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Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Archives for October 2011

The Rise Of the “Taste Of”/”Greatest Hits” Gallery

It always surprises me when people say, or write, that museums are intimidating and must be made more visitor-friendly, as if a Beaux Arts building or grand staircase were too formidable for the average person, who braves far scarier things at a sports event, club or rap concert, to tackle. 

bilde.jpgNevertheless, many museums have accepted this and are striving to change their ways and even (sometimes, sadly) their architecture. Last week, in this context, the Cincinnati Art Museum introduced what’s believed to be the first of a new kind of introductory gallery. Other museums, I know, are either planning or contemplating something very similar. 

An article in the Cincinnati Enquirer (there’s no press release on the museum website as I write) described the effort as a “greatest hits” gallery; it’s also talked about, at other museums, as a “taste of” the collections gallery. The point is to show people, as soon as they arrive, what kinds of treasures lay before them, so they may choose what they really like.

This one has another purpose, as you will soon see; it’s quoted below.

In Cincinnati, curators selected 18 objects from an initial list of 150, ranging from ancient Egypt to Andy Warhol. Chosen for their beauty and their power, the museum put them in a long gallery connecting the lobby with the museum’s Great Hall as an introduction to its collections. Then it went further:

bilde3.jpgExcept for two sculptures in the lobby, each piece is encircled in tall, black, fringed curtains so visitors see only one piece at a time. Text panels made of self-illuminating engraved acrylic explain each work….

“We have been working for the last several years to rethink how we bring people and art together, which is our mission,” said museum director Aaron Betsky. “What we need to do is create moments where people could have intense encounters with unique works of art while being part of a social atmosphere, a community where people gather around art.

“Having done that, we’ll then encourage people to see the rest of the collection.”

The article provided two positive reactions from visitors, although one said she thought the darkness of the installation was related to Halloween at first.

A commenter to the article cited one obvious flaw — the lack of guidance in the display: “Give some sort of “If you like this than check out _______” that directs visitors to other parts of the collection that share some characteristics with the piece they are looking at.” Surely, the museum did not think that would be too authoritarian, did it? 

Here are the selected works (two illustrated here): 

[Read more…] about The Rise Of the “Taste Of”/”Greatest Hits” Gallery

A Return To Springfield: Would You Still Take This Museum Job?

When we last left Springfield, Mo., it was doing a very public search for the director of the Springfield Art Museum, with a lot of — too much, I said — public participation.

Granted, I said, it is a city-owned museum. Nonetheless, the board botched the job of taking public demands into account and made the future director’s job oh-so-much-more difficult. There have to be boundaries. Many of you disagreed. That was September.

springfieldartmuseum.bmpTwo things have happened since.

A couple of weeks ago, the board announced three finalists and invited the public to meet them. Three professionals put their current jobs in jeopardy, allowed the public announcement and showed up to meet anyone who cared to show up.

And on Friday, the search committee rejected all three of them and started the process all over again. All, with thanks, according to the Springfield News-Ledger.

Now, I repeat the question I asked when this started: Would you take this museum job? As I said then, I pity the person who does. The board should be fired, and some adults, who know where boundaries are and decision-making lies, should be installed.

 

IMLS Awards 2011 National Medals, Surfacing A Big Surprise

The Institute of Museum and Library Services announced the winners of its 2011 National Medal for Museum and Library Service the other day — five libraries and five museums. They’re given for “extraordinary civic, educational, economic, environmental, and social contributions” and IMLS says “Recipients must demonstrate innovative approaches to public service and community outreach.”

420.jpgI might not have noticed, except that one of this year’s winners, the Brooklyn Museum, sent out a press release, which prompted me to look at the entire list of winners. Since RCA is mostly concerned with museums, not libraries, and two awardees were children’s museums, only three were really of interest.

Brooklyn won for “welcom[ing] a widely diverse population of citizens who want to see, learn more about, and interact with the arts” and being “a national role model for innovative visitor engagement techniques.” It’s true that, while attendance there is not as robust as it should be (about 400,000 a year), the audience is more diverse and younger than at other museums. However, it’s worrisome to me that nearly 20% of those attending arrive on the museum’s 11 Target First Saturdays.

Still, this is a nice pat on the back for Arnold Lehman and the Brooklyn. As I’ve said before (many times), he’s trying.

The Erie Art Museum also won an award, for “excellence in providing traditional museum exhibit experiences” and for “reach[ing] beyond its doors to challenge the perception of what constitutes art and serve its community in innovative and inspiring ways.” I’ve not been there, but I have read about the museum’s charms, and I praised some of them last December, which you can see here.

Finally, there was a totally new institution to me — the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library in Collegeville, MN, which was founded “in 1965 in response to the destruction of manuscripts and books in European libraries during the two World Wars.” There, the Benedictine monks of Saint John’s Abbey

Using the latest technology available…created a microfilm collection for safekeeping against the possibility of another European war. Initially, the effort focused on preservation of western monastic manuscripts in Austria and Germany, but soon expanded throughout Europe to the Iberian Peninsula and south to Malta and Ethiopia. With escalating unrest in the Middle East, the museum began in 2003 to digitize manuscripts there. Started in Lebanon, the project quickly expanded to encompass Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and the Old City of Jerusalem. Today, library staff can be found working with their many partners anywhere in the world where rare books and manuscripts require protection from wars, political unrest, fraud, or even the well-meaning but sometimes damaging efforts at preservation by untrained volunteers.

A heroic effort. One might say the Hill is more a library than museum, but take a look at the exhibitions on its website. Plus, the other day, it gave a copy of the St. John’s Bible, a handwritten Bible it had commissioned — the first by a Benedictine monastery in the 500 years since the printing press was invented — to the Morgan Library.

 

 

Are These The Museum Leaders of the Future?

I’m just catching up with the 2012 Fellows at the Center for Curatorial Leadership, run by Elizabeth Easton. The announcement of those selected came the other day. You will know some, but not all, of the names.

It’s always a mystery whether these kinds of programs help. They don’t hurt anyone’s career, that’s for sure. But they may not catapult them into a directorship either. I’m not naming names,  but most of the 41 lucky fellows of the past haven’t made the leap. In fact, only five have. Many, however, have been promoted, Easton points out — and that’s good for the profession. The program, she has argued, has prompted museums to place more emphasis on career development for curators. I’ll buy that.

Here are the 11 new fellows:

  • Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design at MoMA 
  • Andrea Bayer, curator of European paintings at the Met
  • Christa Clarke, senior curator of African and American Art at the Newark Museum
  • Thomas Denenberg, incoming director, Shelburne Museum (a shoo-in!! – but previously chief curator at the Portland Museum of Art)
  • Leah Dickerman, curator of painting and sculpture at MoMA
  • Elizabeth Finch, curator of American Art at the Colby College Museum of Art
  • John Ravenal, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
  • Elizabeth Smith, executive director, curatorial affairs, at the Art Institute of Ontario
  • Martha Tesdeschi, curator of prints and drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago
  • Stanton Thomas, curator of European paintings and decorative arts at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art
  • Michelle Joan Wilkinson, director of collections and exhibitions at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture

Five have PhDs; six don’t. There’s a good mix of expertise in art.

Worcester director.jpgThe program involves four weeks over the first six months of next year during which fellows are taught by faculty of the Columbia Business School, and meet all kinds of other art-world people. Then, there’s a six-month mentorship, a week-long residency with a museum director and a long, team-based project during which they all tackle an issue affecting museums.

If you want to know more, read the FAQs.

On a related note, the Worcester Art Museum has just selected a new director: Matthias Waschek (above), who most recently was the executive director of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis. Read more here and here.

 

  

The Return of The Rose

Tomorrow night, there’s a special event at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University: it’s not only the reopening after a four-month renovation. It is also the turning of the page on its turbulent recent past, and — Brandeis President Frederick Lawrence (below) hopes — a beginning of a process to restore the Rose and even perhaps elevate its position at the university.

fred647.jpgThere are skeptics out there. Still bruised by the battle set off in January, 2009 when the university tried to turn the Rose into an arts center, they are withholding judgment about his sincerity.

I understand that. But after a couple of conversations with Lawrence in the last six months, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. As I write in The Art Newspaper, which posted my article online today, the timing of tomorrow night’s celebration is significant:

“The fact that we are having the reopenings during the fall board of trustees meeting is designed to raise the profile of the Rose in the university community,” he says. It was these same trustees, mostly, who in January 2009 voted to sell the Rose’s famed collection of modern and contemporary art to keep the university from shrinking drastically after the 2008 markets’ crash.

The university has also stepped up its search for a new director, enlisting three well-known graduates to serve on an advisory committee. One would hope that Lawrence knows better than to embarass them by reverting to the university’s previous view, under a different president, of the Rose as cash cow.

Read more details here.

 

    

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About Judith H. Dobrzynski

Now an independent journalist, I've worked as a reporter in the culture and business sections of The New York Times, and been the editor of the Sunday business section and deputy business editor there as well as a senior editor of Business Week and the managing editor of CNBC, the cable TV

About Real Clear Arts

This blog is about culture in America as seen through my lens, which is informed and colored by years of reporting not only on the arts and humanities, but also on business, philanthropy, science, government and other subjects. I may break news, but more likely I will comment, provide

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