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Now you can! The press conference on the plans for The Broad, has occurred, and more information is now available on the Broad Art Foundation's website about the project. If you have claustrophobia, please take the elevator, rather than the escalator-tunnel leading up to the vast skylit gallery space. I've experienced the architectural gambit of "compression and release," … [Read more...] about Wanna Fly Through Eli Broad’s Planned LA Museum?

Rendering of The Broad, the planned new LA museum for Eli Broad's art collection Dubbed "The Broad" (as distinguished from the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art), Eli Broad's new 120,000-square-foot contemporary art showcase in downtown LA, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro for the mega-collector's 2,000-object art collection, will … [Read more...] about Road to “The Broad”: Design Announced for Eli’s LA Museum UPDATED

James RombergerRobin Cembalest, ARTnews magazine's executive editor, has posted online today a detailed opinion piece on the National Portrait Gallery's "Hide/Seek" controversy (to appear in the magazine's February issue), adding her voice to those of us who have called for Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough to come out of hiding and seek a forum for public discussion of … [Read more...] about Whose “Belly” Is It? Romberger, Wojnarowicz’s Creative Collaborator, Speaks Out CORRECTED

Lindsay Pollock In what seems sure to augur a shift of emphasis at Art in America magazine, Lindsay Pollock, a cultural news reporter since 2005 for Bloomberg, today assumes the editor-in-chief spot at Art in America magazine---an appointment announced just yesterday. Lindsay, author of a biography of dealer Edith Halpert, is an accomplished journalist, albeit in a narrow … [Read more...] about Lindsay Pollock Named “Art in America’s” New Editor-in-Chief UPDATED

Happy Together: My Qin Dynasty friend in the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum near Xi'an, ChinaI did manage to make it to China, but because of my personal losses, 2010 was a tough year for me. It was still a reasonably good year for CultureGrrl, however: This was the first time that the total number of "unique visitors" to the blog for a full calendar year topped (by a … [Read more...] about The Year in CultureGrrl, 2010 Edition

Light Fright: Great view of Washington's horse. Not-so-great view of George.(This photo was taken without flash.)With all this talk lately about Museums 2.0 and "apps," I've been inspired to inaugurate CultureGrrl 2.0 with a new technological innovation. (Well, it's new for me, anyway, but I'm a late adopter.) I'm also pleased to note that Arianna Huffington's much discussed … [Read more...] about Reinstalled Art at “New” BMFA: My Irreverent Slideshow (and video)

William IveyBill Ivey, director of Vanderbilt University's Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy and chairman, from 1998 to 2001, of the National Endowment for the Arts, defends my criticized take on the "Hide/Seek" show at the National Portrait Gallery:I believe that the display of value-challenging art in publically-funded environments can never be executed … [Read more...] about BlogBack: Bill Ivey, Former NEA Chairman, on the “Hide/Seek” Flap (plus NPG’s “unlisted” video)

Arianna HuffingtonArianna Huffington's art-related post on her eponymous news-and-commentary website has been lighting up links around the art blogosphere, partly because people are pleasantly surprised that this new-media titan cares enough about museums to write about them.In her post, Museums 2.0: What Happens When Great Art Meets New Media?, Arianna argues:The danger of … [Read more...] about Huffington’s Post: Are “Museums 2.0” a No-Go? UPDATED TWICE

Cézanne, "Madame Cézanne in the Conservatory," 1891, Metropolitan Museum of ArtThe journalistic benefits and pitfalls of the NY Times' de facto status as house organ for the Metropolitan Museum have recently been demonstrated not only by what the newspaper has published (yet another Met-related scoop, thanks to privileged treatment from the museum) but also, much more … [Read more...] about Hits and Misses: NY Times as House Organ for the Met

I was sufficiently excited by the NY Times' front-page treatment last Monday of the Metropolitan Museum's second recently "rediscovered" Velázquez to rush right over to see it the next day.The rest of the world, apparently, was in no such hurry:Velázquez, "Philip IV," probably 1624, installed to the left of the glass door In fact, aside from handing the story to Carol Vogel of … [Read more...] about Met’s Lackluster Velázquez Rediscovery: “Exceptionally High Quality”?

David Ross, chairman, MFA in Art Practice, School of Visual Arts, New YorkThe twitterati have been piling on me (retweeting an ARTnews magazine tweet), over one comment in CultureGrrl's Friday post that took issue with Philip Kennicott of the Washington Post. He had called for the resignation of the Secretary of the Smithsonian over the "Hide/Seek" affair and stated that G. … [Read more...] about BlogBacks: The Twitterati and David Ross on “Hide/Seek”

Roy Neuberger, receiving National Medal of Arts from President Bush in 2007Roy Neuberger, who greatly enriched major museums with works from his pioneering American contemporary art collection, died yesterday at the age of 107. In 1974 he inaugurated the Neuberger Museum at Purchase College, New York, with a donation of 108 works and a mandate to support the work of … [Read more...] about Roy Neuberger, Mega-Collector and Museum Patron, Dies UPDATED

Philip Kennicott, Washington Post culture critic [UPDATE: In my original post, I neglected to link to Kennicott's article.] Philip Kennicott of the Washington Post jumps off the deep end of irrationality today by calling for the resignation of Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough over his decision to remove David Wojnarovicz's "A Fire in My Belly" from the National … [Read more...] about WaPo Kennicott’s Bad Call on Clough’s Call: Seeing “Hide/Seek” in Black/White UPDATED

The Whitney Museum's entertaining fly-through video of its planned new downtown facility, presented Monday by director Adam Weinberg to the Art and Institutions Committee of Manhattan Community Board 2, was a big hit yesterday on CultureGrrl (and, presumably, also on Curbed). It was posted to YouTube (and available for embedding on other websites) by the Greenwich Village … [Read more...] about News Blackout: Whitney Downtown’s Not-Ready-for-Primetime Fly-Through Video

The tripartite façade of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts' new Norman Foster-designed wingIn yesterday's video of my hike around the perimeter of the old and new Boston Museum of Fine Arts, I left you hanging when things were starting to get interesting---at the emergence, around the east corner of the original building's façade, of a view of the new Norman Foster-designed wing … [Read more...] about MeTube: Outdoors Ramble Around the Expanded BMFA—Part II