Archives for September 2009

It’s good news that the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is getting the Doris and Donald Fisher collection, on loan, to fill planned new galleries. But if you’ve read just the bare-bones announcement in today’s papers, you may have missed a couple of significant parts of the deal.

Quick recap: the Fishers wanted to build their own museum in the city’s Presidio, but were turned down. Rather than taking their art and going elsewhere, the Fishers (happily) are remaining loyal to the city where they made the fortune, via The Gap, that allowed them to buy their collection: some 1,100 works by  Alexander Calder, Chuck Close, Willem De Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Anselm Kiefer, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Gerhard Richter, Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol and others.

Now, significantly:

• Works from the Fisher Collection will be on view in a new wing that will also include art from the museum’s collection. In addition, works from the Fisher Collection will be interwoven in existing galleries with SFMOMA’s modern and contemporary holdings. (Segregating private collections, after a while, is almost always a mistake for the institution and the art.)
• The Fishers will create a trust, administered in collaboration with SFMOMA, to oversee the care of their collection at the museum, renewable after 25 years.  
• Before building the 100,000 sq. ft. expansion, SFMOMA will work with Bain and Company to develop a real business plan to define the impact of the enlarged facility, increased operations, and enhanced programming on the museum’s expansion and annual operating budgets. (If other museums had done this before their expansions, many would not be in the trouble they’re in now.) 
• The business plan will inform both the contributions to the capital campaign and endowment that will be made by the Fishers and the funds that need to be raised by the museum.

We’ve all heard complaints about the excessive influence of business executives on museums in the last few years. This time, the opposite seems true. The Fishers know business, and so does Charles Schwab, chairman of SFMOMA’s trustees. Under director Neal Benezra, the museum seems to have got this one right.

Here’s a link to the full press release. Strawberries to all.

UPDATED, 9/28: Don Fisher died yesterday, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Grand Rapids, with its Art Prize contest now underway, is stealing a lot of thunder this week. But it’s not the only Michigan city in the art game this fall. Art Detroit Now, a weekend event set for Oct. 2 and 3, is an attempt to raise the profile of contemporary art and artists in the erstwhile Motor City, normally viewed as far from the madding art crowd. Buzz, the organizers believe, works.

The event, which involves an art crawl, gallery open houses, museum open houses and workshops at about 50 venues, began in 2008. It’s not unique, but I give the locals arts crowd credit for trying specifically to build on the momentum created by the reopening of the Detroit Institute of Arts two years ago and the opening of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (above) in 2006.

Last time, in May 2008, Art Detroit Now involved “3 days, 75 galleries, 1000’s of artists” in and around the city center. This time, there’ve been a few changes. The full press release is here.

I thought it was an opportunity for a good Five Questions, and Marc Schwartz, a founding member of the event and this year’s chair, agreed.

1) There’ve been changes since 2008 — two days now, instead of three; fall instead of spring, etc. What prompted those changes, what did you learn from the 2008 event?

 

In Detroit, gallery and shows openings have historically been on Friday nights, or on Saturday during the afternoon or evening.  Last year, those venues that scheduled events on Thursday did not get the bump in attendance we had hoped for, so this year we decided that a 2-day concentrated effort would work better for everyone.  With regard to Spring vs. Fall, we’re new at this. The first time around, we decided on the Spring as an attempt to draw more people to art venues at a slower time of the year. This time, we through we’d use the start of the art season as a basis to build on. In a few weeks, we’ll assess everything, and start plans for a bigger and better 3rd edition.  

[Read more…] about Art Detroit Now Gets A Second Go, Revised: Five Questions

The Milwaukee Art Museum, a symbol of the city, took on a new hue last night: The winged Santiago Calatrava-designed addition began to glow in the dark, in a bright shade of pink. This will continue for 10 days, all told, enhancing its spectacle value and prominence in the city’s skyline.

The glow is a product of marketing and what the museum is calling community involvement. Staff had already chosen pink as the prime color for the ad campaign for its big fall exhibition — Andy Warhol: The Last Decade — when along came representatives from the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and the Milwaukee Race starts at the museum’s lakefront spot on Sunday. The Warhol show opens Saturday.

So the museum is donning pink from 7:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. each night for a while. And, in another show of synergy and support, museum is offering free admission on race day to all cancer survivors participating in the race and $2 off admission to everyone else who runs in it.

The museum as never been lit like this for more than a few hours, and never in conjunction with a cause. But it would like to do so in the future — if there’s another good fit and if the requisite funding can be found (in this case, it was provided by the Pellmann Center for Medical Imaging). 

Reminiscent of the Empire State Building, in other words, whose color scheme changes frequently and is watched and talked about.

Photo Credit: Frank Meyl, Courtesy Milwaukee Art Museum 

Every now and then you run across an exhibition that blends art that’s fun with creative marketing. I thought I found one today.

But after investigating further, I’m not at all sure: The sponsorship makes me a tad queasy — and some activities, well, I wonder if they are more about foot traffic, and never mind the art.

My tip-off to the exhibit came in a pitch for annual support from the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Ct.

When you donate to the annual fund, it said, “you will be invited to LIGHTS OUT!” — which turns out to be an after-dark tour, illuminated only by flashlights and led by Aldrich director Harry Philbrick, of Bike Rides: The Exhibition.

The point, the letter said, was that the Aldrich “is always thinking of new ways to look. look again.

I’m all for that; the Aldrich has a great reputation among contemporary artists.

Its website says that the show is meant to “explore the increasing relevance of bicycles in contemporary art and culture.” About 30 works, multi-media. It starts on Sept. 26.

No question, the “marketing” takes clever advantage of the subject. 

[Read more…] about “Bike Rides” At The Aldrich: On Track, Or Off?

Just before Jackson Pollock entered his intense “drip period,” he painted his famous Mural, 1943-44, which resides in the University of Iowa Museum of Art. But did he “sign” it, hiding his name among his paint strokes?

That is a contention of a forthcoming book, Tom and Jack by Henry Adams, which chronicles the relationship between Pollock and his teacher, Thomas Hart Benson.

If true — and not everyone agrees — it would add yet more evidence of Pollock’s self-regard, according to a new article published in the October issue of ARTNews:

That Pollock would insert his signature into the painting makes sense in terms of Mural‘s meaning for Pollock, argues Adams, a professor of American art at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland: “The whole point of Mural was to declare that Jackson Pollock was a great painter,” he writes in Tom and Jack, which is being published in December by Bloomsbury Press. “The painting is essentially a big billboard for Jackson Pollock.”

You be the judge:

[Read more…] about A New Theory About Pollock’s Mural: He Hid His Signature