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How do you impose a news embargo until tomorrow on information that you have made available online to the entire world today? I just found out from Richard Lacayo's blog, Looking Around, that Richard Rogers, co-designer with Renzo Piano of Paris' Pompidou Center and, more recently, architect of Terminal 4 in Barajas Airport, Madrid, has been named this year's winner of … [Read more...] about Richard Rogers Gets the Pritzker: The News Embargo Heard Round the World

Carol Kino's article in today's NY Times "Museums" section about Stolen Artworks and the Lawyers Who Reclaim Them (less charitably termed "Bounty Hunters" in the headline of Kelly Crow's Wall Street Journal article on the same theme last Friday) has reminded me to follow up on a celebrated artworld case about which I wrote the following for the WSJ, back in 1999: If there were … [Read more...] about Free “Portrait of Wally”!

UPDATE: Eric Gibson has an insightful piece in today's Wall Street Journal about Small's failings and what needs to be done to improve the Smithsonian's governance here. (That piece mentions me.) Cristián Samper, acting secretary of the Smithsonian Institution since the sudden resignation of Lawrence Small, already has his hands full: It was announced yesterday that he accepted … [Read more...] about Another Smithsonian Resignation and Musings on a “Future” That’s Already Here

I'm going to have to issue a little disclaimer about my last post, which was intended (obviously, I thought) as a spoof. A highly sophisticated communications officer for a major museum (who shall remain nameless to protect the credulous) has just sent me this anxious e-mail: The Grassley reference is a joke, no? YES, OF COURSE it was a joke! I guess I should have realized that … [Read more...] about GrassleyPhobia: A Sign of the Times

UPDATE: The link for the Museums section is here. Tomorrow's the moment you've all been waiting for---publication day for the NY Times' special Museums section, which this year promises us "a look at the growing number of contemporary art museums and at the interplay between them and the art market" (i.e., selling older art to buy the next new thing?). The Times will also … [Read more...] about NY Times “Museums” Section Tomorrow: A Sneak Peek at the Ads

Steven Miller, executive director of the Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ, and adjunct faculty member at Seton Hall University's graduate program in museum professions, responds to The Secretary Vanishes: Smithsonian's Lawrence Small Resigns: I think the best news in the museum world today is the resignation of Larry Small at the Smithsonian. He never should have been hired in the … [Read more...] about BlogBack: Museum Director Steven Miller on Lawrence Small’s Sudden Disappearance

Lawrence Small, chief officer of the Smithsonian Institution, has resigned effective immediately. He had been under fire for unauthorized expenses (here and here). Today's Smithsonian press release that announced the resignation reports: Cristián Samper (sam-PAIR), director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, will be Acting Secretary while the Regents … [Read more...] about The Secretary Vanishes: Smithsonian’s Lawrence Small Resigns

Albright-Knox objects offered Friday at Sotheby's auction of Indian and Southeast Asian art were hammered down for a total of $6.1 million, bringing the grand hammer-price total (including Tuesday's Chinese art sale) to $22.2 million. More sales to come. The highlight of Friday's deaccessions was the life-size granite figure of Shiva as Brahma, Chola Period, ca. 10th-/11th … [Read more...] about Albright-Knox Disposals: More Windfalls and Fallout

IAC Headquarters as a Billboard Backdrop In his appraisal of Frank Gehry's new building in New York for IAC, Barry Diller's media and internet empire, the NY Times' architecture critic, Nicolai Ouroussoff, writes: Mr. Gehry's structure...looks best when approached from a distance....Viewed from the south, the forms appear more blocky. This constantly changing character imbues … [Read more...] about The Gap in Ouroussoff’s Gehry Appraisal

The Senate yesterday passed by voice vote a budgetary amendment introduced by that scourge of museums, Sen. Charles Grassley, that would freeze a planned $17-million increase for the Smithsonian Institution until it complies with a detailed list of strictures regarding employee compensation and ethics. As noted in Grassley's press release, the amendment still needs to survive … [Read more...] about War and Peace: More Smithsonian Conflicts Erupt; Truce Declared in Elbowed Picasso Dispute

Linda Nochlin at the "Global Feminisms" Press Preview At a time when the Feminist Movement is struggling for acknowledgment, if not allegiance, from the high-achieving young women who have benefited from it, along comes the new Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, trying to perk up that drooping "ism" for the 21st century through its inaugural … [Read more...] about Sisterhood is Dispiriting: Power to the Curators at Brooklyn’s New Feminist Enclave

Saving Antiquities for Everyone (SAFE) recently posted this powerful video (on its website and on YouTube) of Donny George Youkhanna, expatriate former director general of the Iraq National Museum, discussing the looting of his former museum and of archeological sites in Iraq. He is now visiting professor at Stony Brook University, New York. … [Read more...] about “Remember Iraq’s Heritage, Our Heritage”: Donny George’s Video

Listen up: You don't have to pay "more than $40 million" for David Rockefeller's 1950 Rothko, "White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose)," which he's dispatching to Sotheby's May 15 contemporary sale (as reported by Carol Vogel in today's NY Times). Why pay a fortune to David, when for just $295, you can get this "100% hand-painted" version of the same painting, on … [Read more...] about Buy Your Own Rockefeller Rothko—Just $295, with Free Shipping!

The Smithsonian American Art Museum, on its blog, Eye Level, gives as good as it gets today, by enumerating its accomplishments in direct response to the recent Smithsonian-commissioned report on its art museums. That report, made public two days ago, was sharply critical of SAAM's "intellectual approach to the presentation of the collections and exhibitions, which have … [Read more...] about SAAM Strikes Back

MAN and the Grrl at odds again---but this time we're respectfully disagreeing, rather than lobbing weapons of blog destruction. We have expressed opposite views on Michael Govan, who had approved an already in-the-works sale of an ancient Indian art from LACMA's collection, but then snatched it from the market and was admirably outspoken against undertaking such deaccessions in … [Read more...] about Bloggers at Loggerheads Again—But Nicely