I spent a couple of hours at the Whitney Biennial one recent Sunday afternoon, looking at the art, reading the labels, and watching the crowds. And it was crowded. I was struck, though, by something that I didn't see in the reviews I read: how much this show focuses on the process of art, rather than the substance. Or maybe the process is the substance. Yes, process has grown in "importance" in contemporary art over the years, but at the Biennial, that's most of what's on view -- or at least remarked upon. Consider what was … [Read more...]

Oh, the irony of it. Las Vegas, a metropolis with more than 1.8 million people that allowed its art museum to close in February, 2009, is about to get two new museums -- about the Mob. One, the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, is a city effort, being installed in a disused downtown courthouse (at left) and set to open next March. It's already been nicknamed The Mob Museum, which is its website address. The other, the Las Vegas Mob Experience, is a private effort by something called Eagle Group … [Read more...]

Over the weekend, the North Carolina Museum of Art re-opened in an expanded incarnation. The centerpiece is a 127,000 sq. ft. "light-filled building" designed by Thomas Phifer and Partners. A sculpture hall is the spine from which 40 galleries branch out, according to press materials. I have not yet visited, but it seems to have done several things well. For a start, as Chuck Twardy reported in the Raleigh News & Observer, it used the occasion to rethink the collection. He writes: What's surprising, though, is the degree … [Read more...]

Zawi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, wanted the current King Tut exhibition, which opens Friday at the Discovery Times Square Center, to be shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art -- as the 1979 show was (see here). And he did have discussions, a few years ago, with Philippe de Montebello, then director of the Met. They could not agree on the costs/fees, and the Met stood down. That's what Hawass said on Wednesday at the press briefing. Of course it couldn't work. PdM is adamantly against … [Read more...]

Before going to the press preview this morning for Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs, which will open at the Discovery Center Times Square on Friday, I had never seen Zahi Hawass in action. But now I know why Hawass, the Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, has been so good at elevating the profile of Egyptian antiquities, claiming and repatriating artifacts from Western museums, raising money for archaeology and museums in Egypt, getting very good press in the … [Read more...]

Artists are rallying around the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis, whose collection -- as I reported here recently -- is still under threat of being broken up by the Administration. On May 17, Chuck Close, James Rosenquist, Frank Stella, Kiki Smith, Joel Shapiro, Fred Tomasselli, Richard Tuttle, James Sienna, Claes Oldenberg, Tara Donovan and Jim Dine are co-hosting a benefit to raise money for the legal costs of the suit to stop the sales. Pace Gallery, along with Meryl Rose, a Rose trustees and family member, and Jonathan Lee, … [Read more...]

Speaking of the Guggenheim Bilbao/Frank Gehry, which I was here before detouring into jazz yesterday, it looks as if revisionism -- or reality -- is starting to set in. Last Friday, a New York Times article about Metz described how the city is hitching its wagon to the star of a Centre Pompidou-Metz, hoping to attract 200,000 visitors annually: Metz has dreams of becoming a European artistic hub, but that will mean cashing in on what many here, including the mayor, call "the Guggenheim effect," after the urban transformation … [Read more...]

I'm no jazz expert, but I do love the music. A couple of weeks ago, I had a great evening at Dizzy's Club at Jazz At Lincoln Center, listening to The Manhattan School of Music Afro-Cuban Jazz Orchestra, lead by Bobby Sanabria. They were fantastic, and near the end, NEA Jazz Master Candido Camero -- he who introduced jazz to the conga drum and who played with Dizzy, among others -- came out, climbed up on stage, and put his bandaged fingers to work for the audience. It roared in approval (not that it hadn't already). It was a wonderful … [Read more...]

Frank Gehry doesn't believe in green buildings and he, designer of the signature Guggenheim Bilbao, doesn't think much of the architect who is probably in most demand by museums -- Renzo Piano. (I confess Piano's popularity is puzzling to me, too; a matter of taste, I'd venture.) Then there's a little matter of a museum cartel whose existence Gehry implied. I'm picking this up from an article in Bloomberg Business Week, which reported on a Q&A session between Gehry and Thomas Pritzker, chairman of the Pritzker … [Read more...]

Regular readers of Real Clear Arts know that I am a fan of history and archives and libraries, so I am always happy to share some news about them. Here's one item: The George Eastman House has just acquired the entire collection of Merchant Ivory Productions -- some 2,600 elements from more than 40 films, including the Oscar-winning A Room With a View (1986) and Howards End (1992), plus great films like The Remains of the Day (1993), Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990), and The Bostonians (1984), which garnered … [Read more...]