Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

In preparing for my recent interview with Max Hollein, the Metropolitan Museum's tech-savvy new director, I decided to revisit the museum's app, much ballyhooed four years ago, but disappointing when I recently app-lied it in the galleries. To my surprise, I discovered that the app's been zapped. (Read the black box at the bottom of my screenshot, below.) In June, I had criticized the "noticeable degradation" of the Met's digital presence, which occurred in the wake of "the overhaul and downsizing of the digital staff. Evidence of … [Read more...]

Max Hollein, the Met's new director, who spoke confidently and compellingly during our informal NYC lunches while he was directing three Frankfurt museums, twice surprised me in the space of one week with his uneasy, hesitant delivery during introductory remarks at two recent press previews (Jack Whitten last Wednesday; Delacroix today). He even seemed tense during a 25-minute, one-on-one with the not-very-formidable CultureGrrl this morning. (He was sequentially speed-dating a series of journalists: As I was walking in, MetMuseum-ologist … [Read more...]

Now you can: On its Facebook page, Rio de Janeiro's Museu Nacional (National Museum) of Brazil (whose plight I have detailed here and here) has posted an "action list" of ways in which concerned museum lovers can participate in what the devastated institution optimistically calls "the reconstruction of the museum." It's not clear when (or even if) that "reconstruction" may involve new construction. From aerial photographs of the rubble, it appears that the interior of the original structure is totally charred and gutted. Here's the … [Read more...]

WARNING: The video below (posted yesterday on Twitter) of the fire-ravaged interior of what was once the National Museum of Brazil (now largely reduced to rubble) may induce nausea and is not for the faint-of-heart: Inside the @MuseuNacional this morning. "The silence is like a thunder", in the words of @umac_icom Secretary Marcus Granato, who sent me the video #RiodeJaneiro pic.twitter.com/L1gX3Om4wt — Marta C. Lourenco (@martaclourenco) September 3, 2018 The most heartbreaking moment of the video is captured in the screenshot below: … [Read more...]

By now you have probably heard about the after-hours fire that yesterday ripped through the entire Museu Nacional (National Museum) of Brazil. The night guards in that eminent Rio de Janeiro institution reportedly escaped safely; the collections did not. Here is the 200-year-old museum, in better times: An editorial today in O Globo, the Rio-based newspaper, called this disaster, a "predictable tragedy": The tragedy of the National Museum reinforces the need for governments, politicians and society to make [budgetary] choices. It is … [Read more...]

Road Trip! That was my enthusiastic response to the press release and the advance publicity for the Yale Art Gallery's summer exhibition, Leonardo: Discoveries from Verrocchio’s Studio (to Oct. 7). Since another Leonardo "discovery" has been much in the news of late (including this recent twist, questioning its authorship), the show has more topicality than the museum's chief curator Laurence Kanter might have imagined when he began planning it. Unfortunately, the exhibition's compelling catalogue, which "seek[s] to recalibrate the … [Read more...]

Smart is the adjective that always crops up when people describe Max Hollein, the Metropolitan Museum's new director. Yesterday, he made one of his first smart moves by issuing a detailed letter to Met members, appending an email address through which they can share "any thoughts about the museum." To convey some idea of who Max is and what he plans to do, here are extensive excerpts from his members' missive (emphases added; my commentary in brackets): I write to introduce myself and hope that we will meet in the coming months at one … [Read more...]

My critical analysis at the end of last spring's round of major New York art auctions, in which I argued that auction-house arrangements with consignors "have become too arcane, convoluted and counterproductive for the market’s (and the auction houses’) good," has been supported by the figures in Sotheby's earnings report issued Monday: It revealed that for the six months ended June 30, 2018, its "net income [i.e., profit] of $50.8 million, or $0.95 per diluted share," was "a 23% and 21% decline, respectively" from the same period last … [Read more...]

Much as I try, I can't muster great enthusiasm for the appointment of Klaus Biesenbach to the directorship of MOCA, Los Angeles, mostly because the shows he organized in Manhattan, with the exception of this one (for me, a nostalgia trip), were not among my MoMA favorites. I've seen too few shows at MoMA's Queens outpost (an inconvenient drive for me from New Jersey) for me to knowledgeably evaluate his work at PS 1. And although I've heard his presentations of upcoming exhibitions at MoMA press breakfasts, I haven't approached Klaus for … [Read more...]

With Christianity predominant in religious works owned by this country's preeminent museums, two recently announced acquisitions (by the Getty Museum and the Metropolitan Museum) of splendid Hebrew manuscripts are cause for celebration by the museums' visitors in general and Jewish audiences in particular. In last month's announcement of its recently purchased "Rothschild Pentateuch," the Getty Museum hyped this monumental volume (1,180 folios, of which some 150 are decorated), as "the most spectacular medieval Hebrew manuscript to become … [Read more...]

I had a sense of déjà vu when I heard that the Frick Collection's expansion plan grew out of the necessity of repeatedly de-installing portions of the its renowned permanent collection to accommodate major temporary exhibitions, such as... "We had to take down two permanent-collection galleries to make our current Canova exhibition happen," noted Ian Wardropper, the Frick's director, during his wide-ranging conversation with me about the Frick's expansion/renovation plans. This brought to mind the Kimbell Art Museum's similarly motivated 2013 … [Read more...]

More on this here. It was bad enough when we learned that the Frick Collection might need to close its New York home for about two years to accommodate the construction for its latest (downsized) expansion plan, designed by Selldorf Architects. But until Monday, when director Ian Wardropper extensively briefed me on the project, I hadn't understood that the entire collection would need to be banished from the building, to protect the art from the vibrations, disruptions and debris from the expansion and renovation, and the repurposing of … [Read more...]

In rapid succession, two ballyhooed recruits to Sotheby's Fine Art Division (the firm's art advisory service) have left their posts: ---Eric Shiner, whose departure was reported today by Anny Shaw in The Art Newspaper, will be artistic director of the London-based White Cube gallery's new office in New York. He had come to Sotheby's from the directorship of the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. ---Christy MacLear, whose departure was reported by ARTnews last month, came to Sotheby's from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, where she had … [Read more...]

Ground Control to Major Anne (Pasternak): Why have you allowed the your museum's American art galleries to be commandeered by throngs of David Bowie fans? Just a month ago, I had taken the Metropolitan Museum to task for allowing its Medieval and Byzantine art galleries to be invaded and upstaged by the crowded "Heavenly Bodies" exhibition of contemporary fashions: That's nothing, though, compared to the Brooklyn Museum's mistreatment of its collection of American art. As you can see in my top photo, if you want to eyeball (let … [Read more...]

When Earl (Rusty) Powell III announced his intention to retire in early 2019 from the directorship of the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, I wrote that our country's "two preeminent [art] institutions could be going head-to-head for top candidates." With the vacant Metropolitan Museum directorship's chair soon to be occupied by Max Hollein (after what turned out to be his brief transitional gig at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco), the NGA's top spot stands alone as this country's biggest prize for a distinguished … [Read more...]

In the interests of "canon correction" (as he calls it), Christopher Bedford, the Baltimore Museum of Art's director, is doing the wrong things for the right reasons: He has acquired seven recent works (five of which were created within the last two years) with some of the proceeds of sales from the BMA's collection of seven older contemporary works by artists who have stood the test of time. To my mind, Bedford's admirable ends don't justify the means. He is intent on acquiring of-the-moment works by men and women of color, exemplified by … [Read more...]

I leave town for a five-day vacation and news breaks out on several important art-museum stories that we've been following (not to mention on several much more important national news stories that we've been roiled by). Here's what my family (including my three little grandchildren) gazed upon while I took my eyes off the ball: And here's the first of my catch-up posts (with my commentary): ---The Berkshire Museum today announced that the embattled Van Shields is retiring from its directorship. An interim successor was named: Museum … [Read more...]

Cultural property lawyer (and blogger) Ricardo St. Hilaire responds to Antiquities Ambiguities: Parsing the Legal Arguments in the Battle of the Getty Bronze. I'm glad you are covering this case. Cases in Italy can be dragged out for years, as you know. But if the Italians ultimately win, there next big challenge will be to enforce the judgment in the U.S. It's one thing to win a court case overseas and get an award of cash and then have an American court enforce the money judgment. It's an entirely different scenario, however, when a … [Read more...]

Italian Judge Giacomo Gasparini's June 8 decision giving the laurel wreath to Team Italy in the Olympian legal contest over the Getty Bronze seems to me persuasively well-reasoned (although awkwardly worded in the Getty's 46-page translation). Americans who (like me) have ogled the Getty Museum's celebrated nude would be loath to lose one of the world's few surviving life-size ancient Greek bronzes, let alone one of such outstanding quality. But the Getty has not, to my mind, made a convincing legal case that the statue's secret removal from … [Read more...]

In the latest development in a tangled legal dispute that will probably outlive us all, the J. Paul Getty Trust announced that it plans to file an appeal with Italy's Court of Cassation of a June 8 Italian criminal court decision calling for the California museum to relinquish its celebrated statue, "The Victorious Youth" (aka "the Getty Bronze"). For now, it's the centerpiece of the gallery devoted to "The Hellenistic World," which is a highlight of the sweeping reconception and reinstallation of the Getty Villa, which reopened on Apr. … [Read more...]