Archives for February 2011

I believe everyone should have access to great art, but news of one new showcase museum stopped me cold, pun intended.

The building pictured here, which looks quite lovely to me, will house a new National Gallery of Greenland. It’s set to be built in Nuuk, the capital. 

Greenland’s population was 56,452 as of January, 2010, per Wikipedia.

The museum, which is set on a hill overlooking a fjord, will include both historical materials and contemporary art. It’s a bit bigger than 32,000 sq. ft., all told, and was designed by a team called “BIG + TNT Nuuk + Ramboll Nuuk + Arkitekti.” The museum’s board selected it from six proposals.

The new museum will combine historical and contemporary art of the country in one institution The winning proposal was selected by a unanimous museum board among 6 proposals. In a press release announcing the choice, Tuusi Josef Motzfeldt said:

The Board has a clear vision: to work for the establishment of an internationally oriented highly professional institution that communicates the continuous project of documenting and developing the Greenlandic national identity through art and culture. Our dream is a national gallery where historic and contemporary art meets circumpolar pieces, Nordic and world art in general. Our dream is an institution that stimulates our curiosity, awake our excitement with its thought‐provoking design and where we all feel at home.

The release did not contain a cost figure, or a construction schedule. But other details are here. And BIG has a slideshow here.

Clearly, this museum is also intended to be a tourist draw, and while that’s partly a good thing, I hope Greenland’s hopes are not too high — which is to say, I hope Greenlanders are not dreaming of Bilbao. Greenland’s economy is based on fishing, and diversfying that by increasing tourism could be a good thing —  but a tough row to hoe. The average annual temperature of Nuuk varies, again according to Wikipedia, from 15.8 to 44.6 Â°F — with annual highs reaching only the 60s. More than 80% of Greenland is covered by ice.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group

Hope springs eternal among foes of the Barnes move to downtown Philadelphia. Today, Friends of the Barnes Foundation announced that Rep. Jim Gerlach and Montgomery County Commissioner Bruce Castor have written to Pennsylvania’s new governor, Tom Corbett, opposing the use of public money for the move (and CC’ing everyone they could think of).

Former Governor Ed Rendell had offered public funding of about $47 million.

Actually, the duo wrote to Corbett’s legal counsel, Stephen S. Aichele, saying, in part:

We are writing to request your review of the continuing use of Pennsylvania taxpayer funds for the further subsidization of the controversial relocation of the Barnes art collection in Lower Merion Township, Montgomery County to the Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia.

…the previous administration compounded our concerns – and those expressed by many of our constituents – by committing slightly more than $47 million of taxpayer funds through the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Project (RACP) to building a new museum in Philadelphia. It is our understanding that approximately $38.7 million of that RACP money remains unspent.
 
Consequently, we are seeking your assistance in having the Corbett Administration thoroughly re-evaluate the wrong-headed decision to borrow money and compel current and future generations of Pennsylvania taxpayers to pay off the debt incurred for the unnecessary Barnes relocation project. Further, we would respectfully request that the Corbett Administration take any and all steps necessary to halt the release of additional funding for this relocation project until a review is completed.

And so on.

Fortunately, the letter avoided the problem that would damage support for the arts — saying that we couldn’t afford the price in these tight times. Rather, the letter couched its opposition this way: “…all taxpayers – deserve the peace of mind in knowing that every dollar is spent prudently on projects of widespread community support and benefit.”

Here’s a link to the letters.

Stopping the move is still a long-shot, but stranger things have happened.

Construction continues, however, as this webcam shows. Some galleries in Merion have closed (Cezanne’s Card Players, above, is no longer on view) and the rest will be closed in July.

Here’s a link to earlier thoughts on this situation, which has additional links. The subject just will not die.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Barnes Foundation

 

So President Obama is proposing cuts of $22 million each in next year’s budgets for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for Humanities, dropping them to $146 million in FY 2012 from $168 million in FY 2010 (Congress has not yet approved the 2010 budget), according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy. We knew it was coming, and — barring some dramatic intervention — the two will be lucky to escape the Congressional budget process with even those amounts intact. (Here’s a link to the budget page, which allows you to view it in PDF, Kindle, Nook and other devices. But neither the NEA nor the NEH occupy a line.)

With such steep cuts, though, even culture lovers will have trouble making the argument that arts and humanities funding should be priviledged above spending for infrastructure, medical research, unemployment benefits, and so on.

But in recent days there has been good news for what I believe may be the best argument for investing in the arts: their affect on creativity. It’s an area that is both least explored and potentially most powerful.

Last week, the Bay Area Discovery Museum said it was creating a Center for Childhood Creativity. The CCC is a think tank, intent on raising “awareness of the critical need for nurturing childhood creativity;” providing “creativity-focused services for parents, educators, activists, corporations and policymakers;” generating “original research,” and setting “standards for creative programs for children in multiple disciplines;” and syndicating “content for maximum impact.”

That’s a big agenda, and I hope the “research” part doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. There’s a lot of wishful thinking that exposure to the arts contributes to creativity, but little if any proof.

This initiative probably would not be starting if America’s CEOs were not so concerned, which they are. You can see that in this press release.

As the release notes:

The Center for Childhood Creativity defines creativity as the capacity for original thought, new connections, adaptive reasoning, and novel solutions. Recent research by Kyung Hee Kim, an associate professor of educational psychology at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, noted that children’s scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TCCT) have declined over the past 20 years. “The TTCT measures the creative mind more broadly; it measures creative potential in many diverse areas such as art, literature, science, mathematics, architecture, engineering, business, leadership, and interpersonal relationships,” stated Professor Kyung Hee Kim. “The results indicate that all of the scores … have significantly decreased or have significantly started decreasing. The decrease has been more in recent years than earlier years.”

The CCC already has a website, and list of advisors, including Daniel Pink and an NEH program officer. Richard Winefield is executive director of both the museum and the center — maybe not ideally. Perhaps that will change, as the Center grows.

The CCC will not help anything in the near-term, let along budgets for arts and artists and humanities programs. Longterm is another matter.

It seems intuitive that the arts must impact both childhood and adult creativity, but until we can prove it, for sure, that intuition won’t do arts organizations any good whatsoever.

 

 

Time to check in on the Wexner Center for the Arts. Why? The Wex (below) just won a four-year  $782,300 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop multidisciplinary “trans-institutional” curatorial research and programming with visual artists and media artists in Brazil. That’s pretty substantial amount of money, and the grant reflects not only the vibrancy of the Brazilian arts scene but also the desire of many American arts groups to catch up on what’s going on in Latin America.

And that’s a good thing.

It’s unclear whether this is a new direction for the Mellon, however. The foundation has changed a bit since music historian Don Michael Randel took over as president in mid-2006, but its website gives no indication of a broad new investment in grants like the Wexner’s.

Nor do its other recent grants: Among them are a $1.25 million award to the Duke University Libraries to endow a senior conservator; $2.4 million to Emory University and $10 million to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, both to support the humanities; and $172,000 to rebuild the infrastructure of the Cuban Theater Digital Archive at the University of Miami Libraries.

The Mellon website holds no clues (its museum and art conservation section remains the same), and when I asked the Wexner about it, spokeswoman Karen Simonian queried Mellon. Her “Mellon contact,” Simonian said, replied: “The Foundation works on an iterative basis with lots of grantees, usually soliciting proposals from specific institutions in any of the areas we serve across higher ed and the arts and humanities after we have gone through field-based inquiries into current needs and interests. So we have no broad calls for proposals…” in this area.

The Wexner says it was one of several museums and arts centers invited to apply for a Mellon grant last fall; Ohio State, the Wexner’s home, is internationalizing and globalizing its offerings and outlook, so this initiative fit right in.

In its press release, the Wexner elaborated a bit on how it will use the money:

The Wexner Center’s Brazil project will be shaped in large measure by establishing intensive and ongoing relationships with key Brazilian artists, cultural thinkers and practitioners, academics, critics, and institutional peers in the areas of visual arts, film/video, and arts education.

Together, these efforts will result in several manifestations, among them: an ambitious visual and media arts exhibition at the Wex in the 2014 season, related print and electronic documentation, an archival or repertory film project and series, and artist residencies for film and video artists. The center will organize scholarly convenings, as well as more accessible public lectures and seminars, to encourage transnational dialogue.

Throughout the evolution of the Brazil project, the center will seek to establish new avenues for cultural exchange, critique, and commentary, and will–as appropriate–pursue broadcast-quality dissemination of programs via streaming video, social media outlets, and other online means. At the same time, while not under the auspices of the proposed Mellon Foundation grant, the center’s performing arts department will likewise pursue projects involving Brazilian artists, companies, and institutions producing music, theater, and dance to further enrich the center’s comprehensive engagement with Brazil.

As I’ve talked with museum directors over the last year or so, many have mentioned the need to do more with contemporary art from Latin America. The Cisneros Foundation is helping, both by lending art to museums like the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, for its new Art of the Americas wing (here) and publishing books on Latin American artists.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, under the late Peter Marzio, also distinguished itself with the creation, ten years ago, of the International Center for the Arts of the Americas, a research institute focused on Latin American art.

I don’t believe in cookie-cutter museums — so not every museum needs to focus on Latin America. But some should, and make it one of their distinugishing characteristics. 

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Ohio State University

A belated happy 50th birthday to the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth.

On Jan. 24, 1961 — described recently by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram as ” a frostbitten January day” — the museum opened its doors, though only 400 people came for the inauguration. Amon G. Carter Sr., a self-made millionaire who was publisher of the Star-Telegram, had gifted the city with money for the museum, which was to be free, open to all comers, and a champion of American art. (Here’s the link to that article.)

“As a youth, I was denied the advantages which go with the possession of money,” he stated in the will, according to the museum’s website. “I am endeavoring to give to those who have not had such advantages, but who aspire to the higher and finer attributes of life, those opportunities which were denied to me.” He died in 1955.

Carter had grown interested in Western art, primarily Frederick Remington and Charles M. Russell, through his friendship with Will Rogers. The museum tells more of its history here. Pictured here is a gallery during the inaugural 1961 exhibition.

It’s worth noting in this day and age that Fort Worth was lucky to have such a civic-minded collector. At one recent gathering of art world denizens, the discussion turned to the lack of this sense in certain cities today, where collectors have not aligned their interests with the city’s. Instead of helping to cultivate an environment that is favorable to the arts, these collectors have been thinking mostly about themselves.

But Amon Carter, and his heirs, created an American art treasure, not only because its collection and its ambitions have grown (have a look at highlights of its paintings collection), but also because it remains free and accessible. It’s an anchor of the Fort Worth cultural district, which also includes the Kimbell Art Museum (also free and the gift of another wealthy Texan).

The Amon Carter is celebrating all year with special exhibitions, starting with The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision, which will include Asher B. Durand’s Kindred Spirits, on loan from the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark. That’s followed by The Allure of Paper: Drawings and Watercolors from the Collection and John Marin: Modernism at Midcentury.

Apparently unwilling to chance the weather again, the Amon Carter plans to celebrate its birthday in August — on the 13th.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Amon Carter Museum