Ordinarily, I would pass up this opportunity to cite yet another example of an art museum dumbing down for the sake of attracting crowds. And I almost did, until I saw who organized the exhibition.
In September, the marvelous Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, home to Raphael’s Madonna of the Candelabra (below), Manet’s At the Cafe, and Veronese’s Portrait of Countess Livia da Porto Thiene and her Daughter Porzia (to name just a few works I picked off the website catalogue randomly), will open Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic (sample at left).
The description: it’s the “first museum retrospective of award-winning author and photographic illustrator Walter Wick. Author of Can You See What I See? and co-creator of the Walter Wick, whose I Spy book series loved by millions of children and adults around the world, Wick has a keen interest in puzzles, games, science and illusions. The exhibition will feature a selection of Wick’s early photographs, which provided a foundation for the artist’s interest in illusions. It will include several of the handcrafted, meticulously detailed installation models accompanied by his large-format color photographs that are the illustrations in his children’s books.”
Sigh.
I didn’t get too worked up, though, because to me it’s all about “mix.” The Walters has mounted many excellent exhibitions (though the title of one on now — Checkmate: Medieval People At Play! — strikes me as a reach), so let it stray into pop culture now and again.
But I changed my mind when I saw that the New Britain Museum of American Art organized the exhibition. This is the very museum that recently renegged on its plan to show newly rediscovered art by women of the Hudson River school because of the costs involved. The very museum that bills itself as “the first institution in this country devoted to collecting and exhibiting American art.” The very museum “dedicated to serving all people by pursuing excellence in art through collections, exhibitions, and education.”
Double-sigh.
The New Britain Museum seems to have drink the “town square” kool-aid. Its website proclaims “where art meets life.”
OK, I know: the cost of Wicks exhibition may already have been paid and accounted for before the reversal on the exhibition of real art was made. I can only hope that is the explanation.
Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Walters Art Museum