August 2008 Archives
'Billboard art' is the rage of late. No idea why. But this example raises questions of politics, public art, commercial interests and on and on...
August 28, 2008 2:45 PM
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Five favorite things I saw over the course of the summer...1.) Two super installations at the Akron Art Museum, which is taking full effect of its striking new Coop Himmelblau building: Upon entering the museum's smart new post-war galleries, visitors are greeted by an enormous Lari Pittman: Thankfully, I will have had learned to break glass with sound (1999). While Pittman is one of the most important American painters of the last 25 years, his work is rarely on view in permanent collection galleries (perhaps because museums shy away from the intensity of Pittman's imagery). Akron, whose director Mitchell Kahan is one of just a handful of openly gay American museum directors, doesn't just exhibit Pittman, he does so in the most fantastically confrontational way imaginable. It's the first thing you see when you enter the museum's post-war galleries.
2.) Later on in Akron's finely-detailed new space: This Alma Thomas, 1972's Spring Awakening, is one of the best Thomases I've seen. (It's been in the museum's collection since 1976.) Across a gallery is an El Anatsui, Dzesi II (2006). It's a fairly typical El Anatsui, complete with flattened aluminum bottle caps. The juxtaposition of the Thomas and the El Anatsui really works: All that division and layering comes together to form a powerful whole. (Incidentally, art ghettoists who scoff at the idea of the alleged hinterlands are really shooting themselves in the Moleskine by not appreciating or visiting places like the Akron Art Museum. Its Doris Salcedo is haunting and perfectly installed. Its Kusama chairs are the best I've ever seen in a museum's collection galleries. Akron's 1966 Bontecou is wonderfully frightening and war-like. And on and on.)3.) The trompe l'oeil wall at the Brandywine River Museum. George Cope, John Haberle, William Hartnett, and more. I live in a city (Washington) that doesn't have much American trompe l'oeil painting, which is too bad. The more I see the more I want to see more.
4.) Francisco de Zurbaran's Jesus and Mary in Nazareth at the Cleveland Museum of Art. This is really about ten paintings in one: A floral still-life, plus seemingly self-contained presentations of a basket, a bowl, books, pears and birds. (Oh -- Jesus and Mary are there too.) There also appears to be an unlikely indoor weather system affecting the scene. It's all quite surreal -- and rollicking good Catholic fun.
5.) Trevor Paglen's Active Military and Reconnaissance Satellites of the United States of America at the Berkeley Art Museum. Picture a darkened room, a large globe, and four projectors projecting 'satellites' onto the globe. Where you see the dots on the globe is where the satellites are. Thoughts: Why are American military satellites going over us?! Why do the satellites flicker in and out, like fireflies? Why is there only one satellite over China -- aren't they a potential enemy? There are none over Iraq or Iran! (I looked at North Korea, but it was so small...) After I walked around the globe a few times, a few satellites finally flew over all of those places. Which made me feel better. But should that make me feel better? Or do I have some kind of latent militarisitic streak that just popped out?
August 28, 2008 9:21 AM
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- When 'watercolor painting' was an Olympic event, from the LAT's David Colker.
- The Boston Globe's Geoff Edgers explains what college art museum lost a Leger and how they seem to have done it.
- Sebastian Smee, the Boston Globe's new art critic, says that discovering old art in a new places helps free the mind from the tyranny of wall text, education departments, interpretive aids, curatorial explanations, etc., etc. etc., etc.
- How did I miss this? Two years ago the Smithsonian decided that its name was more valuable than its integrity, reports the Washington Post's Jackie Trescott.
August 27, 2008 8:33 AM
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Last week I posted about how the "Diebenkorn in New Mexico" show now at the Phillips Collection reveals how Richard Diebenkorn worked his way through a number of modern masters on his way to becoming one of the greatest post-war painters. I focused on this 1951 Diebenkorn, a painting the NYT said has been exhibited only once in 32 years. I traced it back to Picasso's 1932 Still Life: Bust, Bowl and Palette. In 1952, just before leaving Albuquerque for a teaching job in Urbana, Ill., Diebenkorn made a second visit to that Picasso. This time he banished orange, the dominant color in the 1951 painting, from his palette. The first time around he had exaggerated the bust, this time he minimized it. Where at first he ignored the structure of the Picasso to play with components of the painting, to de Kooning-ize them with letters of the alphabet, this time he sublimated everything else to delineating Picasso's structure with clear, straight black lines. The two paintings -- frustratingly installed out of sight of each other at the Phillips -- are a fascinating revelation into how Diebenkorn worked through his forefathers. (I can't think of another example of Diebenkorn working through one painting in multiple paintings of his own. But if anyone else...)
There's one other painting in which Diebenkorn explores Picasso's artistic legacy: In 1951's Albuquerque (Motorcycle Wreck) Diebenkorn directly plays at mixing a cubist 'quote' with an abstract ground. The painting (at right) features one motorcycle wheel up against the picture plane, and one lying down, receding into the picture. It's almost as if the young artist was testing cubist flatness, seeing whether there was something there for him. (Answer: Not much.)The New Mexico paintings are ripe for these kinds of readings. In a recent lecture at the Phillips, ex-MoMA chief curator John Elderfield drew similar specific links between New Mexico paintings and Gorkys, Miros, Rothkos and de Koonings. He also made a persuasive case for how the great St. Louis Art Museum New Mexico painting was informed by a Gottlieb.
So no, I don't think that "Diebenkorn in New Mexico" reveals that New Mexico seeped into Diebenkorn's art -- I think that Diebenkorn's time in graduate school allowed him two years of relative quiet during which he worked his way through the dominant painters of his time. And I think the show inadvertently explains Diebenkorn's frequent contention that critics read too much Matisse into his work: The show demonstrates that in his formative years Diebenkorn didn't think much about Matisse at all. (Of course, once he found him...)
August 26, 2008 7:23 AM
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I am confused. In Sunday's NYT, Roberta Smith declares that public art is "one of contemporary art's more exciting areas of endeavor and certainly its most dramatically improved one." Sure. There may be an argument to be made in that direction.But Smith did not make it. First, her definition of 'public art' is curious. She specifically excludes earthworks -- many of which, most famously Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty, Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels, and Michael Heizer's Double Negative -- are absolutely public. (Urban, no. Public, yes.)
Then Smith goes down some strange Jeff Koons
As if this weren't confusing enough, Smith cites sculpture in privately-owned, security-guard-filled skyscrapers as 'public art.' At best, office building lobbies/atriums are selectively public.
(Smith's consideration also reveals her New Yorkness. There are numerous healthy, exciting public art programs around the country and have been for years: San Diego alone has featured inSite and the Stuart Collection at UCSD. And up the highway, the most exciting public work I've seen in the last year is Chris Burden's Urban Light.)
It's possible Smith has a point about a revival of public art. But yesterday's essay only confused the conversation.
- Speaking of public art, I dig this Baltimore Museum of Art idea. Podcasts here.
- Not only did Richard Lacayo slam the University of Iowa regents for considering a possible Pollock sale, but for good measure he twice eviscerated the muddled, self-revealing musings of Felix Salmon. In other Iowa Pollock-related pontification, the Wall Street Journal's Eric Gibson comes down on the side of the angels too.
- Art critic John Russell, dead at 89.
- The Dallas Morning News' Scott Cantrell on the SITE Santa Fe biennial: Life is short, art is shorter.
- Martha Schwendener never writes like this for the NYT, which says more about the NYT than it does about her: This stemwinder on Kehinde Wiley is superb.
- Jen Graves finds a clever way to bring up a sticky question.
August 25, 2008 8:31 AM
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I was going to spend more time on Diebenkorn today, but I'm having image issues. So that'll wait...I linked to this yesterday, but LATer Suzanne Muchnic's story on LACMA's purchase of Ed Kienholz's The Illegal Operation (1962) hit every note: socio-cultural relevance, art historical import, and ways in which today's artists have picked up from Kienholz. The story -- Museum Buys Art -- is pretty simple, but Muchnic really nailed it. It's the kind of 'why this art matters' arts journalism that just about no one does anymore.
(Certainly not the NYT, which has turned just about all of its so-called arts journalism into business reporting or hyperbolic feature writing, the most recent example of which declares Denver as having a "new art movement." Yes, that's right: fauvism, cubism, Denverism. Meanwhile the NYT still hasn't reported accurately on the Denver Art Museum/Anschutz scandal. Why cover the news when you can blow smoke, I guess.)
Muchnic's story also reminded me how au courant Kienholzes often look, both in terms of their formal import to what came next art-making-wise, but also in terms of the issues they address. The last big Kienholz show was the Whitney's 1996 retrospective.
Last year MoMA's then-chief curator John Elderfield told me that the museum was evaluating the 1970s in an effort to determine who from that era was under-examined and under-collected at MoMA. Ed Kienholz goes back further than 1970, but I'd have a hard time thinking of an artist from Kienholz's generation deserving of another close-up.
August 21, 2008 9:33 AM
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- Time's Richard Lacayo is the latest to knock the University of Iowa regents.
- LACMA scores this great, important Kienholz, reports LATer Suzanne Muchnic.
- Press release of the day: The Art Institute of Chicago devalues the phrase "major acquisition" and, for some reason, decides its press release should be an advertisement for the gallery from which it bought the painting. Say wha?!
August 20, 2008 12:14 PM
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In the summer of 1952, just after completing a master's degree at the University of New Mexico, Richard Diebenkorn made a quick swing through California. He stopped in the Bay Area to drop off some paintings, and in Los Angeles to see the landmark Alfred Barr-curated Matisse show at the Municipal Art Gallery. Diebenkorn had seen some Matisse before -- notably at the Phillips Collection when Diebenkorn was stationed in the Washington area during World War II -- but it was through that show that Diebenkorn first truly absorbed Matisse. There's little sign of Matisse in any of Diebenkorn's pre-1952 work.Which means that the show of Albuquerque paintings on view now at the Phillips is an opportunity to see the work of the greatest American student of Matisse before he found Matisse. (The show was organized by curators Charles Lovell and Charles Strong for the Harwood Museum of Art. The Phillips is the last stop of a four-city tour.) "Diebenkorn in New Mexico" is a stunning, unexpected revelation, an opportunity to see Diebenkorn working through Miro, Gorky, de Kooning and, most surprising of all, a chance to watch Diebenkorn work through the greatest European synthesizer of Matisse: Pablo Picasso.
The exhibition reveals that Diebenkorn was far less influenced by New Mexico's mountain topopgraphy and desert colors than is generally believed. (The show's curators grope for this explanation at every turn, both in the show's thin catalogue and especially in the broken records masquerading as wall-texts.) From 1950-52 Diebenkorn wasn't so much directly abstracting landscape, light, or anything else we typically associate with Western artists. He took specific paintings and techniques from favorite artists, and then made Esperanto out of them.
The most thrilling examples stem from Diebenkorn's apparent study of Picasso's Still Life: Bust, Bowl, and Palette, from 1931-32. It's a painting that Picasso made in preparation for a major exhibition at Georges Petit, an exhibition that followed a 1931 Matisse show at the same gallery. The painting shows Picasso re-claiming a trope from Matisse, whose 1916 treatment of the same subject was featured in a popular magazine on the occasion of Matisse's show. (I wrote about these two paintings in February.) Albuquerque No. 3 (1951) above is Diebenkorn's synthesization of the Picasso. As is evident time and time again in the Phillips show, Diebenkorn isn't directly abstracting the Picasso, he's letting the Picasso guide him. In essence; Picasso stole the painting's subject matter and elements from Matisse, and Diebenkorn stole structure and shape from Picasso. The bust in the upper-right of the Diebenkorn is an obvious crib from the Picasso. In a nod to de Kooning (highlighted by John Elderfield in a recent Phillips lecture), Diebenkorn used letters to abstract other elements: The fruit bowl becomes an 'O,' the palette and hook is echoed in a scribbled 'e' or 'l'. [The de Kooning, Zurich (1947) is now in the Hirshhorn's collection and is on view now.] At the place in the Picasso where a tablecloth folds over itself forming 3/4 of an 'X,' Diebenkorn finds an 'X' in de Kooning, seems to like it, and inserts it in almost the same place in his painting.
But the hallmark of these paintings isn't just direct inspiration, it's more subtle appropriation, including the way Diebenkorn allows Picasso to influence his palette. (Before seeing this show in San Jose last year, it had never occurred to me that Picasso had anything to do with Diebenkorn. The influence of Picasso on Diebenkorn is the shocker of the show.) In numerous paintings from this period Diebenkorn uses little patches of a strange faint purple, a color that hadn't been in his palette before and that wouldn't much be again. It's a color that has nothing to do with New Mexico's desert landscape, either. I posit that it's a color he took from his study of early 1930s Picasso: That lavender-purple is Marie-Therese Walter's 'personal color.' It's in gouaches from the Albuquerque period, in the great, Albuquerque No. 4 (1951), and it slides into the best painting Diebenkorn made in New Mexico, an amazing untitled 1952 abstraction.
In a catalogue essay Mark Lavatelli writes: "What comes out of the Albuquerque period -- the multiple uses of line, the abstracted landscape quality -- continues in the Urbana, Berkeley, and Ocean Park series." Lavatelli is right to a point: Diebenkorn learned how to abstract away from subject matter in Albuquerque, but he wasn't abstracting away from landscape. He was working from modern masters.
No. 3 isn't Diebenkorn's only consideration of Bust, Bowl and Palette. Tomorrow: A 1952 painting in which Diebenkorn goes back to Bust, Bowl and Palette in order to use Picasso's structure.
August 20, 2008 9:00 AM
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Slightly amusing Erin Jordan story in the Des Moines Register on the reaction to the Pollock events. (Amusing in part because it missed some recent developments, including the Iowa governor's position against the current process. Uh, how...)
As you may recall, last week I pointed out the potential conflicts of interest inherent in a University of Iowa regent suggesting that UIMA's greatest painting be sold to a museum (at a cut rate, no doubt) that might allow UIMA to borrow it from time-to-time when the wife of the UI regent in question is on the board of the Des Moines Art Center.
The UI regent in question, Michael Gartner, told the Register that my noting such was "bizarre."
More from Gartner in the Register: "'My wife, like probably 2.9 million other Iowans, didn't even know the university owned a $150 million painting (if that's what it's worth) until it was in the news in recent weeks,' Gartner wrote in an e-mail."
If Gartner is right and his wife Barbara didn't know that one of the two or three greatest Pollocks in America was 115 miles down the street at the University of Iowa Museum of Art, I wonder what she's doing on an art museum board.
Also, Gartner appears to have a firm idea of how the Pollock should be assessed. Then why go through with the whole assessment charade? (At the very least Gartner just signaled to the UI assessors what he thinks the assessment ought to find, which seems improper.)
Is it likely that the Pollock is sold? I think that the events of the last week -- including Iowa Gov. Chet Culver's opposition to the current process and the unusually prompt response of art world leaders -- make it unlikely. (Of course: If Alice Walton waltzes in with a $175 million offer, all bets are off...) But what's troubling is this: The UI regent pushing the idea has no apparent compunction about pre-judging an assessment that he himself pushed through and he also fails to recognize another obvious bit of ethical stickiness. So who knows what's next?
As you may recall, last week I pointed out the potential conflicts of interest inherent in a University of Iowa regent suggesting that UIMA's greatest painting be sold to a museum (at a cut rate, no doubt) that might allow UIMA to borrow it from time-to-time when the wife of the UI regent in question is on the board of the Des Moines Art Center.
The UI regent in question, Michael Gartner, told the Register that my noting such was "bizarre."
More from Gartner in the Register: "'My wife, like probably 2.9 million other Iowans, didn't even know the university owned a $150 million painting (if that's what it's worth) until it was in the news in recent weeks,' Gartner wrote in an e-mail."
If Gartner is right and his wife Barbara didn't know that one of the two or three greatest Pollocks in America was 115 miles down the street at the University of Iowa Museum of Art, I wonder what she's doing on an art museum board.
Also, Gartner appears to have a firm idea of how the Pollock should be assessed. Then why go through with the whole assessment charade? (At the very least Gartner just signaled to the UI assessors what he thinks the assessment ought to find, which seems improper.)
Is it likely that the Pollock is sold? I think that the events of the last week -- including Iowa Gov. Chet Culver's opposition to the current process and the unusually prompt response of art world leaders -- make it unlikely. (Of course: If Alice Walton waltzes in with a $175 million offer, all bets are off...) But what's troubling is this: The UI regent pushing the idea has no apparent compunction about pre-judging an assessment that he himself pushed through and he also fails to recognize another obvious bit of ethical stickiness. So who knows what's next?
- The Des Moines Register (finally) writes a smart editorial opposing any sale of the Pollock -- or civil war cannons, etc.
- Wanna borrow UIMA's great 1943 Pollock? Your insurance costs will be a lot less than you think, reports the LAT's Mike Boehm.
- From SF Chronicle art critic Kenneth Baker: An SFMOMA board member buys David Ireland's house, plans preservation.
- On a week when one of the biggest art world stories of 2008 has been taking place, the New York Times gave us Where's Waldo at the Met, a Russian scenester, and the development of a parking lot in Venice, Calif. Awesome.
- The Dallas Morning News' Michael Granberry reports that the Kimbell and Renzo Piano are reconsidering where to build the Kimbell's planned expansion. Here's the Google Satellite image of the site.
- Susan Robb's 'Toobs,' at the Seattle Asian Art Museum, are strikingly seductive, says The Stranger's Christopher Frizzelle. Jen Graves has more here.
- Robert Pincus of the San Diego Union Tribune examines a show of artists responding to climate change at MCASD, BAM -- and at UNESCO sites. (In a related story, does Ann Hamilton have her own wall-text typist?)
- The Berlin Monument to the Homosexual Persecuted in the Nazi Era -- an Elmgreen and Dragset -- has been vandalized.
- The Houston Chronicle's Douglas Britt sees an arts resurgence in New Orleans.
August 18, 2008 7:40 AM
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From the Friends of the Great Salt Lake: First attempt to drill near Jetty rejected.
August 14, 2008 2:13 PM
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Yesterday I asked Iowa Gov. Chet Culver's office if the governor supports the University of Iowa regents' process of assessing the monetary value (and potential sale) of Jackson Pollock's Mural, or if the governor believes that the
university and University of Iowa Museum of Art should adhere to industry practices, etc. This afternoon a gubernatorial spokesperson responded:
Governor Culver believes the University of Iowa's Jackson Pollock 1943 Mural is a treasure that belongs to the people of Iowa, for the people of Iowa, and should be preserved for future generations of Iowans.
The Regents and the UI leadership are assessing their recovery needs and how to pay for them right now. Governor Culver believes we should let the Regents and the University of Iowa complete that process and seek insurance payments and federal recovery dollars to which they are entitled first before it's even necessary to consider selling off irreplaceable assets.
August 13, 2008 5:37 PM
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- On the Chronicle of Higher Education's Brainstorm blog, Laurie Fendrich reminds the University of Iowa regents of their institution's mission.
- The (Iowa City) Press-Citizen editorializes against any potential sale of Jackson Pollock's 1943 Mural.
- The (Cedar Rapids) Gazette has also editorialized against a potential sale, but their editorial is pretty much impossible to link to.
- The Des Moines Register ran a nice letter from Grinnell's Donald Bartlett Doe.
- The Association of Art Museum Directors has sent a letter of opposition to a Mural sale to Iowa officials. AAMD has yet to post the letter to its website.
- Number of New York Times stories this week on a parking lot, a fence, and a couple of artists in Venice, Calif.: 1. Number of stories on the Pollock affair in Iowa: 0.
August 13, 2008 11:14 AM
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Jeff Fleming is the director of the Des Moines Art Center.
MAN: Are you opposed to any potential forced deaccessioning of the University of Iowa Museum of Art's Jackson Pollock, 1943's Mural?
Jeff Fleming: Of course I am. I think we need to start by saying that there needs to be clarity of information. I've spoken to [University of Iowa regent] Michael Gartner directly and expressed my opinion, and I've gotten the chain of events. According to him and according to my conversation he has not proposed selling it. He doubts that the regents would ever consider selling it.
[Ed.: On Aug. 8 the Des Moines Register reported: "Gartner said the regents should determine the value of the painting if sold to a museum - not a private collector - that would agree to occasional viewings at the U of I." In the same story Gartner said: "I'm not proposing the painting be sold, but I'm proposing we look to see that if the painting were sold (how much it would bring). A few years ago, Christie's or Sotheby's was asked about its value and it was enormous." UIMA interim director Pam White has told MAN and other outlets that there was already a recent insurance-related assessment of the painting. Apparently Gartner and the regents found that insufficient, and voted to approve a non-insurance-related assessment.]
MAN: You're the director of Iowa's biggest art museum. What's can or will be your role in stopping the regents' efforts? Is your position, among other things, a bully pulpit?
Fleming: No. I don't think that anyone should ever have a bully platform on which to speak. I think perhaps there are better ways to get things accomplished.
I think obviously you, that is we, need to have all the information and that we need to deal with the correct information, and then you can utilize and evaluate it and position your point of view, and position your activity in a variety of ways. Using the media is just one of them.
MAN: I live and work in Washington. As I've discussed this topic with people here they've often said things such as, 'Well, UIMA should sell it to somewhere on the east coast, where more people would see it.' That volume of eyeballs on the painting was the only thing that mattered. Presumably the same argument could be used to explain why you shouldn't have your superb Hopper or your Matisse. Why is that thinking wrong?
Fleming: Obviously I disagree with that kind of thinking. The citizens of Des Moines, the citizens within the state of Iowa have just as much right as citizens on the right coast or the left coast to experience the art of our time. That's the mission of our museum and I'm sure that's the mission of UIMA as well: To present to our audiences the finest quality work that can possibly be engaged. We, as many museums do, travel our collection all over the world via loans to exhibitions and other projects. Of course, there are many ways to provide information and to share works of art. So certainly our citizens have just as much right to have the finest work in their neighborhood as someone else.
MAN: Are you opposed to any potential forced deaccessioning of the University of Iowa Museum of Art's Jackson Pollock, 1943's Mural?
Jeff Fleming: Of course I am. I think we need to start by saying that there needs to be clarity of information. I've spoken to [University of Iowa regent] Michael Gartner directly and expressed my opinion, and I've gotten the chain of events. According to him and according to my conversation he has not proposed selling it. He doubts that the regents would ever consider selling it.
[Ed.: On Aug. 8 the Des Moines Register reported: "Gartner said the regents should determine the value of the painting if sold to a museum - not a private collector - that would agree to occasional viewings at the U of I." In the same story Gartner said: "I'm not proposing the painting be sold, but I'm proposing we look to see that if the painting were sold (how much it would bring). A few years ago, Christie's or Sotheby's was asked about its value and it was enormous." UIMA interim director Pam White has told MAN and other outlets that there was already a recent insurance-related assessment of the painting. Apparently Gartner and the regents found that insufficient, and voted to approve a non-insurance-related assessment.]
MAN: You're the director of Iowa's biggest art museum. What's can or will be your role in stopping the regents' efforts? Is your position, among other things, a bully pulpit?
Fleming: No. I don't think that anyone should ever have a bully platform on which to speak. I think perhaps there are better ways to get things accomplished.
I think obviously you, that is we, need to have all the information and that we need to deal with the correct information, and then you can utilize and evaluate it and position your point of view, and position your activity in a variety of ways. Using the media is just one of them.
MAN: I live and work in Washington. As I've discussed this topic with people here they've often said things such as, 'Well, UIMA should sell it to somewhere on the east coast, where more people would see it.' That volume of eyeballs on the painting was the only thing that mattered. Presumably the same argument could be used to explain why you shouldn't have your superb Hopper or your Matisse. Why is that thinking wrong?
Fleming: Obviously I disagree with that kind of thinking. The citizens of Des Moines, the citizens within the state of Iowa have just as much right as citizens on the right coast or the left coast to experience the art of our time. That's the mission of our museum and I'm sure that's the mission of UIMA as well: To present to our audiences the finest quality work that can possibly be engaged. We, as many museums do, travel our collection all over the world via loans to exhibitions and other projects. Of course, there are many ways to provide information and to share works of art. So certainly our citizens have just as much right to have the finest work in their neighborhood as someone else.
August 13, 2008 8:32 AM
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Earlier today, only on MAN: Likely
Developing: On Monday I complained that the museum world -- and especially the university museum world -- was being far too silent about the latest slippery-slope potential university museum deaccessioning: the University of Iowa regents' decision to appraise the University of Iowa Museum of Art's great 1943 Jackson Pollock Mural, and potentially force its sale. Today that's begun to change.
As first reported by Geoff Edgers of the Boston Globe, Dan Monroe, the chairman of the Association of Art Museum Directors' art issues committee and the director/CEO of the Peabody Essex Museum, issued a statement supporting UIMA. The full statement is in the jump, here's the highlight:
Developing: On Monday I complained that the museum world -- and especially the university museum world -- was being far too silent about the latest slippery-slope potential university museum deaccessioning: the University of Iowa regents' decision to appraise the University of Iowa Museum of Art's great 1943 Jackson Pollock Mural, and potentially force its sale. Today that's begun to change.
As first reported by Geoff Edgers of the Boston Globe, Dan Monroe, the chairman of the Association of Art Museum Directors' art issues committee and the director/CEO of the Peabody Essex Museum, issued a statement supporting UIMA. The full statement is in the jump, here's the highlight:
"Works of art in university art museum collections are not redeemable bank notes to be traded or sold to support University operations. Works of art in university art museum collections exist to support a university's educational mission and to benefit the broader public such art museums serve... The administration and Regents of the University of Iowa should quickly dispense with this incredibly ill-conceived proposal."Also from Edgers: The director of the nation's top university art museum, Harvard Art Museum's Tom Lentz, issued a statement in opposition to the University of Iowa using artwork to fund flood recovery: "We fully support and adhere to the AAM and AAMD guidelines for deaccessioning."
Continue reading Museum world begins to weigh in against UI regents.
August 12, 2008 11:28 AM
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Only on MAN, updated below: The University of Iowa Museum of Art's 1943 Jackson Pollock, Mural, will likely go on view at the Des Moines Art Center later this year or in the first days of 2009, a source told MAN. [See update below.] With UIMA closed because of flood damage, the museum is planning on loaning masterworks from its collections to museums throughout Iowa. UIMA apparently hopes that the loans would not only share the paintings with Iowans, but would remind Iowans how great the museum's collection is, leading to greater public support in its battle with UI regents. (Yesterday UIMA interim director Pam White told MAN that she is opposed to any potential forced deaccessioning of Mural.)UIMA appears to be interested in showing off Mural to Iowa's largest city, especially while the Iowa legislature is in session. The 2009 Iowa legislative session begins on January 12. Having Iowa's greatest cultural treasure on view in the state's capital would provide UIMA with the opportunity to make its case directly to legislators with its star witness present.
However, a UIMA-DMAC loan would raise questions about the motivations of University of Iowa regent Michael Gartner, who first called for the university to explore a forced deaccessioning of the UIMA Pollock. [Michael Gartner is a former president of NBC News and in 1997 he won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing at the Ames (Iowa) Daily Tribune. Today he is an Iowa businessman and newspaper co-owner. More here.] According to the Des Moines Register, Gartner called for exploring the sale of the UIMA Pollock to another institution, specifically an institution that might allow UIMA to show the painting occasionally. Des Moines is 115 miles from UIMA in Iowa City, close enough to enable the unusual kind of sharing arrangement Gartner appeared to have in mind.
Gartner's wife Barbara sits on the board of the Des Moines Art Center. Gartner's position at with the university's board of regents and his wife's at DMAC raises serious questions about whether Gartner is trying to leverage a forced deaccessioning of the UIMA Pollock to a museum in which his wife is active.
UPDATE, to reflect ongoing developments: Des Moines Art Center director Jeff Fleming says that there is no loan agreement between UIMA and DMAC, and that he's not certain his museum could afford the insurance on the painting. Fleming said that there have been conversations about borrowing the work, but not directly between him and UIMA. More from Fleming on the UIMA Pollock on MAN tomorrow.
August 12, 2008 8:58 AM
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This is the first extended interview with University of Iowa Museum of Art interim director Pam White about the University of Iowa regents' plans to explore the potential sale of Jackson Pollock's 1943 Mural. White is also the director of the Pentacrest Museums and is the head of museum studies at the University of Iowa. MAN: Are you unconditionally opposed to a potential sale of Mural?
Pam White: Yes I am.
It's my duty to be a very strong voice against a sale. If it was the very survival of the University of Iowa, that changes the complexion of the issue doesn't it? But that's not what we're talking about here. We are talking about the collection being minimized by a sale like this, which creates a very slippery slope. The next question many of us work in the field is what's the next thing somebody decides to sell?
Our responsibility, when you have something in your collection that is iconic, increases exponentially. In many ways you become a museum about that object. This painting does have that that stature. That's what our goal is as museum people, to enhance a piece of history and to enhance its stature and reputation when we do it.
Why do we do it? So we get a higher price at the auction house? I think not. That's abhorrent to me.
One thing to keep in mind: Most of the university spaces that aren't classrooms here are privately funded. And it looks like we're going to need a new museum. I don't think this is a good way to elicit private support for a new art museum.
We had a significant donor tell us: We'll buy prints and give them to you for your collection. But if the Pollock is sold we'll never give to the University of Iowa again.
MAN: Are you unconditionally opposed to efforts to put a dollar value on the painting, or, for that matter, any painting in the museum's collection?
White: Well, we've had to come forth with an insurance value... in some ways that's very rhetorical. Pollock's Mural is irreplaceable. It's priceless. But for insurance we have to have a monetary value, which is technically what the replacement value would be, which is impossible.
So we've disclosed $100M. That's what it's been appraised at solely for insurance value. I think it's worth far more than that, but trying to appraise it and treat it like something on the market is a misnomer. It's not a can of peas. We get into these very strange situations when we start thinking about our museum in an asset- or economic-oriented way.
MAN: What efforts is UIMA taking in an effort to make sure that this doesn't go very far?
White: I have sent messages to the University of Iowa president [Sally Mason] and she says that she's not interested in selling the painting. Indeed, she's deferring all questions to me. We've copied our friends and members on that. We haven't done anything nationwide, but I think what you're proposing is a great thing. We'll get a letter out asking for support from museum directors.
I think what [other directors] are fearful about is various museums being forced, through one way or another, to sell aspects of their collections. It just strikes fear into the heart of all of us. We're all worried that whoever the powers that be that control us are going to say, 'Well a sale has to happen.' I think that's one of the reasons there's reluctance on the part of museum directors to say something. They hope that if they don't say anything, maybe no one will think of this in regard to their collections.
MAN: Have you heard from your peers at other museums and from university art museums especially?
White: No.
August 11, 2008 12:46 PM
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A note on the one-post-a-day-in-August thing: What's going on with the University of Iowa Museum of Art Pollock will likely change that here and there. Keep an eye on MAN for new details... (Expect at least two posts today.)
Aside from the obvious lede -- that the University of Iowa regents are apparently considering selling Iowa's greatest cultural treasure -- the other big story here is the absolute silence of major American museum directors in the face of an emerging crisis in collections. In UIMA's back yard, Des Moines Art Center director Jeff Fleming offered this to the Des Moines Register: "It's almost impossible to say [what the Pollock's monetary value is]. I don't think anything quite like
that has been put on the market for a very long time." That's not a challenge to the university to do the right thing. That's
not an explanation of why not monetizing one of the half-dozen greatest
Pollocks is a horrible idea. It's not leadership. It is acceptance of a preposterously flawed emerging paradigm.
As the director of the largest visual arts organization in the state, a respected museum with a fine collection, Fleming could be an enormously influential figure here. I have no idea what he's doing behind-the-scenes, but a public attack on a museum's collection deserves a public response. And so far... (Aside: The wife of the UI regent who started this whole mess is on DMAC's board...)
But it's not just Fleming. I want to hear from Art Institute of Chicago director Jim Cuno. I want to hear the directors of major, highly respected nearby museums in Minneapolis, Kansas City, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Chicago, and from the directors of major university art museums such as Harvard, Yale, etc. So far, none of them have written op-eds in Iowa newspapers, apparently none of them have aggressively contacted reporters in an effort to be pro-active. (Not in my email, anyway.) If the region's major museum directors publicly spoke out in opposition to Iowa selling its Pollock, the message to the university would be unmistakable: What you're considering is beyond the pale.
This kind of silence from museum directors as a range of collections has come under attack from market forces in recent years has become a disappointing trend. (Did the late Philadelphia Museum of Art director Anne d'Harnoncourt say anything in an effort to stop the 'theft' of the Barnes Foundation? No.) Throughout this week I'll be contacting major American museum directors to ask them if they will speak out against a UIMA deaccessioning. We'll see. (Vacations are no excuse, Blackberried-set.)
Aside from the obvious lede -- that the University of Iowa regents are apparently considering selling Iowa's greatest cultural treasure -- the other big story here is the absolute silence of major American museum directors in the face of an emerging crisis in collections. In UIMA's back yard, Des Moines Art Center director Jeff Fleming offered this to the Des Moines Register: "It's almost impossible to say [what the Pollock's monetary value is]. I don't think anything quite like
that has been put on the market for a very long time." That's not a challenge to the university to do the right thing. That's
not an explanation of why not monetizing one of the half-dozen greatest
Pollocks is a horrible idea. It's not leadership. It is acceptance of a preposterously flawed emerging paradigm. As the director of the largest visual arts organization in the state, a respected museum with a fine collection, Fleming could be an enormously influential figure here. I have no idea what he's doing behind-the-scenes, but a public attack on a museum's collection deserves a public response. And so far... (Aside: The wife of the UI regent who started this whole mess is on DMAC's board...)
But it's not just Fleming. I want to hear from Art Institute of Chicago director Jim Cuno. I want to hear the directors of major, highly respected nearby museums in Minneapolis, Kansas City, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Chicago, and from the directors of major university art museums such as Harvard, Yale, etc. So far, none of them have written op-eds in Iowa newspapers, apparently none of them have aggressively contacted reporters in an effort to be pro-active. (Not in my email, anyway.) If the region's major museum directors publicly spoke out in opposition to Iowa selling its Pollock, the message to the university would be unmistakable: What you're considering is beyond the pale.
This kind of silence from museum directors as a range of collections has come under attack from market forces in recent years has become a disappointing trend. (Did the late Philadelphia Museum of Art director Anne d'Harnoncourt say anything in an effort to stop the 'theft' of the Barnes Foundation? No.) Throughout this week I'll be contacting major American museum directors to ask them if they will speak out against a UIMA deaccessioning. We'll see. (Vacations are no excuse, Blackberried-set.)
- Speaking of the Iowa Pollock, a local TV-station news story that opens with a quote from a "self-proclaimed art appreciator" isn't exactly journalistically stout, but this caught my ear: UIMA director Pam White wobbled: "...a lot of our story is gone if we sell that painting." If? I'd like to hear the director of the museum challenging under-informed regents more directly, signaling that she'll go to the mat for her collection.
- The Obama campaign motivates the art world in creative ways, says the SF Chronicle's Chris Cadelago.
- Everyone's gushing about Bernini: Christopher Knight and Holland Cotter (whose roll continues).
- The Seattle P-I's Regina Hackett on the mysterious photography of Isaac Layman.
- In the NYT, Gregory Dicum visits Hopper's light.
August 11, 2008 8:52 AM
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From Erin Jordan and Ben Fornell in the Des Moines Register and from Diane Heldt of The (Cedar Rapids) Gazette. Related story: A tour of the University of Iowa Museum of Art after the flood.
August 8, 2008 8:56 AM
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Uh-oh: The great 1943 Pollock at the University of Iowa Art Museum may not be at UIMA much longer. University of Iowa regent (and former NBC News president) Michael Gartner "said he is 'not proposing the painting be sold,' but
that it would be good for the regents and the university to be aware of
what options are out there as UI faces major expenses in flood
recovery." More to come.
August 7, 2008 5:35 PM
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Aside from great art, the two qualities most essential to a great gallery are light and space. The Cleveland Museum of Art's new baroque gallery has lots of all three. An essentially new space carved out of the Cleveland Museum's original 1916 Benjamin S. Hubbell and W. Dominick Benes Beaux Arts building by architect Rafael Vinoly, it's immediately one of the best galleries in America. To enter the gallery you emerge out of the museum's entrance hall, provide yourself with a theatrical entrance by walking down a small set of stairs. To your left: Caravaggio, Ribera, de La Tour. To your right: Reni, Tintoretto, del Sarto, and a super painting by an unknown Italian. From above, lots of natural light. The space is huge, so large that at one point I felt like I was alone with a Gentileschi Danae, but turned around and counted 31 other people in the space.
It's hard to believe that a few years ago this was a fuddy 'garden court,' complete with brick walls and slightly cheesy potted plants.(The space was so forgettable that I'd forgotten it.) Today it's a model of how an art museum can carve out grand new spaces inside its own building and how curators should install art by just hanging paintings and leaving well enough alone. It's also a perfect example of a museum devoting attention and resources to the installation and display of its permanent collection, of creating its best spaces around the art that means the most to a museum and a city. Museums that are building splashy new capstones for temporary shows, for mostly office-space or for other purposes would do well to take note.
The focus of the gallery is Caravaggio's late The Crucifixion of St. Andrew, a martyr painting of a missionary who wanted to die on the cross like Christ. From Caravaggio's realism-as-stage-set radiates dramatic painting after dramatic painting. There's a Ribera Jerome, in which the penitent saint doesn't beat his chest with a rock, but instead cradles it. Nearby a ter Brugghen focuses on Jerome the scholar. At the end of this line of staggering, emotional Baroque paintings, under the covered space shown in the photograph above, is a quiet de la Tour, a thoughtful Peter in which the saint resembles nothing so much as the rooster (his attribute). In fact, Peter and the rooster look so much alike I couldn't help but wonder if Georges was having a little fun. Incidentally: The art historical assumption is that de la Tour was a Caravaggisti, but no one really knows. His near-exclusion from Cleveland's wall of Carravaggisti is a clever expression of that uncertainty.
While there are plenty of saints here, there's action too. Across the gallery Venus Discovering the Dead Adonis, by an unidentified Neapolitan painter is a soap opera, 1650-style. Del Sarto's unfinished Sacrifice of Isaac connotes action in progress and stopped, but in an unusual way: The action in progress is the unfinished painting; the halt comes in God's sparing of Abraham's son. And then there's the Tintoretto, a Baptism of Christ that quickly brought to mind the centuries of bathers paintings that followed.
More next week.
Related: You can see a panoramic Flash animation of this space (and others) at the Cleveland Plain Dealer's web site. Also there: Steven Litt stories on the museum's re-emergence.
August 7, 2008 9:24 AM
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I'm battling a balky laptop fan that makes my computer buzz (and overheat), so here's a visual 'lead-in' to more on the Cleveland Museum of Art's re-opening of its 1916 building:
- Very 1916: Beaux Arts in the park;
- Arms, armor and drama;
- It's probably hard for a digital image to capture light quality, but the light in pretty much every gallery here is superb. A number of years ago Lawrence Weschler wrote a New Yorker piece about the unique quality of the light in Los Angeles ("The Light in LA") and why it was so different from the light anywhere else. I want to read (or write) the same story about the light in museums.
- A peek at the gallery I'll be discussing soon; and
- How many paintings remain lewd for hundreds of years?
August 6, 2008 8:37 AM
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Tomorrow and Thursday I'll be publishing about new galleries in Pasadena and Cleveland, but first two smaller notes...Super new installation up at the Hirshhorn: On one wall, Ed Ruscha's cinematic Five to Eleven, a piece that evokes the passage of time. (It's one of at least three paintings in which Ruscha uses a long piece of bamboo as a way of playing two kinds of ways of charting the passage of time off of each other.) Directly opposite the Ruscha are a series of Hiroshi Sugimoto seascapes that appear to be of the same body of water but that were taken at different times. Super-effective. (Incidentally: Instead of noting anything newsy last Friday, Carol Vogel made a big deal out of the Brooklyn Museum's collection-tagging thing. Well, the Hirsh does it too and has for a long time. If Vogel's going to do an item of er, marginal value, at least she could acknowledge that the world exists west of the Hudson.)
A few months ago I complained about a LACMA collection gallery in which Tintoretto and Ribera were hard to see because a bunch of cases were in the way. (The space is in the middle of LACMA's Italian galleries. A Titian even 'guards' the entrance.) The good news: LACMA has emptied out the space. The better news: That's where the museum will install Francis Alys' Fabiola. Here's hoping that when the gallery is re-installed...
August 5, 2008 8:45 AM
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Before I jump in, a note on posting in August: It's summer and it's slow. Instead of posting a couple times a day as I usually do (especially from September through May), I'll be doing only one post a day this month. And I'll probably skip a day or three. Still, there's good stuff coming: Reviews of Diebenkorn in New Mexico at the Phillips, Realisms at the Hirshhorn, plus discussions on two great new galleries at museums in Cleveland and in Pasadena, Calif.
- There was lots of good Holland Cotter in the NYT this weekend. On Friday Cotter checked in on an Ad Reinhardt conservation-focused show at the Gugg, and on Sunday he visited Mao's tomb a la Warhol.
- The LAT's Suzanne Muchnic on what Hammer semi-curator James Elaine is doing in China.
- Christopher Knight reflects on Jorge Pardo's design of the pre-Columbian galleries at LACMA. (Reflects. Ha! I slay me.)
- Look: The Baltimore Sun publishes a lame press release-cum-Edward Gunts-story from the Walters and some kind of Baltimore civic-greatness panel. The questions the story fails to address are numerous: Is this a rental show? Why is the museum doing it? "Promoting Baltimore" is a lame answer, at best.
- Stoner-flick star James Franco wants to go from "Pineapple Express" and Harvey Milk to Rozel Point, Quemado and Marfa. (Love the way the apparently Google-averse USA Today reporter hedges on "earth art.")
August 3, 2008 8:19 AM
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AJBlogCentral | rssculture
About Last Night
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Artful Manager
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
blog riley
rock culture approximately
rock culture approximately
CultureGulf
Rebuilding Gulf Culture after Katrina
Rebuilding Gulf Culture after Katrina
Dewey21C
Richard Kessler on arts education
Richard Kessler on arts education
diacritical
Douglas McLennan's blog
Douglas McLennan's blog
Flyover
Art from the American Outback
Art from the American Outback
Life's a Pitch
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
Mind the Gap
No genre is the new genre
No genre is the new genre
Rockwell Matters
John Rockwell on the arts
John Rockwell on the arts
Straight Up |
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude
dance
Foot in Mouth
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Seeing Things
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...
jazz
Jazz Beyond Jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
ListenGood
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Rifftides
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
media
Out There
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Serious Popcorn
Martha Bayles on Film...
Martha Bayles on Film...
classical music
The Future of Classical Music?
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
On the Record
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Overflow
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
PostClassic
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Sandow
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Slipped Disc
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds
publishing
book/daddy
Jerome Weeks on Books
Jerome Weeks on Books
Quick Study
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera
theatre
Drama Queen
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
lies like truth
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world
Stage Write
Elizabeth Zimmer on time-based art forms
Elizabeth Zimmer on time-based art forms
visual
Aesthetic Grounds
Public Art, Public Space
Public Art, Public Space
Artopia
John Perreault's art diary
John Perreault's art diary
CultureGrrl
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Modern Art Notes
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog
