CultureGrrl

BlogBack: Reader Calls for an NEA Voucher System

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:16:21 -0500

Jim Bondelid, a CultureGrrl reader from Oreland, PA (a Philadelphia suburb), who volunteers at the Curtis Institute of Music, responds to my Cultural Conversation with Rocco Landesman that appeared in the Wall Street Journal:

As a fanatical lover of classical music, a sometime lover of modern dance, and a middle-brow theater consumer, I doubt that I would prefer Rocco Landesman's Jujamcyn to the Roundabout. Thanks for the warning. But having him in charge of spending my tax dollars is more worrisome.

I have an idea: let's institute a voucher system for the arts. Distribute vouchers to taxpayers in proportion to their taxes which they can spend at approved art institutions. The idea is to stimulate demand rather than support supply. The vouchers could be donated to middle schools and high schools for a tax deduction, too.

This would also help stimulate demand in the long run, as kids would receive an arts education. People would choose the winners instead of an advisory body. The NEA could decide which broad categories of art are eligible. But the NEA does not need to give money to commercially successful artists like rappers and country singers (whom I also love).

News Flash: Dia to Build New Facility in Chelsea

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:55:09 -0500

I'm still traveling and time-pressed, but I had to share with you this press release (not online at this writing) about the Dia Art Foundation's plans to build a new facility in New York City, where it surely belongs:

DIA ART FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES PLAN TO OPEN A NEW SPACE IN CHELSEA

New building will house artists' commissions and installations and serve as site for innovative scholarship and public programs

For Immediate Release, November 6, 2009, New York

Philippe Vergne, director, Dia Art Foundation, today announced that Dia will construct a new building in West Chelsea for a reinvigorated New York City program. It will be located at 545 West 22nd Street, on the footprint of a building that Dia currently owns. In keeping with the organization's historical commitment to in-depth support of ambitious projects, the space will provide a New York City location for commissioned artworks. It will also house exhibitions; long-term installations; public programs including readings, lectures, and symposia; and performances.

The decision to open a new site in West Chelsea follows Dia's 2004 closing of its former New York City space, which was in need of substantial renovation and was found to be inadequate for Dia's programming needs. Dia subsequently explored other locations throughout Manhattan and, given the shift in the cultural landscape that has taken place since 2004, it determined that it would reestablish a presence in Chelsea. With the new site, Dia will again serve as an institutional anchor for the contemporary-art neighborhood that it pioneered in the late 1980s and that is now home to a rich mix of art galleries, theaters, public spaces, and diverse nonprofit organizations.

In addition, West 22nd Street is identified with three major Dia installations: Joseph Beuys' 7000 Eichen (7000 Oaks), along West 22nd Street between and including 10th and 11th Avenues (1988); Dan Graham's Rooftop Urban Park Project (1991), originally located on the roof of 548 West 22nd Street and to be reinstalled on the roof of Dia's new building; and Dan Flavin's untitled (1996), sited in the stairwells of 548 West 22nd Street.

Early planning for the building has begun, and the architecture and scale of the edifice--which will provide a utilitarian space designed for the experience of art--are being determined. The project represents the first time in its 35-year history that Dia has elected to construct a new building, rather than to re-use an existing one.

Mr. Vergne, working in collaboration with Dia's staff and in dialogue with its board, is conceptualizing the artistic and architectural program for the new space, which will provide flexible conditions in which artists across generations, disciplines, and cultures can experiment and produce new works.

And the money will come from...?

CultureGrrl’s Novel Idea: Paid Journalism, for a Change

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:10:19 -0500

Where am I going? Where have I been? (This is a clue.)

I'm taking my own advice, for the time being, shifting my attention towards remunerated mainstream media work. Having rocked with Rocco, I'm headed out tomorrow on a week-long trip, the first part of which involves another paid assignment. And I've got another one lined up after that.

Therefore, I won't be covering for you this month's round of Impressionist, modern and contemporary auctions in New York, which, judging from the lack of excitement they seem to be generating, may be just as well.

By tomorrow afternoon, I'll be approximately 1,200 miles from Sotheby's and Christie's. (No, I am NOT going to Peoria, where Landesman will do penance on Friday!)

That's not to say, art-lings, that I'll be away from the computer. I may (or may not) blog and/or tweet sporadically. We'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, if you want to encourage me to resume posting when I return, you know what to do. After the brief spurt (scroll down) of support elicited by yet another of my tin-cup rattlings, there's been but one new click on my "Donate" button. My warm thanks do go out to CultureGrrl Donor 84 from the borough that I just reported from, Brooklyn.

I'm also thankful for that ad in my righthand column. There's room for more. (They rotate vertically, so that each one gets a chance to be on top.)

A viable business model still eludes me, but that doesn't stop me from trying!

Rockin’ with Rocco: More from Our WSJ Conversation

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:10:57 -0500

Portrait of Rocco Landesman from my Wall Street Journal article, by Ken Fallin

My Cultural Conversation with the National Endowment for the Arts' new chairman, Rocco Landesman, ran long today (the whole above-the-fold space on P. D7 of the Personal Journal section), but still not long enough to encompass our entire conversation, which lasted only about 25 minutes but was rapid-fire and illuminating.

In the course of our discussion, I didn't just ask what programs Landesman might want to initiate; I also asked what he might want to do away with. In particular, I raised questions about two programs that I had targeted in a previous post: The Big Read and Shakespeare in American Communities.

"We're working on all that," he told me. "Some of these programs consumed massive resources and I think we have to take a hard look and see what's the best use of our limited funds."

"What specific programs do you have in mind?" I inquired.

"You mentioned some," he said, referring to the aforementioned two, in which the NEA prescribed programs from above, rather than being responsive to requests from its constituents. "We're right at the beginning of this process of looking at what we have where, so I don't want to get too definitive. But, as with any new chair, you've got to make some changes. I think you will be pleased with them."

Landesman is getting a reputation for foot-in-mouth disease (with his latest toe-gnawing in this backpedaling post, from NEA's "Art Works" blog). But even veteran journalists are not immune from getting off on the wrong foot: I began my questions about what kinds of people he might appoint to the National Council on the Arts by questioning one of President Bush's last two appointments---country music singer Lee Greenwood, best know for his crossover hit, "God Bless the USA." I already knew that Landesman was a country music fan, so I should have realized what I was getting myself into:

"Lee Greenwood!" he exclaimed. "I love country music! Anybody who writes a song that has a title, "Ring on Her Finger and Time on Her Hands," can't be all bad!

It was clear, from Landesman's online account (in the above-linked "backpedaling post") of his first National Council on the Arts meeting last week, that the chairman who, as I reported, wants to appoint celebrities to the NEA is himself a little starstruck. He singled out Greenwood as the member "with whom I spent a nice amount of time":

Lee told me about some great artists who come out of Paducah [KY]---Jerry Crutchfield, Lee's longtime producer; Jerry's brother Jan, who is the songwriter responsible for three of Lee's early hits; Eric Horner, who used to be Lee's guitarist, but who is now a touring gospel performer; and Doug Carter, Lee's current keyboardist, bandleader, arranger, and all around good guy. Impressive [at least to Greenwood's publicist].

Rocco Landesman with country singer Lee Greenwood
Photo by Kathy Plowitz-Worden

Speaking of celebrities, most of the journalists reporting on President Obama's 25 appointees to the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities focused exclusively on the boldface names. Thanks to Blair Kamin of the Chicago Tribune for giving us the entire list.

Coming Tomorrow: My WSJ Conversation with NEA’s Rocco Landesman UPDATED

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:34:11 -0500

Rocco Landesman, speaking last month in Brooklyn, NY

When Rocco Landesman, the new chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts, was in New York on Oct. 21, I didn't merely attend his speech. I also interviewed him.

On the "Leisure & Arts" page of tomorrow's Wall Street Journal, you'll see that Landesman has in no way curbed his tongue since the infamous Peoria incident. I like him. I enjoy his candor. I agree with at least some of his objectives. But I do worry that he's going to get himself (and his agency) in trouble if he doesn't start watching his words and considering how they'll play in Peoria.

When my piece is online, I'll be updating this post with the link. You can judge for yourself.

UPDATE: Here's the piece---Landesman Produces Controversy.

Is "The Young Archer" by Michelangelo? It Fails the Testicles Test. UPDATED

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:17:50 -0500

The putative Michelangelo of Fifth Avenue, as it appeared in June in the entrance rotunda of the French Cultural Services headquarters, New York

If all goes according to plan, I'll be going later today to the Metropolitan Museum's press preview for the putative "Michelangelo of Fifth Avenue," as it became known from a 1996 NY Times article by the late John Russell. It will be on public view for 10 years at the Met, beginning tomorrow, on loan from the French State. For many years before it made the front page of the Times, it had quietly adorned the French Embassy's Cultural Services building, diagonally across the street from the Met.

Its museum display will surely reignite the debate over the ambitious attribution of an unremarkable work. Now dubbed "The Young Archer," it is labeled by the Met as "attributed to Michelangelo," acknowledging the scholarly controversy over its authorship. The museum's curator, James Draper, believes that it evinces Michelangelo's "daring promise as a 15- or 16-year old."

I've written extensively for several publications about the debate over this statue, but never reported one telling comment made to me back in 1996 by a highly distinguished art historian (whom I had contacted to draw upon his Michelangelo expertise). He had asked me not to connect him with this insight and I never published it. He discussed, among other things, a part of the subject's anatomy that never made it onto the front page of the Times. (The family newspaper had cropped the photo, so that only the top half of the boy was pictured.)

CultureGrrl is not so squeamish. Let's move in for a closer look at a detail from the photo at the top of this post:

The lad's gonads

My anonymous scholar noted a mistake in the representation of this (somewhat damaged) body part, which he opined would not have been committed by the anatomically attuned master, even in his youth: The testicles hang at the same level, instead of one below the other. This fine point of connoisseurship had certainly eluded me when I viewed the sculpture and may be too indelicate for the mainstream media.

New York magazine, however, did last week point out several problematic areas of the sculpture, above the waist.

In an interview for my 1996 article in the Wall Street Journal about the Michelangelo "discovery" (initially made by New York University's Professor Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt), James Beck, the late Columbia University professor, dryly observed that the absence of bravura modeling in this sculpture "is an aspect of Michelangelo that I'm unfamiliar with. She [Brandt] may have discovered a new period." (It should be noted that Beck was not my anonymous source.)

I suppose I should suspend disbelief until I see the case Draper makes in the wall text for Michelangelo as creator of "The Young Archer."

It's too bad that the Met couldn't manage to show this sculpture concurrently with a more compelling work that Michelangelo is thought to have created when he was even younger---only 12 or 13. The earliest known of the artist's paintings, "The Torment of Saint Anthony," was recently acquired by the Kimbell Art Museum. But it was first shown last summer at the Met, which had authenticated it. (You can see a much larger and better image of it here.)

Michelangelo Buonarotti, "The Torment of Saint Anthony," c. 1487-88, Kimbell Art Museum

UPDATE: I've just come back from eyeballing the statue again, and I have to revise my grade for what's left of his private parts to a C+. I should evaluate art with my eyes, not with my ears.

Here's a better photo:

More Space for Temkin’s Rehang: NY City Council Approves the MoMA/Hines Tower

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:08:30 -0500

Chief curator Ann Temkin, flanked by Peter Reed, MoMA's senior deputy director for curatorial affairs, left, and director Glenn Lowry, at the museum's recent press breakfast

The expected has now happened: The NY City Council yesterday afternoon voted overwhelmingly (only three dissenters) to approve the Jean Nouvel-designed MoMA Monster, now reduced in height to a "mere" 1,050 feet. If and when this tower actually gets built (after economic conditions improve, according to Hines, the developer), the new space will expand the displays of MoMA's permanent collection.

We can only hope that somewhere within the 40,000 square feet of additional gallery space they will find a permanent home for important, rarely seen monumental works in the collection, including those by Richard Serra and Martin Puryear, which were specifically mentioned by director Glenn Lowry in his testimony to a City Council subcommittee. We also need to see more of James Rosenquist's "F-111," Ellsworth Kelly's "Colors for a Large Wall" and Claude Monet's "Water Lilies" triptych.

The Monet mural, now temporarily back on display, had been accorded its own permanent space for peaceful contemplation in the more homey MoMA of fond memory. Finding a place to show off its megaworks-in-storage had been one of the selling points for the recent Taniguchi-designed addition. Having failed to realize that supposed goal, MoMA's expansionists have trotted it out yet again. Maybe this time they really mean it.

Speaking of installation ideas for the permanent collection, Ted Loos wrote an excellent piece for last Sunday's NY Times about Ann Temkin's provocative plan for continually rehanging MoMA's trove of modern and contemporary masterpieces.

But wait! There's more to the story: Late last month, when MoMA's chief curator of painting and sculpture took a group of us on a tour of her work-in-constant-progress (after a recent press breakfast, where Lowry's discussion of the new permanent-collection philosophy was captured in this CultureGrrl Video), Ann informed us that about a quarter of the painting-and-sculpture galleries (which have now become more hospitable to related works in other media) will be rehung every 18 months or so. A full rotation of the galleries, she said, would take about five years. (Actually, an 18-month schedule would take six years to cycle through the entire space, but these are all approximations.)

Here's the shocker: She said that only about 10 works---TEN WORKS!---would be considered inviolable: so important and iconic that they would always remain on view.

Okay, I'll bite: I asked Ann to intone the names of the Sacred 10. Prudently declining to divulge the entire list, she did offer a few obvious examples---van Gogh's "Starry Night," Picasso's "Girl Before a Mirror," Dalí's "Persistence of Memory." Those of us who know and love the collection could probably come up with a lot more than seven additional works that we need to see, whenever we want.

For that reason, I'm ambivalent about Ann's plan. On the one hand, if any museum's collection is rich enough to support a constant reshuffling of the deck, it's MoMA's. It will be exciting to be constantly challenged---exposed to different works in creatively rethought relationships. Ann was justifiably proud of her "little experiment," juxtaposing German Expressionist portraits with related photographs.

But when I was a young D train-riding museum brat from da Bronx, I was comforted and edified by my repeated contact, over many years, with paintings that I loved and knew would always be there for me (the Monet triptych, among them). Art-savvy tourists are also likely be distraught if works they expect to see on their rare visits to New York are nowhere to be found.

I was therefore pleased to learn from Loos (notwithstanding Temkin's Rule of Ten) that "Room 2 on Floor 5, with Cubist works by Picasso and Braque, won't be morphing radically." I'm not sure why they ditched the original plan for the Taniguchi expansion, which had called for suites of fixed galleries, surrounded by related changing galleries. That had sounded like a good idea to me.

Why not the best of both worlds?

My Q&A with Timothy Rub on Cleveland’s Deviation from Donor Intent

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:10:41 -0500

Timothy Rub, speaking to the press outside the entrance of the Philadelphia Museum's Gorky retrospective

I was grateful that Timothy Rub, director of the Philadelphia Museum, was willing to talk to me at all, given my harsh criticism of the Cleveland Museum's decision (made during his directorship there) to funnel to its expansion project up to $75 million in income from funds that donors had designated for acquisitions, not for bricks and mortar.

I began safely, by chatting about his plans for Philadelphia---increasing its operating budget to be on a par with outlays at comparable institutions, such as the major institutions in Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles; and getting his museum ready, in terms of both architectural plans and financial resources, for its own coming expansion, designed by Frank Gehry.

Through his own comments, Rub managed to give me the perfect opening for the question that I'd been afraid to ask and that I suspected he wouldn't answer. As you will see, he pleasantly surprised me, responding cautiously but substantively.

In discussing Philadelphia's expansion plans, Rub rhetorically asked:

How do you get an institution ready for that [a major building project], at a time when the future of the American economy is still uncertain and the capacity of any community to make capital gifts that in aggregate will support a project of this size is something that you have to look at very carefully?

With that, the following Q&A about Cleveland's complicated financial situation was off and running. (I'm the "Q"; Rub is the "A"):

Q: Philadelphia is in a fortunate position, compared to the institution that you just left, which was in the middle of the project when the economic crisis hit. Here, at least, you have the luxury of waiting for the right moment.

A: Yes, but these are long-term projects, and no matter how carefully you plot the course, it's going to cross times when the economy is good and when the economy is bad, and you have to figure out ways of sustaining it across time. There's no doubt about that.

Q: I understand that what happened to the economy was almost unprecedented and no one could have foreseen it. But to get that far along [in Cleveland's capital project] and to have that much of a shortfall---is that something that should have been guarded against, in some way?

A: I think if you look at the way Cleveland has dealt with its campaign and the capital budget, it proceeded in a very prudent way. I talked with our president and board chair before I left [and said]: "I'm going to another institution, and I'm reluctant to really speak about Cleveland unless you would want me to do so." These are questions that I think you need to address to Cleveland at this point....

I'm in an odd position. I could map out the whole scenario for you, but I'm not sure that I should speak for Cleveland at this point. But it's a much bigger and more interesting and complex picture than I think has been described thus far.

Q: Did you approve the decision to use the income from acquisition funds for the building project?

A: I concurred with that. This was a decision that we made together. We looked at the options for being able to continue to move the project forward at a very difficult time economically and came to the conclusion together that this needed to be done as a short-term measure....

My point to you is it's a really interesting and very complex calculation that has to do with things as varied as bond ratings and cash flow from pledges that we currently have or that we might anticipate in the future. It has to do with bonding capacity and with calculating the cost of capital. It has to do with the institution's willingness to take on risk in terms of future obligations. It has to do with whether you resolve to pay for something now as opposed to having the institution pay for it much later.

Q: Was slowing the project down an option, and why was that not done?

A: The museum is basically half complete. If you slow a project like that down, several things happen: You push the completion date out far in the future and until you complete the project, you will not have sufficient room to show your collection or do your work....

Cleveland took on a grand and comprehensive project and the trustees felt, when that decision was made in the earlier part of this decade [before Rub arrived] that it was important to renovate and expand the museum comprehensively. I think when it is done, it will have been worth the wait, because it will allow for Cleveland to completely rethink and re-present its collection, which before was not a possibility. How many big art museums can actually do that?

Q: What about the museum ethics question: Do you feel comfortable with taking money that was designated by donors for acquisitions?

A: There are legal means that have been in place for a long time to ask courts to determine whether or not funds that have been contributed for one purpose can be utilized on a permanent or temporary basis for another purpose. There are legal mechanisms and a significant body of law that leads to this.

Secondly, I should say that the board of the Cleveland Museum of Art is a tremendously responsible and resourceful group of people who are fiduciaries for the institution. And it's their responsibility to make thoughtful and prudent fiscal decisions on behalf of the institution. I think the trustees discharged their responsibilities extremely well. I really do.

Q: But what about the ethics question? Is it proper to take funds that were designated for a specific purpose and apply them to a different purpose?

A: I don't think that in normal circumstances you would want to do that, to be sure. But these are exceptional circumstances.

You already know how I feel about Cleveland's actions. I don't need to belabor it. Acknowledging Timothy's forthcomingness and candor, let's move on: In case you haven't had enough of him yet, below is a CultureGrrl Video of Rub addressing the assembled journalists at the luncheon celebrating the opening of the current Gorky show.

It's standard museum-director boilerplate---high praise for the exhibition and for those who organized it. But I do make it interesting near the end, by turning the camera on my tablemates---Maro Gorky, the artist's daughter, and her pal, Lisa de Kooning, the daughter of you-know-who.

Rub begins here by talking about the show's companion exhibition, which puts Gorky's work in the context of European, Russian and American modernism, by drawing on works from Philadelphia's own rich collection:

Miami and Cleveland: When the Financial Going Got Tough, the Directors Got Going

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:58:34 -0500

Timothy Rub, left, former director of the Cleveland Museum, and Terence Riley, right, former director of the Miami Art Museum

Museum directors know that an important part of their job description is raising big bucks from culturally-minded and civic-minded donors. But few (none that I know of) become directors because soliciting money is their passion. It's a means to an end, but it often ends up taking much (if not most) of their time and energy.

When major capital campaigns are in progress, fundraising exigencies sharply escalate. And when those demands coincide with a major economic recession, this difficult assignment gets much harder.

Such was the case at both the Cleveland Museum and the Miami Art Museum, where the directors, Timothy Rub and Terence Riley, precipitously and surprisingly announced plans to jump ship immediately on the heels of celebrating milestones in their institutions' development---the completion of the first phase of Cleveland's expansion and the unveiling of the design for Miami's new building.

Neither of the congruently initialed TRs said anything about wanting to flee their institutions' financial situations. Rub professed his lifelong, undying love for the Philadelphia Museum, which he now directs; Riley averred that his first love is architecture, to which he will now return.

But the subtext to the departures of the two directors is hard to miss: Riley appears to have been experiencing increased frustration in coping with cuts in government funding and in securing the financial support of Miami's collecting community: In his follow-up article today in the Miami Herald (linked directly above), David Chang quotes major Miami collector Martin Margulies on the subject of Riley's quandaries:

He comes from a New York institution [the Museum of Modern Art, where he was architecture curator], and he's used to seeing big money. And there's no such thing in this community. [No rich Miamians?] And that's why the big collectors are not involved with that institution.

As for Rub, there was the much publicized shortfall of funds (potentially $75 million) for the second phase of Cleveland's expansion, which prompted a decision by the trustees to seek court permission (now granted) to raid the income of four funds that the donors had designated for acquisitions, not bricks and mortar. Rub had participated in and concurred with that decision.

But wait, there's more! I was in Philadelphia just a short time ago, as you may remember. Do you think I set foot in the Philadelphia Museum without requesting some one-on-one time with its director? My art-lings know me better than that!

COMING SOON: Philly's TR speaks softly...and very carefully,

News Flash: Terence Riley Resigns Directorship of Miami Art Museum UPDATED

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:37:43 -0500

Terence Riley, former director of Miami Art Museum

This is a shocker.

I know nothing about the resignation of Terence Riley from the directorship of the Miami Art Museum, other than what's in the press release that just hit my inbox with a loud thud. What makes this even more surprising is that he resigned "effective immediately"---usually a sign that something is amiss.

According to the press release:

He will be resuming his role as partner at Keenen/Riley Architects, with various design and consulting projects in New York, Spain and Mexico, and will continue to work with MAM as a consultant through June 30, 2010.

Here's the quote from Riley:

Since becoming director of MAM [the Miami Art Museum], I have worked closely with the trustees and staff to energize the museum's programming, build its collections, and design a new home of remarkable distinction that has garnered the broad endorsement of Miami's civic leaders and citizens. We are now ready to break ground on a building that is poised to be one of the greenest art museums ever built in the Americas. As such, this is the right moment for me to pursue other interests and for MAM to smoothly transition to a new leader who will see this project to its fruition.

The museum's chairman, Aaron Podhurst, praised Riley for doing a "superb job" in "focusing MAM's mission and creating a clear vision for the development of the museum's new building."

This unexpected news comes just five days after the MAM released its Renzo Piano-like design by architects Herzog & de Meuron for the museum's new building.

Riley assumed his Miami post less than four years ago---in March 2006.

UPDATE: The Miami Herald couldn't reach Riley or museum trustees for further comment, but in its just posted article reporting the news, Daniel Chang does give some background on fundraising difficulties for the planned new museum.

Philippe, the Spring Semester: His Cultural-Property Colloquium (and Kimmelman’s crash course)

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:32:07 -0500

Philippe de Montebello, left; his successor, Tom Campbell, right, speaking at the Met

The Metropolitan Museum's illustrious director emeritus, Professor Philippe de Montebello, is well into his fall semester course, "The Meaning of Museums," at the NYU Institute of Fine Arts.

But what will he be teaching this spring? Let's go to the prof's NYU webpage:

Spring 2010 Colloquium: Issues of Cultural Property

Here's the description (on P. 9):

ISSUES IN CULTURAL PROPERTY (Colloquium)
G43.2535
Philippe de Montebello
Tuesday 10:00am-Noon

The colloquium explores many of the historical, philosophical and museological issues behind the recent cultural property controversy. The role of plunder, war booty and illicit excavations in the history of collecting will be examined, alongside the construction of national identity and ideas of patrimony.

While key legal points, treaties and conventions will be covered, it is the political, ethical, archaeological and art historical implications of the subject that will be the focus of the lectures and discussions. Case studies, some involving Italy, as well as the diverging agendas of archaeologist, source countries, collectors and museums will be discussed.

Students must have the permission of the instructor before registering for this course.

This is a course that I feel like I've already taken.

So has Michael Kimmelman of the NY Times, who followed up his August page-one piece about museum visitors' short attention spans with a meatier front-page dispatch from Berlin about the cultural-property wars. His piece was pegged to Zahi Hawass' renewed call (occasioned by the reopening of Berlin's Neues Museum) for Germany's return to Egypt of the celebrated bust of Nefertiti. This salvo followed close upon Hawass' successful demand for fresco fragments in the Louvre and his renewed demand (scroll down) for the British Museum's Rosetta Stone.

I've seen in person how Hawass, former Italian Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli and Acropolis Museum head Dimitris Pandermalis operate. There's no doubt that politics and (in the case of the first two, but NOT scholarly Pandermalis) self-promotion play a part in foreign officials' antiquities attacks. But to suggest, as Kimmelman does, that a sincere passion for national artistic heritage plays no part, let alone a major part, in motivating these demands is to belittle the seriousness of source countries in general, and the aforementioned three cultural figures in particular.

I'm convinced (having spoken to them) that Hawass, Rutelli and, especially, Pandermalis do profoundly appreciate their peoples' cultural history for the right reasons, not only the politically expedient ones. To ignore that is to underestimate them.

Kimmelman argues this:

The country's [Egypt's] only potent weapon left may be antiquities. It plays to popular sentiment and national pride. While the art world likes to ponder the merits or misfortunes of seeing art from one place in another place or the inequities that have resulted from centuries of imperialist collecting, the real issue behind the Egyptian claims, as with so many others [emphasis added], is nationalism....

Art becomes a political football. That's what restitution often comes down to these days. Nationalism by other means. Politics by proxy.

In his article's second paragraph, Kimmelman includes a direct quote from Hawass that he says appeared in Speigel Online. The online version of Kimmelman's piece (linked above) does not link to the Spiegel interview (a consistent failing of the Times online). I could not find the exact words of Kimmelman's quote anywhere in the Oct. 20 Spiegel Q&A with Hawass, nor in its report on the Neues Museum's reopening. If the Times intends eventually to start charging for its online version (as has been recently discussed), it needs to provide some value-added content by linking to the sources (and also the documents) that it quotes from.

Egypt's play for Nefertiti, as Kimmelman mentions, is nothing new. Unmentioned in the latest round of Nefertiti coverage, though, are the questions raised last May about whether the renowned Egyptian beauty is actually a modern fake.

Perhaps Philippe will untangle all these complexities for his spring-semester students. It looks like James Cuno, director of the Art Institutute of Chicago, is also going to be giving another of his cultural-property lessons, this one on Nov. 2 at the University of Pennsylvania.

In the meantime, though, for those of you who are auditing the CultureGrrl course, isn't it time that you shelled out some tuition (via my "Donate" button), to get full credit?

Speaking of which, my warmest thanks go out to CultureGrrl Donors 79, 80 and 81 from Seattle; Bellaire; TX; and Haddonfield, NJ. And very special thanks go to my particularly devoted readers, Repeat Donors 82 and 83,from Washington, DC, and Geneva, Switzerland.

Switzerland does it! Why not France? Je vous en prie!

Guilt for Gelt: No CultureGrrl Pals on PayPal

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:16:22 -0500

Who am I to talk about an "unsustainable business model"?

Only one CultureGrrl reader got this message of a week ago and actually decided to act upon it. I've run out of ideas of how to impress upon those who appreciate the blog how loath I am to continue this work merely for the love of it.

In the meantime, though, many warm thanks to CultureGrrl Donor 78 from Little Compton, RI.

Little Compton? I'm very tempted to make a French pun on that (compte: "account"---as in CultureGrrl's petit PayPal account).

Speaking of puns, I love that Rocco Landesman delights in his new "Art Works" slogan for the National Endowment for the Arts because of its triple entendre (which he described in his recent Brooklyn speech). But I still think it's a lame slogan. It sounds pedestrian and grim, not uplifting or inspirational.

"Work" is what people do for needed income, not necessarily for love or inner necessity.

Why haven't I learned that yet?

Gorgeous Gorky in Philly: Michael Taylor Explains It All

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Curator Michael Taylor at the Philadelphia Museum's recent press lunch

Let's remain in Philly, but switch moods from my habitual skepticism to unmitigated pleasure and admiration: The Arshile Gorky retrospective (to Jan. 10) that opened this week at the Philadelphia Museum is one of my favorite kinds of exhibition: It greatly strengthened my appreciation for an artist whom I'd previously underestimated.

Michael Taylor, the museum's indispensable curator of modern art (fresh from his Venice Biennale triumph), is deliberately setting out here to prove that Gorky deserves a "place alongside Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning as one of the most daring, innovative, and influential American artists of the 20th century." In that mission, he largely succeeds.

The large gallery that you'll come upon about two-thirds into the show, with works from 1943 and 1944, is an audacious array of breathtakingly lyrical beauty. The dark paintings in the final galleries are heart-rendingly tragic---saturated with the angst and despair caused by a 1946 fire (two and a half years before his suicide) that destroyed the works in Gorky's studio:

"Charred Beloved," I, II and III, 1946, David Geffen, National Gallery of Canada and Mr. and Mrs. Meredith Long, respectively

The early galleries clearly demonstrate Gorky's intense study and close imitation of modernist forebears (including Cézanne, Picasso, Miró). But in case that's not enough, the museum also draws upon its own rich collection in a meaty related exhibition, contiguous with the retrospective, that puts Gorky's work in the context of European, Russian and American modernism (including some specific works that he likely saw and studied).

Taylor is also intent on some revisionism---a scholarly agenda that's emphasized more in his catalogue essay than in the wall text: Traditionally lumped with the Abstract Expressionists, Gorky, in Taylor's informed opinion, belongs instead with the Surrealists. He was no "action painter," but meticulously prepared for his major paintings in suites of detailed drawings, many of which are in the show.

This obsessive preparatory work came as a revelation to someone who knows his oeuvre intimately---Gorky's daughter, Maro, one of my tablemates (along with the always ebullient Joe Rishel) for the press lunch. Also with us was Maro's friend, Lisa de Kooning, daughter of Willem, an undisputed member of the Abstract Expressionist club.

Maro Gorky, right, with friend, Lisa de Kooning

But I need to stop typing and let Michael do the talking. Below are my two videos shot at the press preview. In the first, Taylor provides fascinating (and tragic) detail about the works for which Gorky is perhaps most famous---the two versions of "The Artist and His Mother" (from the Whitney Museum, which you can now see below, and the National Gallery, which you'll see later, on the right). This video also shows the photograph that inspired these paintings:

In my second video, Taylor effuses over Gorky's greatest works---the lyrical abstractions of 1943-4. He focuses here on "The Liver Is the Cock's Comb," 1944, (behind him) from the Albright-Knox Gallery:

News Flash: Barnes Groundbreaking Set (Funding? Not)

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:15:51 -0500

Site of the planned Philly Barnes: demolition of juvenile detention center completed; zoning use permit at lower left.

At some point, I owe you a report on the Barnes Foundation's recently released conceptual designs for its planned migration from Merion to Philadelphia. More detailed designs must yet be submitted, probably in very late 2009 or early 2010, for approval by the Philadelphia Art Commission.

But there's some news to break, art-lings, so let me tell you this immediately, before someone else does:

Invitations are going out to Philadelphia's political and cultural VIPs for groundbreaking on Nov. 13 (not yet publicly announced) for the planned new Barnes facility. What's more, a new chief curator, soon to be announced, has been selected. When I know more, you'll know more.

But there are a number of details about the Barnes' progress (or lack thereof) that I find problematic.

As far as I know, no other commentators have remarked on the fact that the 93,000-square foot facility about to be built represents a significant downsizing from the original 120,000-square-foot facility, which Barnes executive director Derek Gillman had described to me in his office, back in February 2007.

Gillman and William McDowell III, the Barnes' senior building project executive told me in a joint phone interview today that in order to shrink the building (to control the costs), office space and the gift shop were reduced in size, conservation for metal objects was shifted to the Barnes' current Merion site, and some storage will shift there as well.

More alarmingly (and this is NOT new information), the projected endowment for the new facility has also been shrunk---by half. Previous plans (announced in May 2006) had called for $100 million to be raised for the cost of the new building, with an additional $100 million for endowment. Now it's $150 million for the building and only $50 million for endowment. I had previously called the $100 million building cost "a wishful-thinking budget." (I got that one right.) Now there's more wishful thinking---that increasing the building budget by 50%, while reducing the endowment by 50% is a formula that will work.

Slashing the resources that had been deemed necessary for the Barnes to function well in its new home gives me traumatic flashbacks to the lack of adequate resources to run the place in Merion---the ostensible reason for trashing the clear written instructions of founder Albert Barnes, by moving to a location more appealing to Philly-centric philanthropists.

Gillman says that $50 million won't be the end of the endowment story: Fundraising will continue. But what are we to make of the fact that Derek had told me back in February '07 that $150 million had already then been raised, and the total today is stuck at mere $156 million? Where's that additional $44 million going to come from? Will even that be enough?

As of now, construction is scheduled to be completed in 2011, with opening scheduled for 2012.

Derek assured me that the unveiling of Tod Williams' and Billie Tsien's design and model for the new facility has stimulated strong interest among potential benefactors. Fundraising, he declared, will now intensify. But the strategy of "start building now, hope to raise the rest of the money later" did not serve Cleveland well. The current economic climate makes that optimistic strategy even dicier.

If Derek builds it, will they fund? The last thing the Barnes needs is another unsustainable business model.

Excerpt from Barnes' Zoning Use Permit #234701 (above): "Any person aggrieved by the issuance of this permit may appeal to the Zoning Board of Adjustment."

Miami Art Museum’s Planned New Building: Renzo Piano via Herzog & de Meuron?

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:41:30 -0500

The design (to be further refined) of the planned new Miami Art Museum was revealed yesterday at a public conversation in Miami among Terence Riley, the museum's director (who was formerly chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art) and two architects for the project from the firm of Herzog & de Meuron---Pierre de Meuron and Christine Binswanger.

Here's what the new MAM will look like:

Rendering of Miami Art Museum
© Herzog & de Meuron, visualization by Artefactorylab

Wait a minute! Haven't I seen something like that before?

Actual photo (by me) of Art Institute of Chicago's new Modern Wing, designed by Renzo Piano

If you hadn't told me that the top image was a Herzog & de Meuron creation, I would have sworn it was Renzo Piano's latest rectilinear, flat-roofed art pavilion, topped off by yet another white brise-soleil canopy, adorned this time by hanging vines for a tropical vibe. (You can click the Miami photo for a closer look.)

In any event, completion is anticipated for 2012, with opening scheduled for 2013. The press release notes that $100 million is being raised through a voter-approved Miami-Dade County bond issue, but it doesn't say how much of the capital campaign's additional $120 million is pledged or in hand. All it says about the fund drive is this:

The trustees of the Museum are committed to raising additional funds from a combination of public and private sources, and have begun the fundraising process.

In the meantime, they're still using this:

Current home of the Miami Art Museum