Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

StartUp Since I always have more opinions and information on the artworld than the Mainstream Media can use, I've decided to throw some of those juicy tidbits into this blog. Stay tuned for my first post! April 23, 2006 2:55 PM It's now three years since I typed those sentences---Baby CultureGrrl's first gurgle. No one was actually "staying tuned." My first two weeks of … [Read more...] about CultureGrrl’s Third Anniversary: A Time for Reflection and Reinvention

For what it's worth, I have responded to aspersions cast on my accuracy that were posted today by another ArtsJournal blogger (to whom I shall not link). My response can be found as an update at the end of the post that my detractor, in error, alleges to be "in error." [And now I've updated the update, at the same link.] And NOW, I've updated the update of the update.Please … [Read more...] about CultureGrrl “Correction,” Uncorrected

Marc Wilson in the acclaimed 2007 Bloch Building, designed by Steven Holl With Philippe de Montebello gone from the Met, I believe it's safe to say that Marc Wilson, director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, is currently the longest-serving head of a major encyclopedic museum in this country. And he served, if not with equal fame, with comparable distinction. He … [Read more...] about Marc Wilson to Retire: Bloch Building Cements His Legacy

Attorney David Bright and I field questions after speaking on deaccessioning at the University of IowaNear the end of my talk last Wednesday at the University of Iowa (where the art museum, best known for its monumental 1943 Pollock, has been permanently closed by flooding), I advocated that the Brodsky bill, designed to regulate deaccessioning in New York State, become a … [Read more...] about Deaccession Legislation: Iowa Museum Director and Nonprofits Attorney Say It’s Time

Statue of Apollo as an archer (Apollo Saettante), Greek, manufactured before 146 B.C., copper alloy/bronze, 1.47 meters high, found in 1817 in Pompeii, near the Sanctuary of ApolloNational Archaeological Museum, NaplesStatue of an Ephebe (Youth) as a lampbearer, Roman, about 20-10 B.C., bronze with inlays of copper and glass, 1.49 meters high, from Pompeii's House of the Ephebe … [Read more...] about Antiquities Loans: Pompeii Bronzes Arrive at Getty from Naples

Holland Cotter Holland Cotter, staff art critic for the NY Times since 1998, has just been named the winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism, "for his wide ranging reviews of art, from Manhattan to China, marked by acute observation, luminous writing and dramatic storytelling." The specific articles that won him the prize are here, here and … [Read more...] about Pulitzer for Criticism: Holland Cotter Gets the Gold UPDATED THRICE

Edward de Vere, from an engraving by J. Brown after G.P. Harding, 1575 I know you're all probably expecting a complete and abundantly illustrated report on my recent trip to Iowa. Patience, art-lings! Right now my thoughts stray to Elizabethan England. That's because Saturday's Wall Street Journal featured a front-page article devoted to one of my cherished notions---the … [Read more...] about Who Was Shakespeare? The Supreme Court’s (and my) De Vere Verdict

Yesterday, when I arrived at the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, IA, to see the about-to-open installation of highlights (including the monumental 1943 Pollock) from the collection of the flood-shuttered University of Iowa Museum of Art, the television crew for KCRG was on the scene. In the online description of their report about the UIMA exhibition, A Legacy for Iowa, I became … [Read more...] about The Pollock Stops Here: CultureGrrl’s Debut on Iowa TV

In her Mar. 26 NY Times article (scroll down) describing the planned deaccessions by the Montclair (NJ) Art Museum, Carol Vogel reported:Officials at Montclair were quick to say that the proceeds from any sale of art would go ONLY [emphasis added] toward purchasing other works, a practice that is consistent with the Association of Art Museum Directors policy. But James Panero, … [Read more...] about Montclair’s Multi-Tasking Art Endowment: The Guggenheim Did It First

Pamela White, interim director of the University of Iowa Museum of Art, poses in front of her museum's Pollock "Mural" at the Figge Art Museum, with Figge's executive director, Sean O'Harrow I made friends (and probably some enemies) in Iowa with my posts (here, here, here, and here) about the University of Iowa Museum of Art's (thus far) successful effort to prevail over … [Read more...] about I ♥ the Heartland: Speaking Gig at University of Iowa (Pollock Country); Rebuttal to Zaretsky

So what did I think of Younger Than Jesus? I was enjoying a number of artists on the second floor (especially four brief video clips by Romanian artist Ciprian Muresan, including the hilarious "Untitled [Shoe Laces]), when my husband, who knows never to call me in a museum, buzzed me to say that my sister-in-law's mother, of whom I was very fond, had just died.Not a direct hit, … [Read more...] about My Own Bad News at the New Museum

My daughter and her boyfriend on a recent visit to the New Museum---two "millennials," as the new show calls their generationToday is likely to be a non-posting day (except for this hasty entry), because I'm attending the press preview of the New Museum's Younger Than Jesus ("The Generational"). After that, I'm attending my own "generational"---my father's 95th birthday!I'm … [Read more...] about “Younger than Jesus”: A Press Orgy at the New Museum!

Entrance to the inaugural show last September at Christie's Haunch of Venison gallery in New YorkWhile we're on the subject of displays with museum-like pretentions that have mounted by commercial galleries and auction houses (such as Sotheby's current Steve Cohen show), I recently learned about the sudden flight of two former museum professionals from the New York branch of … [Read more...] about More on Nonprofits’ Commercial Imitators: Haunch of Venison Loses Two Ex-Museum Professionals

Two helpful readers advised me to take note of the date (Apr. 1) of David Gill's bus-banner post on his Looting Matters blog (which I highlighted here), making me realize that my decision to stop blogging so feverishly has come none too soon! One of my gentle helpers, a postdoctoral fellow at the Getty Villa, made me feel only slightly less stupid:This is actually the second … [Read more...] about Bus Stop: CultureGrrl Gets April Fooled

Those who think I've been too blatantly self-promoting should get a load of what my British blogging buddy, David Gill, has just done to call attention to Looting Matters, my go-to source for cultural-property news. Do you think I could plaster some CultureGrrl banners on NYC vehicles, as David has done in London?"Stop messing about"?!? I guess my NYC equivalent would have to … [Read more...] about Adventures in Blogdom: “Looting Matters” Takes the Bus; “Art Tribune” Editor Muzzled; the “Exhibitionist” Bares His Knuckles UPDATED