Archives for March 2011

Exactly what it is about German art that speaks to me I can not say. As you may recall, for example, I am a big fan of Max Beckmann.

So it was not surprising, I guess, that one artist I discovered last week, at the ADAA’s annual Art Show at the Park Avenue Armory, turned out to have been a student of Beckmann’s.

You may have already heard of Marie-Louise Motesiczky, but in case not, I’m calling her to your attention. According to Galerie St. Etienne, in 1927 Beckmann told her, “Paula Modersohn-Becker was the best woman painter in Germany, and you have every chance of succeeding her.”

Of course, I wish he had not used the qualifier “woman,” but it was a different time. Fact is, the public doesn’t know much about either artist.

Galerie St. Etienne held an exhibition of Motesiczky’s paintings last fall, but it ended on Dec. 30, and I never saw it. A few of her works were at the Art Show, though. Here I’m sharing Self-Portrait in Black, 1959, a mix of oil, charcoal and pastel on canvas.

Jane Kallir, co-director of GSE, told me that there is a move afoot to organize a museum show for Motesiczky.

Meantime, you may want to go to GSE’s website, and click on Exhibtions — Past, to learn more about her backstory, which is full of the glitz and the intrigue that was part of Jewish life in the Austro-Hungarian empire and its aftermath. It’s a fascinating tale that can not be summed up here, really. But it involves connections to many renowned personalities, her escape from the Nazis, and her artistic development. Here’s one bit about her art:

Very few of the painters who dominated the art scene in prewar Austria and Germany survived, artistically, the upheaval of the Nazi period. Whether they went into actual or “inner” exile, the work they produced in the second part of the twentieth century seldom met the standards of what they had created earlier. Motesiczky is the great exception to this pattern: a painter who actually discovered her artistic identity in exile.

In England, Beckmann’s influence gradually dissipated, and the solid, sculptural masses seen in Motesiczky’s prior paintings were replaced by more translucent, lambent veils of color. Just as this increased transparency allows one to see down through the structural layers below a painting’s surface, it allows more access to the interior life of the subject. With characteristic humility, Motesiczky once said that her intention was to depict women’s everyday existence: “women at the hairdresser’s, girls sitting in the windows of dry-cleaning shops doing the invisible mending and gradually getting old, dying women, bathing women, laughing women, sad women.” In fact, what she achieved was a comprehensive meditation on life and loss, death and transcendence, seen through the eyes of a woman.

Maybe that’s why we don’t know of her. She was also, apparently, known for depicting women in old age. Not a favorite subject.

As a rich woman, Motesiczky did not sell her art, and much of it is in a London-based trust. It shouldn’t be hard to organize an exhibition. I hope some museums step up.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust, London, and Galerie St. Etienne, New York

Did the Art Institute of Chicago, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art — to name a few recent examples — overpay for and underdeliver with their new wings?

Aaron Betsky, left, thinks so. Betsky, director of the Cincinnati Art Museum, is also an architecture critic (a graduate of the Yale School of Architecture) and professor.

The February issue of Art in America contains Betsky’s view of museum architecture today, and he makes what I think are very solid points, starting with the provocative question, “What is the difference between the average Wal-Mart and the average new American art museum wing?”

Betsky proceeds to make cost comparisons — $50 million for a 100,000 sq. ft. Wal-mart versus $345 million for the MFA’s 121,000 sq. ft. wing by Norman Foster and the $294 million, 264,000 sq. ft. modern wing at the Art Institute by Renzo Piano. He calls them “big boxes for art.”

Moreover, Betsky says, the new museum wings have “less accessibility and logic” than Wal-Marts.

“I would argue,” he writes, “…that American art museums currently do things in too fancy a manner.” He cites the 200,000-sq. ft. Museum Aan de Stroom museum, which will open this spring in Antwerp, as a contrast: It cost $50 million.

Art in America is not posting this article online, so I urge you to get a copy of the magazine. In it, Betsky provide many details, examples of how he believes museums have gone wrong. Then, he says:

I would argue that the very way in which they are funded and planned causes, or at least contributes to, both the high cost and the problems with character and layout. Donors want to see something distinctive but not too adventurous or shocking. The venues need to earn income by being rented out for events and donor parties. …

Again, he gives details.

What does Betsky like? He cites the Steven Holl addition to the Nelson-Atkins (I’m with him on that — pictured above), the Allied Works Architecture’s Seattle Art Museum and Frank Gehry’s Art Gallery of Ontario (haven’t seen the latter two in person yet).

I don’t agree with everything Betsky writes. He hints, but never says outright, that the gigantic costs of these buildings would be worth it if they were knockouts (seems to me that the starchitects are most overpaid and guilty of underdelivering. Need I mention Denver?), and he suggests investing in satellite museum spaces instead of new wings (which I think leads to higher costs and two-tier exhibitions). I disagree with both points.

But this is an important article, and it should stir discussion at every museum considering an expansion. Which is just about every one, isn’t it? (Just kidding. I hope.)

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal (bottom)

 

A missive landed in the email boxes of members of the Association of Art Museum Directors last Monday that came as a complete surprise to some, I’m told, and not unexpected at all to others: In it, Janet Landay, the executive director, announced her resignation.

Landay (left) took the job only in February 2009, so something clearly went wrong. Personality clashes? Mismatch of skills to the job? Differences of opinion on policy or strategy or definition of the job? 

No one is talking on the record, but the answer that I’ve gleaned from a couple of background sources seems to be all of the above. Some members feel the organization should be changing faster than it is, and they want a more dynamic person in charge.  

You can tell the group wants to let this moment pass fast. Last Monday, AAMD President Kaywin Feldman, the director of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, began her February Message by noting Landay’s departure and her role in overseeing the development of a strategic plan, along with an implementation plan. She said that Landay was leaving “to pursue new challenges.” Thanks and best wishes, she added, and that was that. On to other things.

I’ve often said that AAMD is punching below its weight (here, here and here, to cite a few), but I’m pretty sure that my disappointments about the group (lack of openness, failure to grapple with some important issues, like pushing members toward financial stability with guidelines for endowments, and more advocacy for art, not just audience-drawing activities) are not the same as members’ disappointments.

But groups like AAMD inherently have a structural problem — who’s in charge, the ED or the president, who heads a museum? Who speaks for the group? Must they speak pablum, to make sure no member disagrees?

The AAMD board, I understand, has not yet appointed a search committee or engaged a search firm. I hope they discuss these ideas, and make real decisions about the kind of person they want, even if it means redefining the job.

Landay, meanwhile, will remain “Consulting Director” until May 1. Christine Agnanos, deputy director, has been named Interim Director, and the board — one member told me — will take a larger role.

 

It’s time to go shopping at Nordstrom. Why? Again, the department store chain is riding to the rescue of the Seattle Art Museum.

To recap: SAM was a big victim of the 2008 economic tsunami, because its new downtown building, finished in 2006, contained eight floors of office space (of 16) meant to be rented. Originally, SAM had leased them to Washington Mutual, whose 42-story headquarters building adjoined the museum’s tower. But when WaMu collapsed into the arms of J.P. Morgan Chase Bank in 2008, there was no longer a need for the space.

Chase gave SAM $10 million in return for backing out of the deal, Nordstrom leased six of the floors, and SAM also got a lifeline last fall when the Gates Foundation gave $5.5 million. But the museum still said it had to borrow $10 million from its endowment to help pay off the bonds it floated to pay for the expansion.

Now that $10 figure has been whittled down to $7 million. According to the Seattle Times, Nordstrom has agreed to lease the remaining two floors — one now, and one in 2014.

Thank you, Nordstrom.

In general, I oppose borrowing from endowments, though sometimes extenuating circumstances demand it. I understand that, as long as the money is paid back. From what I hear, SAM is working hard to close the gap.

As we all know, a revolution is not a dinner party and truth is the first casualty of war.

Both are reasons that make writing about events in Egypt difficult. Yesterday, news emerged that Zaha Hawass had resigned as minister of antiquities, and he confirmed it to The New York Times, among others.

On the other hand, as a commenter on yesterday’s post about the resignation pointed out, CNN International has a story today, posted shortly after 9 a.m. GMT, which says he had not resigned but “will if asked by new Prime Minister Essam Sharaf.”

Well, Hawass has always been a complicated, contradictory character, and even if he is out-of-power in Egypt, we’ll be hearing more about him. And from him.

For one thing, he has many enemies, and some are eager to tell their stories about him. Some one has been talking to the website Talking Pyramids, which has been following Hawass’s moves extensively, and today it has a long article, which it describes thusly:

More evidence of internal corruption has come to light in the past few weeks concerning the gift shop and Dr Zahi Hawass’ involvement. Simply put, the opening of the Museum’s new gift shop on the 15th of December last year is in violation of a court verdict.

It is, I warn you, a bit of a tangled tale — and not a short one. It concerns Hawass’s attempts to change the franchise for the bookstore beside the Egyptian Museum leased by Farid Atiya to a gift store operated by the American University in Cairo Press. Visitors to the museum now exit through that gift store.

Despite a court order against the switch, Hawass apparently made it happen. Why? Talking Pyramids has substantiated its story with court documents. Here’s a link to the post.

Of course, there are two sides to every story and we haven’t heard Hawass’s side.

The point, to choose another old maxim, is that fish smells from the head. If Hawass was corrupt, there probably was much more going on underneath him than we know about now.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of The New York Times.