Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

The Getty Villa, MalibuUPDATE: More Italy-to-Getty loans (from Florence) here.In what the Italian newspaper Corriere del Mezzogiorno calls "the first element of stable, collaborative relations" between the Italian Culture Ministry and the J. Paul Getty Museum, two bronze statues of Apollo, both from excavations at Pompeii, are due to travel to the California museum tomorrow, on … [Read more...] about Antiquities Diplomacy: The Getty Awaits Two Apollos, Lent by Italy UPDATED

In the NY Times' "Talk to the Newsroom" feature, assistant managing editor Richard Berke writes:Michael Kimmelman, our brilliant Berlin-based chief art critic, recently asked whether he could make a costly---and arduous---trip to Baghdad to review the national art museum there. The answer was, Yes! We have still to work out the details, but how many news organizations these … [Read more...] about Michael Kimmelman’s Peregrinations: Berlin to Baghdad?

Eric Gelber, the news editor of artcritical.com, an online art magazine, is also a blogging cartoonist at EAGEAGEAG, where he recently responded graphically to my report on how Sam Sifton, cultural news editor of the NY Times, rides herd over the nags and throughbreds in his stable of writers:Actually, Eric's graphic was a little too graphic. I always strive to comport myself … [Read more...] about NY Times’ Sam Sifton, The Cartoon

Picasso, "The Reservoir, Horta de Ebro," 1909, Museum of Modern Art, fractional and promised gift of David Rockefeller © 2009 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York In 2003, when the Museum of Modern Art sold its seminal Picasso, "Houses on the Hill, Horta de Ebro," 1909, which was bequeathed to it in 1979 by Nelson Rockefeller, it justified this … [Read more...] about MoMA Picasso’s Deplorable Deaccession Revisited: No Rockefeller “Horta” Pictures on View

Whitney's WhitTee: If only they could have gotten Houston to model this garment (or maybe this Whitney)Granted, the Whitney gives you other benefits (hey, it comes in black too!) for your $75, along with this "limited edition," commissioned from Jenny Holzer, as the museum describes it. (Is this "edition" numbered?)But why have NYC cultural organizations suddenly decided that … [Read more...] about I Gave the Whitney $75, and All I Got Was This Lousy Tee Shirt

Future of Arts Journalism panel, left to right: Sree Sreenivasan, Marian Godfrey, Sam Sifton, Alisa Solomon Had I not been getting my mother out of the hospital last Thursday, I would have been in the audience for the panel discussion on The Future of Arts Journalism at Christie's. (Actually, "Blithe Spirit," the Noël Coward play that I did manage to attend later that night, … [Read more...] about NY Times Arts Coverage: Get-It-First Sifton Explains How the Bully Pulpit Strong-Arms Sources

Sunil Iyengar, the National Endowment for the Arts' director of research and analysis, responds to Artists' Jobs: Even Worse than NEA's New Report Suggests (and I respond to his response, below):I wanted to try to clarify our team's perspective on two important issues you raise:First, know that we would have welcomed a chance to run a comparison of fourth-quarter 2008 … [Read more...] about BlogBack: NEA’s Research Director on Artists’ Employment and Fellowships

You can read it online now. But do you really want to? The NY Times' special section on museums in tomorrow's (Thursday's) newspaper may be your thing if you're fascinated by institutions with a pop-culture focus (Motown, chocolate, Woodstock, mobsters), efforts to appeal to untraditional audiences (children and Alzheimer's sufferers) and, of course, strategies to cope with the … [Read more...] about Tomorrow’s NY Times “Museums” Section Today

Maxwell Anderson at the IMAMaxwell Anderson, director of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, responds to my call (in yesterday's post, Deaccession Heaven: Indianapolis Museum of Art Does It Right) for him to make the technology behind his state-of-the-art deaccession database "available to the entire field immediately...if not sooner":We are committed to the use of open … [Read more...] about BlogBack: Max Anderson on Indianapolis’ Deaccession Database

I just got this save-the-date invitation from Bernard Tschumi Architects, so I guess the much-delayed New Acropolis Museum in Athens really IS set to have its "public opening ceremonies" on June 20.Here's my CultureGrrl photo essay of the museum-in-(slow)progress, from my visit last March, at which time the announced opening date for the facility (which had been intended to be … [Read more...] about New Acropolis Museum, Finally!

NY State Assemblyman Richard BrodskyNY State Assemblymen Richard Brodsky and Matthew Titone are about to introduce legislation to regulate deaccessioning by museums in the state. Brodsky, a veteran assemblyman with a longstanding interest in oversight of museums and art auctions, told me that the bill will most likely be introduced tomorrow.Disposals by most museums in the … [Read more...] about Brodsky Bill: NY Assemblyman Targets Desperation Deaccessions UPDATED

Targeted for sale: Bernard Buffet, "Paimpol," 1968, Indianapolis Museum of ArtEstimated value: $50,000I can't believe I'm seeing this. Have I just died and gone to Deaccession Heaven?No, I haven't myself been deaccessioned (yet) and the Indianapolis Museum of Art's newly launched Searchable Database of Deaccessioned Artworks truly does exist in real cyberspace. It's everything … [Read more...] about Deaccession Heaven: Indianapolis Museum of Art Does It Right

I haven't heard why the video feed didn't work from last night's Rose Art Museum Symposium, which featured the opening salvo in the War of the Roses, but here's the next-best thing---television coverage of the proceedings by New England Cable Network. That's family spokesperson Meryl Rose, whom you see below: … [Read more...] about Video from Last Night’s Rose Rally/Symposium

I've linked to this "live" video feed several times and embedded it below, for good measure, only to discover that it's not working. Guess we all should have traveled to Waltham. We'll  have to check what happened by reading the subsequent news reports. Is anyone tweeting?If you haven't already seen it, here's the Rose Family Statement that was to have been presented at … [Read more...] about Watch the Rose Museum Symposium Live on CultureGrrl UPDATED and DOWNRATED

The Forebears: Bertha and Edward Rose, founders of the eponymous museumBelow in its entirety is the statement signed by 67 members of the family of Edward and Bertha Rose, founders of the endangered Rose Art Museum. These demands were to have been delivered, shortly before this posting, to Brandeis University's president, Jehuda Reinharz. A Rose Museum board member, Meryl Rose, … [Read more...] about War of the Roses: Family Decries “Plundering of the Rose Art Museum and Its Collection”