« The Barnes' neighbors explained | Main | The Nelson-Atkins' Bloch Building: As good as it gets »
July 12, 2007
FAMSF re-considering King Tut?
Is the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco backing out of previously announced plans to exhibit the Philip Anschutz/AEG King Tut show? Since confirming to MAN back in February that the museum was taking the show, no contract has been signed. Sources have told MAN that FAMSF is considering backing out of the show, but museum spokesperson Susannah Stringam said today that negotiations with AEG are still underway -- and then insisted that the museum had never said that it would take the show.
That part's not true: Another de Young spokesperson, Barbara Traisman, confirmed to me in February that the museum was taking the show in 2009. "I don't know what she told you," Stringam told me today. Stringam is new to the FAMSF (she had been at the San Diego Museum of Art), so I filled her in on what Traisman told me. "Then she misspoke," Stringam said.
The de Young would be only the second art museum in the world to allow AEG to profit from their visitors and from their space. The exhibition is also controversial because it would allow a right-wing billionaire to earn millions of dollars in profit from galleries owned by the City and County of San Francisco. (About a third of FAMSF's budget comes from the City.)
The museum, whose de Young opened to record crowds and strong reviews in 2005, has struggled since Buchanan replaced Harry S. Parker III, who retired after the opening of the de Young. Board turnover has been unusually high. The museum's communications office is promoting a local commercial gallery. And the museum's exhibition program has been a confused mish-mash that rarely includes major shows curated by FAMSF curators, prompting San Francisco Chronicle critic Kenneth Baker to despair over FAMSF's programming.
Posted July 12, 2007 1:56 PM
