Archives for August 2011

Given the sad state of Haiti, still laid low by the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake and now paralyzed by a 100-day-old government that has been unable to take office — more frightening details are in today’s New York Times — I thought I’d mention an art-world effort to help. 

Gallerist David Zwirner and Ben Stiller have organized “Artists for Haiti,” a sale of 26 works by 25 artists donated to raise money for the cause. The works will be auctioned on the evening of Sept. 22 at 7 p.m. at Christie’s. The e-catalogue is here, and there’s a special website for the effort.

Zwirner is holding the exhibition preview at his W. 19th St. gallery Sept. 6 – 14, with a public reception on Sept. 8.

Among the artists whose works will be sold are Jasper Johns, Cecily Brown, Marlene Dumas, Dan Flavin, Elizabeth Peyton, James Rosenquist, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, and Zhang Huan. The entire list can be found here, on the press release, which says:

100% of the proceeds from this sale will go directly to support nonprofits and NGOs that are already performing extraordinary work on the ground in Haiti, including: Architecture for Humanity, Artists for Peace and Justice, Ciné Institute, Grameen Creative Lab, J/P HRO, Partners In Health, and The Stiller Foundation, among others.

Christie’s has, of course, waived all fees.

Above is an offering (Untitled) by Louise Bourgeois from 2006.

Former president Bill Clinton is co-chairing a Sept. 23 benefit for the Stiller Foundation, which focuses on the development of schools in Haiti, with tickets starting at $2,500. Attendees will receive a tote bag designed by Zwirner’s wife, Monica, and available on the MZ Wallace website for $125, with all proceeds going to Artists for Haiti and the Stiller Foundation. 

 Photo Credit: Gift of The Easton Foundation, courtesy Hauser & Wirth and Cheim & Read
Photograph by Christopher Burke  

Although I would not expect museum directors, say, to agree, I was cheered when I read a recent article about the Norton Museum of Art in the Palm Beach Daily News headlined “New Norton exec Alswang, economy redesigning art museum’s cultural identity.” But maybe not for the reasons you’d think.

The article, published last Saturday, contained these passages:

The Norton Museum’s 2011-12 exhibition schedule doesn’t look much like those of the past….

Noticeably absent is a big, scholarly touring exhibition of older art…

“The emphasis is not going to be on the collection as such or the wonderful collection that Ralph Norton left,” said Jeane von Oppenheim, whose 1998 gift of 684 photographs jump-started the Norton’s photography collecting. “The emphasis will be on whatever is fun, pleasing and easy to look at, and whatever gets the most people into the museum.” She’s concerned that her collection of mostly older photographs will remain in storage.

The “Alswang” in the headline is, of course, Hope Alswang (above), who was named director of the Norton in April, 2010. She defended what looks like a decided turn toward the contemporary — the fall lineup includes shows for Jenny Saville and Tacita Dean, plus one called Cocktail Culture, which the PBDN says focuses on fashion and design — by saying that “We love all our children equally.” The other children she refers to are less-than-contemporary art.

The Norton blamed the current slant in part on the interregnum period before Alswang took over, when planning was delayed. Too, though the article didn’t say, the Norton has received funding for a series of shows about women artists, of which the Saville show is one (more about which more another time).

The PBND also discussed possible economic reasons for the shift in an accompanying article, but Alswang instead offered “the grip contemporary art has on the public imagination as a reason for paying more attention to it.” The newspaper countered that with the fact that “it’s uncertain whether the local community will find it as fascinating as do the people who flock to Art Basel Miami Beach. The Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art withered for lack of attendance.”

So why was I cheered by this tit-for-tat exchange, which basically left the reader to read between the lines and make up her own mind?

Based on my limited exposure to it, the Norton was already updating itself, though perhaps it could have used a little more of that. Still, I don’t think it should be undergoing a stealth transformation. If it wants to change its identify, fine assuming the board’s approval, but let’s have that acknowledged and let’s have the press cover it. How many museums face indifference by local newspapers? So what the PBDN is doing is a good thing.

It’s especially good because I find the Norton’s website wanting. For example, I couldn’t check the description of Cocktail Culture printed in the newspaper because there are no listings under “Future Exhibitions.” In the press area, only one press release is posted. On the plus side, the museum’s staff members (department level) are listed, by name, number and email. But for such small things, it’s easier, and better, to go directly to the site instead of a person.

Maybe, I’m hoping, the lack of such basic information is the result of end-of-summer lackadaisy.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Providence Journal

 

Dallas is a long way from New York, and traditional African societies are a long stretch from hatmaker Stephen Jones. But exhibitions of both — African Headwear: Beyond Fashion at the Dallas Museum of Art and Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones at the Bard Graduate Center in New York — show that visual sense may carry over from one place to another fairly frequently.

Just take a look at the four pictures, featuring two hats from each, running down the sides of this post. There’s probably no direct connection, but still…

The Dallas exhibit has been on view since August 14 and it runs through January 1. It has, according to the museum’s press release, about forty objects borrowed from collectors and drawn from its permanent collection of African art, which it calls “internationally acclaimed as one of the top five of its kind in the United States,” a claim that’s new to me. The show explores headwear as a signifier of status. The use of materials figures into that, and the hats on view are made of unusual materials like the skin from a spiny anteater, as well as wood, copper, nutshells, lion mane, human hair, glass beads, plastic buttons, and ostrich feathers.

At Bard, Hats: An Anthology opens on Sept. 15 and runs to April 15, 2012. A collaboration with the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, milliner Jones chose more than 250 hats ranging from a twelfth-century Egyptian fez to a 1950s Balenciaga hat and couture creations by Jones and his contemporaries. And range they do, to “motorcycle helmets, turbans, berets,… a child’s plastic tiara…. hats worn by celebrities such as Madonna and Keira Knightley….loans particularly relevant to the United States, including Babe Ruth’s baseball cap and the top hat worn by President Franklin Roosevelt to his fourth inauguration.” 

The exhibits are organized differently — in Dallas, there are sections on professional headwear, men’s and women’s headwear and headwear for chiefs and kings.

At Bard, Jones split the show into Inspiration, The Creation, The Salon and The Client.

That display a difference, I think, between a scholarly didactic view of a subject and a more popular one, even though the Bard show has a “book” — I notice they do not call it a catalogue on the website — and the DMA show does not.

Mostly, what it probably shows is a difference in budget.

All the same, I’d like to see them both.  

 

 

This Frank Lloyd Wright moment (which included the exhibit at the Guggenhein in 2009 and the restoration of the Darwin Martin House in Buffalo, among other things) continues. This summer, the Historic Park Inn Hotel (at left) in Mason City, Ia., was reopened following a complete, $18-million renovation aided by a Save America’s Treasures grant. (Hat Tip to Architects + Artisans, which published an excellent blog post about this, including a slide show, on Aug. 12.)

And now, the grand celebration, and an attempt — what else? — to create an attraction in northern Iowa.

Clearly, Mason City is not the boomtown it was when the hotel opened in 1910, but preservationists there are hoping that the restored hotel will attract money and tourists. Still, they are not relying completely on Wright fans to keep the building up and running in the way it should be kept, though — this jewel fell into disrepair once before. Rather, locals are celebrating with a grand reopening week, Sept. 5 – 11, culminating with a fundraiser called the Skylight Ball on Sept. 10.

The Park Inn Hotel is the last of six hotels Wright designed, and it is the only one left standing. It’s not the only Prairie-style building in Mason City, though: Several of Wright’s acolytes designed homes there. There’s a whole website about Wright in Iowa.

The restored hotel includes Wright’s original art-glass skylights in the lobby, a restored multi-colored terra-cotta façade, and a freshly repaired roof with its characteristically Prairie School hanging eaves. But according to the press release, which tells a long story about the hotel’s background, not everything was restored to its 1910 state:

The renovated hotel will have larger guest rooms and many more amenities than the original. It comprises not just the original Park Inn – so named because it is across from Central Park — but the adjacent City National Bank building, which was also designed by Wright.

There will be about 8,000-square-feet of conference space, including a ballroom, restaurant and bar, as well as many of the original features built in by Wright, including a ladies parlor, gentlemen’s lounge, billiards room and the Skylight Room, which has Wright-designed art-glass windows.

That’s a sign of the times, and perhaps a necessary bow to them. All the same, Mason City sounds, as they say, worth a trip.

 

There’s good news out of Richmond: the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has received a bequest of nearly $70 million, mostly to support acquisitions of art.

That’s a nifty windfall, a boon to an already fine collection.

The bequest results from the dissolution of a trust created upon the deaths of Arthur Graham and Margaret Branch Glasgow in the 1950s; it occurred this summer, with the death of their heir, son-in-law, Ambrose Congreve, at 104, in London.

VMFA director Alex Nyerges said in a press release that the Glasgows’ involvement with the museum goes back to its founding. The bequest is the single largest cash gift to the museum; $60 million of it will be placed in an endowment fund for acquisitions, which Nyerges said would the the 7th largest such fund among American museums. 

UPDATE: The VMFA calculates its annual acquisition budget now at $8 million. “That’s something of a game changer,” Nyerges said. No kidding.

 

Photo Credit: Courtesy of VMFA