In Sotheby's recap of its "Masters Week," headlined by the $45.4-million sale on of its much-touted "late masterpiece by Botticelli," the auction house noted that the painting was "previously believed to be produced by the artist’s students [but] in 2009 the Städel Museum in Frankfurt reattributed it to Botticelli, in part due to technical analysis conducted by Sotheby’s … [Read more...] about Questions (& Conflicting Answers) About the $45.4-Million “Reattributed” Botticelli
Search Results for: max hollein
Finagled Finances: A MetMuseum-ologist (me) Fleshes Out Our Premier Museum’s Anorexic Annual Report
The Metropolitan Museum's pandemic-related "Emergency Relief Fund" (ERF), parsed by me in this post, was just one of several recent aberrations in that financially challenged museum's erratic money-management maneuvers. In my decades of scrutinizing the Met's annual reports, I've never seen one as anorexic as the Annual Report for Fiscal 2021 (ended June 30). Usually a hefty … [Read more...] about Finagled Finances: A MetMuseum-ologist (me) Fleshes Out Our Premier Museum’s Anorexic Annual Report
The Year in CultureGrrl, 2021 Edition: Searching for Signs of Intelligent Life in a Covid-Clouded Universe
Meet the New Year. Same as the Old Year. My riff on "Meet the New Boss. Same as the Old Boss"---the cynical sign-off of The Who's counterculture anthem, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”---is my summation of our situation at the end of 2021, with our lives still on hold at year's end, as they were at the beginning, and with pestilence having taken its grim toll. Those of us who were … [Read more...] about The Year in CultureGrrl, 2021 Edition: Searching for Signs of Intelligent Life in a Covid-Clouded Universe
Metropolitan Museum’s Rockefeller Wing Keeps Its Name, Refreshes Its Approach
As a NYC cultural journalist and critic for more than five decades, I've covered many landmark events at the Metropolitan Museum. But my excitement on Monday, when I was on hand for yet another celebratory Met occasion, was tempered by my fear of being infected at what looked likely to be major Covid-spreading event. Double-masked, I hung back from the main crush, which … [Read more...] about Metropolitan Museum’s Rockefeller Wing Keeps Its Name, Refreshes Its Approach
The Brooklyn Museum’s $50-Million Windfall & Its Diversity Deficiency CORRECTED
The Brooklyn Museum, which on Monday announced its landmark gift of a whopping $50 million from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (with Brooklynite Mayor Bill de Blasio personally delivering a giant check designated for "Gallery Improvements"), prides itself on the diversity of its audience and programming. But how diverse is its staff? Or, to ask that … [Read more...] about The Brooklyn Museum’s $50-Million Windfall & Its Diversity Deficiency CORRECTED
The Medici as “Influencers,” The Metropolitan Museum as Clickbait
Do today's museums need to pander to the short attention spans and trendy rhetoric of the social-media crowd, sabotaging serious curatorial scholarship with language adopted from the digital ditherings that we mindlessly scroll through on Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp? The Metropolitan Museum, a previously staunch defender of probity, now seems to think so, as exemplified by … [Read more...] about The Medici as “Influencers,” The Metropolitan Museum as Clickbait
Meddling with Medici (Part II): “Unattainable Perfection,” Viewer Disaffection
Part I is here. For many museum visitors, the "Medici" cited in the title of the Metropolitan Museum's current show (subtitled: "Portraits & Politics, 1512-1570") will evoke the names of artists from the golden age of Renaissance painting in Florence, when Michelangelo, Leonardo, Botticelli and Verrocchio flourished under the aegis of Lorenzo the Magnificent. But none of … [Read more...] about Meddling with Medici (Part II): “Unattainable Perfection,” Viewer Disaffection
“Wolo” Who? Stephan Wolohojian Succeeds Keith Christiansen as Metropolitan Museum’s Head of European Paintings
The Metropolitan Museum held off announcing its new designee to oversee its resplendent European Paintings Department until after Keith Christiansen had left the building (officially, June 30, although he is said to still have a desk there), with 43 years of superlative service. After a respectful week-long pause, the Met dispatched this announcement to my inbox on Thursday … [Read more...] about “Wolo” Who? Stephan Wolohojian Succeeds Keith Christiansen as Metropolitan Museum’s Head of European Paintings
Meddling With Medici at the Met: Provocations & Proclamations (Part I)
NOTE: Part II is here. The Medici: Portraits and Politics, at the Metropolitan Museum to Oct. 11, is a curatorial tour de force that only a veteran scholar with the deep knowledge and extensive contacts of Keith Christiansen could pull off. With his retirement today today after 43 years at the Met, this show is his swansong at the museum, where he is Chairman of European … [Read more...] about Meddling With Medici at the Met: Provocations & Proclamations (Part I)
AAMD’s Deaccession Dilemma (& the Met’s Equivocations)
Is the "slippery slope" on the verge of becoming even more treacherous? In conversations with its members this week, the Association of Art Museum Directors discussed whether the organization should consider (not immediately enact) an indefinite extension of the two-year relaxation of its time-honored deaccession guidelines, which had prohibited the use of art proceeds for … [Read more...] about AAMD’s Deaccession Dilemma (& the Met’s Equivocations)
Pandemic Polemics: Metropolitan Museum’s Off-Key NPR Message vs. Cleveland’s Harmonious Storage Show UPDATED
The Metropolitan Museum's premature revelation that it might take advantage of the Association of Art Museum Directors' relaxed deaccession standards, by selling art to help pay for "care of the collection," was an object lesson in how not to roll out a controversial, temporary policy change. The predictable chorus of condemnation that ensued caught the attention of NPR's … [Read more...] about Pandemic Polemics: Metropolitan Museum’s Off-Key NPR Message vs. Cleveland’s Harmonious Storage Show UPDATED
Capitol Offense: Metropolitan Museum Blasts “Domestic Terrorism” by “Treasonous Rioters”
Throwing caution to the winds, the Metropolitan Museum today went beyond the more measured words of a few other museums in its angry call to "bring to justice those responsible" for the "criminal actions" at the Capitol on Jan. 6. The Met's official Statement on Capitol Desecration, signed by Daniel Weiss, president and CEO, and Max Hollein, director, began with this … [Read more...] about Capitol Offense: Metropolitan Museum Blasts “Domestic Terrorism” by “Treasonous Rioters”
“Birkenau” Blunder: Metropolitan Museum Says Richter’s Riffs on the Holocaust are “Poignant”
POIGNANT?!? "Horrific," "Profoundly Disturbing," "Jolting"...but surely not "Poignant." That mild adjective was used by the Metropolitan Museum's communications office in its headline (below) for the press release announcing the display (to Jan. 18) of Gerhard Richter's four paintings from his "landmark 'Birkenau' series" of 2014, in which black-and-white photographic … [Read more...] about “Birkenau” Blunder: Metropolitan Museum Says Richter’s Riffs on the Holocaust are “Poignant”
Who’s Leaving the Metropolitan Museum? A Partial List of Retirees
Here we go again... The above headline echos my title for a June 2009 post, reporting on the Metropolitan Museum's staff purge during the Great Recession. So it's with dejected déjà vu that I now regretfully report the imminent departure of some 90 Metropolitan Museum staffers, from departments including security, facilities management, retail, education, conservation, … [Read more...] about Who’s Leaving the Metropolitan Museum? A Partial List of Retirees
Yoko’s Joke: Signs of the Times for the Metropolitan Museum’s Impending Reopening
Either Max Hollein and Daniel Weiss, the director and president of the Metropolitan Museum, were knowing participants in Yoko Ono's mischievous potshot at their august institution, or they fell for her prank. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the only explanation I can come up with for Max's and Dan's absurdly effusive praise for the conceptual/performance artist's "bold and … [Read more...] about Yoko’s Joke: Signs of the Times for the Metropolitan Museum’s Impending Reopening