Archives for July 2010

That’s it: I’m declaring victory. And I’m giving my laurels to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

As regular readers of Real Clear Arts know, I’ve been advocating for a big change in museum hours. In this day and age, they must stay open at night, at least two nights a week, imho — in most cities, at least. (Maybe not every city/town — it does depend on the city, the museum’s location, nearby traffic, etc.) 

Without much fanfare, the VMFA has announced that starting this month, it will be open 365 days a year and it will expand its evening hours, remaining open on Fridays — as well as Thursdays — until 9 p.m.

That’s right — Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years included — VMFA will be accessible to visitors.

Bravo!

This is a big change, too, because in recent years the VMFA has also been closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Now, says director Alex Nyerges in the press release:

We have been wildly successful since our grand opening in May, and the museum has been enthusiastically received by the community and national visitors. …Being open on Mondays and offering evening hours have been very popular. As we strive to increase our accessibility to all our visitors, I am pleased to complete my vision to be open seven days a week, 365 days a year.

On New Year’s Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, the hours will be noon to 5 p.m. On state and national holidays that fall on Mondays, hours will be the same as usual, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. More details are here. (While you’re on the site, have a look at the special exhibitions on the docket – here: the big show right now is of Tiffany works, but come August there will be a South African photography exhibition.)  

I understand that this may be an experiment, and it’s a worthy one. If after appropriate marketing of the new hours and a good, long trial period, visitorship doesn’t demand such extended hours, VMFA should feel free to tinker.

Meantime, I challenge other museums to follow suit in their own way.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of VMFA

Rita Jenrette — remember that name? Some 30 years ago, her ex-husband, Rep. John Jenrette, was convicted in the Abscam scandal, and she became an instant celebrity by giving an interview to and posing for Playboy.

Now she’s done something that will no doubt get less press, but which is much more worthy of attention, at least in the art world. 

Last year, Jenrette married Prince Nicolò Boncompagni Ludovisi and became a princess (going by the name Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi). And she has persuaded her publicity-shy husband to open the famed Villa Aurora in Rome to visitors.

The villa, built in 1570 and expanded in 1858, contains the “Aurora” ceiling fresco by Guercino (above), as well as Caravaggio’s only known ceiling (below), of Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto, among many other works of art. Jenrette has studied up and often gives the tour commentary herself, according to the International Herald Tribune, which has written a real estate article on the home.

The villa and the artworks inside it, however, seem to be in dire need of help. According to the article:

The years have taken a toll on the villa, with water damage to the frescoes, and to the ancient statues in the garden, some of which date to 500 BC. After years of negotiation with the Italian government, which has designated the house a national treasure, a €10 million restoration finally began last year.

It took 14 months to lay a new roof and to repair and repaint the exterior, returning the pumpkin-colored villa to its original color of cream with a hint of pink.

The extent of the interior damage is still to be determined, but at least two more years’ work is expected. A second Guercino ceiling, “La Fama,” is riven with cracks caused by water damage. And chipped plaster throughout the house offers colorful peeks at old frescoes long since covered over. Samples are going to be taken to determine if any of the hidden works are worth restoring.

So, this house has much more to offer art-lovers, it seems — not to mention art historians.

Here’s a link to the article, which has a slide show and more details on the Villa Aurora.  

For someone so out of step with the times, Charles Burchfield is getting a good run at the Whitney Museum. Heatwaves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield, opened at the Whitney museum late last month and has been getting good reviews. (They may not be enough to solve the Whitney’s attendance problems, however.)

Organized by the Hammer Museum in LA and the Burchfield-Penney Art Center in Buffalo, where Burchfield spent much of his life, the exhibition has been praised by the Village Voice (“experience these visionary paintings before they return to the darkness”), The New Yorker (where Peter Schjeldahl prefers his less florid pieces, as do I), and The New York Times, where Holland Cotter hedged his bets saying “Burchfield’s intensities are not for all tastes.”

Why? Critics don’t feel moved to say that for more contemporary artists who certainly are not for all tastes… (Are some so timid that they don’t want to risk going against current fashion? Yes, indeed. As A.R. Gurney has Katharine Cornell say in his current show, The Grand Manner, it’s the minor critics who take risks. But I digress.)

To name one artist who’s not for everyone — Robert Gober, who co-curated the Burchfield exhibition.

Gober did a wonderful job here — and, as a matter of fact, seems to be eager to see more Burchfield. Kelly Crow writes about it on The Wall Street Journal blog Speakeasy:

…there’s a mystery embedded in the title of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s current show…Sculptor and co-curator Robert Gober said “Heat Waves in a Swamp” is actually the title for a Burchfield painting that’s gone missing. Gober said he saw a black-and-white image of the work during his research, but he didn’t include it in the exhibit’s catalog. He’s hoping that the owner of the work might notice the title and reveal the piece’s whereabouts. “I’d love to see it,” he said, during a visit at the museum recently.

Crow says Speakeasy is all ears, if anyone has a tip, and so is Real Clear Arts. To borrow from a completely different context, if you see something, say something.  

Photo Credit: Dandelion Seed Heads and the Moon, 1961-65, Courtesy Whitney Museum   

This happened last week, but it still hasn’t had much notice — and it’s Friday, time for a little lightness: The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts has commissioned Claes Oldenburg to create a sculpture for its “Lenfest Plaza.” Oldenburg has come back with a plan to erect a huge paintbrush that will certainly brighten the spot.

The picture says it all, but here’s the description anyway:

The design consists of a 53 foot high sculpture in the form of a paintbrush, raised at a 60 degree angle as if in the act of painting, with a dollop of paint on the ground below. The sculpture is positioned between PAFA’s Historic Landmark Building and the Samuel M. V. Hamilton Building. Oldenburg’s monumental paintbrush points to the growth and vitality of American art, while celebrating a milestone in the history of the Academy.

And, quoting PAFA curator of Modern art Robert Cozzolino:

His motif of a paintbrush metamorphosing into a torch shows his sensitivity to site – not only to its presence at PAFA but in Philadelphia. Making the paintbrush into a glowing torch makes it a symbol of liberty – artistic and political – which is at the core of an art school, a vibrant art museum, and our city. Oldenburg’s thoughtful design has these meanings already, and as it lives its life in Philadelphia it will undoubtedly build on them in ways future generations will come to know.

PAFA says Oldenburg has created 45 such large-scale works around the world. You can read more here.

Photo Credit: Courtesy Claes Oldenburg

Maybe the National Endowment for the Arts is getting better: A new round of grants looks somewhat promising to me.

Except for my last post, which praised NEA chief Rocco Landesman’s attempts to get more money for the arts via HUD and DOT programs, I’ve been fairly critical about the NEA in the Obama Administration. But the grants announced by Landesman this morning through the NEA Mayors’ Institute on City Design 25th Anniversary Initiative (MICD 25) — a new program billed here as “Neighborhood transformation through the arts is the goal of 21 selected projects” — may make a difference.

I’m still not completely on-board with the MICD 25 program: I think it places too much of a burden on arts to create economic activity, and verges too much toward what commercial developers could/should so. Equally troubling, some grants go to the continuation of existing projects — which means that the cities probably would have found other funding for them without the NEA.

For example, the Horace Bushnell Memorial Corporation in Hartford won $250,00 to “support phase two of the iQuilt project, which will focus primarily on design. Expected activities include landscape design of the GreenWalk intended to connect Bushnell Park and the revitalized Connecticut River waterfront and urban design and enhancement of the existing pedestrian network…” 

Still, some winning projects look good.

And, in contrast to so many NEA grants, these are larger — a few are $25,000, but others go up to $250,000. I like that: in general, I favor larger grants that make a difference rather than tiny amounts that supposedly provide a stamp of approval.  

Let’s back up and state the program goal:

Each of the MICD25 projects takes a problem such as isolated neighborhoods or a neglected waterfront and uses the arts to solve that problem. The aesthetic and communal qualities of art make them excellent construction materials for transforming physical spaces. Although the arts are at the center of each of the projects, the grantees are extending beyond the arts world to collaborate with local entities such as chambers of commerce, downtown redevelopment councils, departments of transportation, urban planning offices, and park and recreation offices.

So who won? Some cities, like Milwaukee, basically got necessary but ho-hum planning grants. But here are a few I like:

• Rochester, NY: $250,000: “…to enhance the [ARTWalk] trail (pictured, top), commissioning additional public art pieces…including creating Centennial Sculpture Park, a two-acre park at the University of Rochester Memorial Art Gallery…[and] Poet’s Walk, which will identify historically significant poets with local ties, and Story Walk, a sidewalk that will wind through Centennial Sculpture Park and involve multimedia interaction, such as embedded audio performances.”
• Indianapolis Museum of Art: $250,000 to “…work with artist Mary Miss and other partners…to create FLOW (Can You See the River?), [a] series of collaborative public art installations — or “Stopping Points” — along a stretch of the White River and Central Canal…intended to reveal significant aspects of the river system, thereby enhancing the community’s awareness of the White River, river-related issues, and efforts around maintaining the health of the city’s water supply.”
• Paterson, N.J. (Development Corp.): $100,000 “for its Great Falls Arts and Creative Revitalization Initiative, which will engage the city’s artistic community in a collaborative process to create artistic events, works of art, and programs to both inaugurate the new national park and establish a permanent presence for the arts in ongoing revitalization efforts.”
• Arts Council for Long Beach: $25,000 to “commission the design of a portable, flexible festival stage/set/performance space [concept rendering, above right] [see comment below] that will be used by arts presenting organizations throughout the city for special events and community festivals.”
• Shreveport Regional Arts Council: $200,000 to “develop Shreveport Commons over a seven-block area along Common Street that will house visual and performance venues side by side with existing community service institutions, religious institutions, and new businesses.”   

The entire list is here. 

If I recall correctly, the NEA has $5 million to spend on this program this year:   See comment below.

Landesman has spent $3 million on 21 projects. Too early to say it’s a good start — but it’s not a bad one if arts infrastructure is the goal.