I've been watching the web feature the Metropolitan Museum* created for its American Stories: Paintings of Every Day Life, 1765 - 1915 exhibit with great interest. Like much that takes place at the Met, it's not cutting-edge innovative in any way I can tell. But the components are good, and I believe they do two things very well: They introduce people to the show before their visit, to make the trip to the museum much more edifying, and they may provide sufficient interest to lure people who have already seen the … [Read more...]

To hear some people tell it, connoisseurship is a concept that has been lost by much of the art world -- or at the very least, underplayed. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts this week opens an exhibition that instead puts connoisseurship back in the spotlight. In Pursuit of a Masterpiece, which opened on Sunday, has been designed to help visitors take a closer look at nearly two dozen paintings, prints and other objects in the museum's permanent collection and compare their quality, their form and the techniques used to … [Read more...]

Hey, want to chat? Online? About art, specifically Kandinsky? The invitation comes not from me, but from the Guggenheim Museum. Nowadays, it's holding online discussion and chat sesssions called Forum, which it billed as "innovative" in a recent Guggenheim Magazine. The point, it says, is "to discuss and debate topics related to major museum exhibitions." Its seems a bit retro to me, but I'm withholding judgment. According to the Guggenheim's website, the first Forum was last summer. It was titled … [Read more...]

Has Conceptual Art Jumped the Shark Tank? That was the headline on an op-ed in The New York Times the other day by Dennis Dutton, the author of The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution and co-founder and co-editor of Arts & Letters Daily. The piece was pegged to the auction of a medicine cabinet by Damien Hirst. A key passage: Since the endearingly witty Marcel Duchamp invented conceptual art 90 years ago by offering his "ready-mades" -- a urinal or a snow shovel, for instance -- for gallery shows, the genre has degenerated. … [Read more...]

Next stop: Baku? The capital of Azerbaijan wants to join the contemporary art-circuit, and it has apparently convinced former Guggenheim Museum director Tom Krens (left) that its bid is serious. Krens, still an advisor to the Guggenheim's Abu Dhabi project, has been counseling the Azerbaijani government through his consulting form, Global Cultural Asset Management (GCAM). His job: make it happen. ARTnews has the story on its website. The envisioned museum, designed by Jean Nouvel and approved by the government of … [Read more...]

In early September, I visited the Montclair Art Museum to see its Cezanne and American Modernism exhibition, and I came away an even bigger fan of ... Marsden Hartley. And now I can talk about it, because my review of the show is now published, in today's Wall Street Journal. (I had already written once about this exhibit, in July, when curator Gail Stavitsky answered Five Questions from me. But then, I hadn't seen it.) Of course, Cezanne is the master, but in an exhibit like this -- which tries to show his influence … [Read more...]

The British magazine Art Review is out with its annual Power 100 list of the most important people in contemporary art. At the very top is Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Swiss curator/critic. Here's a quick look at the Americans who rose to the top in various categories (i.e., they are not the absolute highest in each category): Top U.S. museum director: Glenn Lowry, at No.2 on the list.  Top U.S. dealer: Larry Gagosian, at No. 5 Top U.S. collector: Eli Broad, at No. 7 Top U.S. artist: Bruce Naumann, at No. 10 Top U.S. … [Read more...]

My turn to weigh in on the Metropolitan Opera's new Tosca, but not the production. Rather, I want to comment on director Luc Bondy's reaction, and the Met's general stance about classic productions and the need for new versions. I did so in an opinion piece published today on Forbes.com. Let me say from the outset that I'm not against reinterpretations, as long as they are tasteful and respect/enhance the music/libretto. I take issue with Bondy's blame-the-audience response. Despite negative reaction from both audience … [Read more...]

This was in several hours ago, but I was away from my email -- but I see no news item on it, so let me just post without comment: Frederic C. Hamilton, Chairman of the Board of the Denver Art Museum, announced today the appointment of Christoph Heinrich as the new Frederick and Jan Mayer Director of the Denver Art Museum (DAM) beginning January 1, 2010. Heinrich has been deputy director of the DAM since January 2009 and the Polly and Mark Addison Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art since October 2007. Heinrich will replace Lewis … [Read more...]

After nearly 12 years of fighting, it looks as if the legal dispute over Egon Schiele's Portrait of Wally is finally going to trial. In a little noticed ruling, U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska ordered the trial on Sept. 30. If you don't remember what this is all about, I certainly do. It was just about this time in October 1997 that I went to a reception preceding the opening of The Leopold Collection at the Museum of Modern Art, and heard a whisper about a much earlier and long-forgotten claim on Wally. After weeks of … [Read more...]