Weekend roundup, Iowa edition

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.) 

• 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.