Archives for January 2019

After a much delayed $50-million renovation and expansion, Dartmouth College's 65,000-object Hood Museum of Art at last reopened on Jan. 26 with six new art galleries, three new study galleries and three classrooms equipped with "the latest object-study technology." The museum's total area of 62,400 square feet represents an increase of over 50 percent and provides a 42% … [Read more...] about How Good is the Hood? Dartmouth’s Expanded Art Museum Reopens CLARIFIED and UPDATED

In his Wall Street Journal review last week of the Metropolitan Museum's provocative new installation, Art of Native America: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection, veteran cultural journalist Edward Rothstein once again demonstrated a lack of tolerance for exhibitions of American Indian art that explore the societies' injustices and hardships, rather than sticking with … [Read more...] about “Woke” Museums: Metropolitan’s Diker Display Fuels a Growing Debate on “Identity Politics”

Visitors who had scored timed entry passes for a Martin Luther King Day pilgrimage to the deeply engrossing, profoundly moving National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in DC were out of luck: Its doors remained locked today, due to the federal government shutdown. (Pass holders will eventually be sent instructions on how to reschedule.) I tweeted … [Read more...] about For MLK Day: Recap of My Visit to the National Museum of African American History & Culture

Without no permanent director and no home in which to display highlights from its 7,700-object collection of American art, the shuttered National Academy of Design (NAD), New York, is extricating some 100 key works from long-term storage to send them on a three-year, eight-venue national tour, beginning next month, under the auspices of the American Federation of Arts. "Get … [Read more...] about “Exciting Future”? Monitoring the Uncertain Condition of the Embattled National Academy

It's always dangerous for a critic to bring preconceptions to an exhibition she hasn't seen yet. But it's a pitfall that I sometimes fall into, against my better judgment. I went out on a limb in October when I optimistically touted an exhibition that wasn't opening at the Metropolitan Museum until mid-December---Epic Abstraction: Pollock to Herrera, organized by Randall … [Read more...] about Abstraction Dejection: Riffing with Griffey at the Metropolitan Museum

It's been a bad-news month for the Smithsonian: On Dec. 20, Secretary David Skorton, a cardiologist-turned-administrator, announced he'd be leaving his Smithsonian post on June 15 to become president and CEO of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC---initials that mean something else to art aficionados). He has arguably been the most successful, least embattled … [Read more...] about Smithsonian Pandemonium: Skorton Leaves, Museums Shuttered

In this Era of Bad Feelings, when so many of our fractious political and cultural conversations have been driven by the dangerously erratic course of a President lacking a GPS, I savored a feel-good moment last February when I covered the high spirited friends-and-family reunion of the Obama Administration (linked below)---the high point of my 2018 professional … [Read more...] about The Year in CultureGrrl: Impolitic About Art & Politics