Archives for October 2010

Andrew Butterfield calls himself a scholar-dealer, and has made a practice of rediscovering major works of art. He studied with Sir John Pope-Hennessy at the Institute of Fine Arts, where he received a Ph.D. in 1992, and has held senior research positions at the Institute for Advanced Study, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Harvard University.

He has worked in the art market since 1996, and established his own company in 2005, in London.

Now he is bringing some of his discoveries to New York. In a collaboration with Moretti Fine Art on the Upper East Side, Butterfield on Thursday will open Body and Soul, an exhibition of Italian Renaissance and Baroque sculpture that promises to be an event — though, at first, I needed convincing, more about which in a moment.

The show consist of 12 works that Butterfield says have never been on view before, including sculptures by Riccio (who recently had an exhibition at the Frick Collection), Verrocchio (Leonardo da Vinci’s teacher) and Algardi.  

Let’s look at two: a terra cotta Medusa from 1480 by Andrea del Verrocchio that, judging by its picture (above right), is a knockout. So is Charity, another terra cotta (left), this time dating to 1510 and made by Jacopo Sansovino. Butterfield calls him, after Michelangelo, “the leading sculptor of the sixteenth century” and says “No work by the artist has come to light and been acquired by a museum since 1931….Sansovino’s models were among the first to be collected, by patrons as well as by other artists. Only eight survive in the world, and all the others are in museum collections.”

The category of Old Master sculpture is one I’ve been keeping an eye on over the last couple of years; interest in it seems to be growing, possibly because good works remain to be had, more frequently than Old Master pictures. Besides, many of the pieces are just beautiful.  

Nonetheless, I can’t blog about every great exhibition — so I asked Butterfield, via his representative, if any of the works had an interesting backstory. Here is his response, which I reproduce in full because — well, you’ll see:

The front story is the back story: It is exceptionally rare for a dealer to have one major discovery by a major artist worthy of a place in the Louvre. To have a group of such things at one time–some of which actually change the history of art–has never been done before. 
 
As a group it may be the most important exhibition ever put on in Old Master sculpture. And I can’t think of a comparable show in Old Master paintings and drawings either.
 
Sansovino: it is exactly the kind of model Vasari describes him making for Andrea del Sarto but has never actually been found before. It shows that Pope-Hennessy was right about the Raphaelesque character of Sansovino but to a degree unimaginable before. And it strongly suggests that Sansovino was the conduit between the advances in High Renaissance Rome and High-Renaissance Florence.
 
Riccio: 1st early terracotta Madonna by him to be found and only the second one in America. The other is in Getty.
 
Algardi: It is by far one of two great masters of Baroque sculpture and made for the other–Bernini–and on commission of Pope Urban VIII. The only such work in America. The first terracotta of its kind to show relationship of Algardi and Bernini. (There are some marbles they both worked). 
 
Verrocchio: first by him from his period in Rome around 1480. We know from Vasari that he was there but had never before found.

I know people will quibble with some of this, but I’m not inclined to, in this case, given Butterfield’s track record. The exhibition closes on Nov. 19. 

Photo Credits: Courtesy of Andrew Butterfield   

As of today, the National Academy Museum has moved from hot water, according to the Association of Art Museum Directors, into lukewarm water: the group “suspended” sanctions on the NAM enacted two years ago after it deaccessioned two works of art from its collection and used the proceeds to cover operating costs.

Since December 2008, when AAMD punished the NAM, the museum has been unable to borrow works from AAMD members for its exhibitions.

 The NAM has promised not to deaccession works to pay its operating bills at any point in the future.

Nonetheless, the National Academy Museum remains on a five-year probation, and has committed to reporting to the AAMD each year about its progress toward both financial and programmatic goals. According to a press release:

AAMD will lift the probation on the National Academy at the end of five years, assuming continued institutional advancement. The terms of probation were developed by AAMD in order to strike a balance between the negative effects of the sanctions on the National Academy’s operations and future plans, and AAMD’s stewardship of policies and standards to maintain the highest level of professional practice for the field.

Here’s a link to the press release.

I may be back to add to this, with comments, later today.

UPDATE: I’ve had the opportunity to think this agreement through, and it seems fair to me under the AAMD rules. While some critics have called the sanctions too harsh, I disagree — if an organization expects rules to stick, it must enforce in a meaningful way. “First offense,” in the case of deaccessioning, is a meaningless distinction. Most museums would try to do their selling in one episode.

As I’ve written, I believe that there ought to be a process through which museums in true danger of closing, which have exhausted all other possibilities, might petition a state attorney general or an AAMD-sanctioned arbiter or some other adjudicator for permission to deaccession some works to raise money to remain open. See here, here and here. 

What I objected to about the NAM’s  behavior was its secrecy, secrecy caused by the AAMD strictures.  

 

A new initiative in California prompts several observations. It’s called Arts In the 2010 California Governor’s Race, and that in itself is unusual: a new, non-partisan arts group formed specifically for one race.

The organization, led by a wide-ranging group of theater, music, and multi-art directors, says it’s building a “statewide army” of citizens to send the message to the candidates, Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman, that the arts matter. They want arts-friendly policies, including an increase in public funding for the arts, the assurance that students from K-12 have a high quality arts education, and measures that “nurture an environment to allow individuals and families affordable access to all forms of the arts.”

I’m not sure what that last one would entail, but nevermind.

The group is defining the arts very broadly, and while that sounds fine in theory, in practice it means that Hollywood seems to occupy a prominent place in the argument. Hollywood certainly takes precedence in the website section on how the arts contribute to the California economy. That may be because the movie industry has fairly reliable statistics, whereas museums, classical music venues, theaters and so on do not (despite my regular pleas [here and here, to name two posts] for better, shared statistics). While some numbers, even skewed, are better than no numbers — people respond to real statistics — this allows the candidates off the hook if they cater solely to Hollywood. And that’s not good.  

The site has two very welcome sections: Californians can send letters to the candidates about the arts via the site, and the site also lists questions arts-lovers could ask the candidates — predictable, mostly, but still. The point is to get the arts into the discussion. And that’s good.

But it’s hard to tell if the organization as a whole is having impact. The “Forum” part of the site, where there is room for conversations and comments, seems very inactive, and perhaps an indication of the organization’s limited reach. Or maybe lack of general interest in the arts. Need I say “that’s not good”?

Still, it’s a start. I personally don’t agree with all of the group’s aims, but I applaud its desire to get the arts into the election discussion in a non-partisan way.

 

 

Here’s another list of important cultural heritage sites to worry about: 20 “on the verge” of experiencing irreversible, irreparable loss and destruction, according to the Global Heritage Fund.

Like UNESCO and the World Monuments Fund, GHF aims to shine a light on endangered sites; the main difference from them, as far as I can tell, is that GHF focuses exclusively on the developing world and it adds an economic argument for preservation. 

In a release about its sites list, made public this morning, the GHF “estimates that there is a potential $100 billion per year opportunity by 2025 for the developing world to help achieve their UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to eradicate poverty if global heritage sites are protected and preserved.”

And along with the release of this report, GHF is holding a conference this Tuesday at Stanford to raise awareness of the problem, identify technologies and solutions, and raise funding to get rescues started. The agenda for that conference is here.

The 20 “on the verge” sites are:

• Bangladesh’s Mahansrhangarh, monumental site of the earliest urban architecture
• Cambodia’s Sambor Preh Kok, one of the Khmer’s masterpieces in fired-brick palace architecture
• China’s Kashgar, one of the last intact ancient cities in Asia (pictured, top left)
• China’s Jiaohe ancient city, one of the Silk Road’s greatest treasures
• Guatemala’s Mirador, the cradle of Mayan civilization
• Haiti’s Jacmel, one of the world’s last historic cities of steel and iron architecture
• India’s Maluti Temples, one of a kind edifices to the kings of the Pala dynasty
• Iraq’s Ur, where experts believe is the birthplace of Abraham (below, left)
• Iraq’s Nineveh, a major cultural center of the ancient world
• Iraq’s ancient city of Samarra
• Kenya’s Lamu, East Africa’s oldest Swahili historic town
• Pakistan’s Taxila, the crossroads of the ancient Indus civilization
• Palestine’s Hisham’s Palace, the sophisticated complex of the Islamic dynasty of Ummayad
• The Philippines’ historic city of Intramuros and Fort Santiago in Manila
• Syria’s Old Damascus, one of the Middle East’s last intact historic cities (top right)
• Thailand’s Ayutthaya, once one of southeast Asia’s most advanced civilizations
• Turkey and Syria’s Karkemish, one of the ancient world’s great cities
• Turkey’s Ani, the crossroads of Anatolian civilization
• Ukraine’s Chersonesos, the Black Sea’s largest classical archaeological site (bottom, right)
• Yemen’s ancient city of Zabid, once a showcase for the regions rich architectural heritage 

The GHF report accompanying the list — Saving Our Vanishing Heritage: Safeguarding our Cultural Heritage Sites in the Developing World — pinned the blame for these troubled sites on five activities of man: development pressures, unsustainable tourism, insufficient management, looting, and war and conflict.

It calls for “a new Global Fund for Heritage comprised of emergency funding from governments, foundations and corporations to save our remaining heritage sites – specifically focused on the poorest countries and regions of the world.”

GHF says that it’s launching a new “early warning and threats monitoring system” that uses satellite imaging technology and ground reports “to enable international experts and local conservation leaders to clearly identify and solve imminent threats within the legal core and protected areas of each global heritage site.” It calls this the Global Heritage Network.

The whole report can be accessed here and a list of the sites, with their specific threats is here. All three GHF links are work checking out, if only for the marvelous site pictures.

I suppose there’s a reason GHF started up in 2001, per GuideStar, long after the World Monuments Fund, which dates to 1965. But they share the same mission. The GHNetwork also sound much like the MEGA project recently announced by the Getty Conservation Institute, which is starting with Jordan but has the ambitions and capability of monitoring countries all over the world. I recently saw a demonstration of MEGA and it’s fantastic.

Of course, there’s plenty of work for all in global heritage — the key will be avoiding duplication and stretching dollars to their limits. 

I usually steer clear of promoting commercial ventures, but Sotheby’s is this week posting videos that transport people anywhere to London, where the Frieze Art Fair is in full swing. Since I can’t be there, I decided to take a look — and discovered that they’re worth viewing for anyone else who hasn’t traveled to London, too. 

The Frieze Week Video Project takes you along with Sotheby’s experts to gallery openings, exhibitions and parties. The first ones online, for example, go to the Tate Modern opening reception, with Ai Wei Wei’s new piece in the turbine hall. Each one lasts about 3 minutes.

At the fair itself, you go to a piece by Ugo Rondinone and another by Damian Hirst. At White Cube, there’s artist Mark Bradford.

Here’s the link to Sotheby’s videos and here’s a link to the Frieze site, which is also rich in information.