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Blockbusteritis
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ART
AS SHOW BIZ:
"Artists agree that they are no longer content to be
recognized only by their peers and a small circle of critics,
curators, collectors and dealers; rather, they want to
participate in a larger cultural arena. Looking at art is no
longer a private elite event. It has a huge public audience.
After all, the Phillips Collection is going to Las Vegas! The
audience for modern art has multiplied, and people like
spectacle. Art has become part of popular entertainment."
The
New York Times 02/18/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
FEWER
PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY LOOKING:
Enormous crowds at Tate Modern and the Royal Academy’s
"Apocalypse" show have supposedly signaled a new level
of public interest in art - but have they? London attendance
records actually show numbers are down for many other solid,
well-curated exhibits. "Could the over-promotion of
selective versions of contemporary art be channelling the
interest people have for it in ways from which it will never
escape, and creating a new category of sold experience where
only quality should count?"
The
Independent 1/09/01
WHAT
PRICE SUCCESS? John Walsh has been
checking out other museums since he stepped down as director of
the Getty in September. "I keep thinking, what price
success? Museums are drawing huge audiences, but to what? To
dazzling new buildings or renovated ones, very often, or to
ballyhooed exhibitions of overexposed art (even things with a
dubious place in art museums like motorcycles and guitars). In
settings like that, looking at works of art is becoming a
point-and-click sort of thing. There's a crowd flowing around
you, noise . . . glance, move on."
Los
Angeles Times 12/28/00
WHAT
MUSEUMS SHOULD BE? "If the first
current idea informing much cultural planning is a version of
technological determinism, then the second is a belief in the
increasing convergence of commerce and culture. In this version
of futurology, shops are becoming more like museums - places for
visual and aesthetic display - while museums are becoming more
like shops."
The Telegraph (London) 12/16/00
POPULARITY
KILLED THE MUSEUM? "Are museums
going to hell in a touring exhibition of hand baskets? Is buzz a
thing to be feared in a place of high culture?" Directors
of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and the Harvard Museums debate
buzz and bang-for-the-buck.
Boston Herald 12/15/00
BIGGER
IS BETTER? "Nowadays,
museums build bigger buildings and erect huge impersonal
additions to house uneven collections. Trustees, millionaires
and board members pick architects; they help lay out loading
docks. Museums are becoming architectural attractions in and of
themselves. But is bigger better? Is more more?"
Artnet.com
12/08/00
THREE-RING
MUSEUM:
"Considering the Guggenheim’s latest proposal, to
appropriate a sizable portion of lower Manhattan for the purpose
of creating a mammoth fun-and-games cultural emporium: The
Guggenheim Museum is itself no longer a serious art institution.
It has no aesthetic standards and no aesthetic agenda. It has
completely sold out to a mass-market mentality that regards the
museum’s own art collection as an asset to be exploited for
commercial purposes."
New York Observer 12/06/00
SCHOLARSHIP
TAKES A BACK SEAT:
The British Museum’s redesign is certain
to drive up attendance and draw viewers who care more about the
architecture than the collection. "A more fundamental
question, however, is how much the museum's rush to modernize
itself will threaten its scholarly mission." New
York Times 12/06/00
(one-time registration required for
access)
WHAT
MUSEUMS WANT: What exactly do museums
want today? New York's fall schedule of shows at major museums
is perplexing. "The lineup of fall shows suggests that
museum professionals, driven by the desire to be financially
secure, wildly popular or socially relevant, opt for one of two
alternatives: exhibitions that look like upscale stores, or
exhibitions that look like historical society displays."
New York Times 12/03/00
(one-time registration required for access)
WHAT
HAPPENS IF NOBODY WANTS THE JOB? Before London's
Victoria & Albert Museum selected its new director last
week, headhunters had offered the job to several international
candidates, but had been turned down. "It is known they
encouraged quite a number of people to apply from all over the
world. It subtly undermines the candidature in the end." The
Independent (London) 02/11/01
- JONESING
FOR THE V&A: Many
believe that the Victoria & Albert Museum needs a
charismatic figure to pull it out of a prolonged slump. But
Mark Jones, named last week as new director, "is seen
as a subtle networker, a scholarly figure, adept at
behind-the-scenes politicking but unlikely to stamp his
personality on the V&A in a radical shake-up. Yet that
is exactly what some critics claim is needed to save the
149-year-old museum from dwindling attendances and a
nightmarishly bureaucratic way of working." The
Guardian (London) 02/13/01
- THE
TASK OF REINVENTION:
Mark Jones, director of the National Museums of Scotland,
was appointed Monday to head London’s Victoria &
Albert - a museum with flagging admissions, a stalled £80
million redesign, and an obvious need for artistic
leadership. "His next task is to polish this Victorian
jewel and make it appeal to the modern eye. A museum cannot
ossify and be left to decay. It has to reinvent
itself." The Herald (Glasgow)
2/07/01
BRITISH
MUSEUM MIGHT CHARGE:
The British Museum has warned the government it might start
charging admission for the first time in its history if the
museum doesn't get some help with a large VAT tax bill.
London Evening Standard 02/08/01
THE
MODERN MUSEUM...ER, FUN HOUSE:
Time was when art museums were temples of decorum, staid,
stately and places in which to be contemplative. "But the
“blockbuster” mentality that began developing in the 1960s
helped to transform many art museums into all-purpose cultural
emporia. Increasingly, success is measured by quantity, not
quality, by the take at the box office rather than at the bar of
aesthetic discrimination."
New Criterion 02/01
BASQUE
BOOST: The Bilbao
Guggenheim has transformed Bilbao since it opened three years
ago. The museum has had 3,625,000 visitors to the museum since
October 1997, while 5,000 jobs were created and $600 million’s
worth of economic activity was generated."
The
Art Newspaper 02/02/01
SPENDING
THAT MERGER MONEY: Two America Online executives have
pledged $30 million to the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.,
a record donation for the 132-year-old museum. The money
virtually assures construction of the Corcoran's new Frank Gehry-designed
addition, expected to cost $120 million.
Washington
Post 02/05/01
MAJOR
COLLABORATION: The
Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, the Kunsthistorisches Museum
in Vienna and the Guggenheim Foundation have announced a
collaboration that seems to go beyond what museums have done so
far. The accord would involve exchanges of exhibitions, curators
and know-how. The
Art Newspaper 01/26/01
WORLD
DOMINATION? "The
response of the guardians of the American museum world is to cry
"McGuggenheim!", and claim that Thomas Krens, the
management-trained director of the New York Guggenheim, is
rolling out the brand. The tie-up with the Hermitage and
Kunsthistorisches are just part of a wider strategy for what
looks increasingly like a bid by Krens for world
domination."
The Guardian 01/27/01
FUROR
OVER FREE MUSEUMS: So
British museums are to be free again? "In the 1980s, when
museum charges were encouraged by the government of the day as
part of a market-driven economy, museums and their collections
were regarded as commodities. And the result? Those institutions
that went down the charging route saw their visitor numbers
plummet on average by a third. This approach failed to take
account of the unique importance of museums: they are a crucial
part of the fabric of the individual and of society, and
everyone should have free access to them." The
Guardian (London) 01/27/01
TOO
FAMOUS FOR ITS OWN (AND OTHERS) GOOD:
The "Mona Lisa" is being moved to a room of its own at
the Louvre due to the mobs that crowd its current spot, which
shows the painting in context among other works of the Italian
High Renaissance. The Louvre has had to admit that there are
limits to this approach and to place bullet-proof glass over the
painting; and now it has ruefully accepted another failure that
comes from celebrity, and it is removing the work to a raucous
room of its own."
The
Independent (London) 1/26/01
DOUBLE
TROUBLE: London's
Royal Academy is going to double in size, taking over an
adjacent building. But a plan to move the Academy's students
to new quarters is being panned by the students. Why do the
artists like their present ramshackle digs, through which many
famous artists have passed? “They boast the most perfect
light in which to work." The
Times (London) 01/26/01
PORTRAIT
OF THE COMMUTER AS AN ARTWORK:
Billboards have sprung up in Los Angeles declaring stretches
of clogged freeways and cookie-cutter retail stores to be
works of living art. The oversized labels are part of a
promotional campaign by L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art.
Desperate? Maybe. Lowbrow posing as highbrow? Perhaps. But
people are talking about it.
L.A. Weekly 1/24/01
THE
POPULAR SMITHSONIAN:
A record 3.1 million people visited the museums of the
Smithsonian last year, a 9 percent increase over 1999, when
28.6 million people visited.
The heavy traffic flow reflects a strong tourism economy, not
to mention some popular Smithsonian exhibits, such as the
Salvador Dali show at the Hirshhorn last spring and the
Vikings display at the Museum of Natural History. Washington
Post 01/23/01
ART
CRISIS IN AUSTRALIA?
Eighteen major Australian visual arts organizations met in
Sydney for emergency talks on the state of the visual arts
sector in Australia. "Cash-strapped state galleries are
being forced to stage more 'blockbuster' exhibitions at the
expense of Australian content and curatorial quality, while
contemporary art spaces were also suffering as a result of
static funding. Art colleges were closing courses or
cancelling subjects because of funding cuts, which in turn
affected the number of teaching jobs available for
artists." The
Age (Melbourne) 01/23/01
WE'RE
AWARE WE'RE HERE: The
Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art has hired giant ad
agency TWBA\Chiat\Day, the firm responsible for Absolut
Vodka’s art-friendly ads, the Energizer Bunny, Apple’s
“Think Different” campaign and “Yo Quiero Taco Bell”
to create an "awareness campaign" for the museum.
"Over the next month or so, and continuing through June,
MOCA’s 2001 Brand Awareness Campaign will position 60
site-specific labels as billboards throughout the city.
LA Weekly 01/18/01
PANDERING?
"Art museums these days are pandering
to the lowest common denominator, confusing popular junk with
high art, and failing their mission to set standards and educate
the public. Or they're throwing over outdated and elitist
concepts about art, making it fun, bringing more people into
museums, and teaching them to see beauty in everyday objects.
Either the barbarians are at the gate, or they're already in,
and, hey, they're not barbarians."
USA
Today 01/05/01
THE
NEW MUSEUM: The
Guggenheim's Thomas Krens on criticisms of the museum's Armani
show: "We’ve expanded the concept of what a
museum/gallery is. You have to be flexible today. I see a museum
as a research and education institution, as well as a theme park
- I say theme park not in a pejorative manner. People come here
for a visceral experience. I’m involved with objects of
material culture - that’s about everything. So then you choose
a hierarchy. "We look at the high practitioners in the
field of material culture, be it motorbikes, paintings or
clothes. Clothes and motorbikes have not got a frame around them
but they reflect the aspirations of culture in an age of
globalisation." The
Scotsman 01/08/01
THE
ART OF SELLING ART: "Art
galleries often appear to be nothing more than underutilized
museums, but their real purpose is to sell art. Compared with
other retailers, they are spectacularly bad at what they do.
Most people don't go to galleries, and thanks to the snobbery
and traditionalism of some dealers, artists cannot effectively
connect with the vast American public and its equally vast
purchasing power. Art galleries sell art in the way that fancy
stores sell luxury goods: they use high prices to suggest
scarcity, quality and prestige."
New
York Times 01/07/01 (one-time
registration required for access)
FASHIONABLE
ART: The Guggenheim's show on Armani fashion is indicative
of a shift in perception of fashion as art. The show "is a
perfect example of the blend of fashion, art, commerce and
academic analysis that marks the current cultural scene. How we
dress now is a subject that engages semioticians, social
historians, political analysts and gender theorists - 'fashion
civilians', in the words of Colette's biographer Judith Thurman
- as well as superstar designers, magazine editors,
high-spending celebrities, and chic purveyors and curators of
front-line style." London
Review of Books 01/14/01
SPILLOVER
POPULARITY? London's
new museums have been such a hit with audiences that elsewhere
in England museums with construction projects are busy revising
upwards their attendance projections. The
Guardian (London) 01/04/01
CYNICAL
BLOCKBUSTERS: "The
art exhibition has become one of our favourite treats. Orgies of
hype and merchandising, blockbuster shows are the cultural
equivalent of a royal wedding or the World Cup - spectacles that
make us feel part of a community of chat, deciding that yes, we
really do all feel that late Monet is as fascinating if not more
so than the Monet of the 1870s. Last year hardly a week went by
without the opening of some absolutely unmissable show, and this
year the procession rolls on, genuflecting before one modern or
ancient master after another." The
Guardian (London) 01/01/01
SO
WHAT CONSTITUTES ART?
The Los Angeles County Museum's show on California has been
faulted for emphasizing history and pop culture as much as art.
"Museums, like other institutions, are trying to make
things relevant. The show cuts a broad path through the cultural
landscape, touching on everything from surfboards to WWII
Japanese internment camps, as well as the varying manifestations
of spirituality. "It's all been a part of the growing
democratization of the arts. Today you can say a word like
'multicultural' and people recognize it; you don't have to
explain it anymore."
Christian Science Monitor 12/29/00
A
LITTLE SHOW BIZ IN BROOKLYN:
The Brooklyn Museum had a reputation for its rich collection and
stodgy ways. Then three years ago Arnold Lehman arrived as
director and brought some show business to the place (including
last year's "Sensation" show). "Mr. Lehman makes
no apologies for his populist approach, saying that if the
choice arose, he would have no trouble favoring a broader
audience over deeper scholarly research, while bearing in mind
that the mission of the museum is always about art."
New
York Times 01/01/01
(one-time registration required for access)
THE
NORTON SIMON WAKES UP:
"Long known as a sleepy, essentially private enclave and
only open four afternoons a week, the Simon has been transformed
during the past year, since the grand opening of a celebrated
$6.5-million renovation designed by architect Frank O. Gehry.
Officials have extended its hours, expanded its outreach and
upped its advertising budget. The payoff has been
dramatic."
Los
Angeles Times 12/03/00
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