April 2011 Archives

Yes to the Dress: Kate Middleton rules the runway
Photo: British Monarchy Photostream, Flickr

The anticipatory buzz surrounding the Metropolitan Museum's "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty," May 4-July 31, has just become supersonic, thanks to a certain high-profile client of the British fashion house (above).

The Met's website for its Costume Institute's exhibition, at this writing, provides very little information about what's going to be in it. What it does provide is an excruciatingly long, dull video of endless shots of models on runways, provided "courtesy of Alexander McQueen."

In fact, the whole show, which opens to the press on Monday, is courtesy of the fashion house, the exhibition's lead sponsor. The late designer, whose first name was actually Lee, committed suicide on Feb. 11, 2010 (a fact not mentioned in the Met's press release, which refers to him only as "the late Mr. McQueen").

Will the retrospective be updated to include any reference to today's royal wedding, now that the world knows that the Duchess of Cambridge's gown was designed by Sarah Burton, the creative director of the fashion house that retains McQueen's name?

"No," replied Nancy Chilton, the Met's spokesperson for the show. "All is by Alexander McQueen himself." (Actually, quite a number of accessories in the catalogue---headpieces and shoes, for example---were designed by others, "for Alexander McQueen," as the catalogue states.)

Even if the new regime at McQueen isn't directly represented at the Met, it is undoubtedly getting not only a reputational but also a commercial boost from this prestigious, self-funded exposure.

For example, as Cathy Horyn of the NY Times reports:

The company has certainly been busy making clothes for guests attending the Costume Institute gala on May 2, in honor of the late designer and his work.

In my NY Times Op-Ed piece on the Met's 2005 Chanel show (mounted thanks to similarly self-interested sponsorship), I decried the apparent influence of the fashion house/sponsor on the exhibition's selection of what to display and how to describe it. From the looks of its catalogue, "Savage Beauty" could well be another case of abdication of scholarship to sponsorship.

In what is perhaps the least erudite catalogue ever produced by the Met (and almost certainly the sole Met catalogue cover consisting entirely of a hologram), curator Andrew Bolton provides a brief but illuminating preface, exploring McQueen's sensibility, influences and "profound engagement with Romanticism." (Gothic seems more like it.)

But the rest of the text (aside from a liberal sprinking of quotes from McQueen himself) is given over to a long biographical essay by Susannah Frankel, fashion editor of The Independent, and an interview by journalist Tim Blanks with Sarah Burton, McQueen's professional heir apparent, who for 15 years had served as his design assistant.

The bulk of the catalogue consists of sumptuous full-page images of McQueen's sometimes grotesque but always arresting designs. The photographs, taken on live models, have been altered to appear to be on mannequins whose "flesh" has been wounded by nasty abrasions. If you actually want to learn something about the individual garments, you have to flip to the back of the volume, which reveals nothing more than the date, the collection, the materials and the lender for each of the pieces.

We can only hope that the exhibition's wall text and the individual labels for the designs delve deeper into McQueen's intentions, craft and artistry.

Below (with an assist from CultureSpouse) is the catalogue's macabre hologram, which had been designed for the invitation to McQueen's spring/summer 2009 fashion show:

Michael Posner, assistant secretary, U.S. State Department

The two-day Human Rights Dialogue between China and the U.S., attended by Michael Posner, the State Department's assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor, appears to have gotten nowhere, as reflected in Posner's statements today after the conclusion of the talks in Beijing.

Kathleen McLaughlin of the Global Post reports:

While several lawyers were released last week, the Chinese government has refused to comment on many other cases, including the highest-profile disappearance: that of internationally known modern artist Ai Weiwei....

Posner said he pointed out to China's representatives that Ai's disappearance has galvanized the global art community [my links, not theirs], and the United States is concerned that Beijing is silencing a peaceful critic. But Posner, who was reluctant to give many details of how China reacted, said regarding Ai, he "certainly did not get an answer that satisfied. There was no sense of comfort from the response or lack of response."

And certainly "no sense of comfort" for the dissident artist, not heard from since his detention on Apr. 3.

So now what? It seems that mere talk is not going to achieve meaningful results.

WHERE'S HILLARY?

Last night, at the commencement of the Smithsonian Institution's two-day "HIde/Seek" marathon, the scene at the Freer Gallery's Meyer Auditorium appeared (from the webcast) to be standing-room-only.

Here's what it looked liked for the last of this morning's panels (which, to my mind, was the most interesting, because it covered some new ground):



That's a pensive Martin Sullivan, director of the National Portrait Gallery, in the lower left corner. Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough, who had occupied front-row center last night, was AWOL this morning. NPG spokeswoman Bethany Bentley confirmed this, in an e-mail to me:

He [Clough] is not here this morning. Linda [St. Thomas, the Smithsonian's spokesperson] didn't know his plans for the afternoon

I'd suggest that he show up. While I am one of the few commentators who has expressed sympathy (scroll down) for Clough's decision to remove the hot-button Wojnarovicz video from the NPG's "Hide/Seek" exhibition, I continue to be astonished by his ham-fisted handling of the aftermath. He should be there, taking a posture that's responsive, not defensive.

The reason I found the last panel particularly instructive was that it consisted of three politically attuned people who understand (for better or worse) how things work in Washington---Frank Hodsoll and Bill Ivey, two former chairmen of the National Endowment for the Arts (under Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, respectively), and Ford Bell, president of the American Association of Museums.

They all seemed to agree, as Ivey stated, that "the Secretary's decision not to engage in a full-fledged battel with a Congress of newly elected representatives longing for such a battle is understandable."

Hodsoll later said that he could "see why [the threat of retaliatory Congressional funding cuts] could easily be viewed as a substantial threat." Bell reiterated AAM's position that "the Secretary of the Smithsonian had the right to make that decision" and asserted that other museums need to follow the NPG's lead in mounting exhibitions pertaining to homosexuality, "so pretty soon it becomes acceptable. Otherwise, the Smithsonian becomes a lightning rod, and it's a very poor lightning rod."

Also a no-show this morning was the current head of NEA, Rocco Landesman. This is another political decision that's understandable: He's got his work cut out for him protecting his agency's budget from the Congressional ax.

On the morning's first panel, Kerry Brougher, deputy director and chief curator of the Hirshhorn Museum, seconded NPG historian David Ward's opposition to the new directive from the Report of the Regents Advisory Panel, calling for Smithsonian museums to consult with interested members of the public in the "pre-decisional phases" of exhibition planning.

Had such a protocol been followed, Brougher said, it's doubtful that his museum could have included Yves Klein's "Anthropometries"---"nude models rolling around in blue paint"---in its recent Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers.

You can view the afternoon panels, beginning at 1:30 p.m., here.

Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough

The most dramatic moment of last night's kickoff panels for the otherwise tame, predictable "Hide/Seek"-related conference, hosted by the Smithsonian Institution, came at the very end of the evening: In a confrontation reminiscent of the famous Martin Sullivan moment at December's "Hide/Seek" discussion at the New York Public Library, a hostile questioner asked if Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough, who had spoken briefly at the beginning of the evening, was still in the house.

Indeed he was (as those of us watching the webcast could plainly see). He rose from his seat in the front row and turned to face the audience member, Mike Blasenstein, who was co-founder of the Museum of Censored Art---a shed that had been parked outside the National Portrait Gallery during the run of "Hide/Seek," continuously showing David Wojnarovicz's "A Fire in My Belly" (the video that Clough had ordered removed from the NPG's show).



Mike said he knew (as had been previously reported) that Clough did not intend to answer any questions. Clough then gamely asserted: "I AM answering questions!" After Blasenstein berated the Secretary for only speaking publicly about "Hide/Seek" at one Los Angeles public meeting and in interviews with three "hand-picked journalists" (ahem), Clough testily replied: "You're wrong about that!" His views, he noted, had been published on the Smithsonian's website, "available to the world." (That's not quite the same thing, however, as engaging in open dialogue.)

Clough could use some lessons from Sullivan in addressing other disgruntled constituents with the same sympathy and respect he accords to powerful politicians and incensed religious spokespersons. "You're wrong!" is not the right way to make friends and influence critics.

Strangely, Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian's under secretary for history, art and culture, kicked off the evening by stating that in constituting the conference's panels, "the idea was to have a 50-50 balance between Smithsonian and non-Smithsonian folks." This idea, as I've previously observed (scroll down), was far from realized.

But now we know why the ratio was 20 Smithsonites to 9 outsiders. Panelist Thom Collins, director of Miami Art Museum, observed:

I'm the only [non-Smithsonian] museum director that Jon [Katz, guest curator of "Hide/Seek"] could get to agree to participate.

Where are all the courageous art museum leaders when we really need them? At least tomorrow we'll hear from Kaywin Feldman, director of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and president of the Association of Art Museum Directors. (She previously addressed the Rutgers/Seton Hall "Hide/Seek" panel on which I recently served with Sullivan.)

It appears from Katz's comments that a previous proposal to send a traveling "Hide/Seek" exhibition to the Brooklyn Museum and the Tacoma Art Museum may not be realized: Katz told the DC crowd that he is now working on a show for Tacoma entitled, "Art, AIDS, America."

Katz asserted that by pulling the Wojnarovicz video, "the Smithsonian did exactly the wrong thing." Its actions, he said, "didn't extricate it; it implicated it, making the museum part of the politics. The act of censorship overshadowed the extraordinary breakthrough of 'HIde/Seek.'"

The NPG's David Ward, Katz's co-curator for the show, decried the directive in the Report of the Regents Advisory Panel for Smithsonian museums to consult with interested members of the public in the "pre-decisional phases" of exhibition planning.

Ward observed:

The "citizen curator" approach can easily lead to a watered-down populism, because you can't get a consensus.

It is, as I've already called it, a lose-lose scenario.

Now that Clough has opened himself to questions, I suspect he'll get a few pointed interrogatories at tomorrow's full-day "Hide/Seek" marathon (assuming that he attends, as he should). If I were in the audience, I'd ask whether and under what circumstances he might entertain future requests to alter shows that were already up. We know that Clough has vowed to consult with his directors and curators, rather than act unilaterally (as he did with Wojnarovicz). But the decision on whether to yield to pressure or tough it out is ultimately his.

It would be good to know his thoughts for how he will act if another firestorm erupts. It would be even better to know that he intends to dedicate himself to educating Congressional critics about the Smithsonian's purpose and programs, so that another political blow-up doesn't happen any time soon.

You can view tomorrow's live webcast of the conference, beginning at 9:30 a.m., here. The schedule of panelists is here.

Anthony Caro in the Metropolitan Museum's Roof Garden yesterday at midday with "Midday," 1960 (sometimes shown in the Sculpture Garden of its owner, the Museum of Modern Art)

While our thoughts are straying to British royalty, a member of England's art royalty, Sir Anthony Caro, today concluded an official visit to New York's artworld, during which he viewed several exhibitions, including the Museum of Modern Art's Picasso: Guitars and the Metropolitan Museum's Cézanne's Card Players---both must-sees.

But he traveled here primarily for the opening of his own mini-retrospective of five painted and unpainted steel constructions on the Met's Roof Garden (to Oct. 30), ranging over his career from the 1960 "Midday" (above) to his brand new "End Up":


"End Up," 2010, rusted steel, cast iron, jarrah wood, collection of the artist, courtesy of Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York

The Metropolitan Museum's own "Odalisque," 1984, was also in the show (below). That's Jennifer Russell, the Met's associate director for exhibitions, to the left, and Gary Tinterow, chairman of 19th-century, modern and contemporary art, to the right:



The Met's decision to showcase a sturdy, tradition-minded old master of contemporary sculpture marks a striking departure from the recent trendiness (and American-ness) of the Met's rooftop presentations.

It also marks Caro's first major museum show in New York since MoMA's 1975 retrospective. (A show of his new work was mounted last fall at Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery.)

Charming, spry and articulate, Sir Anthony, 87, spoke during the press preview (as captured in the CultureGrrl Video, below) about the influence of figurative works by historic masters (Cézanne, Michelangelo) on his own abstract sculptures. He also disclosed that he's now working on a major new outdoor commission for New York, to be installed next March.

The red sculpture behind him in the video is "Blazon," 1987-90, courtesy of Mitchell-Innes & Nash and Annely Juda Fine Art, London. The dapper man to the right is Tinterow, who co-organized the show with associate curator Anne Strauss.

As you can see, New York's weather was appropriately British for this occasion:



During my brief chat with Sir Anthony after the press conference, he discussed the contemporary art world from the perspective of a distinguished elder:

I think the direction of the curators and directors is too fashionable. People are hopefully coming back to their senses, saying, "We want something really sculptural, or painting, or video, whatever it is. We don't want something that's a bit of life."

I don't think art can be quite "a bit of life." It says something about life.

I tend to shut up, if I can, because who wants to hear what an old guy has to say? You very easily get put in that box: "Well, he would like the old stuff, because old people always like the old things."

I'm a child of the '60s; I'm not a child of 2010. It was great in those days. Things do change, not always for the better. I can't easily come to terms with most contemporary work---say, Damien Hirst. It's a kind of storytelling and I don't like that.

I always had a lot of respect for sculpture and painting as things in their own right. One should just be using the eyes and say, "Does it turn you on or not?"

I have lots of followers on Twitter---1,882 and counting. But the e-mailed notification I received about a new acolyte, arriving very soon after my recent Hillary Clinton/Ai Weiwei post, gave me pause:

If you missed Morley Safer's friendly profile on tonight's "60 Minutes" of LA mega-philanthropist (and museum builder) Eli Broad, you can watch it now (below). LA Times art critic Christopher Knight puts in a couple of cameo appearances, asserting that people are "scared to death of the guy," because "he is the biggest game in town."



Wait a minute! Did we just hear Eli tell Morley that the cost of The Broad---his planned LA museum for his contemporary art collection---would be MORE THAN $1 BILLION??? (The collection, he told Safer, was worth about $1.6 billion.)

Last we heard, the cost of the new museum, designed by Diller Scofidio+Renfro, was going to "exceed $130 million" for construction, with an additional $200 million for endowment, plus a $7.7 million payment to Community Redevelopment Agency for affordable housing. A revised pricetag of $1 billion would put this 120,000-square-foot project in the same league as the Getty Trust's sprawling multi-building campus, also in Los Angeles.

If you don't want to take the time to watch the video (and its Lipitor ad), you can read the transcript here. (The financial bombshell is near the bottom of the first page.)

I've got a query in with Broad's spokesperson to see whether the stated figures are indeed correct, or if someone misspoke.

If I learn more, I'll update here.

UPDATE---Late Monday afternoon, I heard from Broad's spokesperson, Karen Denne, who corrected the impression left by the CBS report. Denne told me:

I just checked with Mr. Broad, and he said he meant that the value (not cost) of the entire project would be more than $1 billion. The numbers you have are correct: $7.7 million for the land, $130 million for construction, $200 million for the endowment, and the value of the art at approximately $1.6 billion.

In the on-camera interview, Safer had stood near the site of the museum and asked Broad:

How much is this going to cost [emphasis added]...something approaching a billion dollars?

Broad had replied, "More."

"Die Walküre"
All photos and video courtesy of Metropolitan Opera
"Die Walküre" threatened to becomeEva-Maria Westbroek, making her ill-fated Met debut as SieglindeBut the main cause for concern, throughout the evening, was the painfully obvious pain of the conductor. Let me first acknowledge that the orchestra played magnificently, as it has never failed to do under Levine's baton in all the many years that I've been attending. But at numerous times Friday, it appeared that this lustrous performance may have owed more to careful preparation in rehearsals to what was emanating from the podium that night. (More on this later.)
Brünnhilde Brünnhilde as a playful, willful and ultimately disobedient and disowned daughter to be so moving and convincing that tears streamed down my face (myself, a daughter who recently lost her father) when Wotan regretfully took his leave of her in the last act, saying that she would never see him again.
monstrous, segmented contraption that kept morphing into different shapes and colors throughout the eveningthe impetuous Brünnhilde stage front, Brünnhilde's plucky grin, and didn't miss a beat as she unleashed the opera's signature "Hojotoho!" from the spot where she landed (waiting for stranded bass-baritone Bryn Terfel to join her on terra firma).

As it happened, the Met had already posted on YouTube a video of this very scene (recorded during rehearsals), so I now know what I was supposed to have seen---Voigt at the top of the mountain, Terfel admiring her from below. Look closely in the rather dark lower right corner, and you'll see the leader of the Valkyries ascending to hug the Norse god. (On Friday night, she never got that far):


For the rest of Act II, my attention to the opera was distracted by my concern for the physical welfare of the singers (particularly Voigt). Later on, Brünnhilde screwed up her courage and approached the treacherous contraption again, treading very carefully. Mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe, hefty of girth and radiant of voice, was having none of it: She was trundled on and off the set in the relatively small but pivotal role of Fricka, Wotan's wife, securely ensconced in a rather ungainly mechanized throne, with armrests fashioned from enormous rams' heads.


Stephanie Blythe and Bryn Terfel in the Met's "Die Walküre"

Aside from its perils, I had mixed feelings about the set: Sometimes it seemed ingeniously (and wittily) versatile, as in the famous "Ride of the Valkyries":



One by one, the woman warriors (intentionally this time) slid down those galloping planks at the end of their "rides."

Other times, Lepage's 90,000-pound gorilla (designed by Carl Fillion, also responsible, with Lepage, for the damnable set of "Damnation of Faust") seemed ponderous and obtrusive, upstaging the music. It consists of 24 planks, constructed between two towers, running on a hydraulic system. It was also used in Lepage's new production of "Das Rheingold" and will be in operation throughout his reimaginings of final two operas in the "Ring" cycle.

The only other major glitch in Friday's performance was the mid-opera substitution for the role of Sieglinde. The first act's vocal performances were disappointingly under-powered: Neither the indisposed Westbroek, nor the evening's young Siegmund, Jonas Kaufmann (perhaps reined in by his partner's difficulty), soared in the sublimely rapturous moments of their love music. Siegmund's emphatic solo cries of "Nothung!" (the name of his enchanted sword), normally a high point of the tenor's role, were oddly subdued.

Before the second act, Peter Gelb, the Met's general manager, took the stage to announce that Westbroek was ill but would nevertheless continue singing. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, that the soprano's voice (and also Kaufmann's) had unaccountably risen to Wagnerian proportions in the second act. Then, before the third act, another onstage announcer informed us that an understudy, Margaret Jane Wray (who has previously sung the role at the Met), had, in fact, taken over as Sieglinde in the second act.

Each time an announcer took the stage, I braced myself for what I thought might be a substitution of conductor. I assume that most reviewers, sitting in prime orchestra seats, didn't have the clear view of James Levine in the pit that I did, perched in my usual non-press Dress Circle Box seats.


James Levine, music director, Metropolitan Opera, taking a bow at the Met's 125th Anniversary Gala, 2009
Photo: Ken Howard, Metropolitan Opera

From my vantage point, Levine, throughout the five-hour evening, looked to be in considerable discomfort, constantly adjusting his seated position and sometimes limiting his exertions, which began and ended energetically enough, but were seriously constrained for much of the evening, when he didn't seem to be cueing and exhorting the players with his usual verve and flair.

Most alarmingly, Levine's left arm appeared to be only semi-functional. He would repeatedly use it and lose it: After a broad raised-arm gesture, he would recover by resting his left hand in his lap. For much of the night, he awkwardly extended the left arm behind him, to lean on (or, more likely, push against) the railing separating him from the audience. As an intermittent back-pain sufferer, I have a pretty good idea of what was happening: Jimmy was trying to take the strain off his bad back by bracing himself against the rail.

You can't conduct in discomfort for such a long stretch and not suffer any consequences. Levine's energy is causing him injury. For the curtain calls, the conductor did manage to to arrive at the end of the stage with a cane on one side and a helper on the other. To haltingly reach center stage, he needed to be propped up on both sides, with the sturdy Voigt and Terfel doing the honors.

Levine has repeatedly asserted that his "body's still getting stronger," as he told Daniel Wakin for a NY Times profile today of Fabio Luisi, the Met's principal guest conductor. Wakin calls Luisi "clearly the heir apparent" to Levine. On the other hand, veteran music critic and AJ blogger Norman Lebrecht writes in this weekend's Wall Street Journal that "Luisi, who is taking over Levine's present cancellations, looks like a stop-gap, not an heir."

I don't like talk of Levine's retiring; the results he achieves are still too brilliant for us to lose him. But I don't think he can continue indefinitely in this manner.

Speaking of which, Levine still has six more performances of "Die Walküre" to get through. I hope he makes it. After that, rather than subjecting himself to the wear and tear of the company's planned summer trip to Japan, I hope the Met's much beloved maestro considers giving his body a fighting chance to heal.

Where's Hillary?

This is what we've all been fearing.

RTHK [Radio Television Hong Kong] reports:

The Human Rights in China Biweekly Journal [here, in Chinese] says artist and political activist Ai Weiwei has pleaded guilty to charges related to tax. An article, written by a reporter claiming to work for Xinhua [the Chinese news agency], says Ai had reluctantly admitted to the crime after being tortured by Police [emphasis added].

Ai was taken away by police [my link, not theirs] at Beijing airport more than two weeks ago and his whereabouts have been unknown since. His sister, Gao Ge, told RTHK that she would rather her younger brother agreed to a conviction than undergo more torture. But she said the family had not yet heard any thing from the authorities on the matter.

In a case of too little too late (at least for Ai), the U.S. State Department yesterday announced:

The United States and China will hold the U.S.-China Human Rights Dialogue on April 27-28, 2011. Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Posner will lead an interagency delegation to Beijing for the event.

Discussions will focus on human rights developments, including the recent negative trend of forced disappearances, extralegal detentions, and arrests and convictions [emphasis added], as well as rule of law, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, labor rights, minority rights and other human rights issues of concern.

The United States looks forward to candid and in-depth discussions over the course of the two days. The United States raises human rights concerns with China regularly and at high levels. The Human Rights Dialogue provides an important channel for in-depth discussions of these issues between U.S. and Chinese experts.

It would send a far stronger message if Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton herself were in attendance for this "candid, in-depth discussion," demanding that Ai be released before her return to Washington. Previous discussions "at high levels" (beneath that of Secretary) seem to have had little impact.

Perhaps the State Department needs to change its slogan from "Diplomacy in Action" to "Diplomacy Inaction."

Got an hour and 40 minutes?

Then you can watch the video, below, of our entire panel discussion earlier this month at Rutgers University---Hide/Seek: Museums, Ethics and the Press---which may prove to have been more deeply informative, more freewheeling and certainly more relaxed than the Smithsonian's "Hide/Seek" marathon will be next week, when panels consisting largely of Smithsonian personnel will be speaking under the eyes of their institution's top brass. Our outspoken five-person panel (plus our deeply informed moderator) pondered the fine points, not just the "Flashpoints" (as the upcoming Washington conclave is titled).

The auditorium on the Newark, NJ, campus of Rutgers was a haven for making both large statements and subtle distinctions, while puzzling through the ethical and practical quandaries posed by the controversial Smithsonian show and gleaning the lessons to be learned from it. It was a place for thought, rather than a platform for polemics or posturing.

I'm very grateful to Sally Yerkovich, project director for the Institute of Museum Ethics (IME), Seton Hall University, for bringing together this insightful group and for inviting me to join in. (You'll see Sally introducing us at the beginning of the video.) At a time when fractious politics and serious financial constraints are putting a greater strain then ever on the tenets of museum ethics, the IME is an idea whose time has come.

Seated from left to right, below, you will see and hear: Moderator Daniel Okrent, author, journalist, former chairman of National Portrait Gallery's board; Martin Sullivan, director, National Portrait Gallery; W. King Mott, associate professor of political science (specializing in queer theory), Seton Hall University; Lee Rosenbaum (who needs no introduction to CultureGrrl readers); Abe Zakhem, associate professor of philosophy, Seton Hall; Father Gregory Waldrop, SJ, assistant professor of art history, Fordham University.

I've already excerpted some of Sullivan's comments, here. Now sit back and enjoy the unexpurgated version:

Philip Kennicott, Blake Gopnik's successor as Washington Post art critic

No sooner did I post my CultureGrrl Video capturing Blake Gopnik's lament on the state of art criticism---its growing focus on art issues and controversies, rather than just plain art---than the Washington Post, where Blake had served with distinction until recently, named Gopnik's successor as art critic---Philip Kennicott, who has long been the WaPo's culture writer. He will still write on other topics, while reviewing art. This just formalizes a role that he had already assumed: Back in February, Kennicott had described himself, on his blog, as "filling in" as the Post's art critic.

Kennicott recently returned from a week in Cairo, where he got "a look at the trials, tribulations and general absurdities of all things Zahi Hawass," as he reports on his blog. I've mercifully averted my own gaze from Hawass recently, as things got more and more bizarre: A court sentenced him to a year in jail, a fine, and removal from his Minister of Antiquities post; then he was allowed to keep his government post, even though convicted, pending appeal of the case (which involves a dispute over the rights to manage the Egyptian Museum's bookstore).

What's more, he launched his own clothing line to further the Cult of Zahi and, he says, to raise money for charity. But Kate Taylor of the NY Times reports that half the profits will go to two executives of Arts and Exhibitions International, the organizer of the traveling King Tut show. In yet another fundraising gambit, Hawass established a new manufacturing unit that has just turned out its first batch of exact-scale replicas of ancient Egyptian objects, to be sold for the benefit of the Ministry of Antiquities---130 sculptures "depicting the unique collection of King Tutankhamun," as described by Nevine El-Aref in Al-Ahram.

Kennicott raises much more serious issues regarding Hawass in the first of his planned Egyptian dispatches:

Abd El Halim Nur El-Din, former head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (the organization that was recently transformed into the ministry Hawass leads), says that Hawass' management style makes it impossible for him to lead the ministry effectively.

"Zahi never listens to anyone, he never visits the archaeological sites, he only meets with the media and with stars," he says of a man who has squired President Obama around the pyramids and supped with actor Omar Sharif. Nur El-Din also repeats allegations that have circulated widely here: that antiquities have gone missing after VIPs were given Hawass-led tours and that priceless objects have been discovered in the possession of Egypt's former top leadership.

These are highly damaging accusations, the reliability of which should be carefully assessed by checking with other on-the-record and/or unimpeachable sources. Kennicott gives us this:

Hawass, in an interview, doesn't respond to specific allegations, but says he is honest and has consistently supported both the protection and repatriation of Egyptian antiquities. He also says his critics are guilty of incompetence or malfeasance.

Let's go back to Gopnik: Now at Newsweek (and also writing a blog pointedly titled, Blake Gopnik on Art), Blake will be one of the speakers at next week's Smithsonian public forum inspired by the National Portrait Gallery's hot-button "Hide/Seek" show. That symposium---Flashpoints and Fault Lines: Museum Curation and Controversy, Apr. 26-27---now looks to be a snooze fest, not a slugfest: Some 20 of the 29 invited speakers (listed at the above "Flashpoints" link) are connected with the Smithsonian in one way or another; almost all the other participants are heads of museums or of museum professional organizations, with two former chairmen of the National Endowment for the Arts thrown in. Gopnik and New Republic art critic Jed Perl are two notable outsiders from the arts-management establishment.

The NPG's director, Martin Sullivan, who wasn't included (scroll down) on the partial list of speakers that the Smithsonian had sent me last week, is scheduled to appear in the "Concluding Thoughts" session. (You've already gotten a good preview of his thoughts, in my report on the recent "Hide/Seek" panel on which he and I participated.) Most of next week's fireworks will have to come from the audience. You can view a live webcast of the entire forum, here.

Speaking of art issues and controversies (as I frequently do), I have formally accepted my invitation to speak on the "Investigating the Arts" panel, June 10, at the national conference of Investigative Reporters and Editors in Orlando. This probing group is still in formation, but it looks like I'll be joined by distinguished gumshoes from major newspapers.

Since that trip is out-of-pocket, my warm thanks go out to CultureGrrl Repeat Donors 162, 163, and 164 from Valatie, NY, Cincinnati and San Jose, who rose to my challenge (scroll down) to send me to Orlando. This puts me a bit less than one-third of the way there. (That's just for hotel; I'm using frequent flyer miles!)

I hope CultureGrrl's loyal readers will consider clicking my "Donate" button and that museums and galleries will follow the welcome lead of the Toledo Museum of Art, by placing ads for your exhibitions, catalogues and/or merchandise offerings (but please, no Hawass Hats!).

Ai Weiwei

I'm all in favor of petitions and protests calling attention to China's deplorable detention of dissident artist Ai Weiwei. But international pressure by concerned citizens isn't going to win his release. As with jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese government strongly decries foreign intervention on behalf of those who are officially regarded as "criminals."

The only pressure that might have some real impact is forceful action (not merely statements) by national governments at the highest level. The key quote in author Salman Rushdie's Op-Ed piece in today's NY Times is this:

The disappearance [of Ai] is made worse by reports [my link, not Rushdie's] that Mr. Ai has started to "confess." His release is a matter of extreme urgency and the governments of the free world have a clear duty in this matter [emphasis added].

Some German officials, at least, seems to take this duty seriously. Dpa (Deutsche Presse-Agentur) today reports:

Various German politicians have condemned his disappearance in public and in letters to the Chinese authorities, while others have called for the prestigious exhibition of German art in the Beijing National Museum to be closed. A debate over what to do will be held on April 26, with politicians and culture administrators taking part. The German Cultural Council has already called for the exhibition to be reconsidered.

What's more, Berlin's University of the Arts today offered a guest professorship to Ai. As I've previously stated (scroll down), the U.S. should offer asylum to Ai and his family.

I may have been the first journalist to point out the stark contrast between Ai's detention and the humanistic subtext of works in the current Art of Enlightenment megashow of loans from three German museums to Beijing's National Museum of China.

Now the International Herald Tribune has published Didi Kirsten Tatlow's article, which states:

The German organizers of the show, "The Art of the Enlightenment," savored the irony [of the disconnect between Ai's plight and the message embodied in the art]. "This is why the exhibition is so important: Precisely because of this," said Martin Roth, director of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, referring to the tension.

"Great, isn't it?" said Michael Eissenhauer, director of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, of the show's arrival at this moment in China's history.

Actually, Michael, it's not so great. Eissenhauer had previously told the NY Times:

It's an art exhibit and not a political show. That means themes of individuality or rights will be alluded to in paintings or furniture but not explicitly discussed.

It's time for cultural institutions to stop allowing totalitarian regimes to edit informed scholarship to conform with the party line (which also happened, I have argued, on the Metropolitan Museum's home turf, with its recent Yuan Dynasty show). If curators can't exercise appropriate control over the interpretation of their exhibitions---in catalogues, multimedia and wall text---they should decline to debase their expertise and withdraw from the project.

Speaking of attacks on free expression, the online petition calling for Ai's release was recently hacked by someone operating from a Chinese Internet address. It was shut down, Mark Lee of Bloomberg reported earlier today. However, the petition appears to be back up and very much running---some 94,700 signatories and still counting, at this writing. You must sign it! (I did.)

In another bit of "good" news, Tania Branigan of the British Guardian (who has been doing a heroic job of pursuing this story from Beijing) reports that Ai's lawyer "has re-emerged after a five-day disappearance, which began shortly after he posted a microblog message saying he was being followed. Liu Xiaoyuan tweeted to say he was back in Beijing and told the Guardian he was fine but did not want to give any more details of what had happened."

A vow of silence must have been extracted. Or maybe lawyer Liu simply knows what's good for him (and, we can only hope, also for Ai).

Sebastian Smee, Pulitzer-winning Boston Globe art critic

Yesterday was Pulitzer Prize Day, or, as it's known in my house, Passover (to riff on Bob Hope's famous quip regarding Oscars Award Night). Actually, I wasn't "passed over" this year, because I didn't apply (as I had for the previous two years).

Wait a minute! Last night actually WAS Passover. In fact, I'm still in recovery mode after my seder feast for 14 (intimate, compared to my baleboosteh heyday of 30-plus), the preparations for which were disrupted by semi-disaster. (More on that later.)

The Pulitzer winner for criticism, as you have doubtless heard by now, was Sebastian Smee, the Boston Globe's art critic, who was cited for "his vivid and exuberant writing about art, often bringing great works to life with love and appreciation." He had been a finalist in 2008, when NY Times critic Holland Cotter got medaled.

The jury this year included Jonathan Landman, culture editor of the NY Times and (could it be?!?) Doug Mclennan, editor of ArtsJournal, which hosts CultureGrrl. Maybe I SHOULD have applied this year! Then again, I'm sure that Doug would have been required to recuse himself from consideration of any AJ bloggers, just as Landman probably had to be hands-off regarding his architecture critic, Nicolai Ouroussoff, who was named a finalist this year.

Still, with Doug on the jury, we've come a long way from 2009, when the Pulitzer arbiters refused to consider my entry on the National Academy's stealth deaccessions (and even refunded my fee), because they didn't regard ArtsJournal as an eligible news organization. (Incidentally, there was more on the National Academy's evolving situation, a story that I broke in December 2008, in yesterday's NY Times.)

The year after I was bounced from Pulitzer contention, what I termed "The CultureGrrl Exclusion Rule" was officially lifted: Bloggers were invited to vie for the prize. (When a blogger actually WINS, that'll really be something!)

One distinguished non-winner, Blake Gopnik, former art critic for the Washington Post (now with Newsweek), last Wednesday spoke from the audience that had gathered at Christie's to hear a panel discussion on The Future of Arts Journalism. Blake expressed his distress at what he views as a disturbing sea-change in his field, exemplified by the fact that his journalistic colleagues (presumably those as the Post) were much more interested in his article about "the Wojnarovicz scandal" than his long piece on Velázquez's "Las Meninas." You can hear him vent his frustration (to which Eric Gibson, editor of the Wall Street Journal's "Leisure & Arts" page, sympathetically responds) about two-thirds into the video of the panel discussion (to which I link below).

But first, you should view my CultureGrrl Video of Gopnik's lament, which has the advantage of focusing on Blake's face, rather than on the back of his head. Sitting across the aisle and slightly in front of him, I caught him on camera just after he started saying the following:

In the 15 years that I've been a salaried art critic, there's been a huge change in what many editors want from even their art critics, let alone their art journalists, which is stuff that has anything to do with anything other than actual works of art.

Then Blake said this:



If you watch the entire panel discussion on Christie's website, you'll also see me pop up as the last questioner from the live (as distinguished from online) audience. More on that (perhaps) later.

But for now, here's my report on our family's unscripted Passover afflictions: The long table that I had temporarily set up in the middle of my kitchen, on which I had just plunked down my half-done turkey for basting, suddenly collapsed at the end where the bird was perched, causing a slow-motion cascade of poultry and a large assortment of dishes and platters. Happily, the 20-pounder landed rightside up, snug in his roasting pan. Only two platters and a gravy boat were totaled (not to mention my husband, who had neglected to lock the folding leg of the table). Our kitchen's wood floor got well basted.

CultureDaughter, meanwhile, is licking her wounds, having cut her hand (requiring two stitches) the night before driving to us from Maryland. She got the worse of her knife attack on 12 apples, while attempting to make our seder's charoset. This afternoon, she almost didn't make it back in time for her job interview in Washington, because her car's tire went flat in our parking lot.

"Next year in Jerusalem" (as we say on Passover night) sounds like a very good idea to me at the moment!

[NOTE: I have a call in to ADAA for a photo of Stephen Hahn. If anyone can e-mail me an image, I'll post it here.]

I always have a soft spot for renowned experts who graciously shared their time and insights with me early in my career as an arts journalist. One such was the late Stephen Hahn, the distinguished Hungarian-born New York dealer of Impressionist and modern European masterworks, who died Apr. 2 at the age of 90.

Surprisingly, the only obits of this once preeminent dealer that have appeared in the NY Times thus far are two paid classified obits---one, a brief homage from the Art Dealers Association of America, where he was a past president; the other, a more detailed recounting of his life and achievements.

The classified obits both mention his love of music. Every time I spoke to Hahn by phone or visited his gallery, classical music was playing in the background. He was one of my prime sources for information about how dealers operate when I was researching my book, The Complete Guide to Collecting Art (Knopf, 1982).

Here are some of Hahn's insights about the art market and connoisseurship, as quoted in my book:

---"A collector who has any sense and buys in a public sale should consult a specialist," asserted dealer Stephen Hahn, who said that he performs such consultation free for clients and for a 'nominal fee' for those who have not bought from him.

---Stephen Hahn, well know for his ability to detect fakes in his field, attributes his success to having "a fine memory for details....An expert should know the artist's style, his taste, the way he composed, the way he used colors. The most important thing is to know his facture---the 'handwriting' of the artist [i.e., the way he applies the paint, his brushstrokes]. Some artists' facture can differ from one day to another."

---A "skinned" Impressionist painting (one in which the glazes have been cleaned away) is worth 30 to 40 percent less than a comparable pristine one, according to dealer Stephen Hahn.  "If a picture is overcleaned, it looks thinly painted and you can see the preparation of the canvas [the 'ground,' usually white] coming through the sky. In an overcleaned Renoir, the transparent colors of the skin are gone."

---Some people who are just starting to collect act as if they know much more about painting than I do. I have no patience for that.

Creighton Gilbert

The only contacts that I had with preeminent scholar of Italian Renaissance art Creighton Gilbert, who died on Apr. 6 at the age of 86, were related to my 1996 stories in the Wall Street Journal (scroll down) and Art in America magazine (not online) regarding the purported "Michelangelo of Fifth Avenue" (now on display at the Metropolitan Museum).

I had noted that the various scholars cited by the "rediscoverer" of the "Michelangelo," Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt, didn't include Gilbert, the go-to authority on the artist. When I contacted him in Connecticut, he was eager to debunk the attribution, even though he hadn't yet traveled to New York to eyeball it. Later, after he saw it at the Cultural Services of the French Embassy on Fifth Avenue, he maintained his thumbs-down verdict and spoke to me at length about why the sculpture is not by Michelangelo (a conversation recorded in my notes, now buried deep in the CultureGrrl archives).

Here's how Yale described him, when he became professor emeritus in 2000:

One of the world's foremost scholars of Italian Renaissance art, Creighton Gilbert has been a faculty member at Yale since 1981. The author of hundreds of articles and more than a dozen books on major artistic figures such as Caravaggio, Piero della Francesca and Michelangelo, Gilbert received the Mather Award for Art Criticism from the College of Art Association in 1964. That same year, he was inducted as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 1980, Gilbert was appointed editor of Art Bulletin, the pre-eminent American journal in art history. He went on to serve as editor-in-chief until 1985, longer than any other editor since World War II. Gilbert has also served as visiting professor at the University of Jerusalem and the University of Leiden, the Netherlands; the Robert Sterling Clark Visiting Professor at Williams College and a Fulbright Senior Lecturer at the University of Rome.

Eric Gibson, editor, Wall Street Journal "Leisure & Arts" page, one of tonight's panelists

Christie's this evening will host its second panel discussion on The Future of Arts Journalism. Who can ever forget the first, two years ago, where Sam Sifton, then the NY Times' cultural news editor, said this about his newspaper's arts reporters and critics, occasioning inward gasps from the audience, an astonished comment from the moderator, and probably resentment from certain reporters and critics:

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

Coincidentally or not, Sifton was named five months later to take over the restaurant critic's beat. There's no one from the Times on this evening's three-person panel:

---Eric Gibson, editor of the "Leisure & Arts" page (for which I write), Wall Street Journal
---Lindsay Pollock, editor-in-chief, Art in America
---Dennis Scholl, vice president, arts, Knight Foundation

The evening's moderator, once again, is Professor Sree Sreenivasan, dean of student affairs, Columbia University School of Journalism, whose talk at a long-ago alumni weekend, for better or (probably) for worse, tempted me to start blogging almost five years ago.

Here's the panel's description:

As traditional outlets grapple with the fast-changing media landscape, what does the future hold for arts journalism? If online media is the way of the future, what are the proven business models [not CultureGrrl's, obviously] and which are to be avoided? What career path should an aspiring journalist or seasoned arts writer take in this new climate?

This sounds like news I can use.

It all takes place tonight, 6-8 p.m., at Christie's World Room, 20 Rockefeller Plaza (49th St.). But if you can't be there in person (as I hope to be), don't fret. You can watch it live online (and even send questions for the panel), by clicking the link at the top of this post.

Speaking of the future of arts journalism and (failed) business models: I've been asked to participate on a panel, "Investigating the Arts," at the June conference in Orlando of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), a professional organization for investigative reporters in all fields. My only hesitation is that travel and hotel expenses are out-of-pocket.

If you'd like to help me decide, you know where my yellow "Donate" button is. (Hint: my middle column.) Don't worry, I won't stray to Disney World, which I've visited far too many times for one lifetime (unless I have grandchildren, in which case I may eventually reconsider).

Speaking of which, I haven't yet told you of a very joyful CultureFamily development: A week and a half ago, CultureDaughter became a fiancée. You've already met the lucky, terrific guy!

Speaking of panels, I promise that you WILL have my report tomorrow on the revelations that emerged from the panel discussion, Hide/Seek: Museums, Ethics and the Press, in which I participated with Martin Sullivan, director of the National Portrait Gallery, and Daniel Okrent, author, journalist and the NY Times' first Public Editor.

Left: Damaged statue of King Tutankhamun, recovered after having been missing from the Egyptian Museum since January
Right: Photo of the same statue, intact, from the catalogue of the Metropolitan Museum's "Treasures of Tutankhamun" exhibition
Photo: Rania Galal

In the various reports of recoveries of objects stolen from the Egyptian Museum, we have learned little (and what we HAVE learned was often implausible) about how they were found or about the identities of "criminals" whom Zahi Hawass, Egypt's reinstated Minister of Antiquities, has said were caught. It's beginning to look like we'll never know more. There have been persistent "inside job" theories from the very beginning, which, if untrue, Hawass should explicitly dispel. Transparency about who has been apprehended, how and why, would be a good start.

Yesterday, Hawass announced that four more objects from the museum had been recovered, including the gilded wood statue of King Tut, above, that had been perched in a boat, throwing a harpoon. The press release calls the damage to the statue "slight," noting that "a small part of the crown is missing as well as pieces of the legs." It appears, though, that the harpoon-throwing arm is also damaged (and lacking its harpoon) and that a great deal of gilding is lost. The boat was left behind at the museum (perhaps the harpoon too) when the boy-king vanished, during the ransacking of the Egyptian Museum at the end of January.

The published account of how this latest recovery occurred strains credulity.

Nevine El-Aref of Al-Ahram reports:

Salah Abdel Salam, a public relations personal [sic] at the MSAA [Ministry of State for Antiquities Affairs], came upon these objects during his daily trip to work on the Metro. He related that he accidently found an unidentified black bag placed on a chair in the Shubra Metro station. Doubtful that the bag was concealing an explosive, Salah opened it and found the Tutankhamun statue gazing up at him. He took the bag and handed it over to the MSAA.

Ummm, whatever. Hawass has made it pretty clear that he won't inquire too closely about the missing objects' recent history, as long as they are returned.

According Al-Ahram:

Hawass told reporters that he is calling on all Egyptians to return any objects that they have found [or stolen?]. He emphasized that the MSAA will not file any lawsuit against them but instead will compensate them [emphasis added].

"If anyone is afraid of handing over such objects they can put it at the MSAA entrance gate or the Egyptian Museum's door and we will take care of them," announced Hawass.

Paying "compensation" (otherwise known as ransom) to thieves is ordinarily bad practice. But then again, these were no ordinary times.

Hawass has also announced that he will organize a touring art exhibition "that tells the story of the struggles of Egypt's Revolution."

The Smithsonian had planned to release tomorrow the names of the panelists for its two-day "Hide/Seek"-related conference. Now they've put it off till next Monday, as spokesperson Linda St. Thomas told me. Either they're having trouble organizing the panels, or they don't want to invite controversy over their choices until the last minute.

One reason why the planners may be risk-averse: On Feb. 25, Christopher Knight of the LA Times published this piece naming three panelists whom he said were on a draft list he had seen for a session on "Media Perspectives on Exhibitions and Controversies." Strongly opposed to one of the purported choices, he issued a "smog alert."

A "Media Alert" was issued today by the Smithsonian for "Flashpoints and Fault Lines: Museum Curation and Controversy," as the two-day session (Apr. 26, 6-9 p.m.; Apr. 27, 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Freer Gallery auditorium) has been titled.

The only speakers named in this "alert" were the Smithsonian's own officials and curators: G. Wayne Clough, secretary; Richard Kurin, under secretary for history, art and culture; Julian Raby, director, Freer and Sackler galleries, and senior art advisor; curators from several Smithsonian exhibitions, including the co-curators of "Hide/Seek"---David Ward, National Portrait Gallery historian; guest curator Jonathan Katz, director of the doctoral program in visual studies, State University of New York at Buffalo.

From the announcement, which failed to mention that the panels were still in formation, I drew the erroneous conclusion that those were to be the only speakers. I was therefore poised to change Knight's "smog alert" to a "snooze alert." But St. Thomas assured me that "there are non-Smithsonian people on every panel." Time will tell (or maybe Knight will).

Below is the description of the Washington sessions. (Admission is free in an auditorium with a 300-person capacity.)

The Tuesday evening session will focus in part on the National Portrait Gallery's exhibition "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture." Discussion topics will include difficulties in representing sensitive gender and sexuality subjects in public institutions.

The daylong session Wednesday will focus on curation---listening to artists, scientists, public figures and cultural communities; exhibitions in a national museum; and museum stakeholders and curation. The forum will have several public-comment and Q&A sessions.

Don't worry, art-lings, if you can't be there in person. You can watch the whole thing (if you really must) via online webcast, here.

Wait a minute! Where's Martin Sullivan? Strangely, the director of the museum where the hot-button show took place, who labored so tirelessly to navigate his institution between a rock and a hard place when the storm broke, is not listed among the Smithsonian's participants. Is this just a press-release oversight?

Fear not. Marty was a dominant presence on last Saturday's panel, Hide/Seek: Museums, Ethics and the Press, in which I also participated. I'll spare you my own comments (since my views are already overly familiar to CultureGrrl readers), but I'd bet you'd like to know some of what Marty and Kaywin Feldman, the Minneapolis-based president of the Association of Art Museum Directors (who, to my astonishment, was in the audience), had to say. COMING SOON.

In the meantime, if you really can't get enough of this topic (I, for one, am starting to feel sated), the Corcoran Gallery has now posted four videos from its own recent "Hide/Seek"-extravaganza. The keynote speaker was Robert Storr, dean of the Yale School of Art.

I had really wanted you to see the video below (from ChinaForbiddenNews' YouTube channel), which highlights the disconnect between the humanistic message of works in Beijing's current Art of Enlightenment exhibition (which recently opened at the National Museum of China) and the deplorable detention of dissident artist Ai Weiwei by Chinese authorities.

NTD-TV has now helped me to correct my embed-code glitch, and I'm now able to post this incendiary clip, which also provides a tantalizing view of the works in the exhibition, loaned by three German museums for a year-long run. Germany has been in the forefront of pressing for Ai's release.

But before we click the video, let's interrupt this blog post with a Weiwei Watch news update. It sadly indicates that matters are only getting worse, notwithstanding the strong international pressure that is building for the dissident artists' release. The longer he languishes, the more we must worry.

Tania Branigan (stay safe, Tania!) of the British Guardian reports today from Beijing:

The driver and accountant of detained artist Ai Weiwei have gone missing, according to assistants from his studio.

Friends of Zhang Jingsong, known to friends as Xiao Pang, and accountant Ms Hu---who worked for Ai's art and architecture practice Fake Design, and whose full name is not known---have been unable to contact them since the weekend....

His [Zhang's] friend Wen Tao, 38, has also been missing since police reportedly detained him on the same day.

Meanwhile, the New Yorker has posted a piece by Mark Singer (to appear in next week's "Talk of the Town" section) that gives a take on Weiwei's situation from the perspective of Larry Warsh, the New York-based Chinese art collector who has been helping to organize the planned New York exhibition of Ai's Chinese zodiac animal heads. (A largely concurrent show of these bronzes is planned for London's Somerset House.)

Finally, here's the hard-hitting video from New York-based New Tang Dynasty (NTD) News, which describes itself as "a truthful, uncensored Chinese-language alternative to China's state-run media," broadcasting "directly into parts of mainland China via satellite, providing a truthful, uncensored Chinese-language alternative to China's state-run media":

Bonnie Pitman, outgoing director of the Dallas Museum of Art

First the unexpected death in December of Peter Marzio, the veteran director of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.

Now the unexpected announcement by the Dallas Museum of Art that Bonnie Pitman will step down from its directorship next month "for health reasons." Scott Cantrell of the Dallas Morning News reports that Pitman "is being treated for a protracted respiratory infection."

Pitman succeeded the DMA's longtime director John Lane almost three years ago. She had been deputy director since 2000.

According to the museum's press release:

Pitman will continue to work with the museum and its board of trustees on special projects through April 2012, and will help with the search and transition to the new director.

Olivier Meslay, senior curator of European and American art, will become interim director.

Down in Houston, the search for a new director continues. Rebecca Cohen of the Texas Tribune on Saturday made it sound as if Marzio is regarded there as nearly irreplaceable. Houston's interim director is Gwendolyn Goffe, who was the museum's associate director for finance and administration.

The annual meeting of the American Association of Museums in Houston, May 22-25, will be dedicated to Marzio's memory.

The new message on the Tate Modern, London (image from its website and Twitter page)

[More on Ai Weiwei---here, here, here and here.]

The Guggenheim Foundation has launched an online petition in which the international art community calls upon China to release artist Ai Weiwei from custody.

I have signed it; so should you. At this writing there are 4,361 signatories. (In the time it took me to finish writing and post this, the number jumped to 4,556.)

Here's the stern text of the forceful petition, addressed to Chinese Minister of Culture Cai Wu:

CALL FOR THE RELEASE OF AI WEIWEI

Our museums are members of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) and the International Committee of ICOM for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM), a non-governmental organization with formal relations with UNESCO. On April 6, CIMAM sent a communiqué calling for the release of Ai Weiwei. Our museums, foundations, and communities of Facebook followers and Twitter fans support CIMAM's statement:

"The detention of artists and activists is not only inconsistent with China's commitment to the fundamental freedoms guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in China's own constitution, it is also inconsistent with the Chinese government's pledge, through the Ministry of Culture, to promote all artistic disciplines and to advance artistic ideas. As organizations that represent modern and contemporary art around the world, such actions and the obscurity surrounding them are diametrically opposed to our values. They are of grave concern and consequence for the well-being of Ai Weiwei and for the artistic community at large, and hinder future collaboration with the Chinese colleagues we welcomed at our recent annual meeting in Shanghai."

The lead signatories are:

Richard Armstrong, director, and Alexandra Munroe, senior curator of Asian art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Michael Govan, director, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Kaywin Feldman, president, Association of Art Museum Directors, and director and president, Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Glenn Lowry, director, Museum of Modern Art

Yongwoo Lee, President, The Gwangju Biennale Foundation

Vishakha Desai, president and Melissa Chiu, vice president of global arts, Asia Society

Sir Nicholas Serota, director, Tate, and Chris Dercon, director, Tate Modern (where Ai's installation, Sunflower Seeds, is on view to May 2)

Art museums (particularly those showing Chinese and/or contemporary art) should educate their visitors---both online and on-site---regarding Ai's plight, providing opportunities (including a link from their homepages) for the public to add their names to this petition.

As suggested by the petition, "future collaboration with the Chinese colleagues" should stop until Ai is safe. What's more, current collaborations should be reconsidered. I expressed my ideas on this more fully three days ago, in Weiwei Watch: The Artworld Must Respond.

Now the artworld HAS begun to respond. But words are not enough.

IN IMPORTANT RELATED NEWS: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today issued Remarks to the Press on the Release of the 2010 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, in which she said the following about Chinese human rights violations in general and Ai Weiwei's detention in particular:

As we have said repeatedly, the United States welcomes the rise of a strong and prosperous China, and we look forward to our upcoming Strategic and Economic Dialogue with Beijing and to our continued cooperation to address common global challenges. However, we remain deeply concerned about reports that, since February, dozens of people, including public interest lawyers, writers, artists, intellectuals, and activists have been arbitrarily detained and arrested.

Among them most recently was the prominent artist, Ai Weiwei, who was taken into custody just this past Sunday. Such detention is contrary to the rule of law, and we urge China to release all of those who have been detained for exercising their internationally recognized right to free expression and to respect the fundamental freedoms and human rights of all of the citizens of China.

You're not too late!

Come throw some hard questions at Martin Sullivan, director of the National Portrait Gallery, and me at our panel discussion tomorrow (Saturday) morning at Rutgers University, Newark, NJ: "Hide/Seek": Museums, Ethics and the Press. I might even venture to lob some questions at Martin myself, even though Daniel Okrent (author, editor, chairman of the National Portrait Gallery from 2003 to 2008) is the interrogator-in-chief as the panel's moderator.

To whet your appetite for this, here are some of the topics that Seton Hall University's Institute of Museum Ethics, an organizer of the program, has asked the panel's five pundits to think about (with a few of my pithy responses appended):

Where were the places when decisions with ethical implications were made? [Many places.]

Does a museum have an ethical responsibility to take on challenging topics in exhibitions and programs? [Duh, YES! This is America, not China.]

What impact did media coverage have on the controversy? [Uh-oh. I'd better brace myself.] Did the Internet make a difference? If so, how? Is there a way to "manage" media coverage of controversies like this, given the exposure that these issues get on the Internet? [Don't "manage" me; inform me!]

Did issues related to the rights of artists whose work was exhibited in the exhibition arise? If so, what were they? [David Wojnarovicz's posthumous moral rights; AA Bronson's debatable assertion of a right to remove his work in protest.] Did the response of artists have a positive or negative impact? Again, is there a way to manage this kind of response? Were there legal issues involved? [Yes. Bronson engaged a lawyer to assert his claim.]

How can curators, museum directors, etc., think about creating exhibitions and programs that challenge their audiences to think in new ways without getting into debates that are counterproductive? How do we establish a process for civil dialogue? [This is a big question. "Debate" can be a good thing.]

With a government shutdown looming, who knows if the Smithsonian's planned "Hide/Seek" conference (scroll down) is even going to happen? This could be your best opportunity to ask pointed questions and make some constructive suggestions for the future.

For more information about our slugfest...I mean symposium...click the link at the top of the post.

Martin and I hope to greet you there. Admission is free; conversation will be freewheeling!

The newly released officially authorized "news" from China (as reported by Agence France-Presse) is that "Ai Weiwei is under investigation on suspicion of economic crimes. It has nothing to do with human rights or freedom of expression. Other countries have no right to interfere." Those were the words of China's foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei, in a statement to journalists.

For the unofficial version of events, let's turn to ChinaForbiddenNews. This Chinese-language (with English subtitles) YouTube channel of New York-based New Tang Dynasty (NTD) News, has posted a video that gives a tantalizing look at the Art of Enlightenment exhibition at the National Museum of China, and also pointedly contrasts the themes of freedom and human rights embodied in the 18th-century European art on display with the oppression of artists (including Ai Weiwei) and intellectuals in present-day China (a disconnect that CultureGrrl alluded to four days ago, here).

NTD describes itself as "a truthful, uncensored Chinese-language alternative to China's state-run media." It "broadcasts directly into parts of mainland China via satellite, providing a truthful, uncensored Chinese-language alternative to China's state-run media."

It's packing a wallop.

UPDATE: The video that I originally embedded, which showed many views of the works installed in the "Enlightenment" show, appears to have been taken down, with the one below substituted. It doesn't show the show, but provides a hard-hitting report on the Ai Affair:



The AFP article linked at the top of this post also describes a new, forcefully expressed U.S. response to Ai's detention, made yesterday on Chinese soil:

The United States, France, Germany and Britain have joined Amnesty International and other groups in calling for Ai's release, with U.S. ambassador Jon Huntsman defending the artist in a Shanghai speech on Wednesday.

In unusually blunt public comments, Huntsman---who will soon leave his post---saluted Ai, jailed Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo and others who "challenge the Chinese government to serve the public in all cases and at all times."

If our political ambassador can do it in Shanghai, so can our musical ambassador: Bob Dylan performs there tomorrow, after playing it safe at yesterday's concert in Beijing. We can only hope that he will drop the reticence he demonstrated in the nation's capital and unleash "The Times They Are A-Changing" and "Blowin' in the Wind" (which could use some pointed, updated lyrics for this occasion).

Perhaps yesterday's dig at Dylan by Hao Ying in the state-run Global Times (perpetrator of the recent deplorable editorial about Ai's plight) will have the fortunate effect of waving a Red flag in front of our country's irritable poet laureate of dissent. (We also hope he will exert himself to enunciate clearly!) If Juanes could address Cuba's political situation in his groundbreaking "Peace Without Borders" concert (scroll down) in 2009 in Havana, Dylan should manage to do no less.

"The answer, my friends, is...

Alas, my post of late last night, in which I called for the artworld to unite in demanding the immediate release from government custody of the Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei, has not been "overtaken by events," as I had hoped. On the contrary, this human rights emergency has grown even more alarming and even more urgently in need of a global response.

An official Chinese newspaper, Global Times, today published a vitriolic editorial, Law Will Not Concede Before Maverick. You really must read the whole thing to appreciate just how horrific is this piece of fierce propaganda.

Here are some key excerpts:

Ai Weiwei, known as an avant-garde artist, was said to have been detained recently. Some Western governments and human rights institutions soon called for the immediate release of Ai Weiwei, claiming it to be China's "human rights deterioration" while regarding Ai Weiwei as "China's human rights fighter."

It is reckless collision against China's basic political framework and ignorance of China's judicial sovereignty to exaggerate a specific case in China and attack China with fierce comments before finding out the truth [emphasis added]....

"Human rights" have really become the paint of Western politicians and the media, with which they are wiping off the fact in this world....

Ai Weiwei chooses to have a different attitude from ordinary people toward law. However, the law will not concede before "mavericks" just because of the Western media's criticism. Ai Weiwei will be judged by history, but he will pay a price [emphasis added] for his special choice, which is the same in any society.

If the Chinese authorities really want us to "find out the truth" before we deplore their actions, they should candidly disclose what "the truth" really is about Ai's detention and current condition.

Meanwhile, Germany's foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, continues to be in the forefront of international demands for Ai's release. Catherine Hickley and Patrick Donahue of Bloomberg report that Westerwelle "summoned Chinese ambassador Wu Hongbo to discuss" Ai's detention. In a statement on the Foreign Ministry's website, Westerwelle said the ambassador was called in "to ensure that our clear and unambiguous message reaches the Chinese government," Bloomberg reports. (As I publish this, Bloomberg's link to its article appears to be broken. UPDATE: Now that article appears to have vanished from Bloomberg's website---another mysterious disappearance? The piece did appear to contain one error, saying that Westerwelle was Germany's vice chancellor, when he had, in fact, just resigned that post. UPDATE 2: Link is working again.)

One way to make that message unambiguous could be to threaten withdrawal of the works loaned to the National Museum of China by three German museums for the just-opened mega-blockbuster, The Art of Enlightenment, the opening of which Westerwelle attended last Friday, two days before Ai's disappearance and three days before Westerwelle resigned as Germany's vice chancellor, because his political base was eroding (as reported by the NY Times).

More importantly, the Western nations that have formally expressed to China their distress about his circumstances should offer Ai and his family asylum and urge China to allow him to take it.

In the U.S., as Sarah Palin and John McCain can attest, "maverick" is no pejorative. We can only hope that Ai may attend the opening of his upcoming outdoor sculpture show in New York as a new and celebrated resident of this city.

Bronze animal heads created by Ai Weiwei for his upcoming outdoor exhibition, Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads, May 2-July 15, Grand Army Plaza, New York

[More on this story, here.]

I hope that by the time your read this, Ai Weiwei may have been released and the message of this post will be overtaken by events.

But as I write this late Tuesday night, the detention of the internationally renowned and widely respected artist-provocateur has gone on much too long. (He was taken into custody on Sunday.) Our worst fears about the significance of his disappearance have now been explicitly stated in a Financial Times article, published earlier today and picked up by the Washington Post's website this evening.

Jamil Anderlini writes from Beijing:

Human rights groups say Ai is in grave danger of being tortured and is probably being deprived of medicines he needs regularly....

Although Mr Ai has had numerous run-ins with China's state security apparatus because of his vociferous and often cleverly satirical attacks on one-party Communist rule, he has never been formally detained or disappeared in this way before.

Museum officials and other artworld luminaries must join government officials from Germany, France, Austria, Great Britain, the European Union and the United States in raising their voices in protest Ai's continued, unexplained detention. His treatment by the authorities is not only unconscionable but also a violation of Chinese law (as noted by Jeremy Page, reporting from Beijing for the Wall Street Journal).

The time has come to raise the public's consciousness about Ai's plight and to send a clear, forceful message to the Chinese government, even if those authorities choose to ignore outside pressure.

How to accomplish this? Melissa Chiu, director of Asia Society Museum in New York, has pointed a way: In a statement linked from her institution's homepage---Ai Weiwei: From Porcelain Seeds to Chinese Prison?---Chiu asks, "Will the Chinese government make Ai Weiwei into the next Liu Xiaobo? (Liu was honored with last year's Nobel Peace Prize while incarcerated in China. But even that kind of international pressure did not alter his fate.)

While Chiu's expression of support for Ai is mildly worded, at least it's a start. Every museum in this country that displays Chinese art (and even those that don't) should prominently post an online statement deploring Ai's confinement and demanding his immediate release. What's more, a placard with his picture and a description of his dire predicament should be stationed at the entrances to galleries displaying Chinese art, PARTICULARLY if that art has been loaned to the U.S. by China. If China refuses to allow the continued display of its works under those circumstances, so be it.

There are two such Chinese loan shows now in New York that immediately come to mind: Along the Yangzi River: Regional Culture of the Bronze Age from Hunan at the China Institute, and, of course, The Emperor's Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City at the Metropolitan Museum (reviewed by me here).

As you may remember, in the wake of the recent Egyptian uprising, when the news spread about widespread looting of Egyptian archaeological sites, the Met's director, Thomas Campbell, declared:

The world cannot sit by [emphasis added] and permit unchecked anarchy to jeopardize the cultural heritage of one of the world's oldest, greatest, and most inspiring civilizations.

That wording should now be applied to one of the world's greatest and most inspiring artists. Campbell and other museum directors (perhaps through AAMD, their professional association) should declare that "the world cannot sit by and permit" the continued unexplained, possibly injurious detention by China of its best known and internationally admired contemporary artist.

A particular focal point for the American artworld's protest should be the upcoming outdoor exhibition of Ai's work at New York's prominently situated Pulitzer Fountain in Grand Army Plaza (adjoining the southeast corner of Central Park). The display consists of 12 bronze animal heads and Ai's attendance at next month's opening had been anticipated. The sculptures represent the traditional Chinese zodiac and are based on the heads that once adorned the fountain-clock of the Qianlong Emperor's Summer Palace.

This exhibition should not merely be "moving ahead in the same way that we started," as Chinese art collector Larry Warsh, one of the show's organizers (as founder of AW Asia, a group promoting Chinese contemporary art), told Robin Pogrebin of the NY Times.The Ai-enhanced Pulitzer Fountain should now be reconceived as a venue for demanding Chinese human rights in general and Ai's release in particular.

Perhaps the extremely moving video below should be screened at Grand Army Plaza, in the artist's absence, and at museums in this country and abroad. It contains excerpts from a conversation aired this evening on HDNet, in what is billed as "one of the last television interviews that Ai Weiwei conducted before his detention on Sunday morning at Beijing Capital Airport":

Klayman also published this commentary on the Huffington Post.

Mike Simpson (R, ID), chairman, House Subcommittee for Interior, Environment and Related Agencies

Attention Art-lings! If you've already booked flights, trains and limos to Washington for Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough's Thursday morning hearing before the House Subcommittee for Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, cancel those plans!

As I had warned in my post announcing this event, the hearing's schedule was "subject to change." Now word comes that it has changed: The subcommittee has postponed various hearings that were scheduled for this week, including the Smithsonian's. No new date has been announced at this writing.

I guess I won't have the benefit, then, of that riveting give-and-take before I prepare my remarks for this Saturday's public discussion at Rutgers University, Newark (with co-panelist Martin Sullivan, the National Portrait Gallery's director). Our topic: Hide/Seek: Museums, Ethics and the Press.

Don't forget to register (at the above link) for our colloquy on the controversy. Admission is free; space is limited---just like at the House subcommittee's hard-to-pin-down hearings!

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle with Liu Yandong, State Councillor of Culture for the People's Republic of China, at Friday's opening of "The Art of the Enlightenment," the major German loan show at the National Museum of China, Beijing
Photo: Frank Barbian © Staatliche Museen, Berlin

[More on this story, here and here.]

Guido Westerwelle has done the right thing.

Last night, I pointed out the stark contrast in Beijing between the cultural pomp and ceremony at Friday's opening of The Art of Enlightenment exhibition and the sordid scene two days later at the airport, where dissident artist Ai Weiwei was detained; and at the artist's studio, where laptops and computer hard drives were seized and staff members (as well Ai's wife) were hauled into a police station for questioning.

I had also noted that German officials, who attended the exhibition opening and who last year signed an agreement with China (which included the mounting of the year-long blockbuster show), might be uniquely well situated to advocate on Ai's behalf

Now this has happened.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports [via]:

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on Monday demanded the release of Ai Weiwei, after the Chinese artist and rights activist was prevented by Chinese police from boarding a flight to Hong Kong.

"I appeal to the Chinese government to urgently provide clarification, and I expect Ai Weiwei to be released immediately," Westerwelle said in a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry.

Hillary Clinton, do you copy?

Westerwelle this past weekend had opened the mega-show of works loaned by three German museums to the National Museum of China, Beijing.

The NY Times today published a front-page story about that huge, extensively renovated museum on the east side of Tiananmen Square, which also contains new exhibitions about China's history (with the sensitive parts expurgated).


National Museum of China, as seen by me last October

Near the end of the Times piece, reporter Ian Johnson points out the disconnect between the human-rights message of the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment (the subject of the German loan show) and China's de facto ban on "overt mention of the political ideas."

Johnson writes:

"It's an art exhibit and not a political show," Mr. [Michael] Eissenhauer [director, State Museums of Berlin] said. That means themes of individuality or rights will be alluded to in paintings or furniture but not explicitly discussed.

Maybe the art itself can successfully make its own point.

The Associated Press this morning updated the story of Ai's continued disappearance, interviewing his wife, who had been detained and questioned yesterday:

"There is no news of him so far," said Ai's wife, Lu Qing. Lu said she was interrogated Sunday night by Beijing city police, who searched the couple's home and took away items, including documents, computers and hard drives.

"They asked me about Ai Weiwei's work and the articles he posted online," Lu told The Associated Press. "I told them that everything that Ai did was very public, and if they wanted to know his opinions and work they could just look at the Internet."

She said a group of office employees who were detained when Ai's studio was searched had been released.

If Ai is not likewise promptly released in good condition, Chinese officials will have given their country's human rights activists a galvanizing martyr and a powerful rallying cry.

This is not an outcome that anyone should desire.

UPDATE: Agence France-Presse has further information on the international reponse. France and Austria have also been heard from.

Where's Hillary?

UPDATE 2: Here she is! Agence France-Presse now reports  that U.S. State Department spokesperson Mark Toner intoned:

The detention of artist and activist Ai Weiwei is inconsistent with the fundamental freedom and human rights of all Chinese citizens. We urge the Chinese government to release him immediately.

Taken into Custody: Ai Weiwei

[UPDATE on this story, here.]

Over the last few weeks, Chinese authorities have seemed determined not to let the viral popular uprisings that have transformed politics in the Middle East spread to China. As I read recent reports of actions taken against Chinese dissidents, it seemed to me chillingly likely that the crackdown might eventually waylay Ai Weiwei, the internationally prominent Chinese dissident artist .

Now this has apparently happened.

Ai, who has repeatedly skirmished with Chinese authorities but managed to continue his provocative challenges to the status quo, was taken into custody today as he attempted to board a plane to Hong Kong (en route to Taiwan).

It gets worse.

Keith Richburg of the Washington Post reports:

Police detained Ai on Sunday morning, and his assistants and attorneys said they were concerned that they have not had any communication with him since. After his arrest, police blocked off the streets to his studio and raided it, carting away laptops and the hard drive from the main computer, Ai's workers said.

They said eight staff members and Ai's wife, Lu Qing, were taken to the local police station for questioning. Even as night fell, Lu and two staffers were still being held, they said.

Richburg also reports that "in March, Ai announced that he was opening a studio in Berlin to escape the restraints on artistic freedom in China."

Speaking of Berlin, a major loan exhibition, The Art of Enlightenment, with almost 600 European 18th-century works drawn from the collections of three German museums (Staatliche Museen, Berlin; Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden; Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich), opened Saturday for a year-long run at the National Museum of China, Beijing, "as part of a Sino-German agreement signed last year," as reported by TimeOut Beijing.

The Germans may be uniquely well situated to advocate on Ai's behalf (which is not to say that other countries, including the U.S., should refrain from exerting their influence). The German-language newspaper Berliner Zeitung had expressed the hope last Tuesday that the crackdown on dissidents would be a "key theme" explored by German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle during his visit this weekend in Beijing, which was pegged to the exhibition's opening. The cultural pomp and ceremony on Friday were in stark contrast to the sordid happenings two days later at Bejing's airport and Ai's studio.


Guido Westerwelle, German Foreign Minister, and Liu Yandong, State Councillor of Culture for the People's Republic of China, at Friday's ribbon-cutting ceremony for "The Art of the Enlightenment," National Museum of China, Beijing
Photo: Frank Barbian, © Staatliche Museen

The brochure for "Enlightenment" states:

The idea that art can change people and society became the guiding tenet of an entire epoch.

Maybe this transformative power of art can work its magic yet again. (More likely, though, what's needed is some pointed and forceful diplomacy.)


A painting from the "Art of Enlightenment" show: Johann Eleazar Zeissig, known as Schenau, "The Discussion on Art" (detail), 1772
Photo: Elke Estel, Hans-Peter Klut, ©Staatliche Kunstsammlungen

Sendai City Museum

Performing arts groups, most notably the Metropolitan Opera, may be having second thoughts about their scheduled trips to Japan (as Robin Pogrebin reported in yesterday's NY Times). But the Boston Museum of Fine Arts is a trooper and the Sendai City Museum is a survivor: The BMFA's The Golden Age of Color Prints: Ukiyo-e from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (scroll down), an exhibition of some 140 woodblock prints, is still on track to open June 24 at the Sendai City Museum.


Traveling to Sendai: Kitagawa Utamaro, "Love that Rarely Meets," about 1793-94, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

According to its website, the Sendai City Museum was "totally renewed in 1986." It was apparently built to last: Although located near the epicenter of the recent devastating earthquake, it still stands.

Amelia Kantrovitz, a BMFA spokesperson, told me last week :

We have been in touch with our colleagues at the City Museum of Sendai and understand that the museum suffered only minor damages, and that they are prepared to hold the exhibition....We will continue to work with the exhibition organizers and, if they feel safe continuing, we plan to honor our commitments.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has a longstanding relationship with Japan that dates back to the 19th century. In 1890, the MFA became the first museum in America to establish a Japanese collection and appoint a curator specializing in Japanese art. Today, the Museum's Asian art collection, in particular the art of Japan, is considered one of the finest in the world.

The BMFA also has a satellite museum in Nagoya, out of harm's way---about 160 miles south of Tokyo and 300 miles from Sendai.