Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

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

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