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Agnes Gund, while sitting opposite Marina Abramović at the Museum of Modern ArtPhoto: Marco AnelliWith President Obama's announcement today that he is nominating Agnes Gund to the National Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts will have at least one member on its advisory body with substantial visual arts creds. Gund is president emeritus of the Museum of … [Read more...] about Agnes Gund Named to National Council on the Arts

Entrance to BMFA's 1981 I.M. Pei-designed West Wing, now open only for groups and handicapped visitorsNow that you've flown through the planned Downtown Whitney, it's time to hike around the vast perimeter of the completed (at least for now) Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which last month opened its 121,307-square-foot, Norman Foster-designed Art of the Americas Wing. As … [Read more...] about MeTube: Outdoors Ramble Around the Expanded BMFA—Part I

Now you can!Architect Renzo Piano's rendering of the planned new Whitney DowntownListen to Whitney Museum director Adam Weinberg narrate the video below, giving a preview of the brave new Whitney. (Groundbreaking: May 24) The clip was produced despite Renzo Piano's usual distaste for fly-throughs, Weinberg told the local Community Board on Monday. He confided that the floors … [Read more...] about Wanna Glide Through Renzo Piano’s New Whitney Downtown? UPDATED

Dept. of Damage Control---Has anyone noticed the unfortunate similarity in these two logos? Let the sunshine in!My second Huffington Post opinion piece (here's the first) on the "Hide/Seek" controversy---"Don't Ask, Don't Tell": A Useful Policy for the "Hide/Seek" Show at National Portrait Gallery---argues that over-the-top words and actions of the defenders of David … [Read more...] about Just Posted: My New Huffington Post “Hide/Seek” Piece

Jonathan Katz, co-curator of the National Portrait Gallery's hot-button show, responds to "Hide/Seek" Flap: "Silence = Death (but so does intemperate rhetoric):While I can in no way object to your excoriating me for my rhetoric, I can and will object to your sly rhetorical shift from critiquing my passion to insinuating that I did a kind of curatorial violence to David … [Read more...] about BlogBacks: Curator Katz on His Video Alterations; CultureGrrl Readers on Gay-Themed Museum Shows

Left: A Polaroid from the files of convicted antiquities trafficker Giacomo Medici of dirt-encrusted Athenian Red-figure volute krater, attributed to the Methyse Painter, 460-450 B.C. Right: Photo of the spiffed-up krater, Minneapolis Institute of ArtsAs CultureGrrl readers may remember, Kaywin Feldman, director of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and president of the … [Read more...] about Transparency Gap: Minneapolis Institute Refuses to Discuss Greek Hot Pot

When you enter the vast, sunlit Shapiro Family Courtyard (above) in the new Norman Foster-designed wing of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, you can walk straight back to the entrance of the new Art of the Americas wing......or turn to your right, to enter Art of the Ancient World:...or turn left to the Art of Europe:Under the radar in the excitement over the opening of the … [Read more...] about Boston MeTube: My BMFA Hanukkah with Curator George Shackelford

Act Up (Gran Fury), "Neon Sign (Silence = Death)" from "Let the Record Show," 1987, New MuseumThere was a moment when I cringed while sitting in the NY Public Library's auditorium beside the National Portrait Gallery's director, Martin Sullivan, listening to his curators discuss the NPG's controversial "Hide/Seek" show. It was a supremely quotable moment that I didn't manage to … [Read more...] about “Hide/Seek” Flap: “Silence = Death” (but so does intemperate rhetoric)

Martin Sullivan, director of National Portrait Gallery, sitting next to me at NY Public Library discussion of "Hide/Seek" (to his left, NY Times art writer Kate Taylor, clutching her laptop) I don't have a nose for news. News has a nose for me! While I sat second-row-center in the New York Public Library's auditorium, waiting for the start of last night's discussion about … [Read more...] about MeTube: Curators and Director Discuss “Hide/Seek” Controversy in NYC

Friday brought the news that Michael Rush, whose embattled directorship at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University ended on June 30, 2009, has landed firmly on his feet as the newly appointed founding director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, scheduled to open in 2012. The university's president, Lou Anna Simon, described Rush as the … [Read more...] about MeTube: Rose Art Museum (and its former director) in Recovery Mode

Reasonable people can disagree, and I disagree with just about everyone on the Smithsonian "Hide/Seek" controversy. To cement my reputation as an artworld contrarian, I have posted an OpEd-style piece on HuffPost Arts, "Hide/Seek" Gamesmanship: National Portrait Gallery is Wrong Target.I don't usually link from this blog to my Huffington Post columns, because they closely … [Read more...] about Alienating Everyone: My Huffington Post Piece on “Hide/Seek”

Cézanne, "Madame Cézanne in the Conservatory," 1891, Metropolitan Museum of Art Last month, the NY Times astonishingly called for the return to Egypt of Nefertiti and the Rosetta Stone, while praising the Metropolitan Museum for its return to Egypt of some minor antiquities. But the Times has been surprisingly silent, so far, on the latest news development related to … [Read more...] about Heir Files Claim for Met’s ex-Morozov Cézanne: Is Bolshevik Loot Like Nazi Loot?

[CORRECTION: Mary Haus, director of marketing and communications at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, called me on Dec. 16, asking me to correct this post to reflect the fact that Peter Marzio had died of cancer, but he did not have prostate cancer, as an early version of the Houston Chronicle obit had stated. The family, Haus said, is "not disclosing what he had."]The Houston … [Read more...] about Peter Marzio, 67, Director of Houston MFA, Dies UPDATED and CORRECTED

Cézanne, "The Card Players," 1890-92, Metropolitan Museum of ArtI can't wait to see the newly expanded "Card Players" when they return to New York!According to Carol Vogel's report in today's NY Times, the Metropolitan Museum's iconic  Cézanne painting, "The Card Players" has swollen eightfold! These guys have been sitting around too long and must have put on a lot of … [Read more...] about NY Times Scoop: Met’s “Card Players” on Steroids!

New cases in the former librarian's office of the Morgan Library and Museum [Part I is here.] It has taken me far too long to complete my two-part post, expanding upon my Wall Street Journal piece, Morgan in a New Light, which assessed the restoration and reinstallation of the Morgan Library and Museum's original McKim building. My travels and several breaking news … [Read more...] about MeTube: Morgan Library’s Glorious Restoration, Before and After—Part II