CultureGrrl

Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

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MoMA’s New Education Wing: A Kinder, Gentler Taniguchi

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MoMA's new Archive Reading Room, with a view of St. Thomas Church © 2006 Timothy Hursley From the fleeting impressions I got during yesterday's brief press tour of the public spaces in the Museum of Modern Art's new Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building, it appears that architect Yoshio Taniguchi's design concepts for MoMA work better here, on a more … [Read more...] about MoMA’s New Education Wing: A Kinder, Gentler Taniguchi

Getty Antiquities Mess: Brand Takes a Stand; True Faces New Charges

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The following are excerpts from a press release just in from the J. Paul Getty Museum (and not yet up on its website): The Getty has decided to return to Italy...26 objects---including a number of highly significant works of art---despite the [Italian Culture] Ministry's apparent repudiation of an agreement signed jointly by representatives of the Ministry and the Getty in … [Read more...] about Getty Antiquities Mess: Brand Takes a Stand; True Faces New Charges

Are You Ready for the New Mega-Mega MoMA?

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MoMA's New Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building Did you maybe think that the new mega-MoMA (with its new eight-story, 63,000-square-foot Education and Research Building poised to open next Tuesday) was big enough to accommodate its needs for the rest of this century? Clearly you lack the vision and expansionist appetites of Glenn Lowry, director of the … [Read more...] about Are You Ready for the New Mega-Mega MoMA?

New Wrinkles in Philly’s Save-the-Eakins Campaign

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Here's an enterprising use of the Internet: The fundraising campaign, led by the Philadelphia Museum, to keep Eakins' "The Gross Clinic" in Philadelphia now has a website for online donations. Thomas Jefferson University has given local institutions and the general Philly community until Dec. 26 to match the $68 million jointly offered for the painting by Wal-Mart heiress Alice … [Read more...] about New Wrinkles in Philly’s Save-the-Eakins Campaign

Anonymous BlogBack on the Goya Theft

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Before yesterday's happy news about the FBI's recovery of the Toledo Museum's Goya, a CultureGrrl reader employed at an art museum (not Toledo or the Guggenheim) shared his reactions to the shipping slip-ups that reportedly contributed to the theft. His own museum, he said, had a previous incident in which art transporters had wanted "to stop at a motel under non-emergency … [Read more...] about Anonymous BlogBack on the Goya Theft

They Found It! Goya Recovered by FBI

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Thanks to tips received as a result of "comprehensive media coverage of the theft," Goya's "Children With a Cart," stolen en route from the Toledo Museum to the Guggenheim Museum, has been recovered in Newark and "appears to be unharmed," the FBI announced today. Previous news reports that suggested the theft had probably been an "inside job" were incorrect, federal agents … [Read more...] about They Found It! Goya Recovered by FBI

Letters from the Fractional-Gifts Lobby

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Go here to find links to letters recently sent to the Senate Finance Committee by the Association of Art Museum Directors, Art Institute of Chicago, Guggenheim Foundation, Los Angeles County Museum, Whitney Museum and Metropolitan Museum, requesting changes in the newly restrictive tax law provisions affecting fractional gifts of artworks to museums. You can read them along … [Read more...] about Letters from the Fractional-Gifts Lobby

Who Bought the Pollock?

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My answer to this burning question: I don't know and I don't much care. What's more interesting to me is that NY Times art-market reporter Carol Vogel felt compelled to defend her reputation for accuracy by repeatedly asserting that Mexican financier David Martinez, whom she called "obsessively private," is now the proud owner of ''No. 5, 1948.'' Vogel says that painting was … [Read more...] about Who Bought the Pollock?

My Very Own Cardoon

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Who need's Otto's Pizzeria? On this, my actual birthday, I headed to the local supermarket to buy myself a present. ("Cardone," on the label, is a variant of "cardoon.") Admittedly, my example is not nearly as attractive as the one I first spotted at the Guggenheim. It does not sport any of the pinkish tint that helps make Juan Sánchez Cotán's vegetable so strangely … [Read more...] about My Very Own Cardoon

Cardoon Karma

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An important cardoon update from faithful CultureGrrl reader Rob Krulak, a development officer at the Brooklyn Museum: Cardoons are on the menu almost every fall (including this one) at Otto Enoteca/Pizzeria on East 8th St. They taste kind of like artichokes, but crunch kind of like celery---in case you want to round out your Cotán experience. Sounds like a perfect … [Read more...] about Cardoon Karma

Guggenheim’s Extraordinary Spanish Extravaganza

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Juan Sánchez Cotán (1560-1627), "Still Life with Fruit and Vegetables," ca. 1602, Collection Várez Fisa, Madrid In his NY Times review today of the Guggenheim's just opened Spanish Painting from El Greco to Picasso, Michael Kimmelman leads with three paragraphs archly questioning the museum's motives. Then he finally gets around to calling the show "very grand and quite … [Read more...] about Guggenheim’s Extraordinary Spanish Extravaganza

Eric Gibson of the WSJ on Fractional Gifts and Collection-Building

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A must read on the Taste page of today's Wall Street Journal: Eric Gibson, editor of the paper's "Leisure & Arts" page, thoughtfully examines the controversy over recent tax-law changes that severely restrict fractional gifts of works of art to museums. And he advances the discussion by considering this hot-button issue in the broader context of museum collection-building and … [Read more...] about Eric Gibson of the WSJ on Fractional Gifts and Collection-Building

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