Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

Wanna see the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco's "Special Announcement," streamed live from the de Young Museum? Soon you can! Go here today at noon, California time, to learn the results of the board's special meeting today to select the museums' new director. … [Read more...] about Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco to Livestream Director Announcement

On P. 3 of its publicly posted agenda for tomorrow's Special Meeting, the board of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco has revealed that it will take up the following item in closed session: Consideration and Possible Action to Appoint a New Director of Museums of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The trustees will then reconvene in open session and provide a … [Read more...] about Board of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Tomorrow Considers Appointment of New Director

In an announcement that just hit my inbox, LA MOCA exulted that its trustees "have obtained commitments over the past two weeks that will boost the endowment to more than $60 million, a record high in the museum's 34-year history and a reflection of the board's commitment to keep MOCA as a museum dedicated solely to contemporary art." This is putting their money where their … [Read more...] about MOCA Reports Commitments to “Nearly Triple” Museum’s Endowment (and requests a CultureGrrl correction)

In her Critic's Notebook piece about the LA MOCA mess that hit the NY Times' website this morning (and presumably will appear in tomorrow's paper), Roberta Smith once again demonstrates that her brilliance as an art critic is not matched by equal acumen in analyzing museum-management issues. Setting the scene for her muddled analysis, Roberta proclaims this in her first … [Read more...] about Anti-Broad Bromide: Roberta Smith’s Muddled LA MOCA Analysis

President Obama's visit this morning to the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, wasn't a mere culture break from his whirlwind schedule of meetings with political leaders in Israel and, tomorrow, Jordan. Israeli officials also had a political agenda in bringing him to see the display of the Dead Sea Scrolls (specifically, the Great Isaiah Scroll, shown above), which are preserved and … [Read more...] about President Obama at the Israel Museum: Political Subtext of the Dead Sea Scrolls

The uncertainty regarding LA MOCA's future, caused by a demonstrably under-performing board and administration, reached new heights late yesterday with the museum's release of a three-sentence statement titled, “MOCA Trustees Committed to Independence.” Intended to provide some clarity regarding the museum's murky prospects, it only muddied the waters further: The Board is in … [Read more...] about MOCA’s Confusion-Sowing Declaration of “Independence” (plus the details of Eli Broad’s penalty clause for museum mergers)

The FBI today issued this press release and a video, below, in an effort to reenergize the 23-year-old quest to recover the works stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. They hope that reminding people of what the paintings look like (in part, via the slideshow below), as well as re-publicizing the $5-million reward for "information that leads directly to the … [Read more...] about Free the Gardner 13: FBI Renews Push to Recover Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Purloined Paintings

Someone with strong ties to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco told me today that he had it on good authority that Colin Bailey, who is deputy director and curator at the Frick Collection, New York, is soon to be officially named as director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. I have tonight confirmed this with an unimpeachably reliable art professional (not from the … [Read more...] about News Flash: Colin Bailey to Be Named as Director of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Toyo Ito, 71, the Tokyo-based architect who is most famous for his 2000 Sendai Mediatheque, which withstood the devastating 2011 earthquake (in which Sendai was near the epicenter), was named today as recipient of the 2013 Pritzker Architecture Prize. The $100,000 award will be presented May 29 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston. You can see … [Read more...] about Berkeley’s Loss: Toyo Ito Wins the 2013 Pritzker Architecture Prize

UPDATE: Thanks for following, @paintcast, aka Kevin McCarthy---wearin' the green and following McCultureGrrl on St. Patrick's Day! My counter has been been hovering between 7,498 and 7,499 for a while. (Sunday's a slow "following" day.) At this writing, I'm just one away (although these numbers tend to fluctuate a bit). Maybe I'll take my 10,000th follower out to lunch, … [Read more...] about Who Wants to Be My 7,500th Twitter Follower? UPDATED

Mike Boehm of the LA Times has gotten his hands on the 16-page bailout agreement between Eli Broad and LA MOCA. That 2008 document, Boehm reports, "includes a four-page section concerning 'significant actions' that MOCA trustees can't take with a simple vote. One of them is agreeing to be subsumed under another local museum---such as LACMA---before 2019." Here's Boehm's … [Read more...] about LA Times Reveals Provisions Regarding Mergers in the 2008 Eli Broad/MOCA Agreement; USC Still Interested

Aside from Crystal Bridges Museum's recent major upheavals in staff, there has been an impressive number of major developments at the Bentonville, AR, museum that Alice Walton built. Its collection has been beefed up with about 2,000 new works (including works on paper), including gap-fillers such as one just announced this afternoon, which Crystal Bridges will share with the … [Read more...] about Crystal Bridges Developments: Acquisitions, Shared Works, New Trustee (plus the mysterious “strategic plan”)

If this is saving the Corcoran, I wonder what wrecking it would look like. The Save the Corcoran coalition has surprisingly thrown its support behind Wayne Reynolds' "vision for a future Corcoran." What's more, the group has urged his appointment as board chairman of the financially beleaguered Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Corcoran College of Art + Design. Reynolds is not … [Read more...] about Rescue Miscue: Outlandish Proposal to Save the Corcoran by Dumping Its Art UPDATED

Below is the audio podcast from the just concluded program about MOCA's serious problems and potential solutions, on KCRW's "Which Way, L.A.?", hosted by Warren Olney. The MOCA segment, with LA Times art critic Christopher Knight, MOCA Mobilization co-founder Cindy Bernard and me, starts at about 10:30 into the broadcast. (My own participation begins at about 19:16.) I get … [Read more...] about Hear Us Now: KCRW Podcast of Knight, Bernard and Me on MOCA’s Suitors

Want to know what I think about the astonishing news (reported this afternoon by the NY Times' Patricia Cohen) that Eli Broad has approached the National Gallery, Washington, about a possible LACMA-trumping agreement for a five-year collaboration? You can hear me debunk that proposal as "kicking the can down the road" on public radio station KCRW's Which Way, L.A.?, tonight … [Read more...] about Coming Soon on KCRW: My “Which Way, L.A.?” Commentary on MOCA/LACMA/USC/NGA