July 2010 Archives

Brandeis in the fall

Brandeis University's embattled Rose Art Museum finds itself without a fall show...again.

The Boston Globe reported today that James Rosenquist suddenly had second thoughts about supplying his works for a one-man show that had been hastily scheduled at the embattled museum after three other artists---Bill Viola, Eric Fischl and April Gornik---had abruptly pulled out of an exhibition of their works that had been scheduled to open in September. Their decision had been a gesture of protest against Brandeis' refusal to renounce any future sales of works from its collection to address the university's financial shortfalls.

The Globe's Geoff Edgers writes:

Rosenquist said that complications in the aftermath of a fire last year, which destroyed his Florida home and studio, about $18 million worth of art, and personal items, have made it too difficult for him to participate in the exhibition, which was to have opened Sept. 22 featuring some of his massive paintings, along with other works.

The stage is set: Photo of Lea Bondi

[More on the settlement, here and here.]

The lobby of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York had the festive air of a Bar Mitzvah reception, sans liquor and hors d'oeuvres, with perhaps 50 farflung Bondis from all generations reuniting for the ceremony celebrating the $19-million settlement from the Leopold Museum, Vienna, to the heirs of Lea Bondi Jaray, the Austrian Jew from whom Egon Schiele's "Portrait of Wally" was wrongfully expropriated by the Nazis in 1939.

Although aware of the dangers of staying put during the Nazi era, Lea had resisted leaving Vienna without her cherished painting. She relented at the wise insistence of her husband, but spent the rest of her life trying to reclaim her still astonishingly luminous masterpiece, which cast its spell on me today at a press viewing before this morning's commemoration of her memory and celebration of the settlement:


Egon Schiele, "Portrait of Wally," 1912

Before providing my own information and commentary (in a subsequent post), I yield the floor to two of the speakers at this morning's gathering. First, Andre Bondi, Lea's grandnephew, who spoke movingly and emotionally of his father Henry's efforts to right a historic wrong. When Andre tearfully ended with a description of his late father's reaction to a favorable legal development in the protracted case, there were few dry eyes in the house:



Next come comments from former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, whose 11th-hour subpoena (subsequently quashed), temporarily prevented the painting's being returned from an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art to its Austrian lender, Rudolf Leopold, buying time for prosecutors to put together a plausible legal case for restitution.

In his remarks, Morgenthau hit a couple of off-key notes: He called his desperate attempt to restrain the painting a "Hail Mary." (I admit, though, that I can't come up with a good Hebrew or Yiddish equivalent.) More surprisingly, in comments that came before those captured in my video clip, the D.A. extended his thanks to the Leopold Museum for agreeing to the settlement. Had he perused the jarringly unconciliatory statement issued by the Leopold Museum Private Foundation (more on that in a subsequent post), Morgenthau might have been a bit less thankful. [UPDATE: When I last checked, the above link to the museum foundation's statement had ceased working. But, for now, you can find the statement by going here and then clicking on "Portrait of Wally Returns to Vienna."]



I happened to share the elevator with Morgenthau as he headed from the ceremony to the gallery where the painting is displayed (through Aug. 18, after which it will return to the Leopold Museum).

Suddenly, a strange thought occurred to me:

Q: Mr. Morgenthau, have you ever seen the painting?
A: No, I haven't.

I couldn't quite believe it, so I asked again as we walked towards the gallery:

Q: You really never set eyes on the painting, during all the years when it was in storage?
A: No.

So it was with great anticipation that I hoisted my mini-video camera for the fateful encounter.

Here's what I saw:



He walked right past it! He never so much as glanced at the comely "Wally," focusing instead on the other luminaries with whom he was about to share a photo-op. At the end of the above clip, you can hear him telling Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, "Someone asked me if this was the first time I saw it."

Here are the museum's director, the heirs' spokesperson and assorted legal honchos, ready for their close-up. ("Wally" was to the right, beyond my camera's range.)


Left to right: David Marwell, director, Museum of Jewish Heritage; James Hayes, special agent-in-charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Andre Bondi, Lea Bondi Jaray's grandnephew; Howard Spiegler, attorney for Lea Bondi Jaray's estate; Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York; Robert Morgenthau, former Manhattan District Attorney and current chairman, Museum of Jewish Heritage

Although I had stopped filming, I watched Morgenthau's face the entire time. As far as I could see, he never set eyes on the breathtaking masterpiece that had been the object of his quest for justice.

As we exited the gallery together, I couldn't resist asking Morgenthau if he had looked at the painting. He quipped:

Beautiful. It's one of my best works!

In a sense, I suppose, he was right.

COMING SOON: Some offstage heroes of the "Portrait of Wally" settlement.

The museum's director, Tom Sokolowski, had previously escorted our press group through a tour of his Downtown Pittsburgh institutionThe most important temporary display, which Sokolowski left us with too little time to explore on our own, analyzed a match made in heaven (much more so than Picasso/Degas)---a show entitled Twisted Pair: Marcel Duchamp/Andy Warhol, curated by Matt Wrbican, the museum's archivist.

Included were a canny juxtaposition of a Duchamp bottle rack with a Warhol array of dusty Coke bottles arranged in a sectioned crate, as well as a 1963 snapshot by actor Dennis Hopper (currently the subject of LA MOCA's critically slammed retrospective) showing Warhol, the actor/writer Taylor Mead (longtime member of Andy's circle), and Hopper's then wife, Brooke Hayward, who were all on hand for the opening of Duchamp's retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum.
$17,000 in cash, and, let us not forget, the widely reported autographed poster of the nude Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

Janet Landay, AAMD's executive director: Who's in charge here?

This appears to be a case of the left side of the mouth not knowing what the right side is saying:

As I reported on Monday, Kaywin Feldman, the new president of the Association of Art Museum Directors, stated in her July President's Message, posted on AAMD's website, that member institutions (including her own Minneapolis Institute of Arts) "are posting lists of objects to be [emphasis added] deaccessioned on their websites." In other words, the public would get a heads-up in advance of disposals.

But wait a minute! This just in from Janet Landay, AAMD's executive director, in response to my request for examples of institutions now giving the public notice of "objects to be deaccessioned":

I'm happy to clarify regarding Kaywin's President's Message. She was referring to the new AAMD deaccessioning policy and the provision: "A member museum should publish on its website within a reasonable period of time works that have been deaccessioned and disposed of." The policy doesn't require museums to post in advance of deaccessioning, but of course they are free to do so.

Have any institutions (other than Indianapolis) done so? That had been my question, which received no answer.

Perhaps Kaywin is the best interpreter of her own President's Message, which clearly endorses prior notice of proposed disposals, as a way to "demystify common museum practices and increase public confidence in the stewardship of our cultural heritage." But did she miscommunicate when she referred to "objects to be deaccessioned"?

"To be," or not "to be"?

Once Journalist X finally does get around to publishing his or her exclusive interview with Feldman, perhaps AAMD's leader will communicate directly with the rest of us and her meaning (or lack thereof) will become clear.

Anne-Marie Wagener, director of press and PR at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA), responds to AAMD Tweets Again: President Feldman's Inaugural Missive:

Just to let you know that you are correct in saying that the MIA does not have any deaccessions posted online. That's because we do not currently have any deaccessions in the queue. In Kaywin's letter she did say that the MIA, along with other museums, will post lists of deaccessioned objects in future and that's exactly the process we're in now.

We have a Collections Development Plan that was created last year by the curators as required by our assistant director of curatorial affairs, Matthew Welch. I've just spoken with Matthew who explained that this fiscal year (which started July 1), as part of the plan, the curators have been charged with reviewing portions of their collections, identifying objects for possible deaccessioning, and writing justifications for review by the director and a trustee committee.

So we're just beginning to compile lists of works for deaccessioning in the future. I hope this helps clarify the MIA's position on the issue and we will certainly be posting upcoming deaccessions as they happen.

Still no word about what other AAMD member museums (aside from the Indianapolis Museum of Art) have committed to posting deaccessioned objects in advance of their proposed disposal.

Kaywin Feldman

Having dipped its toes into the roiling social-media waters with its AAMDIndy tweets (which chronicled last month's annual meeting), the Association of Art Museum Directors recently launched a permanent MuseumDirectors page on Twitter. At this writing, it features only one substantive tweet---a link to Kaywin Feldman's first president's letter. That missive includes an important nugget of information that was news to me.

Feldman writes:

Many museums, including the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, where I work, are posting lists of objects to be deaccessioned on their websites.

I have long been a proponent of museums' giving the public a heads-up about works selected to be expelled from the public domain, before those disposals have already become a done deal. But I was familiar only with the Indianapolis Museum of Art's efforts in that regard. I have searched in vain for a link to prospective (or even completed) disposals on Minneapolis' website. (There's nothing about this on that museum's web page for Collection-Related Online Resources.)

I have a query in to AAMD and Minneapolis for that link, as well as for details about other museums that have taken a laudable leap towards greater transparency about proposed art sales. I'll update here, if and when I get an answer. [For update, go here.]

Feldman's letter features a non-working (at this writing) link to a must-read ARTnews article by Robin Cembalest, about AAMD's strategic plan and new initiatives. Another non-working link references Feldman's own letter to the NY Times, rebutting the Brooklyn Museum-bashing article by Robin Pogrebin.

Arnold Lehman, the Brooklyn Museum's longtime director, has gotten so accustomed to being picked on by pesky journalists and (occasionally) his own colleagues that he must have been rubbing his eyes in disbelief upon seeing these words of high praise from AAMD's new president:

Under Arnold Lehman's leadership, the Brooklyn Museum has been ahead of the curve in addressing a critical question: What makes a museum relevant in the 21st century, and to whom is the museum relevant?...The Brooklyn Museum has clearly been successful [in] drawing diverse audiences and establishing the museum as a place that matters to its community.

Still, Arnold's pleasure must have been short lived. Kaywin's letter was followed (on the same NY Times letter page) by this derisive missive hurled by Selma Holo, director of the University of Southern California's Fisher Museum of Art and its International Museum Institute:

The Brooklyn Museum has been suckered into the belief that a museum's success can be determined solely by its attendance. It navigates between the shoals of entertainment and education with the so-called edutainment strategy. (The fact is, Disneyland does the entertainment part better.)

As I recently wrote here (in response to Pogrebin's piece and before the publication of Feldman's and Holo's letters), there's a whole lot more to the Brooklyn Museum than "Star Wars" and its like.

But what we all really want to know is: When is Kaywin-favored Journalist X going to publish his or her long-awaited exclusive interview with AAMD's new president? (Or did I somehow manage to miss it?)

Egon Schiele, "Portrait of Wally," 1912

It's getting to be a familiar scenario: After years of legal wrangling, a cultural-property dispute gets settled in favor of the claimants, right on the brink of the trial date.

It happened last year, when the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum settled with the heirs of Paul and Elsa von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, the Nazi-era owners of two major Picassos---MoMA's "Boy Leading a Horse" and the Guggenheim's "Le Moulin de la Galette."

And now Herrick, Feinstein, a preeminent law firm in restitution cases, has just dropped this breaking news in my inbox:

The Estate of Lea Bondi Jaray (the "Estate") announced today that the United States Government, the Estate and the Leopold Museum Privat-Stiftung (the "Leopold Museum") have agreed to settle the long-pending case of " United States of America v. Portrait of Wally," which was about to go to trial before Chief Judge Loretta Preska in federal court in Manhattan on July 26, 2010.

The law firm's complete announcement of the settlement is here.

Unlike the MoMA/Guggenheim case, the terms of the Leopold settlement have been publicly disclosed: According to the law firm's announcement, the Leopold Museum will pay $19 million to the estate of the woman from whom the painting was said to have been confiscated by the Nazis. Before the painting returns to the Leopold Museum, it will be exhibited again in New York, "at the Museum of Jewish Heritage---A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, ...beginning with a ceremony commemorating the legacy of Lea Bondi Jaray and the...resolution of the lawsuit," according to the announcement.

This 1912 Schiele painting has been hidden away in storage for more than a decade, while the case dragged on. As I wrote for the Wall Street Journal, back in 1999:

If there were habeas corpus for paintings, "Portrait of Wally" would have been released by now.

"Wally" has been in legal limbo ever since the Museum of Modern Art borrowed it from the collection of Viennese ophthalmologist Rudolf Leopold for an exhibition in 1997. (The case outlived Leopold, who died last month.) If nothing else, American museums have learned from this dispute the necessity of applying for federal immunity-from-seizure protection for international loans.

My ArtsJournal blogging colleague Judith Dobrzynski owns this story. I expect that she'll have more to say.

[CLARIFICATION: Due to the Philadelphia Museum's inaccurate characterizations of the images that it originally sent me, my comparative analysis, below, of "The Gross Clinic," before and after conservation, is in error. For my clarifying post, with the correct before-and-after images, please go here.]

This is going to take some getting used to.

Thomas Eakins' celebrated "The Gross Clinic," purchased jointly for $68 million in 2007 by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, is being returned to public view on Saturday as part of a larger exhibition, after a startlingly transformative restoration overseen by Mark Tucker, the museum's vice chair of conservation and senior conservator of paintings. The overall tonality of the painting is now considerably less dramatic and more subdued, "as Eakins intended it to be," according to the Philadelphia Museum's press release.

What I'm wondering is how the entire cast of the painting has changed so dramatically, through a restoration that the museum insists was accomplished strictly by filling in losses. It does appear (from comments made to the Philadelphia Inquirer, below) that the conservators painted over Eakins' underpainting, from which the top layers had been scrubbed away by overzealous restorers in the 1920s.

See for yourself. Here are the before and after pictures, provided by the museum:

BEFORE:


Thomas Eakins, "The Gross Clinic," 1875, before restoration, Philadelphia Museum of Art and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

AFTER:


The same painting, after restoration

The restorers themselves acknowledged the difficult issues posed by this over-cleaned painting, in the conservation information posted on the Philadelphia Museum's Gross Clinic website:

For many years, owners and restorers often did not understand the intentional low key of Eakins's paintings, and felt they would be improved if they looked brighter and higher in contrast. Cleanings motivated by such thinking broke through and removed the final veils of paint Eakins had used to perfect the relationships of tones.

The lighter and more colorful foundation layers exposed by overcleaning were never meant to be seen in finished pictures. This is what happened in the "The Gross Clinic's" operating theater tunnel; Eakins underpainted it in the red-orange color, adding the dark tone and figures to the painting at a later point. Attempting to lighten this dark passage, a restorer in the 1920's discovered the color underneath and, for whatever reason, preferring it to Eakins's deep tone, inappropriately uncovered it.

By clicking the Conservation Plan tab on the same website, we also learn:

The removal of the 1961 varnish and retouching in the cleaning will reveal the actual state of The Gross Clinic, that is, the condition of Eakins's paint with all the alterations and incidental damages incurred over 134 years exposed. At that stage of the treatment, the visual gap separating the painting's present appearance from the way it looked originally will be widest; however, what survives of Eakins's own work will also be clearest.

The question of what should be done, ethically, philosophically, and practically, to reconcile the changed appearance of a painting with its original state is the defining challenge at the core of every restoration. The path to be taken in our restoration of "The Gross Clinic" will be the subject of ongoing discussion as we move through the present examination phase, and into the treatment.

The museum's officials discussed the outcome of that "ongoing discussion" with Stephan Salisbury of the Philadelphia Inquirer, for his recent article on the restoration.

Salisbury reports their somewhat defensive comments:

"It's only by patching in at a microscopic level every little loss that we see here and working with the documentation that the picture starts to come together again," Tucker [the conservator] said.

"He's not covering up any of Eakins' paint. He's just filling the damages," interjected [Kathleen] Foster [senior curator of American art].

"Restoration is provisional. It reflects taste," Tucker said. "It used to be denied that it reflected taste, but we admit the bias. So in this restoration we are going to take the tunnel back tonally to where it is here [in a 1875-76 Eakins wash drawing]. Now the rules of conservation say you can't change the known character of the original. Well, we're not doing that. We're changing a damaged area. This is not original paint surface. This is an underpainting....

Said Foster: "It's completely reversible. You can get back to this [unrestored state] at any time."

I'll be unable to attend Thursday's "Gross Clinic" press preview; I'll be elsewhere in the same state on a five-day work-cation (posting sporadically, if at all, until next week). But I'll be delighted, when I do get the chance to visit, to see my wish at last granted: Thomas Eakins' two medical masterpieces---"The Gross Clinic" and "The Agnew Clinic"---will finally be exhibited side-by-side.

Although both have long resided in Philly, this is said to be the first time that they've been seen together in the same room.


Eakins, "The Agnew Clinic," 1889, on long-term loan to Philadelphia Museum from the University of Pennsylvania

Over at HuffPost Arts, I've amplified a bit on my recent CultureGrrl post about the Museum of Modern Art's new Matisse show.

I included a couple of additional photos and quoted from the conclusion of curator John Elderfield's remarks to the press, which got cut off at the end of my CultureGrrl Video.

When I opened my July 26 issue of the New Yorker today, I was amused to find Peter Schjeldahl's review of the show accompanied by a huge, across-the-fold image of the same painting that I had caught him staring at during the press preview:


Schjeldahl eyeballing Matisse's "Blue Nude," 1907, from the Baltimore Museum's Cone Collection

Like me, Schjeldahl regarded this show as "largely a forensic exercise, attended by scholarly minutiae and the lavish use of X-rays, infrared reflectograms laser scanning, and other current gadgets of the field....Their [the curators'] finicky documentation...puts me in mind of meteorologists taking barometric readings outdoors in a hurricane. Their findings are obviously germane but well short of compelling, in terms of a viewer's experience."

The paintings and sculptures may be timed-ticketed blockbuster material, but the dry interpretive texts surely aren't. It seemed that the preeminent Matisse expert Elderfield, in talking to the press, understood the need to hit all the artistic points that the labels had missed in the organizers' zeal to set before us all the nuggets of information about Matisse's methods that had been scientifically excavated.

I'll have a bit more to say about one of the paintings in the show, probably next week.

Last Wednesday I reported that Brandeis University's Rose Art Museum had suddenly subbed a Rosenquist exhibition for its previously announced fall show, "Atmospheric Conditions," which was to have featured works by Bill Viola, Eric Fischl and April Gornik.

The museum's website had said (and still says, at this writing) that the original show was postponed due to "scheduling conflicts." I suggested last week that this development was "perhaps another sympton of [the Rose's] disarray."

On Saturday, the Boston Globe's indispensable Geoff Edgers moved the ball down the field. Edgers reports:

Three artists whose work was to be featured in a September show at the Rose Art Museum are pulling out until Brandeis University makes a legally binding promise to preserve the campus museum's valuable permanent collection.

Bill Viola, a renowned video artist, and painters April Gornik and Eric Fischl have postponed the show "Atmospheric Conditions'' until Brandeis administrators sign an agreement not to sell art from the collection, according to Gornik.

Rendering of "Culture Shed," a planned new facility for the Hudson Yards redevelopment project on West Side of Manhattan
Photo: Diller Scofidio + Renfro/The Rockwell Group

In the latest manifestation of his "Art Works" campaign to promote the "arts as an economic engine," Rocco Landesman, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, yesterday announced 21 grants totaling $3 million awarded through NEA's Mayors' Institute on City Design 25th-anniversary initiative (MICD 25). The grants support "creative placemaking projects that contribute toward the livability of communities and help transform sites into lively, beautiful, and sustainable places with the arts at their core."

NEA's links to descriptions of all 21 MICD grants are here. The sole art museum on the list is the Indianapolis Museum, which (not content to rest on its 100 Acres laurels) was granted $200,000 for public art projects by Mary Miss and others, to be installed along the White River and Central Canal.

That seems to me to fit squarely within the proper scope of NEA grants, which have traditionally supported activities of cultural creation and presentation. Not so, though, the $100,000 grant for architectural plans related to Culture Shed, a proposed NYC cultural facility, described today by Kate Taylor in the NY Times:

According to someone involved with the project who was not authorized to describe it and spoke only on the condition of anonymity, the building would be primarily, but not exclusively, for visual art. It would not be affiliated with any one cultural institution but would instead function like a time share, with different institutions as partners. (The Tate Modern, in London, has been mentioned.) So far, several institutions in the United States and Europe have expressed interest in being involved, the person said.

According to NEA's description of the project:

With its MICD25 grant, HYDC [Hudson Yards Development Corporation, a not-for-profit entity] will develop advanced design plans for Culture Shed, an innovative facility intended to serve as a cultural anchor for the Hudson Yards redevelopment.

A collaborative effort by the leading architectural firms Diller Scofidio + Renfro and the Rockwell Group, Culture Shed is a five-story fixed building on a 22,000-square-foot site---two deployable outer sheds that fit over the base can be rolled from their nested positions on tracks on the east and west sides of the base building, resulting in an exhibition hall of more than 55,000 square feet. The new building will enhance the city's capacity to present a wide range of cultural programming and act as an integrated presenting space.

I regard this as an inappropriate diversion of federal art funds. NEA grants should appropriately go to the new facility's cultural programming, if and when it's actually up and running, but not for its design and construction. NEA should serve the needs of the existing cultural community (not speculative and ambigious new ventures) and should leave the creation of new facilities, with still uncertain uses, to private funders or other government agencies whose mission involves supporting redevelopment construction projects.

What's more, I disagree with the appropriateness of NEA's rationale for getting involved in such projects. According to the agency's press release:

To develop MICD25 and to inform the Art Works vision, Chairman Landesman and staff at the NEA looked to recent research. Chief among those is the work done by Professor Mark Stern and Susan Seifert with the Social Impact of the Arts Project at the University of Pennsylvania. Their research demonstrates that the presence of arts has three main effects:

1) The arts are a force for social cohesion and civic engagement. People who participate in the arts are more likely to engage in other civic activities, leading to more stable neighborhoods.

2) The arts are a force for child welfare: low income populations with high cultural participation rates are more than twice as likely to have very low truancy and delinquency rates.

3) And finally, the arts are a poverty fighter. They do this through direct employment, and they do this by leveraging other jobs: the restaurants, retail stores, and hotels that spring up alongside cultural districts.

But for most art lovers, these supposed "three main effects" of the arts---social cohesion, child welfare, poverty-fighting---are way down the list of why we think the arts are important and deserve funding.

András Szántó, director of the NEA Arts Journalism Institute at Columbia University, critically examines the various rationales for arts support in his must-read article, Funding: The State of the Art, published last month in the Art Newspaper. He debunks the flawed arguments typically advanced, including what he calls the "great outcomes" argument, favored by NEA, which touts the purported economic and social benefits of cultural activities:

The fly in the ointment is that some of the advertised outcomes have proved elusive. And even if benefits are achieved, the question looms whether there might be simpler ways to deliver the same outcomes. After all, cancer hospitals also produce (taxpaying) jobs and may reduce neighborhood crime, but no one in their right mind would advocate for them for those reasons.

The main weakness of the great benefits rhetoric, in other words, is that it detaches arts advocacy from its own subject. "Such arguments move the discussion away from profound individual encounters with art, to experiences that yield more diffuse and less immediate communal benefits," says James Smith, a former foundation president and a historian of American philanthropy. "What really matters is the development of our own creative capacities and the deeper appreciation of the creative work of others."

"In the end," Szántó concludes, "our arguments may not amount to that much. There are probably no magic rhetorical bullets"...

...just the unmeasurable intrinsic benefits of the arts in challenging conventions and nourishing the eye, mind and spirit.

Speaking of funding activities with intrinsic benefit, this has been my best week ever for CultureGrrl Contributors: My warm thanks go out to CultureGrrl Donors 140 and 141 from Houston and NYC, and, especially, CultureGrrl Repeat Donor 142 from Los Angeles, joining three other donors this week.

The week's not over yet! Can we keep this momentum going?

I guess I'm going to have to plow some of these benefactions back into CultureGrrl, purchasing the better pocket video camera that I've been craving. When you notice that the faces in my CultureGrrl Videos no longer have a uniformly green cast, you'll know that I've upgraded!

The Critic Sees: Peter Schjeldahl of the New Yorker ponders Matisse's celebrated "Blue Nude," 1907, from the Baltimore Museum's Cone Collection

I felt about Matisse: Radical Invention (which opens to the public on Sunday at the Museum of Modern Art) much as I had felt a month ago about Picasso Looks at Degas (to Sept. 12 at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA).

Both high-concept and well received shows were exhaustively researched over the course of five years, involving the close collaboration of a pair of highly respected curator/scholars: John Elderfield and Stephanie D'Alessandro for Matisse; Richard Kendall and Elizabeth Cowling for Degas/Picasso.

But although I approached both with the highest expectations---given the distinguished organizers, the high masterpiece count and the superlative artists, I ultimately felt let down by each show's failure to deliver a satisfying take on its overriding premise.

With their breathtaking array of great works drawn from international sources, these exhibitions couldn't have failed to impress, even had they not attempted to map a corner of little explored territory in the artists' oeuvres.

In the case of Picasso/Degas (as curator Kendall acknowledged to me in conversation after the press preview), the impression left by the art on display was not that Degas' style or artistic goals had significantly influenced Picasso's, but that there were certain affinities of subject matter and parallels in the artists' lives and artistic practice. Both, for example, had serious academic credentials as draftsmen, but eventually felt impelled to create sculptures, for which they lacked formal training.

As the Clark's director, Michael Conforti, acknowledged to me when I expressed my quibbles, upon meeting him in the final gallery of the show:

Frederick Lawrence, Brandeis University's next president

Brandeis University last week announced the selection of its new president, Frederick Lawrence, George Washington University's Law School dean, who will succeed Jehuda  Reinharz on Jan. 1.

Both the Boston Herald and the Boston Globe immediately solicited Lawrence's views on the university's Rent-a-Rose plan---a scheme to monetize the Rose Art Museum's collection by renting it out to those willing to pay sums significant enough to help bail the university out of its serious financial difficulties. Brandeis' Bernie Madoff-related shortfalls had previously led to its shocking decision (reconsidered, after widespread condemnation) to close the museum and sell its collection.

Lawrence told the Boston newspapers that he would "wait and see what comes of that effort" (to rent the works from the collection) and that he "remains hopeful we can find an opportunity to bring everyone together on this and find a solution.''

Since these comments seemed somewhat ambiguous, I asked Brandeis spokesman Andrew Gully to clarify whether Lawrence supports the loans-for-cash initiative, or whether he might reevaluate that plan once he takes office.

Gully replied:

He supports this effort now and when he takes office on Jan. 1, 2011.

The university's spokesman also told me that in mid-June Brandeis signed its expected contract with Sotheby's, which allows the auction house to broker the Rose rentals. Gully would not say anything about how much money is being sought or what kinds of borrowers (i.e., museums, nonprofits, corporations, individuals) are contemplated, other than referring me to comments made by Lisa Dennison, co-chairman of Sotheby's North and South America, for Geoff Edgers' initial report on the rental scheme, published by the Globe on May 28:

Dennison...said the Brandeis arrangement is more likely to be modeled on loans made to other museums. "We're not looking for Joe Smith to start renting individual pictures,'' she said.

In this context, and in the absence of any public statement by the Association of Art Museum Directors regarding the Rose's rental gambit, let's revisit AAMD's Professional Practices in Art Museums (p. 10):

Museums rely on one another for loans to exhibitions. Thus, a spirit of cooperation and collegiality that recognizes this interdependence should inform all decisions relative to such loans and the setting of charges and fees.

In any decision about a proposed loan from the collection, the intellectual merit and educational benefits, as well as the protection of the work of art, must be the primary considerations, rather than possible financial gain [emphasis added]. The director [which the Rose has lacked for more than a year] recommends loans and advises the board about the relevant professional issues, but the ultimate responsibility for decisions on loan requests rests with the board.

While it's figuring out which works to rent (presumably, those of greatest value) and to whom, the Rose is closed for the summer. Perhaps another sympton of its disarray is its recent postponement of the planned fall exhibition, Atmospheric Conditions (works by Bill Viola, Eric Fischl and April Gornik), due to "scheduling conflicts," as explained on the museum's website.

Instead, beginning in late September, we'll have Rosenquist at the Rose:

Celebrated pop artist James Rosenquist will exhibit several of his exuberant billboard-sized murals in the Foster Gallery, with an accompanying display of source material and selections of the artist's work from the Rose Art Museum's esteemed [especially for its rental value] collection. Rosenquist's long history with the Rose gives this exhibition special weight as the Museum moves forward into an exciting new year of arts and programming [not to mention monetizing].

My Huffington blogger headshot
(Where's Jill Krementz when I really need her?)

Don't worry, art-lings. You will still find CultureGrrl in the same place and in the same irreverent form, on ArtsJournal. I'm just branching out.

Some of you are already aware that the Huffington Post has recently added an arts page to its mix. They have invited me to be one of their bloggers, repurposing some of my CultureGrrl musings for a broader audience.

My first foray as a Huffington blogger is a slightly reworked post on the dilemmas facing BP-sponsored art museums, adapted from this CultureGrrl post. If you want to read my commentary hot off my keyboard, please continue clicking CultureGrrl, where stories will appear first.

I may occasionally send original pieces directly to Huffington. It that happens, I'll immediately give you the link on CultureGrrl.

Speaking of the rewards and pitfalls of corporate art support, the press packet for the Museum of Modern Art's stringently austere and politically preoccupied new installation of contemporary art from its permanent collection included the latest example of what I called (in my BP post) "some cringe-worthy exhibition press materials that...extol at length the virtues of the supporters' business activities, unacceptably crossing the line from grateful acknowledgement to commercial endorsement."

A glossy two-sided promo flyer inserted in the press materials by MoMA's sponsor, BNY Mellon, informs us that the financial services company is "the global leader in asset management and securities servicing," with "$22.4 trillion in assets under custody and administration, $1.1 trillion in assets under management; service $11.8 trillion in outstanding debt; process $1.5 trillion in global payments daily."

We high-net worth art critics were also fascinated to learn that BNY Mellon has "locations across 6 continents." (What, they missed Antarctica?)

The better way would have been to stick with the flyer's first two paragraphs, in which the BNY Mellon officials said they felt "honored" to work with MoMA and other cultural institutions and that their "unique collaborative partnership with MoMA enables us to help others understand and enjoy the ever-changing visual arts of our time." The self-promotional part should have been limited to providing a website address for further information about the company.

I doubt, though, that there's any museum in the U.S. that would deprive sponsors of the chance to blow their corporate horns in conjunction with their munificent gifts. That's become standard operating procedure in snaring much needed support. The rationale, I suppose, is it's a small price to pay for what the sponsors are paying.

Speaking of sponsorship, it you think my new affiliation with Huffington diminishes my need for you to activate my "Donate" button in the middle column, please think again. Blogging on Huffington (as on ArtsJournal) is pro bono. Do I hope that my blogging on a high-profile mega-site might lead to a high-profile paid pundit gig? Maybe.

In the meantime, though, my warm thanks go out to CultureGrrl Donors 137 and 138, from Columbus, OH, and Newark, DE (both of whom, as it happened, clicked my button today, before the posting of my first Huff puff!).

In its first annual meeting tweeting, the Association of Art Museum Directors revealed on its AAMDIndy Twitter page that it was contemplating "clear protocols and guidelines" for "exhibition of private collections in museums" (likely inspired, in part, by the New Museum's recent controversial "Skin Fruit" show of Dakis Joannou's contemporary collection).

Michael Tilson Thomas, left, and Frank Gehry, speaking at a recent New York press lunch

Those of you who are not just art-lings but also sport-lings are riveted today by a Miami basketball story. But let's take a look at a another major Miami match-up: conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, architect Frank Gehry and the New World Symphony---an educational and performance organization that provides professional training for top graduates from music programs throughout the country.

Seeing two photos of the conductor in today's NY Times "Weekend Arts" section (speaking of sports, MTT is one of the Pinch Hitters at Tanglewood), I decided it was time for me to share with you a video clip I shot of Tilson Thomas and Gehry when they converged in New York early last month to let the scribe tribe know about their plan for a new 100,641-square-foot, high-tech home for the New World Symphony's diverse activities. The facility, now in its final phase of construction, will open Jan. 25 with six days of world premieres and "new concert formats designed to engage and broaden audiences."

One of the Gehry design's most distinctive features is the concert hall's "large acoustically reflective 'sails' that will surround the audience with sound and also serve as projection surfaces for visual presentations." One of the uses of these screens will be to present closeups of individual musicians in performance---a regular feature of public television broadcasts (not to mention arena rock concerts):


Courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP

Although I frequently write about architecture, my main focus has been museum design. Still, I do occasionally give my take on performance venues. At it happens, this project does have strong a museum connection: Tilson Thomas, an avid collector, was greatly influenced by his museum-going experiences in conceiving this project, as you will hear in the video below.

He speaks about how he liked to stop in at New York museums, look at one picture and "be on my way." He wants to encourage that kind of spontaneous grazing for concert-going. He also mentioned the flexible use of the new Miami space, but Gehry countered that "there have been theaters built with infinite flexibility, but no one ever uses it....The best example is CalArts which has these infinitely changeable things that never change." Gehry later told me that the chief flexibility of his Miami concert hall involves changing the floorplans, not the acoustics:


Courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP

Because I was seated towards the rear at the press lunch, the audio on this video clip is a little fuzzy. But you'll be able to catch the key moments:

"The Three Graces," Roman, Imperial period, 2nd century A.D., copy of Greek work from 2nd century B.C., displayed in the Metropolitan Museum's Greek and Roman sculpture court

Back on May 12, CultureGrrl broke some news that the Met has finally confirmed in a press release that hit my inbox very early today:

An ancient Roman group statue of great importance and beauty---a depiction of the Three Graces of Greek mythology---has been acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was announced today by Thomas P. Campbell, the Museum's director....

Discovered in Rome in 1892, the statue has been on loan to the Museum from a private collector since 1992, and has been on view in the center of the Leon Levy and Shelby White Sculpture Court since it opened in 2007.

But when will the Met get around to breaking the news about its new senior curator of American painting, an appointment disclosed more than two weeks ago by the Hartford Courant [via]?

Roger Catlin of the Courant reports:

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is losing its chief curator to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser, who also is the Krieble curator of American painting and sculpture at the Atheneum, the nation's oldest public museum, has taken the post of senior curator of American painting at the prestigious Met, effective Sept. 1....

At the Met, Kornhauser will be responsible for reinstalling the American paintings collection, the opening of which next year will be the final phase of the new American Wing that reopened in 2009 after two years of construction and renovation.

At the Wadsworth, Kornhauser was responsible for another reinstallation---that of the Connecticut museum's Hudson River School paintings.

I assume that she is the replacement for Carrie Rebora Barratt, who was promoted last September to associate director for collections and administration at the Met. Carrie also stars in one of the most watched CultureGrrl Videos!

Is Betsy ready for her close-up?

Let's get this party started!

On its AAMDIndy Twitter page, the Association of Art Museum Directors listed this as one of the hot-button topics to be discussed at last month's annual meeting:

Exhibition of private collections in museums: clear protocols and guidelines needed.

Nothing more on this has emerged publicly since that meeting, but at least the need has been recognized and maybe will, eventually, be publicly addressed.

Let's address it now: What are your views on shows like the recent "Skin Fruit" exhibition of Dakis Joannou's contemporary collection at the New Museum, the Julie and David Tobey collection of old master drawings now at the Metropolitan Museum, and other such shows that privilege a privately owned trove not promised (except for a few Tobey works) to a museum? I'd welcome your own examples of such shows and your opinions regarding them.

What (if any) ethical issues should be considered in mounting such collector-centric displays? What specific "protocols and guildelines" (in AAMD's words) should be brought to bear? And what about exclusive enclaves for collectors' benefactions within museums' permanent-collection galleries, such as Walter Annenberg's Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, given their own rooms at the Met?

Tell me what you think, art-lings! You can start sending me your comments and questions as soon as you see the posting box at the bottom. I'll come online at 3:30 to start posting your remarks and responding to them. Please keep it short, keep it civil, keep it on topic. Just type in the box at the bottom and click "Send." (Oh, and make sure you start by clicking the button in the middle of the box below.)

Please do join me today at 3:30 p.m. for our second online CultureChat: The topic is "Single-Collector Museum Shows"---the upsides and the pitfalls. I've described the kind of issues we''ll be discussing here.

You can get an idea of the format of the chat by clicking the replay button for the first CultureChat. The technology is simple and similar to instant messaging: Just type your comments or questions in the box you'll see at the bottom of the page and click "Send." I decide what to post, and I can edit for grammar, coherence or civility, should I choose to do so. (Last time, I used everything; edited nothing.)

Having read David Littlejohn's excellent article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, SFMOMA Fills in Some Blanks, I thought we'd expand the conversation to include the logical (but problematic) extension of the museum show of one's own to the permanent-collection museum galleries of one's own within the context of a large, comprehensive museum. David's article dealt with the inaugural exhibition of the Donald and Doris Fisher collection (on loan for 100 years, renewable), now at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

As described by Littlejohn, SFMOMA's planned new Fisher Wing will display some non-Fisher works, but "75% of the works there...must always be drawn from the couple's collection." At the Metropolitan Museum, there are several exclusive enclaves for the benefactions of generous donors whose troves aren't integrated with related works in the larger permanent collection.

Donor-dedicated spaces are a powerful wooing tool, but represent a capitulation of curatorial authority to collector-ial ego. I have my own views about this; many reasonable people will disagree.

These are the issues we can bat around today at 3:30, in a live-and-lively back-and-forth, to be conducted here on CultureGrrl.

Hope to see you soon!

J.M.W. Turner, "Modern Rome---Campo Vaccino," 1838-9, just purchased by the Getty

In an e-mail that just hit my inbox, the J. Paul Getty Museum wasted no time in announcing that it today purchased what it called "one of the greatest paintings by Turner to come on the market": "Modern Rome---Campo Vaccino," offered by Sotheby's, London, at today's just concluded evening sale of old masters and British painting. (The Getty's complete announcement is here.)

Not reported by the museum was the purchase price---a whopping $44.94 million, an auction record for the artist and a stunningly large outlay for a museum acquisition, especially in these financially challenged times.

The museum's acting director, David Bomford, exulted:

This acquisition ranks among the greatest in the history of the Getty Museum. Paintings by Turner rarely come to market and the absolutely flawless condition of this one makes it the work against which all other works by Turner will be judged. This is a major accomplishment for the Getty and will bring great pride to the Museum and to Los Angeles.

Does this signal a return to the megabucks acquisitions that the Getty used to be famous for, back in the days when "The Getty Factor" roiled the art market?

At the very least, this purchase seems to signal a re-prioritizing of programs to privilege the museum and its collection-building---something that others (including me) have recently called for.

Last February, when the Getty Museum's former director, Michael Brand, discussed with me the issues that figured into his decision to resign, he mentioned a director's need "to know what level of funding is available for art acquisitions in order to be able to plan ahead strategically. It is especially important in the case of major acquisitions to be able to establish priorities."

It seems that some priorities have now been established.

UPDATE: Mike Boehm of the LA Times has put into print what I was privately wondering about: Will Great Britain try to preempt the Getty's purchase by matching the price, as allowed under British export-license rules? Doesn't the Tate have enough Turners already?

Saatchi Gallery, London

There's more than meets the eye and much that doesn't add up about Charles Saatchi's recent public disclosure that he is "is gifting over 200 works [from his collection], and the Saatchi Gallery [the former adman's art facility in Chelsea], to create a Museum of Contemporary Art for London." The core permanent collection is said to be "worth more than £25 million at current market value."

For reasons best known to Saatchi, Thursday's announcement, while garnering mostly favorable publicity for the project, was premature.

For one thing, it seems clear from the tentative, conditional language of the released information that the gift has not yet been perfected, nor have the plans been finalized:

The Saatchi Gallery is currently in discussion with potential Government departments who would own the works on behalf of the nation [emphasis added].

If this were a done deal, with only incidental details to be fleshed out, the announcement would likely have been made not solely by the giver but jointly with the recipient---a government official expressing gratitude for Saatchi's benefaction. Carol Vogel reported last week in the NY Times that "the British government has not yet accepted the gift."

When I inquired by e-mail whether the gift would definitely happen, Rachel Duffield, Saatchi's spokesperson, replied: "The gift has definitely been made." British Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt seemed to confirm this to the BBC, stating: "His [Saatchi's] decision to gift these works to the nation is an act of incredible generosity and I'd like to thank him on behalf of the government."

Still, there are a number of problematic aspects to this gift, which may have put a damper on negotiations. Saatchi's decision to go public could be a way of applying pressure for an agreement. According to Duffield, "the reason Saatchi has decided to make this announcement now is because, ahead of his retirement, Saatchi is keen to put plans in place."

As several commentators have noted, Great Britain already has a great national museum in London that's devoted, in part, to contemporary art---the Tate. Saatchi believes a new museum is needed, Duffield said, "to ensure that London has a prestigious museum of contemporary art that is able to display a 'living' and evolving collection of work, rather than an archive of art history [the Tate, presumably]."

Saatchi is known as a trader, not a keeper. To make sure that London MOCA's collection continues to evolve, he has hit upon the unusual strategy of giving to London MOCA not only a core permanent collection but also a group of works to be monetized, providing acquisition funds for the next new thing.

Also unorthodox is the complete absence of operating endowment. Duffield says that "the Saatchi Gallery's management team will run it as it is today," supporting operations solely through sponsorships and earned income. Admission to the gallery will remain free (thanks to the continued sponsorship of Phillips de Pury & Company, the auction house) and no government support is being sought---not even tax relief in exchange for the gift. In the U.S, establishing a new museum with a collection but no endowment or government support would be a recipe for disaster. Can this work in Great Britain, or might the government find itself as subsidizer of last resort?

Also problematic is dignifying an important but very personal, quirky collection with the sweeping title of "London Museum of Contemporary Art." For the foreseeable future, it will, in esssence, be the "London Museum of Saatchi Art," but that's not a sufficiently public-spirited name to accompany a gift to the nation.

It won't be until 2012 that the British public will begin to see what they're getting, in the first of three planned exhibitions rolling out the core collection. The recent announcement (linked at the top) identifies a few key works (with some images). But the rest is, for now, TBA.

1970 cartoon by Barney Tobey for the New Yorker magazine (featuring a famous Metropolitan Museum Rembrandt), on display in the Met's current exhibition, "Italian Old Master Drawings from the Tobey Collection" (Cartoon caption: "Hey, look! That jigsaw puzzle you gave me last Christmas!")

Our first CultureChat was great fun. Let's do it again, shall we?

This Thursday, July 8, at 3:30 p.m., we'll tackle our first hot-button topic---the rewards and pitfalls of single-collector exhibitions at nonprofit museums.

Dakis has recently left the New Museum. The Metropolitan Museum is currently hosting a somewhat disjointed show of the Tobey Collection of old master drawings. Unmentioned in the online press release is the exhibition's array of decidedly non-old master cartoons about art, created for the New Yorker magazine by Barney Tobey, father of the exhibition's eponymous collector, David Tobey. They're worth a giggle, but they don't belong there.


Some of the Barney Tobey cartoons at the Met (ubiquitous photographer Jill Krementz on the left),

On view at the Met simultaneously with the Tobey show, until the end of last month, was another single-collector exhibition---Contemporary Aboriginal Painting from Australia ("drawn from a private collection [unidentified] in the U.S.").

The Met was, for a long time, leery of mounting single-collector exhibitions of works not promised to the museum, having been burned in 1973 by Allen Funt of "Candid Camera" fame. In spring of that year, the Met show mounted a show of 35 paintings from Funt's collection, by Victorian artist Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Funt sold those works at Sotheby's, London, in November of the same year, with their value enhanced by the Met's imprimatur.

University museums are particularly susceptible to single-collector shows, especially when the lenders are alums. Yale University is currently showing Italian old master paintings from the collection of New York mega-dealer Richard Feigen (Class of 1952), who in January 2009 sold a Turner painting at Sotheby's---directly after it came off the walls of the Met's traveling Turner retropective:


Turner, "The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius," 1816---$12.96 million at Sotheby's, New York, January 2009; shown at the Met, July-September 2008

Notwithstanding Funt's punt, my views on single-collector shows are nuanced: I'm not unequivocally opposed to single-collector shows, but I think they must be governed by stringent guidelines: They need to be done sparingly (if at all), for strongly compelling reasons and with strict rules about the show's financial sponsorship and about non-exploitation of the museum for market-related purposes. Most importantly, there needs to be complete transparency about all this.

What's your take? Let's consider these complexities together in the next live CultureChat---my instant-message, shoot-from-the-keyboard discussion with readers, here on CultureGrrl.

Technology permitting, we'll chat Thursday, July 8, at 3:30 p.m. If we get a lively discussion, more hot-button topics will follow. I'm hoping that some of my many distinguished readers from the museum profession will consider chiming in, even if it's under an assumed nom de chat. ("Chat"? French feline? Maybe you can dub yourself "Museum Cats"!)

Before I power down for a lon-g-g-g-g holiday weekend, here are my responses to the updated AAMD Policy on Deaccessioning, which we've all now had the chance to read:

The 12-page document fleshes things out, particularly with regard to fractional deaccessioning (with an appendix of six hypotheticals that resembles a hair-splitting law-school assignment, but doesn't add up to coherent policy). It addresses a few new areas, most notably: procedures for applying sanctions to misbehaving museums and for bringing sanctioned museums (i.e., the National Academy) back into the fold. (More on the National Academy's situation at the end of this post.) But the amendment to AAMD's Code of Ethics that elucidates procedures for sanctioning and de-sanctioning museums is written in nearly impenetrable legalese. This is prose that only an attorney could love.
 
For most of the document, we still find ourselves mired in the wishy-washy realm of: should "be thoughtful about" (accepting works with restrictions); "should publish on its website" (works that have already been disposed of, but not those whose disposal is planned); "might be contemplated" (the conditions under which art sales might be appropriate); "exercise great care" (in altering the museum's mission as a prelude to deaccessioning---what I call mission creep); and "may give consideration to" (keeping a deaccessioned work in the public domain---something that I believe should be strongly encouraged, not just suggested).

In other words, AAMD wants its members to think carefully about their actions and helpfully suggests what they should be thinking about. But unambiguously prescriptive words like "must" and "must not," are, for the most part, not in the vocabulary. To me, the biggest disconnect between AAMD's public-spirited window-dressing and actuality is the disconnect between its assertion that "attention must be given to transparency throughout the [deaccessioning] process" and its failure to require museums to post lists of to-be-deaccessioned objects before they are actually sold, not only after the disposals are a fait accomplit.

It's worth observing (although I'm sure AAMD doesn't want to) that according to the provisions in the association's guidelines, the Getty Museum (temporarily not a member of AAMD because it currently lacks a permanent director) shouldn't be allowed in the club. That's because AAMD's policy statement declares that members' museums "should not [emphasis added] capitalize...collections"---something that the Getty has long done. Then again, as you lawyers know, "should not" isn't quite the same thing as "must not" or "shall not."

The only things that you absolutely cannot do in AAMD-land are: apply a museum's art sale proceeds to operations or capital expenses; acquire a deaccessioned work if you are employed by or closely associated with the museum; or sell only a fraction of a museum's ownership interest in a work to an organization that is not open to the public.

Otherwise, be sure to "give consideration to" whatever it is you want to do, formulate a plausible rationale, and go ahead and do it!

As for the current status of the AAMD/National Academy standoff...this just in from the association's executive director, Janet Landay, in response to my query sent this afternoon:

AAMD has not lifted sanctions on the National Academy, and does not have a specific timeline for doing so.  We continue a policy of constructive engagement with them, as they work to put in place a new strategic and financial plan.

It's not posted to the association's website yet, but you can read the 12-page document along with me, here.

At least I got that news out before Journalist X!

Kaywin Feldman, AAMD's president

I have often railed against a "Times-first" policy---that exasperating practice of spoonfeeding a cultural-news story of general interest and importance to a NY Times writer before the rest of the scribe tribe is allowed to get a taste of it. (My recent food-fight response to this was ketchup journalism.)

I don't know whether it's the NY Times or some other news organization that has been uniquely privileged with a chance to converse with Kaywin Feldman, the new president of the Association of Art Museum Directors. What I do know is that playing favorites in the first weeks of this new assignment is contrary to the public-spirited nature of her position as de facto spokesperson for American art museum directors.

On June 3, in advance of AAMD's annual meeting, I had asked Janet Landay, executive director, if she could arrange for me to have "some phone interview time" with Feldman. I followed up on June 10, the day after Feldman was officially anointed, by reiterating my request in an e-mail to Anne-Marie Wagener, director of public relations at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (where Feldman is director). I had gotten to know Anne-Marie when I visited Minneapolis for my Wall Street Journal report on the Institute's expansion, back when the director was William Griswold, Feldman's predecessor.

On June 11, I received this e-mailed response, mistitled "Connecting with Kaywin," from Sascha Freudenheim, vice president of Resnicow Schroeder Associates, the national PR firm specializing in the arts:

The documents [new AAMD statement on deaccessions; new strategic plan] are going through a final edit, and should be available in the next few weeks. Once that process is finished, we will share these two documents with you and that is the best moment around which to schedule a conversation with Kaywin, either by phone or in person. You'll be able to ask about specifics, with the materials in hand...

...or maybe not (or at least not until Journalist "X" gets a piece published). Knowing that the deaccession statement was due to be released later today, I contacted Sascha and Janet again this morning and received this reply from Sascha:

We are working with a reporter who has a story in development, and we have agreed with this reporter to hold on other interviews with Kaywin in the meantime.

Bad agreement. Maybe from the perspective of a public-relations operative, this seems like the best way to roll out the new leadership. But allowing herself to be managed in this way is a no-win for Kaywin.

For what it's worth, I have formally withdrawn my request for an interview.