Lee Rosenbaum's cultural commentary

The skeptical sensibility of our city's preeminent architecture watchdog, Ada Louise Huxtable, lives on through her devoted disciples. Some 20 architecture critics, including such notables as Martin Filler, Joseph Giovannini, Cathleen McGuigan, Victoria Newhouse and Suzanne Stephens, have shot off a letter to the NY Public Library's board, citing Ada Louise's "last essay … [Read more...] about 20 Architecture Critics Call on NY Public Library to Reconsider Norman Foster Renovation Plan

In my mental file cabinet of future stories, this one was at the top of my to-do list---a detailed post on the brain drain from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Now a surprising press release has hit my inbox. It tries to put a positive spin on Crystal Bridges' future, but instead suggests even more administrative turmoil may lie ahead: Crystal Bridges Museum of … [Read more...] about Crystal Bridges’ Administrative Turnover: Director’s “Promotion” Follows Exodus of Top Curatorial Officials

When you're dealing with a self-proclaimed hacker, how can you ever be sure that the information and images you get from such a dubious source are reliable? CultureGrrl reader Lenora Paglia, a paintings conservator in New York (and evidently an amateur detective on the side), closely scrutinized the online images of putative Presidential daubs and responded to yesterday's … [Read more...] about A Conservator’s BlogBack: Are the Purported Bush Paintings a Hoax?

                  Where's a culture editor when the NY Times really needs one? Husband-and-wife art critics Jerry Saltz (NY Magazine) and Roberta Smith (NY Times) simultaneously got all excited about the fact that George W. Bush could actually paint a decent picture. Saltz calls W's paintings … [Read more...] about The Bush Paintings: Saltz and Smith as Hacker Flacks

Judging from the large number of viewers of my 12-minute CultureGrrl Video excerpting comments from last October's all-star panel discussion of Art Museum Funding at the Crossroads, I'm certain that some of you wish you were there. Now you can be. The American Federation of Arts, which organized the event, has posted videos of the entire fascinating discussion---here … [Read more...] about Online Now: Complete Video of AFA’s All-Star Panel on Museum Funding Complexities

With the proposed Guggenheim Helsinki stalled, if not moribund (and with one of its prime movers, Janne Gallen-Kallela-Sirén, director of the Helsinki Art Museum, about to shuffle to Buffalo), it now appears that the elaborate plans (embodied in the Guggenheim's $2-million, 186-page feasibility study) to boost the Finnish capital's cultural profile through the intervention of … [Read more...] about From Glocal to Local: Does “Checkpoint Helsinki” Supplant Guggenheim Helsinki?

Sometimes miracles (and bipartisan cooperation) do happen. I've been reporting since last March about the precarious situation of the flood-damaged Orange County Government Center, Goshen, NY, a masterful composition of cubes by architect Paul Rudolph. It was deemed so important that it had been placed on the World Monuments Fund’s 2012 Watch List of endangered … [Read more...] about Goshen Commotion: Paul Rudolph’s Orange County Government Center Saved!

When Adam Weinberg, director af the Whitney Museum, mentioned at yesterday's press preview for the revelatory Blues for Smoke (to Apr. 28) that he had first discussed the show six years ago with its curator, Bennett Simpson, then at the Boston ICA (and now at LA MOCA, which organized the show), I had a sudden flashback to my own conversation in December 2006 with the ICA's … [Read more...] about Birth of the “Blues”: From 2006 at Boston ICA to Today at the Whitney (with video)

From time to time, I have griped about how some museums have allowed themselves to be co-opted into promoting the commercial products of their corporate sponsors. One such instance involved the Warhol Museum's loan of 30 Warhol Coca-Colas to the then new World of Coca-Cola museum near the soft-drink company’s Atlanta headquarters. (I also published rebuttals by the Pittsburgh … [Read more...] about Dept. of Tasteless Product Promos by Museums: Brillo® at the Warhol

Kim Sajet (pronounced, "Sayet"), president and CEO of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, has been named to the directorship the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery effective Apr. 1. She succeeds the rock-solid Martin Sullivan, who ably navigated his museum through the uproar caused by the removal of a David Wojnarovicz work from the landmark Hide/Seek exhibition. As … [Read more...] about Kim Sajet Named to Directorship of Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery

In the financial field, they call it "headline risk"---the negative influence that bad publicity can have on the future prospects of a hedge fund or other type of investment firm. In the event that the headline risk at the high-flying Gagosian Gallery might spook some represented artists, two expanding New York galleries are among those especially well positioned to … [Read more...] about Gagosian Commotion: Zwirner Poised for Artists Seeking New Gallery (with video and Q&A)

Prof. Richard Saunders, who in November invited me to speak to a general audience and (on the following day) to his museum studies class at Middlebury College, responds to Hispanic Society, Metropolitan Museum, Middlebury: One Institution’s Trash Is Another’s Treasure: I totally agree [with my "Trash/Treasure post]. As the director of a small "collections-poor" college museum, … [Read more...] about BlogBack: Middlebury’s Richard Saunders on Why Object-Rich Museums Should Share (not sell) the Wealth

When you're speaking to a general audience far from home, you sometimes tend to be less guarded and more candid in your observations than you might be on your own turf. I know this firsthand, from my own speaking engagements. It appears that James Cuno, president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, dusted off his provocative, anti-repatriation rhetoric when discussing source … [Read more...] about Antiquities Antics in Davos: Whatever Happened to “Kinder, Gentler” James Cuno?

My enthusiastic response to the Association of Art Museum Directors' announcement that it had voted to "strengthen" its 2008 antiquities-collecting guidelines was premature. Having now read and analyzed the full document, comparing it closely with the 2008 guidelines, it seems to me that the primary change in AAMD's eight-page Revisions to the 2008 Guidelines on the … [Read more...] about AAMD’s “Strengthened” Antiquities-Collecting Guidelines Boost the Loopholes

The privileged installation at the Metropolitan Museum of one of the many highly important coins cast off by the Hispanic Society of America (HSA)---the silver coin of Brutus, commemorating the murder of Julius Caesar on the Ides of March---is "Exhibit A" in the case (pun intended) against museum disposals of museum quality objects. As I've argued repeatedly, a … [Read more...] about Hispanic Society, Metropolitan Museum, Middlebury: One Institution’s Trash Is Another’s Treasure