Five things I think I think

1.) If I hear one more museum podcast feature visitors to the museum and what they think of ______, I'm going to delete them from my feeds. Museums all employ armies of people who do interesting things: conservation, research, building, installing, curating, and so on. Podcasting was made for telling us what cool things those people are up to. Instead we too oft get Joe Schmoe saying that the comb in a Magritte looks soooo reallllll.

2.) While Gerald Murphy & Co. is getting all the Williams College Museum of Art-related pub this season, WCMA is also showing Critical Encounters: Collecting Contemporary Photography. The exhibition features 48 works promised to WCMA by critic (and MANpal) Phyllis Tuchman. Also: Consider the show proof that the critic and WCMA understand ethics better than, say, the NGA or the Hammer.

3.) One new measure of an art museum's crossover popularity is its Flickr profile. The new Nelson-Atkins is a FlickrFave (3,400+), as are the de Young (15,000+), and Marfa's mega-photogenic Chinati Foundation (3,200+). I could keep going... but instead will note that BoingBoing is predicting that the next FlickrFave will be Gerhard Richter's new installation at the Cologne Cathedral. Spiegel has the news on the unveiling.

4.) If you're a museum searching for a director, the Walker has made it easy for you to know who is willing to serve as a reference for outgoing chief Kathy Halbreich: They've been publishing a series of 'Memories of/Thoughts on Kathy' for a week now. Total number of hat-tips: Eighteen.

5.) The Barnes battle is heating up. Today the Friends of the Barnes are asking the Montgomery County Orphans' Court to re-consider its the-Barnes-may-move decision. It has the world's favorite plotline: The little guys versus the biggest money and most prominent players in the city. The group has a blog, too.