One of the unexpected joys of having an 11-month-old grandson is seeing everything afresh through his unjaded eyes. I can't wait to see how he responds to the Metropolitan Museum's new rooftop installation, which I experienced with the scribe tribe on a cooperatively sunny Monday morning. My art critic's reaction to Dan Graham's Hedge Two-Way Mirror Walkabout (enhanced by … [Read more...] about Live Tweets of My Top-to-Bottom Wander Through the Metropolitan Museum: Graham’s Rooftop Funhouse
Archives for April 2014
From Wagner to Sedaka: Heppner’s “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,” His (& Beal’s?) Swansong (with video)
My reward for sitting through several days of intermittently interesting museum-administrators' panels, held in New York under various auspices, came at the end of today's "New Face of Museums" panel of the Leadership Nouveau conference, presented at the Museum of Modern Art by the HEC Montréal business school. Celebrated Wagnerian tenor Ben Heppner, whose astonishingly … [Read more...] about From Wagner to Sedaka: Heppner’s “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,” His (& Beal’s?) Swansong (with video)
Debunking Myths about Goya’s “Red Boy” at Met’s Once-in-a-Lifetime Family Reunion (with video)
It's rare (if not unprecedented) that images for the entire checklist of a museum exhibition are arrayed on the front page of the NY Times (see bottom of this photo): So let's get right to this intimate, myth-busting show, Goya and the Altamira Family (to Aug. 3), in which the Metropolitan Museum hosts a first-ever Altamira Family Reunion---father, mother (holding their … [Read more...] about Debunking Myths about Goya’s “Red Boy” at Met’s Once-in-a-Lifetime Family Reunion (with video)
“Satellite Museums” Panel: My Interchange with Guggenheim’s Richard Armstrong on Abu Dhabi Human-Rights Concerns
This afternoon I attended an illuminating panel about "Satellite Museums" at the Guggenheim Museum, presented by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. Richard Armstrong, the Guggenheim's director, was a panelist, along with two Parisian heavyweights---the director of the Centre Pompidou and the managing director of the Louvre. In the Q&A portion of the program, … [Read more...] about “Satellite Museums” Panel: My Interchange with Guggenheim’s Richard Armstrong on Abu Dhabi Human-Rights Concerns
Grand Façade: A Final Farewell to Former American Folk Art Museum Facility (with video)
In yesterday's unsparing NY Times appraisal of Glenn Lowry's 19-year reign as the Museum of Modern Art's director, Randy Kennedy reported that "the first stage of the controversial demolition" of the former American Folk Art Museum building would begin today. So this seems like a good moment to take one last look at the doomed building, via a CultureGrrl Video that I had shot … [Read more...] about Grand Façade: A Final Farewell to Former American Folk Art Museum Facility (with video)
CultureGrrl Omitted from MOCA’s Storify of Its Twitter Q&A with New Director Philippe Vergne UPDATED
For those of you who may have been preoccupied by Good Friday and Easter preparations, LA MOCA today posted a Storify of its Friday #askMOCA Q&A on Twitter with its new director, Philippe Vergne. His cryptic replies---far less than the 140-character limit, for the most part---weren't all that illuminating. But he does get points for his display of openness to hearing (and … [Read more...] about CultureGrrl Omitted from MOCA’s Storify of Its Twitter Q&A with New Director Philippe Vergne UPDATED
Saffron & Sozanski: Philadelphia Inquirer’s Good-News/Bad-News Week
The spirits of culture writers at the Philadelphia Inquirer whipsawed this week from jubilation to sorrow, in reaction to two major Monday occurrences---the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism to the paper's estimable architecture critic, Inga Saffron, whose Changing Skyline column is the go-to source for information and astute commentary on … [Read more...] about Saffron & Sozanski: Philadelphia Inquirer’s Good-News/Bad-News Week
Bilious About Billboards: A Dissenting BlogBack from Advertising Association and Heated Tweets
My Tuesday post, in which Chris Crosman and I criticized the Art Everywhere billboard initiative (featuring blow-ups of 50 American artworks from five U.S. museums, sparked a debate on my Twitter feed (see below), as well as this detailed response from Nancy Fletcher of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, … [Read more...] about Bilious About Billboards: A Dissenting BlogBack from Advertising Association and Heated Tweets
MoMA Drama: My Participation on Archinect’s Panel Regarding the Expansion Controversy
On Jan. 31, I participated in an Archinect-organized panel discussion (via Skype) regarding the controversy over the Museum of Modern Art's expansion plans in general and the knock-down of the American Folk Art Museum's former building in particular. Our freewheeling give-and-take, moderated by Archinect's editorial manager, Amelia Taylor-Hochberg, was pegged to the … [Read more...] about MoMA Drama: My Participation on Archinect’s Panel Regarding the Expansion Controversy
BlogBack: Chris Crosman, Founding Curator of Crystal Bridges, on Museums’ Billboard Barrage
Chris Crosman, founding curator of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (who left there at the end of 2011), responds positively to my negative tweet from Apr. 6 about the Art Everywhere intiative, sponsored by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. Intended in part to help bolster the foundering billboard industry, that campaign will feature 50 blow-ups of … [Read more...] about BlogBack: Chris Crosman, Founding Curator of Crystal Bridges, on Museums’ Billboard Barrage
Palisades Palaver: My Twitter Debate on LG with Kimmelman, Goldberger, Davidson, Others
As someone who lives on the "wrong" side of the Hudson River, I've been bemused by the specious arguments about how the planned new LG Electronics headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, NJ, will violate the Palisades' "pristine tree line" (Bonnie Burnham, president of the World Monuments Fund, in the Huffington Post), will "for the first time violate the unspoiled ridgeline" … [Read more...] about Palisades Palaver: My Twitter Debate on LG with Kimmelman, Goldberger, Davidson, Others
Jackson Action: Companion Video for My WSJ Article on Getty’s Restoration of Pollock’s Mural
There's a myth about Jackson Pollock's breakthrough 1943 painting, "Mural," that I didn't have the space to mention in my Wednesday Wall Street Journal article, Getty's Jackson Pollock Restoration: It was often said that the painting was cut down in order to fit on the wall in Peggy Guggenheim's apartment, for which it was commissioned. Not true. However, a sizable portion … [Read more...] about Jackson Action: Companion Video for My WSJ Article on Getty’s Restoration of Pollock’s Mural
News Flash: ARTnews Magazine Sold to Skate’s UPDATED
ARTnews magazine was editor and publisher Milton Esterow's labor of love for 41 years. It's with sadness that I report his family's sale of the magazine to Skate Capital Corp., described in the official announcement of the transaction as "a private art and media industry investment vehicle of Sergey Skaterschikov." The above-linked announcement describes some of Skate's … [Read more...] about News Flash: ARTnews Magazine Sold to Skate’s UPDATED
BlogBack: David Ross Argues Against Deaccession Legislation
David Ross, chair of MFA Art Practice at New York’s School of Visual Arts (and former director of the Whitney Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Boston ICA), responds to Delaware Art Museum’s Deaccession Debacle: The Impotence of AAMD. Once again, I still think you are wrong about bringing more government into the art museum world. State attorneys general already … [Read more...] about BlogBack: David Ross Argues Against Deaccession Legislation
Delaware Art Museum’s Deaccession Debacle: The Impotence of AAMD
I've said it before and I'll say it again: The time has come for the passage of legislation to bar museums from monetizing important collection objects that are in the public domain and should stay there. The recent examples of the sale of art from Randolph College's Maier Museum and planned sales from the Delaware Art Museum demonstrate, once again, that censures and … [Read more...] about Delaware Art Museum’s Deaccession Debacle: The Impotence of AAMD