CultureGrrl

The Metropolitan Museum's premature revelation that it might take advantage of the Association of Art Museum Directors' relaxed deaccession standards, by selling art to help pay for "care of the collection," was an object lesson in how not to roll out a controversial, temporary policy change. The predictable chorus of condemnation that ensued caught the attention of NPR's … [Read more...] about Pandemic Polemics: Metropolitan Museum’s Off-Key NPR Message vs. Cleveland’s Harmonious Storage Show UPDATED

We haven't reached the promised land. We've got a long way to go. The above marching orders, alluding to the words of Martin Luther King Jr.'s last speech, are the last words of the widely praised HBO documentary, Black Art: In the Absence of Light. They were spoken by the late art historian and artist David Driskell, whose landmark 1976 exhibition, Two Centuries of Black … [Read more...] about “Black Art’s” Blackout: Who’s Absent from HBO’s Survey of “Today’s Top African American Artists”?

I once impetuously declared that Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art since 2006, was "worth a million bucks." But the shocking images of the demolition of four buildings from a museum that I've admired and enjoyed during my visits to LA over several decades jolted me out of the trance that had kept me under the influence of LACMA's charismatic … [Read more...] about Can a New LACMA Rise from the Rubble? Quaffing Michael Govan’s Kool-Aid

LACMA has now fleshed out its cryptic response to my questions sent last weekend about the possible impact of the nearby tar pits on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's sweeping capital project. Consulting with its building team to provide more detailed answers to my follow-up questions, Jessica Youn, the museum’s interim communications director, sent me this: ROSENBAUM: … [Read more...] about Another Dip into the Viscous Pit: My Q&A Follow-Up on LACMA’s Crane Drain

In decades of covering new, expanded and renovated museum buildings, I've mostly refrained from "reviewing" a building that hasn't gone up yet. That's why I've hung back from weighing in on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's self-destructive (literally) capital project-in-progress, which has now leveled most of the museum's longstanding buildings (designed by William … [Read more...] about Govan’s Folly? Stuck in the LACMA Quagmire

Laura Baptiste, the Smithsonian American Art Museum's (SAAM's) always helpful chief of communications and public affairs, found herself fielding misinformation disseminated in a number of news reports after Wednesday's Presidential Inauguration festivities. She scrambled to set the record straight about Robert Duncanson's suddenly famous “Landscape with Rainbow,” after several … [Read more...] about Looking for a Fugitive Rainbow—a Very Transient “Gift” to the Bidens

In a jolting inauguration installation, marred by unintentionally dark symbolism that, hopefully, wasn't discerned by the Bidens, this afternoon's celebration after the joyful swearing-in of the new President and Vice President included a brief walk through the Capitol rotunda led by Missouri Senator Roy Blunt, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Am I the … [Read more...] about Ominous Juxtaposition? Biden Flanked by Duncanson’s “Rainbow” & Statue of a Murdered President

Throwing caution to the winds, the Metropolitan Museum today went beyond the more measured words of a few other museums in its angry call to "bring to justice those responsible" for the "criminal actions" at the Capitol on Jan. 6. The Met's official Statement on Capitol Desecration, signed by Daniel Weiss, president and CEO, and Max Hollein, director, began with this … [Read more...] about Capitol Offense: Metropolitan Museum Blasts “Domestic Terrorism” by “Treasonous Rioters”

This was a week when blogging-as-usual struck me as irredeemably frivolous. Trying to promulgate commentary about art and the artworld seemed fatuous, at a time when our nation's adherence to the rule of law, reason and humane values (and even its very existence) seemed at stake. Shell shocked and blocked, I found unexpected inspiration to continue my life as CultureGrrl … [Read more...] about The Architect of the Capitol Assesses the Damage: Our Nation’s Art & Architecture (if we can keep it)

This was the year when I had to solve this conundrum: How do you sustain an art blog when the only art you've seen since early February is what's in your own apartment? As someone in a virus-vulnerable category (seniors), I've been ultra-cautious and led a mostly boring life since the pandemic hit: Not only did I eschew museums; I haven't even ventured into Manhattan … [Read more...] about The Year in CultureGrrl, 2020 Edition: It’s not over until the Deaccession Diva sings

I didn't disclose my contrarian reaction to the Whitney Museum’s ambitious, widely acclaimed Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945 at the time when it opened last February. But with it now in the last stretch of its run (extended to Jan. 31, due to the Covid pause), I feel less compunction about tempering the praise lavished by art critics on this … [Read more...] about New York Chauvinism? “Groundbreaking” Show at the Whitney Builds on Dartmouth College’s Lead

Artnet's art-market reporter Eileen Kinsella beat me to the punch today in reporting on Sotheby's rebuttal of the NY Attorney General's complaint that accused the auction house of complicity in a client's allegedly "fraudulent avoidance of sales tax." Eileen cited but didn't link to Sotheby's 27-page Memorandum of Law, which seeks the court's dismissal of the AG's complaint. … [Read more...] about “No Duty to Police Clients”? The Continuing Saga of NY Attorney General’s Sales-Tax Suit vs. Sotheby’s

While many museums are experimenting with quirky new ways of organizing (or disorganizing) their permanent-collection displays, the Frick Collection, currently closed, is going in the opposite direction: It will use its planned temporary occupation of the Whitney Museum-owned Breuer building (the eventual fate of which is still undetermined) as an opportunity to unveil a more … [Read more...] about Frick Tricks: Reinvention to Convention, as Peripatetic Displays Move from Brutalist to Beaux Arts (with cocktails)

The sorry tale of of the Baltimore Museum of Art's (BMA's) deaccession debacle, chronicled on this blog in real time in successive posts (six links), got a comprehensive recap on Sunday from the indispensable Sebastian Smee and Peggy McGlone of the Washington Post. Their main takeaway from this saga is that "the still-reverberating controversy didn’t just leave … [Read more...] about Deaccession Dejection: Whither the Embattled Baltimore Museum of Art? (plus: Brooklyn’s castoffs)

An expression that I've always liked has particular resonance in these times when nothing seems certain about whether or when we can resume life as we once knew it. Derived from a Yiddish proverb, this saying was popularized by Woody Allen: If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.[Yiddish Proverb: “Der mentsh trakht un got lakht."---Man thinks. God … [Read more...] about A Role Fit for Me: Who Will Play Alice Walton in Upcoming Netflix Series? (& other dubious plans)