CultureGrrl

At some cultural institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum, naming rights can have expiration dates. That famously happened with the renovation of the former André Meyer Galleries for the Metropolitan Museum's 19th-century European paintings, and it looks like it's about to happen at the Met again: Move over, Lila Acheson Wallace! It seems that the late co-founder and … [Read more...] about Oscar Tang Dynasty: Met Renames Wing for $125-Million Donor & Ups Its “Emergency Relief Fund” to $100 Million

The Brooklyn Museum, which on Monday announced its landmark gift of a whopping $50 million from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (with Brooklynite Mayor Bill de Blasio personally delivering a giant check designated for "Gallery Improvements"), prides itself on the diversity of its audience and programming. But how diverse is its staff? Or, to ask that … [Read more...] about The Brooklyn Museum’s $50-Million Windfall & Its Diversity Deficiency CORRECTED

Prado museum downgrades Leonardo's $450m Salvator Mundi in exhibition catalogue I rubbed my eyes in disbelief at the above headline from Martin Bailey's recent piece in The Art Newspaper (republished Tuesday by CNN Style without a paywall). Since when, I wondered, had Spain's national museum become an arbiter of Leonardo attribution? If nothing else, Bailey's report provided … [Read more...] about “Mundi” Fun Day: The Prado Joins “Salvator’s” Detractors; Modestini, Its Restorer, Again Argues It’s a Leonardo

I paid a belated visit to the Metropolitan Museum's Modern Times: British Prints, 1913–1939 on Monday, having already published a post expressing my skepticism about the advance hype for the museum's "transformative acquisition" of the "renowned collection." What I saw confirmed my conjecture that the size of the acquisition from the Leslie & Johanna Garfield … [Read more...] about Pucker Up: Skittish About the British at Metropolitan Museum’s Prints Stint UPDATED

A mystifying missive hit my inbox last week, announcing that the Metropolitan Museum had recently acquired "more than 700 works from the [Leslie and Johanna] Garfield collection, [which] establishes the museum as a leading institution for early to mid-20th century British modernist prints and drawings" (dating from 1913 to 1939). Being a "leading institution" in a narrow … [Read more...] about The Metropolitan Museum’s Fugitive Works on Paper: Easy Come, Easy Go CORRECTED

As an art critic, I frequently attend press previews (or I did, pre-pandemic), which grant journalist/critics the privilege of touring museum exhibitions with highly knowledgeable curators as guides. As such, my reaction was complicated regarding the current controversy over whether to eliminate the use of volunteer docents as tour guides for the average visitor. (The links are … [Read more...] about Should Docents Be Canceled? My Contrarian Take on the Controversy

An occupational hazard of my advanced age has been a sense of sad obligation to post appreciative obits of associates with whom I've enjoyed warm professional relationships. In the interests of journalistic distance, I tend to keep my contacts at arms length, rather than befriending them. But I still take personally the loss of those who have worked with me and helped me gain … [Read more...] about A Morbid Month of Artworld Losses: Kenneth Baker, David Finn, Michael Sillerman

When an object at auction fetches many multiples of its expected price, as happened with the Newark Museum's recent sale of a Dan Peoples mask for $15,000---a whopping 50 times its estimate of $300---either the owner and the auction house are clueless about what they are offering, or at least two competing buyers believe it's something that's much more valuable than the seller … [Read more...] about Newark Museum’s Dan Mask Fetches 50 Xs Its High Estimate; Banksy’s “Balloon”/”Bin” Wafts to $25.4m

Chris Crosman, founding chief curator of Crystal Bridges Museum, tipped me off this week to the Newark Museum of Art's 217-lot deaccession binge, in progress at this writing at Millea Bros., a self-described "boutique auction company" previously unknown to me, even though its home base---Boonton, NJ---is a mere 33 miles west of my own home (and 21 miles northwest of the Newark … [Read more...] about Newark Museum’s Latest Deaccession Misdirection: Offloading African Objects (& other dubious disposals)

UPDATE: This just in---"President Biden announced his intent to nominate Shelly Lowe as the 12th Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)." A citizen of the Navajo Nation and currently a member of the National Council on the Humanities, she would replace acting chairman Adam Wolfson (pictured and quoted below). The Toledo Museum of Art is one of the 292 … [Read more...] about Hidden Agenda? NEH Privileges “DEIA” Support in Awarding Grants Under Biden’s “American Rescue Plan” UPDATED

Just as Donald Trump was (thankfully) denied his repeatedly expressed wish to eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, will President Biden be thwarted in his own plans for the NEA---a proposed record allocation of $201 million for that agency? Budget numbers are in play as our fractious Congress operates under its short-term spending bill, which provides … [Read more...] about Budget or Fudge It? Will NEA & NEH Actually Get Their “Historic Increase” in Federal Arts & Humanities Funds?

Perhaps "good riddance" would be an appropriate bicoastal response to the slaps in the face that culture-lovers in New York and Los Angeles suffered this month at the hands of fickle artistic leaders. Amsterdam-born Jaap van Zweden's unexpected announcement on Sept. 15 that he would terminate his relatively brief tenure as music director of the New York Philharmonic at the end … [Read more...] about Jaap & Klaus to Flee to Their European Homelands, Terminating Tenuous Tenures at NY Phil & LA MOCA

My personal reflections on The Two-Decade Anniversary of 9/11, in which I took issue with the harsh critique of the 9/11 Memorial Museum by Washington Post art critic Philip Kennicott, struck a chord with the president and founding director of that museum, which opened in 2014 at the site of the 2001 attack on the twin towers at the World Trade Center: Alice Greenwald … [Read more...] about BlogBack: Alice Greenwald, 9/11 Museum’s Head, Responds to My Post on the Attack’s 20th Anniversary

Everyone who resided in the NYC metropolitan area on 9/11/01 has his or her own personal story related to their experiences on that cataclysmic day. Mine is recounted here, in my CultureGrrl post for the one-decade anniversary of that terrifying, terrible occasion. My husband is enrolled in the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund and the World Trade Center Health Program, by … [Read more...] about The Two-Decade Anniversary of 9/11: My Own Reminiscence & Reflections

Soon after posting on Thursday about the National Gallery of Art's cancelation of its A Superb Baroque: Art in Genoa, 1600–1750, I myself got canceled---laid low by a bad reaction to my Covid booster shot, from which I have now recovered. Before I became nonfunctional, I managed to shoot off a series of questions to the NGA's press office, regarding what had seemed to me an … [Read more...] about “Superb Baroque” Debacle: A Blow-by-Blow on the National Gallery’s No-Show Show