If the arts are ever going to be a really important part of Americans' lives, they can't be seen as a frill, an add-on, something to do in one's spare time. They have to be integrated with everyday life. That's one reason I like "Picturing America," the National Endowment for the Humanities program I wrote about here and here, and that's why I like a new program of the Philadelphia Museum of Art -- "Adventures in Modern Art." Like "Picturing America" -- which uses American art works to teach American history -- "Adventures in … [Read more...]

Art museums, let's face it, have never been on the regular itinerary of a vast number of Americans. Whether they are intimidated, bored, uninterested, too busy, or afflicted by any other aversion, some people just won't go look at paintings, sculpture, installations or any other kind of art. But this entry isn't about them. This entry is about art students who won't go to art museums. Apparently, some students today think that viewing art online is good enough or better. That's what I discovered reading a … [Read more...]

Well, that was quick: The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced today that it has recovered seven of the eight ancient Egyptian artifacts that were stolen from the Bijbels Museum in Amsterdam in the middle of the afternoon on July 29, 2007. The Art Loss Register found them at a Manhattan auction house when it perused sale-catalogue galleys circulated to ALR (the usual practice). It called Customs, which had been asked by the Dutch police to help. One earthenware piece, Shabti of … [Read more...]

Yesterday Maxwell Anderson, director of the Indianapolis Art Museum, sent me a link to an interview he did with Richard Armstrong, the new(-ish) director of the Guggenheim Museum. It's quite a revelation -- on the nature of Biennials, an overcultured New York, his audience and collecting plans and, most of all, about deaccessioning. In the beginning -- the video, which was posted on ArtBabble yesterday, runs for 49 minutes and 28 seconds -- Max (left) simply lets Armstrong (right) talk, telling … [Read more...]

Lindsay Pollock and Philip Boroff of Bloomberg have the scoop: Manhattan art dealer Lawrence B. Salander is trying to rise from the ashes of a 100-count indictment in a quaint storefront in pastoral Millbrook, New York, about two hours north of the city.   As U.S. flags drifted in the soft Memorial Day breeze Monday, Salander sat behind a desk at the aptly named Phoenix Art LLC, surrounded by colorful canvases, landscape photographs and an eclectic mix of sculpture and art objects. He was arrested on March 26 … [Read more...]

ARTnews is out now with its take on the Future of Museums: Called "Reshaping the Art Museum," it too seems to insist that unless museums change, consequences will be dire (only students and senior citizens in the galleries!). The article says that some museums are using game theory, interactive technology, and more special events to draw visitors. But some of the "remedies," imho, are akin to the Vietnam War excuse of bombing the village to save it. Art museums are not meant to be community centers. I won't repeat the ideas in this … [Read more...]

Marcel Duchamp's interest in chess is well-known: a self-described "chess maniac," he played intensely, competed in tournaments, and carved his own set. At times, he absented himself from art to play chess almost exclusively; he encoded messages in his artworks that can only be understood by chess players. Now come two new entries on the subject that shed more light on the obsession. On May 6, the St. Louis University Museum of Art opened "Marcel Duchamp: Chess Master," which attempts … [Read more...]

The National Gallery of Art rarely deaccessions works (other than duplicate prints), but -- in settlement of a lawsuit -- it has just agreed to transfer the ownership of a painting on view there, Chaim Soutine's Piece of Beef, to the family of a prior owner. In return, the NGA will receive payment, which spokeswoman Deborah Ziska described in an email to me as "more ...than it paid for it."  The suit was brought by the estate of Lorette Jolles Shefner of Montreal against the National Gallery and Maurice … [Read more...]

Don't miss this article, in today's Wall Street Journal: Changing the Art on the White House Walls. It's a terrific roundup of what's in and what's out at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Here's a key paragraph: The Obamas are sending ripples through the art world as they put the call out to museums, galleries and private collectors that they'd like to borrow modern art by African-American, Asian, Hispanic and female artists for the White House. In a sharp departure from the 19th-century still lifes, pastorals and portraits that dominate the White … [Read more...]

This was, unofficially at least, American art week in New York. The sales at both Christie's and Sotheby's were unexceptional, and so was most of the art. The tallies: Sotheby's sale totaled $15.3 million, with 62% sold by lot, 73% sold by value Christie's, $16.8 million, with 62% sold by lot, 70% by value. Christie's sales report touts three "world records for the artist," but on examination, they were tiny, all below $80,000. The artists were Charles E. Humphriss, Edwin Willard Deming and Eric Pape. Top lot was Milton Avery's Sketching By … [Read more...]