Archives for October 2010

While many eyes watching Tuesday’s auction at Sotheby’s will be waiting to see what Modigliani’s stunning Nude Sitting on a Divan fetches — the presale estimate “on request” is said to be $40 million, or more — Real Clear Arts readers may want to focus on what two other works bring: Modigliani’s Jeanne Hebuterne (est: $9- to $12 million), below right, and Monet’s Le Bassin aux Nymphaes (est: $20- to $30 million), below left.

That’s because of the seller, the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, which I confess I’d not heard of until I went to the Sotheby’s exhibition yesterday.

With a little research when I got home, I discovered that the NFAA supports YoungArts; both were  founded in 1981 by the late Ted Arison, founder of Carnival Cruise Lines, and his wife, Lin.

The mission: “to identify emerging artists and assist them at critical junctures in their educational and professional development, and to raise the appreciation for, and support of, the arts in American Society.” YoungArts gives away more than $500,000 a year to 17 and 18 year-olds, introducing them to mentors and giving them tools that will lead them to studies in the arts at institutions like Harvard, Juilliard, Carnegie Mellon, according to the Sotheby’s press release.

YoungArts makes awards in nine disciplines, including writing, dance, cinema, jazz, and visual arts. Among its alumni are John Currin, Jennifer Koh, Doug Aiken and Allegra Goodman.

In 2007, my colleague Kathryn Shattuck at The New York Times wrote an article about a YoungArts master class, led by playwright Edward Albee, for its young writers. She cited Julian Schnabel, Martin Scorcese, Desmond Richardson and Wynton Marsalis as among the others participating in that year’s leadoff mentoring session in New York.

According to its 2009 Form 990, some 6,000 to 8,000 students register for YoungArts programs each year, and about 500 receive cash awards. YoungArts is also the exclusive nominating body for Presidential Scholars in the Arts, said to be the highest arts award for high school students, honoring academic and artistic achievement.

These programs beg to be better known. Maybe some sky-high prices on Tuesday night will make that happen.

 

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has just published an article, and list, of the most influential non-profit organizations on Twitter — defined as those with the most followers.

I immediately wanted to see which, if any, arts groups made the cut. Turns out, none. Here’s the list, with the number of followers:

1. Charity: Water (@charitywater) 1,308,128
2. Room to Read (@RoomtoRead) 457,158
3. ONE (@ONECampaign) 452,002
4. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (@gatesfoundation) 430,549
5. DoSomething.org (@dosomething) 366,737
6. Water.org (@Water) 365,230
7. Creative Commons (@creativecommons) 364,809
8. Kiva (@Kiva) 357,148
9. Care (@CARE) 350,785
10. The Case Foundation (@CaseFoundation) 338,283
11. Acumen Fund (@acumenfund) 326,138
12. Ashoka (@AshokaTweets) 322,734
13. Skoll Foundation (@SkollFoundation) 320,057
14. Samasource (@Samasource) 314,298
15. Witness (@witnessorg) 276,553
16. Unicef (@UNICEF) 209,690
17. American Red Cross (@RedCross) 208,660
18. World Wildlife Fund (@WWF) 159,353
19. Greenpeace International (@Greenpeace) 109,579
20. Save the Children (@savethechildren) 106,162

But wait. That seemed odd to me, and it is — I did a random sampling of a few museums and found:

The Metropolitan Museum: 136,313 followers

The Brooklyn Museum: 126,745

The Whitney: 115,009

San Francisco MoMA: 106,822

Los Angeles County Museum of Art: 96,964

On the other hand, MFA-Boston has just 744 followers, the Indianapolis Museum has 2,412, and the New Museum has 13,956.

What does all this mean? I’m not sure. We don’t know if Twitter draws visitors, creates interest, deepens relationships with art, educates people, etc. etc.

I’d like to hear what museums are getting out of Tweeting, now — or think they will anytime soon. Meantime, I think museums with scarce resources probably shouldn’t waste them on Twitter.  

Recent news from Scotland’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum amazes me, and maybe says something positive about the public and museums.

Located in Glasgow, Kelvingrove underwent a remake a few years ago and turned itself into Scotland’s most popular “attraction,” now luring more visitors every year than even Edinburgh Castle.

But at what price? This is a combination art and natural history museum, and among its treasures are works by Titian, Rembrandt, Botticelli and van Gogh. Unfortunately, they are not what the museum sells — look at “highlights” on its website, or read the Gallery Information for Visitors — there’s no mention of them, except for a gallery called “Investigating Rembrandt,” which explores not the artist, or his work, but his subject. Kelvingrove, which I visited in 2007, is a Disneyland museum, offering the most dumbed-down exhibits and trite labels for art that I have ever seen. In 2008, a critic for the Guardian called it “a museum of nothing: just random stuff, repackaged for the little dears.” 

But from Apr. 9 through Sept. 27, Kelvingrove mounted an exhibition calles Pioneering Painters: The Glasgow Boys 1880-1900, about 100 paintings and 50 works on paper by the likes of James Guthrie (detail of his Hard At It is above left), Edward Atkinson Hornel, Sir John Lavery, George Henry, Joseph Crawhall, Arthur Melville (his Bridge Over the Rialto is at right) and James Nairn (his Auchenhew, Arran is below). It’s very tame work, hardly the sort of pizazzy pictures likely to draw people used to being entertained by art. Though Kelvingrove is free, it charged admission, £5 for adults, for this show, which the Daily Telegraph described it this way:

The exhibition looks at how Scottish painting emerged from a world of dark, heavily varnished Victorian historical narrative and sentimentality (disparagingly referred to as “glue-pot” art) into a bright new age of open-air painting and contemporary realism.

And guess what? The public got it. The exhibition drew 120,000 visitors, smashing Kelvingrove’s previous record of 103,000 for a van Gogh show in 1948. That’s not a typo.

Could it be that Kelvingrove is underestimating its audience? Might it be that the publicity halo remaining from the renovation, or the suspense of the annual contest with the castle, or added marketing, etc. have been drawing people — not the entertainment features of the new Kelvingrove? When I was there, it was the central cafe, the downstairs store, and the natural history sections populated by children that were full…and loud. To some extent, those things have driven away people like that Guardian critic. Might they have returned for the Glasgow Boys?

This matters because some museum experts hold Kelvingrove up as a model to follow. So let’s have more serious art exhibits at the Kelvingrove, and see what happens.

Meantime, the Glasgow Boys show has moved to the Royal Academy in London, where it opens on Saturday.   

And their paintings, according to the Telegraph article, are attracting big prices in the galleries, if not at auction.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of Kelvingrove (top); The Telegraph (middle); the Royal Academy (bottom)  

The Parrish Art Museum in Southhampton is out with a very cool publicity initiative: It’s wrapping the Hampton Jitney — the buses that take Manhattanites back and forth to the Hamptons — in works from its collection. The display begins today, with William Merritt Chase’s 1895 painting The Bayberry Bush (Chase Homestead in Shinnecock Hills).

This is an audience development initiative, as the Parrish — about to expand — is trying to promote awareness of its collection and exhibitions to Manhattanites. Good idea to start now, long before the new place opens in spring 2012.

Chase’s painting is described by the museum:

The pastoral scene, which features an Impressionist landscape inhabited by nineteenth-century ladies picking fruit from a bush, is blown up to more than ten times its original size and demonstrates the kinds of remarkable works, from the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries that are included in the Parrish’s important collection.

The picture will change just four times a year, which means only a handful of works will get this treatment, alas. That has to have something to do with costs.

I wouldn’t be surprised if other museums have tried wrapping buses — in fact, I’d like to hear about any other examples, and the results. Did it stir interest, drive attendance, merit press coverage?  

While we’re talking about the Parrish, let me give a shout out to its current exhibition, American Still Life: Treasures from the Parrish Art Museum, more than forty paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from 1871 to the present.

Photo: Courtesy of the Parrish Art Museum

This is a blatant commercial.

On Thursday, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, along with Heritage Preservation, is offering a webinar called “Telling the Story of Your Collections to the Press,” and I’m part of it.

Not the big part, though: Anne Edgar, an arts publicist with her own firm, is the presenter. I’ll be commenting on her presentation and answering questions from attendees.

The session starts at 11:30 a.m. and runs until 1 p.m.

The webinar is the first in a series of six, part of a national initiative: “Connecting to Collections: A Call to Action.” The sessions are free, but you have to register — here.

You can find more information about the initiative here.

Getting the press you want isn’t easy, but I’ve read Anne’s presentation and it is full of practical advice.