Archives for September 2009

Back in August, while I was on vacation, Laurie Fendrich, a painter and fine arts professor who blogs for the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Brainstorm site, raised an interesting point about art magazines. Comparing the table of contents from ARTnews of 1957 with those of today, she wrote:

I’m not one to dwell on the idea that civilization is in decline. It probably is, but I try my best to follow Schiller’s advice that you must embrace your own times, yet not let them consume you. Reading the ideas of previous eras is important for thinking men and women; wallowing in nostalgia for the past is destructive to life lived now.

Sometimes, however, you stumble across something that makes you realize, with a jolt, just how far we’ve fallen from what things were like fifty years ago.

Continuing, she said:

Here, verbatim, is the list of the articles and authors in that summer 1957 issue:

The Creative Act, Marcel Duchamp
The place of painting in contemporary culture, Stuart Davis
The age of the chimpanzee, Randall Jarrell
The liberating quality of avante-garde art, Meyer Shapiro
Fifty-five years of U.S. Museums, Alfred Frankfurter
My friend Picasso, Gaston Palewski
Pure paints a picture, Elaine de Kooning
New York painting only yesterday, Clement Greenberg

And later says:

If it were to go head-to-head with any table of contents, from any issue of any art magazine published during the past decade, there’d be no question as to the winner.

Well, she is entitled to her point and her preference, but I think I disagree — and not just because if artists filled the art magazines and wrote so much about art, what would I do? 

[Read more…] about Art Magazines, 1950s Vs. Art Magazines, Today: Which Do You Prefer?

Simon Cronshaw, the Managing Partner (E-commerce), for CultureLabel, read my last post, about his fledgling website, and wrote in a few answers to points raised.

 

1. Enhancing income: In the UK, only 1-3% of retail turnover for institutions is generated online, with comparable sectors closer to 20-30%. We therefore did a lot of consumer research on why this is the case, and one of the most important aspects is that users are on a ‘visitor’ journey to sites, rather than a ‘purchasing’ journey. When users are on a purchasing journey, the category of ‘cultural shopping’ isn’t yet as well known in consumer minds as it could be (e.g. as in the case of ethical shopping). So, an aggregated site like ours can help tackle this issue.

 

2. US and International presence: We’re currently recruiting many of the major institutions in the US and in other key territories internationally, including Australia, Europe and Africa. These should be appearing onsite (in native currencies) within the next few weeks.

 

3. Individual artists: Curation is really important to us, so we currently sell through galleries and institutions only, rather than direct sales from artists. [Other] sites…profile and sell individual artist works as their core business model, and are better suited to the unique demands. As Rena mentions, however, profiling smaller institutions and galleries is critical to our onsite curation – you may enter via a Tate or British Museum, but then discover the Baltic or Central Illustration Agency. It’s therefore a great way to pool traffic and make it a very unique (and constantly evolving) destination for consumers.

“Come And Join Our Community of Culture Shoppers.” That’s one of the taglines employed by the new British site, CultureLabel.com, now in beta, which is self-described this way:

Hello! CultureLabel.com is the first online platform to curate and showcase the best artist-designed and limited-edition products from over 60 leading galleries, museums, artists and culture institutions.

Though most brands on the site are British, it has invited cultural institutions from around the world, and it looks as if the Museum of Modern Art has signed up, but isn’t present yet. You can read more about CultureLabel in The Art Newspaper, which recently posted an article on its website about it, and the Wall Street Journal, which published an article several days ago.

Sounds like a good idea to me, especially for small museums, but I decided to put Five Questions to an expert on museum merchandising, Rena Zurofsky, who — as you can see on her website — has advised clients like Lincoln Center and the Philbrook Museum.

1) How important are store sales to American museums, and how are sales doing during this recession?

 

Museum stores have become expected amenities. They support educational missions by selling catalogues and books and…they are considered tools for extending the “brand.” … Whether they actually enhance income or not depends on quite a few factors, not least of which is the level of traffic to the institution itself.  Also important will be the popularity or notoriety of a given exhibition. Web sales will enhance the bottom line, but again, generally only if on-line shoppers know to look for that institution. Many shops probably operate at break-even rather than significant revenue-enhancement.

[Read more…] about What’s So Great About CultureLabel? Five Questions

1962: Lincoln Center, New York.

2003: Disney Hall, Los Angeles.

2009: AT&T Performing Arts Center, Dallas.

What a progression, from a president to an entertainment executive to a phone company.

Yesterday, the country’s newest and self-described “most significant” new performing arts complex to be built since Lincoln Center, nee the Dallas Performing Arts Center, announced that it would henceforth bear the name of AT&T. It will open on schedule on October 12, and the website URL has already been changed to www.attpac.org.

The “naming sponsorship” with AT&T does not involve a gift to the capital campaign for the $354 million complex, which is still short more than $30 million, according to The Dallas Morning News. The city contributed just $18 million to the huge project, though, and the PAC has done well to raise what it has. AT&T is contributing operating funds for the complex.

This is a tough fundraising climate, and it’s understandable that the Dallas center would take the money it needs wherever it can get it, even if it means a corporate name. (I regret it, but I understand it.) What I do not understand is why the center will not say how much money is involved, according to the News. And neither will the company. 

[Read more…] about Dallas Performing Arts Center Goes Corporate: Let’s Hear The Details

The New York Times has just named a new culture editor, and it’s Jon Landman. It’s a great choice. Jon, currently a deputy managing editor, has spent the last four years or so
overseeing the the integration of the print and Internet newsrooms at the Times. But before that he spent a “transitional year” — as Executive Editor Bill Keller wrote in his email to staff — “presiding over the [Culture] department, implementing a sweeping overhaul of the department and grooming new leadership” for it, namely Sam Sifton, whom he now replaces.

Jon has done plenty of other things at the Times, including run the Week In Review and Metro sections. If memory serves, he also worked in the Washington bureau and has worked at the Daily News, Newsday and the Chicago Sun-Times. He went to Amherst and the Columbia School of Journalism.

He answered readers’ questions in the “talk to the newsroom” web feature in 2006 here and his Wikipedia entry is here.