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Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for September 23, 2020

An art museum sells its soul

September 23, 2020 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column, I write about the disastrous decision of a small museum in upstate New York to sell its only important painting—and what it means for the future of museum management in America. Is there an alternative? Maybe. Here’s an excerpt.

*  *  *

If you want to own a canvas by Jackson Pollock and have $18 million to spare (assuming the bidding doesn’t go even higher), Christie’s is putting one on the block in New York two weeks from now. One can only imagine the number of super-rich collectors who are salivating at the chance to buy “Red Composition (Painting 1946),” which is not only a compact (just under two feet wide), vividly colored epitome of Abstract Expressionism  but a work of high historical significance, Pollock’s second drip canvas ever. 

Should you plan to bid on it, though, you’d better brace yourself for controversy….

“Red Composition” is owned not by another wealthy collector but by the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, N.Y. It is by far the most important painting in the Everson, a small regional institution that specializes in American art. None of the other modern pieces in its permanent collection is remotely as significant, or as beautiful. Given the price tag, to sell “Red Composition” at auction almost certainly means that it will pass into private hands and never again be seen by the public….

According to the museum’s press release, it plans to use the proceeds to “establish a fund for acquiring works created by artists of color, women artists, and other under-represented contemporary and mid-career artists.” This is, needless to say, a wholly admirable goal, especially since the population of Syracuse is more than 50% non-white or Latino. But to seek to diversify the Everson by selling off the jewel of its collection flies in the face of a fundamental tenet of museum governance: An art museum is a public trust. In return for its special tax status and similar privileges, it is expected to treat its holdings with that fact firmly in mind….

Now consider the case of “Red Composition.” Not only is it the Everson’s sole destination piece, a work sufficiently important to justify paying a visit to an out-of-the-way art museum of no particular distinction, but it is the very embodiment of the Everson’s historic mission: In 1911, it became the first museum anywhere to dedicate itself to the collection of American art. How, then, is it possible for a museum of American art to rationalize selling the only truly great painting in its modest collection?

The answeris that it can’t….

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Read the whole thing here.

Snapshot: Buddy Rich plays “West Side Story”

September 23, 2020 by Terry Teachout

Buddy Rich and his big band perform a medley from West Side Story arranged by Bill Reddie on TV in 1969: 

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

Almanac: Brian Eno on technology

September 23, 2020 by Terry Teachout

“When technology makes it perfect, art loses.”

Brian Eno (quoted in Wired, January 1999)

Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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