Archives for 2009

Charles Deas, "The Long Jakes, Rocky Mountain Man," Denver Art Museum and Anschutz CollectionThe Association of Art Museum Directors needs to revisit its entire policy on deaccessioning, as I recently recommended here. This imperative seems all the more urgent in light of the statement released by AAMD today, implicitly criticizing what it described as "the Denver Art Museum's … [Read more...] about AAMD Issues Statement Against “Fractional Deaccessions” to Private Buyers

One of these sponsors is not like the others. The Guggenheim Museum's The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860-1989 was a great idea in search of a masterful curator. Inspired by the laudable ambition to present a sweeping overview of Asian influences on American art, this conglomeration of diverse works---some strongly influenced by Asian art, philosophy or … [Read more...] about Pay to Play? Curator Brings Own Funding to Guggenheim’s “The Third Mind”

Remember my Don't Drop that Duccio! post, where I poked fun at the publicity image, below, of the Metropolitan Museum's then director, Philippe de Montebello, caressing the mega-million Duccio with his bare hands?Well, now that the museum has initiated the "It's Time We Met" advertising campaign, it's time Philippe met Chris Canahui, who posted this photo on the museum's own … [Read more...] about Met 2.0: Philippe Ogles Etch-a-Sketch; Tom Wants You to Ape the Art

Telfair Museum, Savannah, GA, originator of the "Dutch Utopia" showIt's not nice to fool CultureGrrl.When someone is stepping up to a higher position and seems smart, well-spoken but under-experienced, you search for things he's done that indicate he's ready for the Big Move.That's what I did when I recently interviewed Eric Lee, who ascends in March from the directorship of … [Read more...] about Eric Lee, Kimbell’s Director-Elect, Aces CultureGrrl’s Quiz, Gets Caught Cribbing

No more postings until tomorrow...maybe. With my right column again empty, I'm disinclined to fill the left column. You can fix this.But I must warmly thank one CultureGrrl reader who, having nothing himself to promote, responded to my CultureGrrl Ad Drive by purchasing an "ad" without posting one. Phantom ads...now THAT'S a fan! I guess I'll have to write for him tomorrow. … [Read more...] about A Day Without Ads; A Day Without CultureGrrl

Adolfo Guzman-LopezKPCC radio reporter Adolfo Guzman-Lopez yesterday revisited the Ban Chiang antiquities investigation, which came to the public's attention a little more than a year ago, with high-profile raids by federal investigators of four California museums.You can listen to the KPCC report and read the transcript, here. He includes a brief comment from me on the broader … [Read more...] about My Antiquities Sound Bite on Southern California Public Radio

Left: Picasso, "Boy Leading a Horse, 1905-6, Museum of Modern ArtBelow: Picasso, "Le Moulin de la Galette," 1900, Guggenheim MuseumRather than go to trial over the fate of two of their most prized Picassos, Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation have just agreed to a settlement (terms undisclosed) with heirs of Paul and Elsa von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, the … [Read more...] about About-Face: MoMA and Guggenheim Settle with Heirs of Nazi-Era Owners of Major Picassos

Reporting on its midwinter meeting of more than 100 museum directors, the Association of Art Museum Directors has just posted a statement on its website expressing "strong objection to Brandeis University's proposed plan to close the Rose Art Museum and sell its collection." AAMD also "offered its support to the University in exploring alternatives to this drastic act." As for … [Read more...] about AAMD Offers Help to Brandeis, Dresses Down Denver, Reaffirms National Academy Censure (but could reconsider)

Roberta SmithKudos to the NY Times' indispensable art critic, Roberta Smith, for hitting the road and bringing us her on-location elucidation of why the endangered Rose Art Museum is important and deserves to live. She got the 19-year-old-sophomore sound bite and even enlisted a photographer, Erik Jacobs, to shoot the protest signs papering the museum's entrance. There's no … [Read more...] about Ms. Smith Goes to Waltham: Strong NY Times Opinion Piece Against “Trashing” the Rose

Soon to be sold? Willem de Kooning, "Untitled," 1961, Rose Art Museum, loaned last fall to Haunch of Venison gallery[CORRECTION: My original posting erroneously reported that Michael Rush's piece appeared in "the February Art Newsletter." It was The Art Newspaper. My apologies.]Michael Rush, the director of the Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA, must have been cringing at the … [Read more...] about Department of Bad Loans: Michael Rush’s Just-Published Article Defends Rose Museum’s Haunch of Venison Nexus CORRECTED

The strongest commentary yet on the proposed Rose Art Museum dissolution comes from David Bonetti, Brandeis '69 and veteran art critic of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. His one-word description of his reaction---"fury." There's much more: The Rose Art Museum, then [when Bonetti attended Brandeis] one of the few museums in the country devoted to contemporary art, was … [Read more...] about Should Brandeis President Reinharz Be Deaccessioned?

Jeremy Strick, at the old placeI look forward to working with a talented staff and committed board to create a program that through its quality, scope, and ambition will capture the attention of the world.So says Jeremy Strick in the press release announcing the appointment of the formerly embattled director of LA MOCA to his fresh new gig as director of the marvelous but … [Read more...] about Nasher Flash: Strick-ly Speaking, It’s a Good Match

I've got lots of posts in (Third) mind to do, but first I've got to get out that application for the award that I previously mentioned (and that I won't get). To divert me further, my doctoral-candidate daughter, also applying for an award, has just e-mailed me, for my editorial guidance, a 22-page paper entitled, "Enhanced Sound Propagation Modeling of Aviation Noise: Hybrid … [Read more...] about Rosenbaum Awards Day: We Interrupt this Blog…

The late Olga RaggioA Metropolitan Museum assistant museum librarian, Stephanie Post, who took pity on me in my vain search for a photo to accompany my Wednesday night Olga Raggio obit, has sent me the above image from a luncheon given for the longtime Met curator when she stepped down as chairman of European sculpture and decorative arts.Stephanie writes:I was touched that you … [Read more...] about Olga Raggio, Remembered by Met Staffer

Ford Bell, AAM's president, speaking Monday at New York UniversityI was wondering what was taking them so long. We have already heard from AAMD and ACUMG, CAA and a group of contemporary museums, and AAMC. But AAM's statement on the Rose woes was well worth the wait:Taking a page out of the CultureGrrl book (4th paragraph), or, more likely, illustrating the maxim that "great … [Read more...] about AAM’s Brandeis Statement: The Rose Collection in Any Other Museum Would Smell (almost) as Sweet