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This just in from the J. Paul Getty Trust's press office---a joint statement announcing a tentative agreement with the Italian Ministry of Culture, forged today in Rome: The Italian government will receive from the Getty a number of very significant objects, including several masterpieces. In return, as a sign of fruitful dialogue and collaboration among the parties, Italy will … [Read more...] about The Getty Strikes a Deal

As I wrote in the Wall Street Journal, when I covered city approval hearings for the Museum of Modern Art's expansion project: "It is impossible to put a spade in the ground here without hitting bedrock resistance from neighbors and various advisory groups seeking to influence those who must approve the project." So it was yesterday at the Board of Standards and Appeals' … [Read more...] about Outtakes from Yesterday’s Whitney Hearing—Part I

I've been curious (if dubious) about the newfangled museum audioguides that can be accessed through one's own cell phone. On my recent visit to the always interesting and provocative Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, I finally dialed-a-painting from the museum's own version of the Yellow Pages (actually printed on a yellow page), called "Art on Call." You call the main number for … [Read more...] about Let Your Fingers Do the Walking at the Walker

Nazi victims or their heirs who have been fortunate enough to receive restitution of expropriated artworks get justifiably testy if anyone suggests that they consider anything but their own financial self-interest is determining the disposition of these works. After all, they are the rightful owners; no one else has any right to tell them what to do with privately owned art. As … [Read more...] about Restitution Resolutions—Cashing in on Artistic Assets

… [Read more...] about Coming Later Today: My Take on the Klimt

In my piece Hot Pots and Potshots, published in the April 2006 "Front Page" section of Art in America magazine, I noted that "a senior Getty official, requesting anonymity, hoped these negotiations [between Italian cultural officials and the Getty, over repatriation of antiquities] would have a 'positive impact' on [former antiquities curator Marion] True's legal woes, in … [Read more...] about True Liberation?

Reacting to Lee's Leon-teasing post of yesterday, my 22-year-old daughter Joyce has just one word: AGE-ISM!!! Aren't daughters a mother's worst critics?!? By the way, Neyfakh has followed up with another piece, in today's NY Sun, revealing that in 1995, when Grace Glueck had informed her editors at the NY Times of her appointment to the Clark Art Institute's board of trustees, … [Read more...] about From the Mouths of Babes

I recently suggested that museums should consider undertaking detailed reviews of their antiquities holdings, to identify and publish lists of works with murky provenance. Well, it looks like the Getty took care of the first half---identify---but forgot the second half---publish. An article in yesterday's LA Times reported that the Getty Trust's "internal review" of its … [Read more...] about The Getty’s Secret Census of Its Antiquities Trove

Having seen my lament that James Rosenquist's iconic "F-111" disappeared into storage after mega-MoMA's inaugural exhibition, curator Ann Temkin alerted me that the magnum opus is going back on display this week, in a space adjacent to "Artist's Choice: Herzog & de Meuron, Perception Restrained"---a show that has its press preview tomorrow and opens to the public on … [Read more...] about “F-111” Flies Again

I knew that yesterday was a slow news day at the NY Sun, but apparently they couldn't rustle up enough staff reporters either. Leon Neyfakh, who wrote today's piece on Grace Glueck's resignation from the board of the Clark Art Institute, is a Harvard undergrad lad---a summer intern at the paper. I figured that most of the Glueck-hounds were not her equals, but this is … [Read more...] about NY Sun’s Glueck-Raker Is a Harvard Undergrad

It must be a slow news day at the New York Sun, because their reporter, Leon Neyfakh, e-mailed me today, Fathers Day, at 1:30 p.m., asking to interview me that same afternoon about Grace Glueck's resignation from the Clark Art Institute. He said his story will run tomorrow (Monday). My family had a blissfully computerless swimming-and-barbecue celebration, and I only just now … [Read more...] about Glueck Has Legs

There's been so much misinterpretation, in and out of the blogosphere, of my appreciation of Grace Glueck, that I want to reemphasize what I explicitly stated in my original post: Her joining the Clark Art Institute's board of trustees was, as I have already said, inappropriate. I firmly believe that journalists must eschew even the appearance of conflict of interest, if they … [Read more...] about The Glueck Muck

A Midwestern preservationist who works in this country to protect historic burial sites, including Native American mounds, e-mailed an interesting response to CultureGrrl's Private Prehistory piece (about prehistoric caves on private property in France), which I posted yesterday: Your blog regarding landowners who keep the location of archeological sites "under wraps" hits … [Read more...] about Private Prehistory, American Style

An article in yesterday's Bloomberg about Tate director Nicholas Serota's curatorial stint at his own museum should be required reading for burned-out directors who signed up for museum work in order to have a close relationship to art, but wound up having a closer relationship to megabucks donors, accountants and architects. After curating a Howard Hodgkin retrospective, … [Read more...] about The Director as Curator

I am a very strict constructionist when it comes to journalistic ethics: I pick up the tab for covering stories, even when no publication is paying, and I agonize about the few artworks on my walls, because I feel that if I wrote anything about those artists, it would be a conflict of interest. I knew many years ago about NY Times writer Grace Glueck's membership on the board … [Read more...] about Art Journalist Grace Glueck Gets Bum Rap