Archives for November 2017

UPDATE 11/30: For some reason, my "Donate" button stopped working earlier today, which I discovered after wondering why last night's flood of responses (thanks so much!) had stopped cold today. ArtsJournal's tech gurus have now vanquished the gremlins. If your attempt contribute was thwarted, please try again (after reloading my blog page). Since losing my decades-long Wall … [Read more...] about Beggar Blogger: Please Support CultureGrrl UPDATED

In her recent NY Times piece, Robin Pogrebin provided an upbeat assessment of the Metropolitan Museum's financial progress, as conveyed to her by president and CEO Daniel Weiss in a wide-ranging interview. Arriving as president in July 2015 with a mandate to clean up the Met Mess, Weiss expanded his portfolio after the departure of director Tom Campbell, who had left the place … [Read more...] about Dan’s Plans, Redrafted: Revelations in Metropolitan Museum’s FY17 Annual Report CLARIFIED & CORRECTED

With surprising disregard for the facts, the Boston Globe's editorial writers yesterday flatly (and wrongly) asserted that the Berkshire Museum needs to sell "40 of the museum’s most valuable works" in order to "remain viable." There's no excuse for this ill-informed take on the controversy over the museum's deplorable deaccessions, given the exhaustive examination of the … [Read more...] about False Dichotomy: Boston Globe’s Deaccession-or-Die Editorial on the Berkshire Museum UPDATED

Last night's Contemporary Art sale at Christie's, headlined by a certain very non-contemporary religious painting, was a hard act for Sotheby's to follow. It did interpose its own anomalous lot to jazz things up---a red Ferrari. For the most part, though, the offerings tonight were less than spectacular and the bidding was mostly slow. The action was more lively for the … [Read more...] about “Sotheby’s Drudgery”: My Live Tweets on a Contemporary Art Sale Short on Excitement

While we're all still coming to terms with the fact that a damaged 26" x 18" oil-on-walnut painted panel has just sold for $450.3 million, here's a potential scoop that is based on some data, intuition, circumstantial evidence and my attempt to get confirmation: I have reason to believe that Kenneth Griffin, the Chicago hedge fund mogul, may have bankrolled yesterday's … [Read more...] about Did Ken Griffin Buy the Leonardo (or provide $$$ for Art Institute of Chicago to acquire it)? UPDATED

That surely wasn't the Getty or any other public (as opposed to single-collector) museum who plunked down a jaw-dropping $450-million after a dramatic 19-minute bidding war, the likes of which I've never seen, to acquire Leonardo da Vinci's damaged but still mesmerizing "Salvator Mundi." The bidding lurched from steady, small increments to vertiginous jumps, as the vying … [Read more...] about “Ballsy Bidding”: My Live Tweets on Leonardo’s (& Christie’s) $450-Million Jesus Superstar

"It belongs in a museum, with all the other Leonardos." So said conservator Dianne Dwyer Modestini at the end of a Wall Street Journal video posted early this morning, in connection with tonight's much-anticipated and highly hyped auction at Christie's of "Salvator Mundi." Here's Christ at Christie's, as seen by me at the Nov. 3 press preview: The WSJ's video of … [Read more...] about Apparition’s Condition: Will a Museum Buy Leonardo da Vinci’s Unsettling “Salvator Mundi”?

I was as surprised as you probably are that Al Jazeera, with its focus on international news (particularly as it relates to the Arab world), was interested in talking to me for a segment about the Berkshire Museum's deaccession controversy. But a camera crew journeyed to my New Jersey apartment to get my views for their broadcast that aired yesterday---"U.S. Judge Halts … [Read more...] about Strange Interlude: Al Jazeera Interviews Me About the Berkshire Museum (with video)

In their initial responses to last night's Massachusetts Appeals Court preliminary injunction, neither the Berkshire Museum nor Sotheby's has explicitly vowed to continue what could be a self-defeating legal fight in the museum's misguided attempt to sell works from its collection to bankroll purposes other than acquisitions and preservation of the collection. A wiser course … [Read more...] about Berkshire Museum’s Deaccession Debacle: Reactions of the Protagonists & Antagonists

Score one for Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. The Massachusetts Appeals Court tonight granted the preliminary injunction that she had sought in order to delay the controversial sales at Sotheby's of works from the Berkshire Museum's collection. The series of auctions containing the deaccessioned works was to have begun Monday with an American art sale that was … [Read more...] about News Flash: Massachusetts Appeals Court Delays Berkshire Museum Sales

Major update here. Now it gets really interesting. The Massachusetts Attorney General's Office has just filed a motion for an injunction pending its appeal of the Superior Court decision to allow Berkshire Museum's art sales this Monday at Sotheby's. You can read the full Appeals Court filing here. The AGO says its investigation "is not yet complete, but cites "the … [Read more...] about News Flash: Massachusetts Attorney General Files Appeals Court Motion to Enjoin Monday’s Berkshire Museum Sales

It's entirely in keeping with Rusty Powell's self-effacing nature that the National Gallery's homepage today is all about the art, with no hint of its big news: The museum's longest-serving director, who assumed that post in 1992, has announced his plans to retire in early 2019, when he'll be 75. As did Philippe de Montebello at the Metropolitan Museum, he's giving his … [Read more...] about Trusty Rusty: Powell to Retire from Longtime Gig at National Gallery

I wasn't invited to the Louvre Abu Dhabi's opening ceremonies today (no surprise), but I did get an emailed invitation to watch them livestreamed on the museum's Facebook page. Below is my tweeted account of that broadcast, which was abruptly interrupted without explanation, depriving us of what I assume were to have been speeches by the Louvre's director, Jean-Luc Martinez, … [Read more...] about Macron Magic: My Live Tweets of Louvre Abu Dhabi’s Aborted Livestream of Opening Ceremonies

It seems that the Attorney General Office's intervention in the Berkshire Museum case was too little, too late in the view of Judge John Agostini of Berkshire County Superior Court. He ruled this afternoon (full text here) that the museum could proceed with its controversial planned art sales, notwithstanding the opposition of several plaintiffs and the Attorney General's … [Read more...] about “Tepid Investigation” by the AG: Judge Permits Berkshire Museum Sales

In consigning its collection's 40 highest-valued artworks to Sotheby's, the Berkshire Museum tried to pull a fast one. That's not gonna wash. In a nutshell, that's the position taken by the Massachusetts Attorney General in her brief filed Monday (full text here) and in arguments yesterday in Berkshire County Superior Court. She chided the museum for "notify[ing] the AGO of … [Read more...] about Berkshire Bombshells: Revelations in the Attorney General’s Berkshire Museum Brief