Midwestern museums dominate week -- and how?

UPDATE, 1130am EDT: Third paragraph.

I spent five years living in Missouri for college, attending college some more, and then living in St. Louis for a short time. I think that gives me a reasonable understanding of the way midwesterners who are a part of the art world think about being midwesterners in the art world: They feel overlooked, and under-considered -- and they're right, they are. So it's been interesting to watch how two of America's top museums, both of which happen to be within a bike ride of the Mississippi River, have handled their big news this week.

First, the Walker and their directorship: Like many museums, they seem to feel like they aren't making news that matters unless the New York Times writes about them. Nevermind the press at home, it's all about the Carol Vogel write-up. Museums go to great lengths -- and make great promises of exclusivity -- to get NYT attention. (When word of their news gets out before Vogel can publish, those museums are often unhappy. Many a time PR people at museums have begged me not to publish things I learned through sources before the museum-authorized leak was published in the NYT. A few have yelled. My take: Their problem, not mine.)

In this case, the Walker sent out a version of their director-hiring release that was embargoed until Wednesday morning. And then the news popped up in the NYT before 3pm on Tuesday, over an hour before the staff was told of the hire. (And Vogel's lede reveals that she was handed the story on Tuesday.) For the Walker, NYT coverage trumped all, ahead of local media such as the Star Tribune or Minnesota Public Radio. The Walker has a simmering feud going with STrib writer Mary Abbe, which doesn't help. (Can you blame them? Abbe stories can come with strange points of emphasis and mistakes. The Hirshhorn's collection strength is the 19thC?!)

Meanwhile, down in St. Louis, the first word of the Art Museum's $10 million Degas surfaced in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where critic/writer David Bonetti broke the story. And sure enough: Even though the SLAM Degas is the priciest American museum acquisition in two years, the NYT has yet to mention it. Obviously the NYT prefers primacy to judgment, enforcement of the NYT First Code(TM) over what's fit to print.

And the St. Louis Art Museum was, apparently, fine with that. The museum could have played a little "embargoed release" game with the P-D as a way of "landing" an NYT story, but chose not to. One possible reason: The museum is raising money for a building. Almost every penny of that money will come from St. Louis.

In my dealings with SLAM they have a confidence about their place in the art world that few midwestern museums have: They know they're good, they know their collection is superb, they don't worry about playing the NYT's game. As a result it was more important for the museum to be quietly certain of its role in the firmament, to show itself off at home than to puff its feathers to distant, less interested audiences. Besides, the acquisition was so splashy they figured that national outlets would come around in time. (Obviously MAN did.) We'll know the NYT "admits" its mistake when it runs a belated, freelanced Sunday feature on St. Louis. ("St. Louis Art Museum Lives Within its Means?")