement also participated in the call, which provided information on how the Corporation for National and Community Service can assist groups interested in sponsoring service projects or having their members volunteer on other projects.

This call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda and any suggestions [my link, not theirs] to that end are simply false. The NEA regularly does outreach to various organizations to inform them of the work we are doing and the resources available to them.

Sergant, I believe, made a foolish mistake in his zeal to serve the man whom he helped get elected. It's not as big a crime as conservative commentators are trying to make it out to be. But the NEA shouldn't compound his mistake with a cover-up about what action it has now taken and why. It should also publicly explain its relationship, or lack thereof, with United We Serve and the White House Office of Public Engagement.

Kalpen Modi's job as arts liaison in that office should be to facilitate, coordinate and promote the activities of the various arts-related federal agencies, for their mutual benefit. It shouldn't be to dictate or direct their policies and programs to benefit the President's agenda, however laudable his goals may be.

I think it's time for Rocco Landesman to take charge of this mini-crisis, before it spirals out of control.

Although my Vermeer podcast is STILL not up on WNYC's website, I've now managed to embed the audio file below. Click the arrow on the left. (UPDATE: Now it's up, but there's no embed code, so I'm leaving my own rudimentary audio bar.)

As I suspected might happen, they've edited out my comment about how my imagination ran wild after hearing curator Walter Liedtke's provocative take on the picture: I started to see something other than the making of bread porridge in the thin stream of milky liquid (on which the maid's eyes are pensively focused), dripping from a brown jug's orifice into a bowl.

I'll leave it to your own fervid imagination to guess what I might be alluding to.

Johannes Vermeer, "The Milkmaid," ca. 1657-58, Rijksmuseum

The podcast for my WNYC "Vermeer" comments is still not posted on the New York Public Radio station's website at this writing, but you can be sure that I'll embed it on CultureGrrl, once it's available. (I'll also listen to it: I'm not usually an early riser, and missed it on the air!)

Meanwhile, for those of you who DID hear me, let's probe a little deeper:

Walter Liedtke, curator for the Metropolitan Museum's "Milkmaid" show, is the first to admit that his provocative take on the character of Vermeer's "Milkmaid" is at odds with conventional scholarly wisdom about this painting. He concedes as much in his must-hear podcast on the museum's own website for the show:

When you look at the painting by Vermeer, you might really object to this line of thought, because it is by no means obvious and I don't think that's all there is too it---that the Milkmaid is a kind of sex object....Since probably the early 19th century, the Milkmaid has been seen as a kind of heroine of the people---a working class woman who is extremely diligent, who runs a good household,...who performs hard work on a daily basis....

I think I'm the first scholar of Dutch art to write about the Milkmaid as something romantic. People writing books on Vermeer give it a very different spin. It's not wrong, but it's important to know what people thought about the picture in its own day.

The traditional, more wholesome take on the painting can be found in the Director's Note at the beginning of the exhibition's catalogue, where Tom Campbell writes:

In "The Milkmaid" we discover Dutch self-reliance and well-being in an individual who appears to have her own thoughts and feelings but also evokes the hard-won peace and prosperity of the Golden Age.

Yosi Sergant

The Washington Times, Washington Post and Huffington Post are among several media outlets now reporting that Yosi Sergant, who has incurred criticism for participating in a conference call promoting the agenda of President Obama's United We Serve campaign, is out as the National Endowment for the Arts' communications director. The reports say that Sergant now has another (unspecified) assignment within the agency. (I have a query in with NEA about exactly what that new assignment is, and why Sergant's role has changed.)

Sergant seems to have confused his previous promotional functions for the Obama campaign (which included working with artist Shepard Fairey to create and distribute the iconic "Hope" poster, above) with his role as a federal agency spokesperson.

LA Weekly last September described Sergant's then role as a publicist for Obama's candidacy this way:

He's worked on publicity and marketing campaigns for car companies and fashion designers, but since 2006, he has also been applying his lifestyle-marketing savvy to the candidacy of Barack Obama, specifically among those he calls "the creative community."

From Patrick Courrielche's report about the Aug. 10 "United We Serve" conference call (in which he and others from the arts community were invited to participate), it appears that Sergant may have been inappropriately "applying his lifestyle-marketing savvy" to his bully pulpit at NEA.

My own experience, on a later conference call, was somewhat different from Patrick's: There was no NEA participation. But the call's host, Kalpen Modi, associate director and arts liaison for the White House Office of Public Engagement, informed us that although NEA and NEH representatives "had other meetings that came up, ...we're definitely going to be including them in some follow-up and future calls and separate lunches that we do." On that Aug. 27 conference call, the arts community was encouraged to participate in and promote good deeds that no one---left-wing or right-wing---could possibly have found objectionable or politically sensitive.

That said, I nevertheless object to the federal government's (and, especially, NEA's) trying to herd cats---the artistic community. NEA should not be involved in an attempt to get its constituents to participate in Presidential initiatives, no matter how laudable those public-service objectives may be. The agenda for the arts community should be generated from within the arts community and should not come down from the White House.

As for Glenn Beck's professed concern for "artistic freedom," we can only hope that extends to endorsing federal support---in the form of NEA grants---for unfettered artistic expression, with no political interference from the left or right in matters of content or manner of presentation.

This contretemps has already prompted one Senator---John Cornyn (R-Texas)---to write an otherwise reasonable letter to President Obama, with this zinger at the end:

This episode appears to merit Congressional hearings and sustained oversight.

NO-O-O-O-O-O-O!

The Milkmaid's realistically rendered bread looks almost touchable. The Met's curator, Walter Liedtke, almost touches it.

"Don't say that the curator says it's about sex," the Metropolitan Museum's Golden Age master, Walter Liedtke, admonished us at the press preview for Vermeer's Masterpiece: "The Milkmaid", which opened today for a too brief two-month run (to Nov. 29).

Liedtke would prefer that we describe that small, iconic painting (on a rare journey from its home at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) as being about "attraction and restraint, and a subtle form of voyeurism."

Oh, all right: No sex, please. We're Dutch!

So what DID I say when asked about this much loved lady by WNYC radio's Soterios Johnson (with whom I have a fizzy chemistry at least as good as my rapport with print journalist Deanna Isaacs)?

Patience, art-lings. To hear "Vermeer," you'll have to wait for tomorrow's "Morning Edition"---on the radio in the NYC metropolitan area from 7-9 a.m. on 93.9 FM; from 6-8 a.m. on 820 AM; and live on the web, if you click the red arrow in the lefthand column, here, at the appropriate moment. (If I learn anything more about what specific time(s) I'll be on, I'll update at the end of this post. Later tomorrow, I'll embed the podcast on CultureGrrl, when it becomes available online.)

When you listen, see if you can discern the disconcerting moment when I tip over my cup of coffee but keep babbling into the microphone while I set it aright. (After all, I do have experience being doused by liquids!) Let's also see if the editor has left in my one off-color comment, which also had to do with fluids.

If nothing else, my contribution should provide a brief, lighthearted respite on a day heavy with 9/11 remembrances.

Velázquez, "Portrait of a Man," 27 x 21-3/4 in., Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jules Bache Collection

A painting that entered the Metropolitan Museum's collection in 1949 as a Velázquez and was downgraded in 1979 as "workshop of Velázquez" has now been restored (in both senses of the word) to the master's oeuvre. The Met's press release, hot off my inbox, is here.

According to the Met:

The identification of the sitter [once thought to be the artist himself] will doubtless be much discussed by scholars, but the attribution of the Metropolitan's painting to Velázquez seems now beyond question.

This is an auspicious beginning to Keith Christiansen's reign as successor to Everett Fahy in the eminent post of chairman of European paintings. The new scholarship (and revelatory restoration work performed by Michael Gallagher, the Met's conservator in charge of European paintings) will give rise to yet another of those engrossing masterpiece-discovery shows, like the recently closed MIchelangelo's First Painting, which thoroughly convinced me.

But can they convince me about this one? I doubt it. (But I'll try to suspend disbelief.)

UPDATE: Did I say "hot off my inbox"? I now see that Carol Vogel was given the story (and was granted interviews) well before it was e-mailed to me. Arrrgghhh!

CLARIFICATION: Some readers who didn't click the "this one" link, above, may have mistakenly (but understandably) concluded that I doubt the Velázquez attribution. It's the "Michelangelo of Fifth Avenue," featured in the Met's upcoming "The Young Archer" show, that I question. The Met, as I understand it, intends to lay out the arguments and let us judge for ourselves. Fair enough.

Planned MoMA/Hines tower's neighbors, as seen from E. 54th Street: Museum Tower, left, Financial Times Building, right. (MoMA in the middle.)

What was expected to happen has, in fact, now happened: The NY City Planning Commission this morning voted in favor of the MoMA/Hines tower designed by Jean Nouvel, with one major modification: Designs must be resubmitted to comply with the commission's stipulation that the height of the tower be reduced by 200 feet, to 1,050 feet

That would still make the MoMA Monster more than twice the height of the tallest building now on its E. 54th St. block---Emery Roth & Sons' Financial Times building, a mere 496 feet high (41 stories), compared to the 1,250 feet and 85 stories in the plan submitted by MoMA/Hines, now subject to modification. The FT building, on the corner, fronts on Avenue of the Americas, where highrise office towers are commonplace. The MoMA/Hines building would be a very tall mid-block stalagmite on E. 54th St.---a block that had been low-rise in character until a MoMA-related luxury apartment project, Museum Tower, was erected to help provide funds for the museum's 1984 Cesar Pelli expansion.

The proposed tower's postage-stamp lot (which extends from E. 53rd to E. 54th St.) is difficult to photograph, because it's now shielded by black-covered fencing. I stuck my camera through a gap in the fence on 54th St., and got this:

It's official: CultureGrrl is NOT the future of arts journalism. But the National Summit on Arts Journalism, for which five winners have been selected from those of us who entered the competition, has postponed publicly identifying the projects "that might give us a peek into the future." Can we stand the suspense, art-lings?

Now that time and the judges have passed me by, I'm going to go dust off my beloved blue IBM Selectric typewriter---the one with the nifty removable metal balls stamped with various fonts. Or should I revert to the green Hermes portable manual model? Where'd I stash that carbon paper?

I do take comfort in the knowledge that Deanna Isaacs of the Chicago Reader believes that I "have a bead on the future." So does CultureGrrl Donor 71 from San Francisco, to whom I extend my warmest thanks.

Speaking of my quest for financial validation...now that the French have finally returned from their August vacances, it's time to try to revive the CultureGrrl Donor Geographical Challenge. Canada and Asia already came through admirably. Can one of my several French amis please click my jaune "Donate" button, just to show that you care?

For those loyal readers who still believe that I do have something to say about the future of arts journalism, please note the recent addition at the top of CultureGrrl's middle column:

LEE SPEAKS on hot-button artworld issues, art blogging, journalism. To engage me as a speaker or moderator, go here. To see me in action, go here.

And I also invite you to make use of my new CultureGrrl Classifieds feature (also in the middle column), to announce gallery and museum exhibitions, programs, lectures, courses, jobs, publications, etc.

Who says I don't have a "business model"? I DO have a model; it just doesn't work very well...at least not yet!
(...as we were taught by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism to affix to the end of our typewritten copy, back when dinosaurs roamed the campus.)

Now I know what Joni Evans must feel like.

NY City Planning Commissioner Nathan Leventhal

You go, Nat!

It was NY City Planning Commissioner Nathan Leventhal who publicly raised the question about the elephant-in-the-skyline during last month's hearing on the planned MoMA/Hines tower, designed by architect Jean Nouvel.

It was the simplest of queries from a sophisticated interlocutor---the former president of Lincoln Center, whose early career included a stint as the city's Commissioner of Rent and Housing Maintenance (at which time I interviewed him for a piece in the NY Times Real Estate section):

Would this be the tallest building in the city?

The correct answer (not forthcoming at the hearing) was that, at 1,250 feet, Nouvel's glass tower would have equaled the height (without antenna) of NYC's tallest edifice, the Empire State Building. By assembling air rights from three nearby facilities that couldn't use them and could profit by selling them, it would have become a colossus on a postage-stamp site.

But if all goes as expected, the City Planning Commission tomorrow will vote to lop 200 feet off Nouvel's soaring ambitions.

At the commission's review session today, which I attended, Edith Hsu-Chen, director of City Planning's Manhattan office, read these excerpts from the CPC's draft report on the MoMA/Hines project:

The Commission notes that the proposed design of the building is exemplary, and that the building---its tapered, sculpted form, unique diagrid structure and curtain wall, and overall quality---would be a strong addition to the City and its architecture.

However, the Commission believes that the applicant has not made a convincing argument that the design of the tower's top (the uppermost 200 feet of the building) merits being in the zone of the Empire State Building's iconic spire, making the building the second tallest building in New York City. This part of the building would have the greatest impact on the City's skyline and the Commission notes that it appears that less attention has been paid to this portion of the building when compared to the rest of the structure.

In particular, the Commission is not satisfied with the attempts at incorporating mechanical equipment into the tower top, which results in a tower top with highly visible mechanical equipment. Therefore, as a condition of its approval and to minimize adverse effects on the character of the surrounding area, the Commission is modifying the application to reduce the height of the building to 1,050 feet.

When I know more, you'll know more.

An early model of Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Abu Dhabi

I couldn't leave to see Vermeer's "Milkmaid" without spilling this tidbit from Page A16 of today's NY Times---an ad with an image of a Frank Gehry model at the bottom, enigmatically titled, "Request for Interested Contractors to Submit Pre-qualification."

"Pre-qualification for what?" you ask.

For the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, of course. From the ad we learn that "the estimated cost of construction is in excess of $750 million." Companies that had turnovers of less than $1 billion in 2008 need not apply. Application fees of $10,000 must accompany your completed "pre-qualification questionnaire."

For more details that have emerged about the project, including names of three builders said to be planning to compete, go to a report published on Friday in Business Intelligence Middle East. I tried to confirm that article's details with the Guggenheim. But the museum's spokesperson, Eleanor Goldhar, referred me to Abu Dhabi's Tourism Development and Investment Company. I have a query pending there.

Inadequately adorned wall, facing the High Line. Calling Knox Martin!

Those of you who read my Twitter tweets know that one of the places I visited during my Labor Day Weekend Staycation was the High Line, Diller Scofidio+ Renfro's brilliant transformation (with a major assist from James Corner Field Operations, the landscape architects) of New York's derelict elevated train tracks into a glorious urban park. [CLARIFICATION: An associate with James Corner wrote to point out that the landscape architects, not DS+R, got top billing on this project.]

I did not have the good fortune to witness any of the "amateur skin shows" that the Lauren Collins of the New Yorker informs us can be spied through "the floor-to-ceiling windows of the new Standard Hotel, at Thirteenth Street." Nor did I feel a bit of nostalgia for the site's former seediness, as does the NY Times' Ashley Gilbertson, who found herself "wishing that the High Line had never been touched," and tried, unsuccessfully, to prove her point by juxtaposing before-and-after photos of the straightaway.

I took delight in the delight of the perambulators---mostly young adults but surprisingly few young children (perhaps because of the raunchy sideshow described by the Times?). I particularly appreciated the clever integration of the rusted tracks, overgrown with weed-like plantings, into a thoroughly modern, scruffily groomed oasis.

Here's a particularly complex interaction of tracks and plantings.

Glenn Beck seems to be careening wildly around the artworld lately. But the clip that actually has significance (and some validity) is not his wacky rant about Communist iconography lurking in the adornments of Rockefeller Center.

The Beck clip that deserves notice (below, via) addresses the Obama administration's attempt to rally the art brigades around its social-service agenda. Particularly noteworthy is the audio recording played about six minutes into the clip---the voice of Yosi Sergant, director of communications for the National Endowment for the Arts, saying the following to the members of the arts community who participated in the White House's United We Serve conference call on Aug. 10:

Bear with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely. And we can really work together to move the needle to get stuff done.

Whatever your politics---left, right, agnostic---you should have a "did he really say that?" moment when an NEA spokesperson exhorts artists and other members of the art community to "work together to move the needle to get stuff done." In their zeal to further President Obama's service initiative, various government officials, including Kalpen Modi, Associate Director, White House Office of Public Engagement (who hosted last Thursday's arts-service conference call), overstepped in trying to herd cats---the artistic community. Whatever you think of Beck and Patrick Courrielche (who joined him on the video, below) they're right (with a small "r") on this issue.

That said, you won't catch me responding to any beckoning from Beck (not that he's asked!). We can only hope he'll be as forceful in defending artistic freedom if conservative Congressmen ever try to interfere with the NEA's proper work, which is to support artistic excellence and to help artists and cultural institutions further their OWN agendas, enriching our cultural life.

(Speaking of enrichment, many thanks to CultureGrrl Donor 70 from Chicago who, from the size of his benefaction, must have believed my Chicago Reader hype!)

Below are Beck and Courrielche, followed by two bonus video links:



While we're enjoying videos...for those of you who have already viewed Beck's viral Communist iconography diatribe, go here to see Keith Olbermann's even more unhinged parody of it, which I caught last night on MSNBC. Where's Jon Stewart when we really need him?

Send a micro-donation of either $1.50 (for the day) or $15 (through September) via my "Buy Now" button, below, and I'll shoot you these links: Christie's charges French buyers for resale royalties; New French Culture Minister; Poussin's Priapus revealed; live nude on London's Fourth Plinth; live nude in Metropolitan Museum's gallery.

Are we seeing a warm-weather trend here?

LEE'S LINKS

Today's Links $1.50 This Month's Links $15.00

It's only in the glorious twilight(?) of my career that I've been experiencing journalism as a subject (because of my blogging prominence), as well as a practitioner. I now know firsthand the frustration of talking to an interviewer who seems to have difficulty taking notes, let alone understanding what I'm saying.

Then there's the smart and empathetic Deanna Isaacs, who interviewed me at length for Who Wants to Be the Future of Arts Journalism?. Her report, pegged to the National Summit on Arts Journalism, has just been posted on the website of the Chicago Reader, a venerable alternative weekly, itself struggling to find a financially viable journalism model for the future.

Deanna seemed to "get it" from the get-go, but I never expected to be so prominently (and flatteringly) featured in her piece (which gave the most space to comments by ArtsJournal's founder/editor, Doug McLennan).

Here are excerpts from Deanna's first paragraph:

Lee Rosenbaum, the veteran east-coast journalist behind the CultureGrrl blog, seemed to have a bead on the future. Her smart, breezy, deeply informed, and brazenly opinionated posts focused on visual art, especially art museums, and she had a faithful following among museum professionals. (Her other gigs have included frequent freelance contributions to the Wall Street Journal, where she reported, for instance, on the recent opening of the Art Institute's Modern Wing.)...When Rosenbaum announced this spring that she was stepping back from daily blogging because she hadn't found a way to make it pay (and needed to devote her time to something that might, like a book), it was sobering. Isn't the online arena where all journalism is headed?

Well, you all know how successful I was about "stepping back." Deanna gets into that too...at the end of her piece.

Addiction is hard to kick. But where are my enablers? It appears that my old and new "Donate" and "Buy Now" yellow buttons in the middle column are nodding off. I need a hit, art-lings, or I might just go cold turkey and write that book (probably a GOOD thing!).

Michael Botwinick, director of the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY, and former director of the Brooklyn Museum, responds to Bricks-and-Mortar Morass: Cleveland Desecrates Donor Intent:

As someone who has been around the professional art world for 40 years (beginning as an assistant curator of medieval art and the Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum), I think Cleveland's action is cause for great concern.
 
There is nothing "mysterious" [the term used in Michael Thomas' BlogBack] about the donor intent in this case. What part of "...and shall be used by said Museum for the purchase of works of art to be exhibited in its museum building" (Wade Trust) is "mysterious"? What don't we understand about "...and the net income therefrom paid in perpetuity to the Cleveland Museum of Art for the purchase of works of art" (Severance Trust)?
 
The Cleveland trustees devoted much time and care in approving a substantial physical expansion of the museum. There is no question that the expansion was consistent with the importance and quality of Cleveland's collections and the distinguished professionals who staffed it. In making the decision to proceed, they committed the Museum to significant expenditure. As the money was not all in hand when they began, they made a judgment that it would be found in a timely fashion.
 
In other words, they took a calculated risk. It was their right and duty as trustees to make such judgments. We cannot expect them to have foreseen every consequence, including the one they now face. But we can expect them to accept that they bear the responsibility of facing up to the consequences.
 
The recent economic collapse has made the expansion plan an enormous challenge and perhaps a serious problem. We cannot and should not judge, in retrospect, whether they ought to have done it. But as fiduciaries, the trustees must now fix the problem.
 
"Taxing" endowments given for the express and specific purpose of purchasing art is not an acceptable option. The trustees must consider "taxing" their own resources to finish the building. Failing that they must make the hard decision to suspend, delay or reduce the project, pending funding. It will be embarrassing, unpopular and uncomfortable.  But they made this bed; now they must lie in it. They don't get to draft Wade, Severance, Marlatt and Hanna to lie in this particular bed as their stand-ins.

But we DO get to see how the donors drafted the terms of their gifts. COMING SOON.

Ted Gallagher, a self-described attorney "with a strong amateur art historic streak," responds to Michael Thomas's BlogBack that took issue with my post on the Cleveland Museum's proposed diversion of acquisitions funds to its capital campaign:

Michael Thomas bends logic beyond all reckoning. He grants the Cleveland Museum leave to invade dedicated acquisition funds for high-end building projects because "no art museum in America has adhered for as long to the highest cultural and ethical standards." So, is he saying that as long as a museum operates properly and ethically for a good long while, the rules of donor relations can be flouted?

Yes, it may very well be an emergency, as he says: "They need to finish their building. They need to get the money somewhere." But Thomas doesn't defend donors' rights to dedicate funds to a specific purpose. He doesn't propose, alternatively, that the museum seek to "borrow" from the donors, with a promise to repay the loan with interest. The only thing getting "real" here is the sure loss of future donations, where trust is the coin of the realm.

COMING TOMORROW: An art museum director, in another BlogBack, cleaves to my Cleveland position.

Kalpen Modi, Associate Director, White House Office of Public Engagement

I fear that my fears about a culture czar are being realized.

Thankfully, we still don't have a cabinet-level Secretary of Culture, but we do have Kalpen Modi, Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, who, in a conference call last week, sought to rally the artworld troops behind President Obama's call for Americans to engage in public service.

It's a worthwhile objective, to be sure. But government exhortations for artists to join the United We Serve brigade makes me more than a little uneasy. Many, if not most, of our most important and influential artists and cultural institutions are impelled by self-driven creative imperatives, not external political ones. That's the way it SHOULD be.

As I commented when the controversy over Quincy Jones' call for a Culture Secretary briefly surfaced:

More government oversight will inevitably lead to more government interference and control.

During last week's conference call (on which I was a lurker, after a waiting period rendered nearly unendurable by our being a captive audience for three clunkers from Kenny G's "Greatest [or Worst] Hits" album), there was much talk of finding ways to "get the arts community engaged in a sustainable way" and "leveraging federal dollars" to get artists and cultural organizations involved in social-service projects.

Americans for the Arts, whose president, Robert Lynch, played a leading role during the conference call, has launched a United We Serve arts website, where you can "share your story" on how "arts make change happen." Among the highlights: "The Ultimate Happy Hour at Gap, Inc." and the "United We Serve Arts Idea Kit."

This was the second such conference call: In a post on the Big Hollywood blog (excerpted yesterday by the Wall Street Journal), Patrick Courrielche, who reported that he was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to participate in the first telephone discussion on Aug. 10, came away fearing that the arts were at risk of "becoming a tool of the state."

Courrielche wrote:

It sounded, how should I phrase it...unusual that the NEA would invite the art community to a meeting to discuss issues currently under vehement national debate. I decided to call in, and what I heard concerned me....

Throughout the conversation, my inner dialogue was firing away questions....Is this truly the role of the NEA? Is building a message distribution network, for matters other than increasing access to the arts and arts education, the role of the National Endowment for the Arts?

At the beginning of the second conference call, last Thursday, Modi informed us that "unfortunately our colleagues from NEA and NEH [the National Endowment for the Humanites]" were tied up in meetings and couldn't participate, as had been planned.

Could it be they were having second thoughts about commandeering their constituents for this political adventure? We can only hope so.

One of those who added personal comments to the webpage announcing Thursday's conference call said it best:

Am I the only one creeped out by this? The White House is asking the arts community to produce propaganda for its agenda---as if that was not already happening to an alarming level in a democracy....By saying this, am I gonna get on the "bad list" at the White House?

I'm "creeped out" too...even though, like many on the call, I supported and (with reservations) still support the agenda of the new President.

Michael M. Thomas, author, journalist and verteran artworld commentator, responds to Bricks-and-Mortar Morass: Cleveland Desecrates Donor Intent:

As someone who has been around the professional art world for 50 years (beginning, way back when, as a curatorial assistant in European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum), I must say I don't think Cleveland's action is cause for this much keening and rending of garments. No art museum in America has adhered for as long to the highest cultural and ethical standards.

This is clearly an emergency. They need to finish their building. They need to get the money somewhere. "Donor intent" is a mysterious quantity. Are we hearing from the heirs or connections of the donors of the funds Cleveland proposes to "invade"?

High horses are all very well, but sometimes can run pretty rank when one gets real.

Cleveland Museum of Art's new Viñoly-designed East Wing

The Cleveland Museum last week filed for court permission (as first reported here by the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Steve Litt) to deviate from the terms of charitable funds established by four major supporters. The benefactors had stipulated that their gifts be applied to the acquisition of art, not bricks and mortar.

Cleveland's legal quest to divert income from those funds to its capital campaign is, to my mind, the most egregious disregard of donor intent by an art-displaying institution in recent memory.

In its court filings, the museum did not argue (as did the Barnes Foundation, Fisk University and the National Academy) that it needed relaxation of ethical guidelines or donor restrictions because its very survival was at stake. It wants to use the money to help fund the second phase of its 200,000-square-foot Rafael Viñoly-designed expansion. The projected cost of the museum's ambitious capital project (which included construction of its East Wing, above, which opened in June) ballooned from $258 million in 2005 to $350 million as of mid-2008---just before the economic bubble burst. The museum has already demolished its 1958 and 1983 wings---the first part of the project's second phase.

This episode is all the more lamentable because, unlike other art-exhibiting institutions that have toyed with donor intent, Cleveland is a premier art museum and belongs to the Association of Art Museum Directors, whose members purport to uphold and promote the highest ethical standards of responsible governance.

I will discuss the museum's legal arguments in a subsequent post. But first, what does AAMD think?

Litt reports:

[Timothy] Rub [the museum's director], who will leave next month to take over the Philadelphia Museum of Art, said that using art-purchase income for construction would not violate ethical guidelines of the Association of Art Museum Directors, the lead organization of the nation's largest art museums.