Real Clear Arts: January 2012 Archives

As I've said before, two's company -- so once again I'll mention something because there've been two instances in a very short time.

On Tuesday came the news from the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston that, for the first time in its history, both the Director and Chief Curator positions were being endowed. Jill Medvedow will now  be known as the Ellen Matilda Poss Director and Karen Molesworth will be the Barbara Lee Chief Curator.

Today, the nearby Peabody Essex Museum announced that its director had also been endowed. Dan Monroe will be the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Director and CEO of PEM, thanks to an eight-figure gift from "the Most Important Collectors You've Never Heard Of" -- a total overstatement of a headline, which I did not write. They are pictured in their home above right.

Since that article, in any case, the van Otterloos' collection has been on tour -- I saw it again recently in Houston -- and the couple is far from unknown.

Their gift is part of the PEM's $650 million capital campaign, which went public in November. So far, the museum has raised $570 million, $20 million more than announced at the time. All from the van Otterloos? We don't know. But you can read more here.

At ICA, meanwhile, the gifts are part of a $50 million campaign, more than half of which has been committed -- including 10 seven-figure gifts, according to its press office. This will certainly help Boston continue the development of a vibrant contemporary art scene.

Time was, Boston was dogged by a reputation for stingy donors. But these gifts, plus the many given to the Museum of Fine Arts there, as well as the Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Harvard Art Museums -- all in the course of a decade -- should change that.

Don't good things come in threes? I'm expecting another big gift announcement any day now.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of PEM

Out of the Shadows, a film by Kevin Sullivan about the use of advanced technology to discover the way artists work, made its debut in New York yesterday -- a showing at the Winter Antiques Show at the Park Avenue Armory. I went to look, and concluded that it's a good film for museums to screen -- and build a program around.

Many museums have discovered that people like to see what art conservation is all about, and this film takes that interest and runs with it.

Narrated by Donald Sutherland, the documentary -- don't Google it, use the link above, because you will otherwise get a movie about depression -- closely follows the stories of two paintings, Rembrandt's Bearded Old Man and van Gogh's The Patch of Grass. It shows how technology like x-ray fluorescence and 3D imaging and expertise -- from scientists in Europe as well as at Cornell and Brookhaven National Laboratory -- discovered paintings behind the surface of what we can all see and, in the Rembrandt's case, led scholars to authenticate the picture as by him because of what's underneath.

The hero is Joris Dik of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, who has credentials in both art and science. He helped discover a Goya last year.

The film isn't perfect, imho. It uses actors to play the parts of Rembrandt and his followers, for example, which is a little hokey. But they don't speak, and their moments on screen are short. In a couple of places, it overdramatizes -- but not too badly.

What it set out to do -- show science in art -- it does pretty well. Nicely, the film's website provides not just the trailer, but also other video snippets that take you behind the scenes at the Rijksmuseum, the Kroller-Muller Museum, the Rotterdam museum, and other places prominent in the film, telling their stories. It explains a bit of the science, too.

I'd like to see the film get theatrical distribution, but it's already available on DVD (above). That shouldn't hold museums back, though. Visitors will pay (modestly) to see this and discuss it.

It's not very often that the departure of a museum's education director merits an article in a city's newspaper. But that is what happened last week, when Williams College announced that it had picked Christina Olsen to head its museum of art.

Olsen is leaving the Portland Art Museum, and the Oregonian acknowledged her work there, and before at the Getty, as well as her ambition, in a meaty article. The writer, D.K. Row, had also featured Olsen in an article in 2010. Then, he called Olsen one of the most important people at the museum and said she had "improved the museum's relationship with children, young adults and other communities that have felt marginalized by Oregon's flagship art institution."

The museum's director, Brian Ferriso, had wanted to upgrade education, and Olsen, the daugher and wife of painters, did that:

With military zeal, Olsen has directed special efforts to bring children and families into the museum through a multitude of events and workshops; she's deepened the experiential component of exhibitions with greater Web-based interaction and interpretative strategies, such as employing Periscope illustrators; and she's helped strengthen the museum's partnerships with the local art community's younger and less traditional artists.

Now, in the article announce her departure, Row said:

She was one of the most zealous practitioners of technology within the museum hierarchy and aggressively tried to make exhibits intersect with the aesthetics and practical uses of the Internet age. Olsen also diversified the department's influence within the museum. The education department began to work more closely with curators, for example.

She also established programs that linked the museum more closely to the public, particularly viewers under 40...

In some ways, this is a blow to Ferriso, who had high hopes for Olsen in Portland, and now must find someone with equal zeal -- but probably different ideas. On the other hand, it's a compliment that Portland wooed her from the much larger, more influential Getty, and that she was chosen to lead the renowned Williams College Museum after less than four years.

It may also be a sign that the education departments at museums are gaining in stature. Many people have told me that museum educators feel like second fiddles to curators, called in at the last minute to discuss educational programs -- if consulted at all.

Few have made it into the directors' ranks.

But a few museum directors, lately, have also said, like Ferriso, that this should change. Not that educators need take the upper hand -- but they aren't appendages either.

Photo Credit: Courtesy Williams College

Alexander McQueen isn't the only guy capable of drawing crowds so big that hours must be extended at a museum. Or Leonardo, for that matter.

I'm happy to report that the Detroit Institute of Art recently added hours to accommodate visitors to its Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus exhibition.

On Jan. 4, the DIA announced that the Rembrandt exhibit "broke attendance records for recent exhibitions at the museum, with more than 15,000 visitors during the week between Christmas and New Year's. The number is around three times the typical weekly attendance for the exhibition."

At the time, museum hours were 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Fridays, and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

Then, on Jan. 13, the DIA would stay open longer for that exhibition and the whole museum until Feb. 12, when the Rembrandt show must come down. For the month of January, then, the DIA will say open on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Also, on the first two Saturdays in February, hours are 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and on the first two Sundays of February, hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

 The DIA hasn't done this "in several years," says the announcement, which noted that it has extended hours "in the final week for past blockbuster exhibitions, such as Van Gogh: Face to Face and Degas and the Dance." 

In the first press release, DIA director Graham Beal says, "The response has been overwhelming. Much of the positive feedback we have received focuses on how the exhibition is presented, which places Rembrandt and the works of art in historical and cultural context. We are delighted that our presentation has resonated with so many visitors."

I'm thrilled -- we all know Detroit (the city) is a bit of a mess. Good news is welcome, to put it mildly. This exhibition was organized by the DIA with the Louvre and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where it was shown last August through October.

If you go to the exhibition notice on the DIA website, you'll find links to videos about the show and a slide show of Rembrandt's home in Antwerp. A little value added.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Detroit News (Brandy Baker)

This is Old Masters week in New York, and to mark it I have written a short article about an ivory, estimated by Sotheby's in January, 2010, at $120,000 to $150,000.It sold, after much bidding from the trade, for more than $1.2 million. Now, it's for sale at a New York gallery for $3.8 million.

Much of the general public probably thinks that's a ripoff, which is one reason I wanted to write about this piece. I leave it you to decide if it's worth that high amount, but the story of how it gained value, going from a piece attributed to Matthias Steinl to one definitely by him, is a good tale.

As I recount in the Wall Street Journal, on the Saturday Icons page, Anthony Blumka of New York and Florian Eitle-Böhler of Munich bought the piece, had it cleaned, restored it to its original state, complete with pieces that had been missing, and took it to a symposium on the baroque in Munich for study by scholars. They agreed it was by Steinl.

With its newly confirmed authorship, the sculpture, whose photographs are pretty impressive, was displayed last year at the Liebieghaus Sculpture Collection in Frankfurt in an exhibition called "Ivory: Baroque Splendor at the Court of Vienna." I plan to see the piece at Blumka, where it will be on view from Thursday until Feb. 10.

Last, I can only quote Eike S. Schmidt, the curator of decorative arts and sculpture at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the author of several books on ivory sculpture:

It is quite a sensation that this masterpiece, which was known to scholars only through an old photograph, taken when it was in the Rothschild collection, has re-emerged. It is certainly one of the most outstanding ivory sculptures that were made in Austria in the Baroque age.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Blumka Gallery

In case you missed it, even the Colbert Nation is interested in the new American paintings galleries at the Metropolitan Museum.*

Stephen Colbert yesterday (?) interviewed Carrie Rebora Barrett, an associate director of the Met and an Americanist, and it has been posted (here). They talk mostly about Emanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware.

In it, among other things, we learn:

• That he likes The Met because "it's a great place to go in and not pay."
• That Colbert has never been to the Met, alas.
• That Barrett defends George Washington, who's letting other people do the work, per Colbert, by saying "he got them into the boat, that's huge."
• Which artist posed as Washington for Leutze.
• That, of course, what Colbert ends up focusing on is look like GW's private parts (which, by the way, were also what some youngsters were staring at and giggling about at the reception I attended for the galleries this week), but which aren't. "It's a fob," she says.
• That she sneaks in a reference to Madame X that he doesn't hear, and probably was not prepared for, because he ignores it.
• What's on the back of the painting.
• And other things...  

I'm always, pleased, as you know, when visual arts are showcased on TV or radio, even if Colbert is making fun.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Colbert Report

*I consult to a Foundation that supports the Met

The subject line in the email was deceptive: "Nelson-Atkins Hires Esteemed African Art Curator," it said. I almost archived it without reading.

The substance turned out to be more interesting. The N-A is indeed hiring the expertise of Nii Quarcoopome (below), the head of the Department of Africa, Oceania & the Indigenous Americas at the Detroit Institute of Arts -- but only 25% of his time. The two museums are curator-sharing.

I think we'll see more of this, and it may mean that curators will see their careers developing along a different path than in the past. More of them will be split between two museums and even more, I project, will become independent curators. Yes, I know that independents exist -- I'm predicting that we'll see more of them -- and that they will be used more frequently by major museums. It will be a money-saving move for some and a convenience for others.

According to the press release, Quarcoopome, a native of Ghana, worked with the N-A in 2010 during the the installation of an exhibition he curated that was first shown at the DIA: Through African Eyes: The European in African Art, 1500-Present. The exhibit, "a groundbreaking examination of how African artists expressed the interactions between African cultures and Europeans and Westerners....gave a wide perspective of the African point of view of Europeans, from first encounters and trade relations, to European settlements and colonization, through the contemporary years of post-independence." (I didn't see it.)

For his part, Graham Beal, director of the DIA, noted Quarcoopome's "profound understanding of African society and material culture [which] has resulted in an installation of the DIA's African collection that brings the art alive for many visitors" and said he was happy to share him.

Quarcoopome holds a doctorate in art history from the University of California, Los Angeles, and has been at the DIA since 2002. Before that he was a curator at the Newark Museum.

You can read more in the press release.

Tomorrow, the International Center for the Arts of the Americas -- created ten years ago at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston -- launches a digital archive of thousands of primary source documents, free to all and intended to catalyze scholarship of Latin American art.

This is, to hear Mari Carmen Ramirez, the ICAA's director, sorely needed. Most people tend to think of Latin American art as derivative. She says it's not -- or at least not all of it is. These documents -- 2,500 from Argentina, Mexico and the American Midwest for a start -- will prove her right or wrong, over time. Within three years, another 7,500 documents from  Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and around the U.S. will be added.

This is a titanic effort, which I write about in today's Wall Street Journal, in a Cultural Conversation with Ramirez. ICAA has also planned a 13-volume book series, a symposium (Friday), and exhibitions. MFAH has spent $50 million on this effort, some taken from its own budget, most raised from foundations, donors, the NEA and the NEH.

Ramirez is, of course, the champion, but she couldn't have done it -- in fact, probably would not have been hired by the MFAH, had it not been for its late director, Peter Marzio. 

Marzio embraced the idea mostly because he was looking at the demographics of Houston -- but also because he knew that until Oliver Larkin wrote Art and Life in America, which was published in 1949, American art had no textbook, no academic foundation from which to teach it. 

So I asked Ramirez what MFAH's incoming director, Gary Tinterow, thinks about the ICAA. "We have not had a chance to talk about it yet," she said on Dec. 30 (when I traveled to Houston to interview her). "But the trustees have had conversations with him about it. And the first thing he told me is that he wants to go to Latin America. He's never been."

Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Houston Events Calendar 

It's been a pleasure to be working at home a couple of recent days during the one o'clock hour, because that's when WNYC is rebroadcasting The BBC/British Museum's "A History of the World in 100 Objects." I was surprised to be as interested as I actually was in the importance of the handaxe, and then the Clovis spear point too. And I'm sorry that I've had to miss a couple episodes (though I know, yes, that one can hear them online -- but it's somehow more meaningful when you know that others are listening along with you).

The series, which began in New York last week, reminded me of another radio series that BBC Radio is about to launch: Beginning next month, to mark the Queen's diamond jubilee, it will broadcast an eight-part series called The Art of Monarchy. It will attempt to illustrate the history of the British monarchy through the art that kings and queens have acquired.

Before I get to the details, these two series make me wonder why we don't/can't have such art-focused radio in the U.S.

I suppose it's no use bemoaning that British culture somehow manages to devise and execute radio and TV about the arts in a way that American culture never does -- but I am. Why has no one used the collections of the Smithsonian, say, to tell American history? Or the Museum of the City of New York's collection to tell the history of New York in 10 objects? Or why doesn't American TV come up with a Downton Abbey instead of yet-another variation on CSI?

It's interesting that the British efforts don't come off there as stuffy. I note that the tabloid Daily Mail heralded the Art of Monarchy series last month by playing up the sexiness of an early portrait of Queen Victoria. "...this 'secret portrait' of the young queen is sure to get pulses racing, as it did for Prince Albert when it was first painted 170 years ago," the story said. (The picture is above.) So what?

Here's the series description:

Travelling from Balmoral Castle in Scotland to the Royal Library at Windsor and from the State Rooms of Buckingham Palace to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, Will [Gompertz, BBC Arts Editor] speaks to historians, academics and Royal Collection curators, all of whom share their expertise and explain how the chosen objects illustrate the subjects examined in the programmes, including faith, progress, war and legacy. 

And of course there will be a website, as there is for History of the World, with more information, videos, and zoom technology.

I doubt that either a TV network (broadcast or cable) or a radio station would do something similar in the U.S. without -- most of all -- a sponsor for it, and a champion at a museum with a fairly broad collection.

But it seems to me that a series about art, or art and history, could be more inviting, more enticing to more people as some other so-called accessibility projects we hear about.

Photo Credits: Queen Victoria by Franz Xaver Winterhalter (top); The Letter, by Gerard ter Borch (bottom), Courtesy of the Royal Collection, © 2011

Taking potshots at the Damien Hirst Complete Spot Paintings, 1986 - 2011 exhibition has become the sport of the day, and I'm not one to disagree. I find them simply boring. They fared poorly in a test of what visitors view, too.

That doesn't mean there's nothing to say about them, though.

First off, despite the breadth of works shown around the world, these are not the "complete" spot paintings. Hirst has taken credit for about 1,400 of them, and only 331 are on view in this global exhibition. About half of those on view are for sale, with the rest borrowed.

How many do you think Hirst painted himself? True, we all know that he employs a battalion of workers to paint for him, but this article, in London's Daily Mail, reveals it all for us: Hirst actually painted only five of the spot paintings. Hirst, according to the Daily Telegraph, evaded the question when he was asked to confirm or dispute the figure. 

The Telegraph refers to an interview Hirst did with Reuters, in which "Hirst claimed that 'every single spot painting contains my eye, my hand and my heart. I imagine you will want to say that if I don't actually paint them myself then how can my hand be there? But I controlled every aspect of them coming into being and much more than just designing them or even ordering them over the phone. And my hand is evidence in the paintings everywhere.' " 

And what does Hirst tell his army of workers? According to Blake Gopnik, writing in Newsweek, "One rule Hirst gives the assistants who execute these works is that no color can repeat in any single piece. Another is that the gaps must be the same size as the spots."

Art in America's January issue provides a few interesting "Spot Stats," namely that the largest is 10 by 40 ft. and can be seen in London/Britannia St., the smallest is 1 by 1.5 inches at Davies St. in London, the earliest -- from 1986 -- is on Madison Ave. in New York and the "spottiest" is "in progress" and will feature 1 million spot.

They show no sign of going away, but why would they?

As Richard Dorment wrote in the Telegraph,

They are perfect corporate artworks, ideal for banks, board rooms, and modernist collectors who have no particular knowledge or taste. Cheerful but not cheap, you don't have to look at them for more than a second or two to get the point. The fact that every corporate collection in the world has one is also a plus. It's like knowing everyone else at the Tate Modern opening is wearing an Armani suit. Their suit may not be exactly like yours, but you know you are dressed correctly because it's Armani.

The ctitical views I've read have not much disagreed.

Meantime, Larry Gagosian profits from this totally over-hyped, gallery around-the-world exhibition. 

Photo Credit: Zinc Sulfate, 2008, Courtesy of Gagosian Galleries

Two's company, as they say. On Wednesday, the French Cultural Services Office of the French Embassy in the U.S. informed me that Will Barnet, who turned 100 last May and was honored recently by the National Academy Museum with an exhibition, had been named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, with the insignia to be conferred on him on Jan. 19.

I let it pass without remark, though I didn't forget it, until yesterday, when a similar email came announcing that Gary Tinterow, late of the Metropolitan Museum and now director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, has been named an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. (That's a higher grade.) He will receive his insignia on January 23.

I quickly went to the website of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy of the U.S. to see if there'd been anyone else -- but, alas, the press part of the website is open only to registered journalists, and I never have (so far).

So we have these two. Established in 1957, according to Wikipedia, these honors may go, according to French government guidelines, to "citizens of France must be at least thirty years old, respect French civil law, and must have, 'significantly contributed to the enrichment of the French cultural inheritance.' " But, "Foreign recipients are admitted into the Order, 'without condition of age.' "

In any case, both Will and Gary are older than 30. 

The press release about Tinterow cites his many exhibitions (related to French culture), including Portraits by Ingres: Image of an Epoch (1999), Manet/Velazquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting (2003), and Picasso in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2010), as well as the award-winning Origins of Impressionism and The Private Collection of Edgar Degas in 1995 and 1997, respectively. Plus his many acquisitions of French art and his collaborations with French institutions.

Barnet was a bigger surprise, to me at least, as his art seems very American to me. But the press release begins with a relevant quote from Barnet:

I remember at the age of 12 sitting on a big rock in front of the Beverly Massachusetts lighthouse that faced the Atlantic Ocean directly across from Paris and dreaming of going to Paris. At time I was reading French novels and learning about French art. By the time I was 14, I had read all five volumes of the French art historian Elie Faure's "History of Art.' What kept me alive was that I identified with the masters-they were my guiding light. 

Then it cites the French painters, "notably Honoré Daumier, Picasso, Ingres and Cezanne," who influenced Barnet.

They each get a medal, an eight-point, green-enameled asterisk -- gilt for Tinterow, silver for Barnet, and a green ribbon with four vertical white stripes. Tinterow's also has a little circle in the middle, shown at right.

So now you know.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the French Cultural Services Office 

I know there is a Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, but it's for kids. How many times have you viewed an artwork, particularly sculpture, and really wanted to feel it?

Many, for me, most recently at the Metropolitan Museum's* Renaissance Portraits exhibition. (I didn't.)

But I, and those of you who feel the same way, should try to visit Baltimore between Jan. 21 and April 15, while The Walters Art Museum presents Touch and the Enjoyment of Sculpture: Exploring the Appeal of Renaissance Statuettes. I hope it lives up to its billing, which is:

This groundbreaking focus show explores the implications of tactile perception for enjoying sculpture by melding the research of a Johns Hopkins University neuroscientist studying how the brain reacts to tactile stimuli and a Walters curator interested in the increased appreciation of tactility as an aspect of European Renaissance art--a period marked by a new availability of small "collectibles" meant to be held. Did artists anticipate a reaction to tactile stimulus in shaping sculpture, specifically statuettes of female nudes?

Visitors can hold and register their evaluations of replicas of "appealing" statuettes, as well as variants assumed to be unappealing. Displays illustrate the Renaissance attitudes towards touch, the sensation of touch being stimulated without actual contact and the neural processing and perception of objects during touch.

Ok, so it's a little disappointing that visitors aren't allowed to touch a Donatello. But I'm hoping the brain stimulation is the same for visitors, and the very exposure to these sculptures and this research makes up for that.

There's more in the press release.

If museums are going to experiment with new exhibitions, this one strikes me as far more interesting and far more related to the core missions than the frou-four shows we've seen elsewhere. I hope it's a crowdpleaser.

Photo Credit: Anonymous (Italian), Modest Venus (Venus Pudica), ca. 1500, Courtesy The Walters Art Museum

With government support for the arts on the wane in most places, here's a city singing a different tune:

...The mayor has a plan. That plan has been to reestablish municipal support for the arts through the cultural office, and to enhance and expand city efforts that support artists and their organizations. This has taken the form of everything from maintaining the city's cultural fund, which provided $1.6 million in grants directly to 201 arts groups this year, to rethinking non-arts programs so they might provide support to the sector.

In 2010, for instance, the city came up with an innovative use of community block grants enabling $500,000 in federal stimulus funding to be used for eight arts-related projects.

Can you guess what mayor, what city? (Not Boston, that's for sure.)

It's Philadelphia I'm talking about, and for the third time since I began this blog in 2009, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has won notice from me because of his support for the arts (see here and here).

Now, as the article I quoted from above (in the Philadelphia Inquirer, printed in late December) notes in its last paragraphs, the money Philadelphia devotes to the arts is only $4 per capita, much lower than the leader, San Francisco, which devotes $90 per capital to the arts, thanks to a dedicated hotel tax that dates back to 50 years ago (it's 5.3% today).

But Nutter is talking the talk in a difficult environment and, I hear, he shows up to support the arts. A while back, Nutter appointed a Cultural Advisory Council to devise an arts plan, with the goal of creating a roadmap to keep creative activity going on in Philadelphia. It recently reported:

The vision plan sets a goal of increasing the city's investment in the arts from $7 million in fiscal 2010 to $20 million in fiscal 2014. That $13 million increase will bring its public spending on arts and culture up to the per-capita average of $11 found in 20 cities studied by the task force.

Now I have a bigger task for Nutter. I notice that he is vice president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and I wish he'd get the art on the agenda there. In the group's programs, it's bad enough that "Arts" is lumped into Tourism, Arts, Parks, Entertainment & Sports.

Worse, that page is bare.

UPDATE, 1/12: Reader Jeffrey Barg reports, in a comment below, that Philadelphia today announced another art-lifting initiative -- a two-year marketing campaign

supporting Philadelphia's varied visual arts scene and the many artists who make it the colorful canvas that it is. The highly integrated campaign, the result of a first-of-its-kind partnership among 10 city organizations and cultural partners, will tout Philly's eclectic art offerings -- everything from museum stalwarts to independent collectives to plentiful public arts to popular annual events.

Again, bravo, Philadelphia.

Photo Credit: "Philadelphia on a Half Tank" by Paul Santoleri, Courtesy of the Mural Arts Program, Philadelphia

The Metropolitan Museum* and the Art Institute of Chicago announced appointments today -- one curatorial and one staff. Oddly, it's the latter that's more intriguing.

On Fifth Avenue, director Tom Campbell followed his pattern of seeking expertise in Mother England; he named fellow-Brit Sheena Wagstaff (right) to "the newly created position of Chairman of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art;" she is currently chief curator of Tate Modern, "where for the past decade she has been responsible for programming strategy and planning." 

That'll be a switch; the Tate Modern is aggressively contemporary, which the Met has never been. Most recently, contemporary at the Met was led by Gary Tinterow, chairman of the Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art. He has been named director at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston (in fact, his farewell party at the Met was last night), and had more expertise in 19th Century and Modern art. Met-watchers have been predicting that Campbell would split the departments again (as they were until 2004, when the late Bill Lieberman, former head of contempary art at the Met, "stepped down") and go very contemporary. Looks as if he has.

Wagstaff starts at the Metropolitan Museum in late spring, following Luke Syson, who just joined the Met as curator of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts from his post as Curator of pre-1500 Italian Paintings and Head of Research at London's National Gallery. Syson curated the blockbuster Leonardo exhibition now packing them in in Trafalgar Square.

In Chicago, it's Art Institute meets HomeMade Pizza Company. That's right, according to an email from AIC arrived that in my imbox today. It announced the appointment of Gordon Montgomery (left) as Vice President of Marketing and Public Affairs. (Oddly, it was effective January 3, 2012, so his office is a little late getting the news out.)

Montgomery, most recently Chief Marketing Officer for HomeMade Pizza Company, has no art expertise (at least according to the release). Before the pizza place, he worked at NewSight Corporation, a new media and technology startup. There, he marketed "early generation 3DTV (albeit without glasses)," among other things, and he has also worked at Publicis Groupe's Leo Burnett Worldwide, the ad agency, where he worked on accounts for Gateway, Maytag, Motorola, Sony, and Procter & Gamble, among other clients.

This is as big a switch, and in some ways a riskier one, than the Met's. It was announced not by AIC director Douglas Druick, but rather by David Thurm, Chief Operating Officer of the Art Institute. Druick has said, however, that he wanted to beef marketing -- I trust this simply means he is comfortable letting Thurm manage his areas of the museum.

Not too long ago, I heard that the Art Institute's new wing, which opened in 2009, hasn't brought the crowds that were expected. Yes, attendance surged that year to about 1.85 million, but it settled back -- as is normally expected -- in 2010 to 1.6 million. I haven't yet seen numbers for 2011, but the AIC had similar attendance in 2002 through 2005, and it was higher in 2001. So was the expansion a wash in terms of drawing visitors?  

The Art Institute is hardly alone among museums in needing better marketing, and this could end up being a brilliant move -- even if it is reminiscent of Al Taubman talking about marketing art being the same as marketing root beer, way back when he bought Sotheby's.

As my friend Ron Culp, a long-time Chicago-based PR and marketing expert, with a long-standing familiarity with the Art Institute, says:

That certainly is an unconventional hire. I'm encouraged, however, by institutions that take creative risks when it comes to marketing and communications. They've found that traditional cultural marketing doesn't necessarily cut it like in the good old days.  His grassroots, store-by-store targeting of individual customer wants could lead to a refreshing change of approach for this staid institution. Will be on the lookout for changes at Michigan and Adams.

Indeed! These two appointments suggest big changes at both institutions.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Tate Modern (top) and Art Institute of Chicago (bottom)

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Met

Just when I got tired of watching George Clooney -- courtesy of The Descendants, which I thought was rather a boring movie, though I know I am in the minority (I found The Ides of March to be more entertaining) -- he comes up with a project I probably will want to watch.

On Saturday, at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, Clooney said he's going to make a movie telling the story of the Monuments Men -- the American men and women who worked in Europe after World War II to rescue art that had been looted by Hitler and his henchmen.

Clooney is reportedly writing the script with Grant Heslov, his regular production partner, and plans to both star in and direct the film. 

The movie will focus on the art historians who landed at Normandy -- a "group of 11 civilian art experts [that] included Lincoln Kirstein, the founder of the New York City Ballet; George Stout, who worked at Harvard's Fogg Art Museum; and James J. Rorimer, from the Metropolitan Museum," according to John Horn of the Los  Angeles Times, who added:

The team had never trained for combat, and yet they faced live fire--two of them even died on the mission. Even though the experts were mere privates, they occasionally had to shout out battlefield instructions--"Don't aim your tank over there, that's the Leaning Tower of Pisa!" Clooney suggested--to preserve the works of art they were charged to find.

The announcement is another coup for Robert Edsel (above), whose 2009 book The Monuments Men, and website, has done well spreading the word of this marvelous moment in American history and art history. I last wrote about him here, when his Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art found a woman member of the team still living in Boston: Mary Regan Quessenberry. She died in 2010.

Edsel is from Dallas, and the Dallas Morning News has an article today saying Edsel's " passion has drawn the attention of George Clooney." I think it's more than that. As I recall, from a contact made some years ago, when Edsel published his first book, he has connections to Luke and Owen Wilson. 

Clooney hasn't cast the movie yet, so now's the time to weigh in. What role should he play? And who should play the others?

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Dallas Morning News

There's more gold in the annual art investment report from Skate's, Part 2. (Comments on Part 1 are here.)  And it involves what the market is saying about individual artists.

First some context: In its survey, Skate's included sales from 30 auction houses around the world, and concluded that "throughout 2011 the art market has resisted pervasive global economic turmoil and instability, with its high-end segment growing on every measure in 2011 compared to 2010."

As I said the other day, more than 2,000 art works sold for more than $1 million last year; now this report says that 721 works sold in 2012 for more than $2.1 million, the figure that vaulted a work into the Skate 5000, the world's most valuable art works according to auction house records. Those 721 lots were created by 250 artists, 81 of which were new to the top 5000 hit list.

With those numbers out of the way, let's look at some of the artists in the report. Skate's analysis goes beyond the top prices of the year (although they are in the report, too) to more interesting items.

Who are the ten "most liquid" artists, for example, with the highest number of repeat sales in 2011? You can probably guess that Andy Warhol is at the top (9 last year), but who's next? Monet, Picasso, Richter and Basquiat, in that order. Then Calder, Leger...etc. (See the report.)

Which art work sold last year earned the greatest return? Skate's says it was Lady in Solitude (above) by Fu Baoshi (who will soon have a show at the Metropolitan Museum,* coming from the Cleveland Museum of Art and opening on Jan. 21). Someone bought Lady three years ago for $262,830 and sold it last year for more than $1.9 million, an annualized investment return of 93.82%.

Works by two other Chinese artists came next, Zao Wou-ki and Chu Teh-Chun, followed by Richter and Polke. I don't think one can extrapolate much from those five examples, except perhaps that some people are cashing out of Chinese art. Skate's does note, though, that this is Richter's second consecutive time with a top five return, both for abstract works from the same period.

The lack of liquidity in art shows up in the five works with the lowest rate of return: by Lichtenstein, Warhol, Cranach the Younger, Wesselman and Hesse. Lichtenstein's Still Life with Mirror, purchased last May for $5.8 million, had been bought for $9.6 million three years before -- a big loss.

But none of the works in this category had been held for more than 4 years, which was probably the cause of the loss -- not necessarily the quality of the picture. Were they fire sales? Perhaps a longer holding period would have led to a return.

Skate's calculates the top ten losers by looking at artists whose works -- many works and works losing much value -- were forced out of the top 5000. One can see trends here. Both number and value lists are topped by Renoir, followed by Monet in numbers and Pissarro in value. Of living artists, Damien Hirst figures in both lists, probably cheering David Hockney.

But not for long. Who, according to Skate's, are the most valuable living artists? In order, the top ten are Richter (his record-setter, above), Koons, Johns, Hirst, Zao, Prince, Zhang, Doig, Zeng, and Ruscha. Freud and Twombly fell off because of their deaths.

One can make too much of this kind of analysis -- but we won't. To me, it's just fun and somewhat fascinating to use analytical tools on art. Take a look -- these are just the highlights; there's more.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of Sotheby's (top) and Bui Gallery (bottom)

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Met. 

Right before Christmas, Skate's released its annual art investment report, and everyone interested in the future of museums will want to read it.

Skate's calculates that the total of art trading worldwide grew close to $80 billion last year -- that's about the same as it was in 2006-2007, before the economic meltdown. Startlingly, Skate's said, the auction houses sold more than 2,000 lots for $1 million or more, and Skate's figures that dealers made a similar number of 7-figure (or more) sales in their galleries and during art fairs.

That's because, as the report begins,

If it stopped there, so what? But Skate's report has dire predictions for museums. The firm predicts that, because of the acceptance of art as an investment, and the ensuing development of art investment funds, there will more securitization of art. Then, in turn, the cash squeeze in governments will lead them to see museums as

"government-owned treasuries that can help balance government deficits by using capital markets and modern finances to unlock the value of their vaults without necessarily selling significant volumes of art treasures (de-accessioning" in museum terminology). Cash from capital markets can be used to finance museum budget deficits."

The infrastructure, Skate's says, is there. Surprisingly, the report predicts that the change will come from museums themselves because

I can't say I didn't enjoy reading David Hockney's recent comments on the art world, specifically those aimed at Damien Hirst.

As The Guardian reported it, Hockney used a small note on the posters for his coming exhibition at the Royal Academy --  "All the works here were made by the artist himself, personally" -- to send a dart at the "creator" [my quotation marks] of the diamond-encrusted skull (For the Love of God), which is among so many other works made by others but presumably conceived by Hirst. Hirst will have a show at the Tate beginning in April, filled with art made by his assistants.

Hockney also said, "I used to point out, at art school you can teach the craft; it's the poetry you can't teach. But now they try to teach the poetry and not the craft."

Interpreted by Richard Dorment of the Daily Telegraph, Hockney is "saying that students used to be taught how to draw perfectly at the expense of their individuality. Now scores of students graduate from art colleges believing that everything they do or touch or say can be labelled a work of art but they couldn't draw a rabbit if you held a gun to their heads." (Dorment goes on to say that he doesn't care how a piece is made, as long as it has the poetry.)

This conversation reminded me of an interview I did about 15 months ago with Ndidi Ekubia, a British Nigerian silversmith whose work was included in The Global Africa Project at the Museum of Arts and Design in 2010. She'd just returned from a day at the Frieze Art Fair in London when we talked, and she couldn't help remarking, she said, on how poorly made so many of the art works on view were. Nevermind their "poetry" (which I inferred she was not fond of, for the most part), she was dismayed by their craft. She felt that makers of what today is called "design," were more careful about quality than makers of "art."

Of course, that's not all that is wrong with some art of today. Another conversation I had recently has also come to mind -- with a museum director, who must remain nameless because we were speaking on background. S/he was so very disappointed by the show of Dale Chihuly at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, because s/he had been a proponent of his decades ago -- but now feels the work is bereft of ideas.

The art world is not the only place these issues have surfaced. ('Twas ever thus?) In his recent blog post on Brainstorm, David Barash discusses the dearth of the "Novel of Ideas," which he prefers to mere stories. As he notes, "Many of the towering works of 19^th century literature (from Hugo and Zola to Dostoyevsky and Turgenev), which to my mind represent a novelistic high point, seem explicitly concerned with making a point or generating intellectual debate, and not simply hoping to entertain or just to portray accurately a 'slice of life.' " 

I suppose the best art has poetry, craft and ideas, and the people who make that kind of art are the artists that will be remembered for their work. Will either Hockney or Hirst qualify?

David Hockney RA -- A Bigger Picture opens on Jan. 21.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Guardian

As you can well imagine, some articles are more rewarding for a journalist to write than others. I'd put one I wrote that was just published as the cover story of Art + Auction magazine, January issue in the very rewarding category.

Headlined The New Allure of Old Master Sculpture, it features an area of the art market that is far too rarely noticed. Yes, you see a piece mentioning Renaissance bronzes every now and then, but that's most of the coverage.

Yet it's an exciting category, full of discoveries, re-discoveries and re-attributions (see what Eike Schmidt, curator at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, has to say about that), and the opportunity for collectors to purchase excellent works of art at prices that are a small fraction of a comparable painting. One example I cited:

A few years ago, the Tomasso Brothers, based in Leeds and London, discovered an unknown gilt bronze of Prometheus by Giambologna (1529-1608), court sculptor to three Medici grand dukes. "The equivalent to that would be finding an unknown Bronzino portrait, which would cost £10 million," says Dino Tomasso. Prometheus is on the market for about £1 million.

And another:

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Tomasso Brothers

The Mayor of Boston, Thomas Menino (right), is sharply raising the fee many non-profits, including museums. must pay to the city in lieu of taxes. It's an understatement to say that's bad news in this wobbly economic environment.

Here's the full story from The Art Newspaper's January issue. The Museum of Fine Arts would have to pay $250,000 this year (up from $46,000 to $65,000), rising to $1 million by 2016.

So where's the organized opposition from other museums? In 2009, when Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell tried to tax admissions, memberships and programs at museums and other non-profits, the Association of Art Museum Directors jumped into the fray and issued a statement of opposition.

I praised the organization for acting swiftly for a change. The letter to Rendell, copied to several other Pennsylvania legislators, is inexplicably not available on the AAMD website at the moment. But here were the key words of then-president Michael Conforti:

...this tax is nothing short of a tax on education. Museums, along with other cultural institutions, provide unparalleled educational opportunities for the young people of Pennsylvania, families supporting their children's learning, adults seeking spiritual and psychological nourishment, and everyone looking for affordable and uplifting leisure activities at a time of economic challenge. Levying a tax on participation in educational programs and experiences will only discourage the public from taking advantage of Pennsylvania's wide range of cultural resources.

Moreover, the proposed expansion of the sales tax will erode the substantial positive economic impact of your state's cultural institutions: non-profit organizations in Pennsylvania generate $1.99 billion in economic activity each year.

Checking the AAMD's website to make sure I did not miss a statement about Boston, I found nothing.

As Malcolm Rogers, MFA's director, wrote in an op-ed for The Art Newspaper, "When civic leaders look to cultural organisations as a source of revenue, rather than as an invaluable resource for the communities they serve, it has dire implications nationwide."

Worse, Menino seems to be penalizing museums for success: MFA's fee is rising, as is the Institute for Contemporary Art's, because they've successfully expanded. It's like a real estate tax assessment.

This is not a new issue. Rogers has been fulminating about it since at least October. As my friend, Globe columnist Alex Beam, wrote that month:

Curiouser still, the nonprofits prefer to hang separately rather than form a coalition to negotiate with the mayor. Practically every college, hospital, or art museum has some urban bigshot on the board of directors who supposedly has juice in the mayor's office. (Menino himself is an MFA trustee, although he hasn't attended a meeting in at least 17 years.) Some institutions - Harvard and Boston College, for example - squawk more than others. But when push comes to shove, most of them pay pretty close to what the mayor asks.

So you can't blame the holidays for inaction, AAMD brass. You've had plenty of time to consider what can be said to be helpful.