Feeling Sugary, Post-Surgery: A Paean to Good Ideas

The Critic Sees
(Image from Mayo Clinic website)

Can CultureGrrl be sweet?

In gratitude and relief that my cataract surgery went well (or so I think---bandage comes off tomorrow), I'm dropping my usually truculent persona to applaud a few recent developments.

I'm still recovering from the disconcerting experience of being completely conscious for the entire procedure, hearing words like "surprise" and "short eye" and "I need to close this up," while seeing and feeling nothing. I was told it went perfectly. (Then again, would they tell me right after the operation if it hadn't?) We'll soon see. (Pun intended).

I should mention that my sight, pre-operation, was fine, except for my night-driving vision, which was compromised by glare. (I'll admit, thought, that Jasper Johns "Flag" did look awfully blurry!)

Maybe this is a good time to revisit the late Monet. Gagosian Gallery describes its show as "attesting to the modernity of Monet's expanded vision." But is also attests to his cataract vision, as I learned when I saw the Boston Museum of Fine Arts' 1998 Monet in the 20th Century show, organized by the same curator in charge of the current Gagosian show, Paul Hayes Tucker.

Although CultureGrrl rarely takes things nice and easy, I'm disposed to be kindly disposed today. So here are some things deserving of praise:

---The Blue Star Museums initiative, spearheaded by Rocco Landesman, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, whereby some 600 museums will offer free admission to all active duty military personnel and their families from Memorial Day through Labor Day. This is a program where NEA gets to do good without spending money. It would be interesting to know how many people tale advantage of the program.

---The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation's new Panza Collection initiative to comprehensively evaluate and conserve the Conceptual, Minimalist, Post-Minimalist and environmental works, by such artists as Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Bruce Nauman and Lawrence Weiner. Jeffrey Weiss, most recently (but not very long) at the Dia Foundation has been named as the first curator of the Guggenheim's Panza Collection, overseeing a project that has received a three-year, $1.23-million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. If only they had a generous space dedicated to rotating displays from the collection.

Wait a minute! Rumors are circulating (in an unsigned Art+Auction post) that the Whitney is in talks to lease its original uptown Breuer building to the Metropolitan Museum, if the Downtown Whitney actually comes to fruition. When I asked the Met about this, I got the expected "We cannot comment." When I asked the Whitney (in an e-mail to its press office), I got no reply whatsoever.

Wouldn't that be a great place for the Guggenheim's Panza trove? Then again, should the Whitney really be giving up its signature building?

---Tutmania has again gripped New York, not only at the commercially organized Discovery Center show from Egypt, but at the city's nonprofit museums. The synergy that I'd like to see among the cultural institutions in New York is coalescing around Tut, although not so much in the spirit of cooperation as in an effort to capitalize on the buzz from Zahi Hawass' extravaganza. (Or it could just be a happy coincidence.)

The Mummy Chamber at the Brooklyn Museum is a long-term installation, not just Tut coattails. The Met, however, has explicitly tied its current show, Tutankamun's Funeral, to the Discovery Center's exhibition:

"This installation complements a major exhibition of treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamun on view Apr. 23, 2010-Jan. 2, 2011, at Discovery Times Square Exposition," according to the Met's online description.

I'll get to Times Square Tut eventually, but I'm not in any great hurry to visit the latest stop on the never-ending tour. I already caught (and criticized) the show in its Philadelphia incarnation,

I think I've failed in my mission: Even when I'm trying to be nice, I'm not THAT nice. Maybe I need more practice (and also removal of the pirate's patch on my right eye)!