Archives for May 2011

As expected, given its advisory panel, the New York State Board of Regents approved a deaccessioning policy for state-charterered museums and historical societies at today’s meeting, and — wisely — did not overreach.

They did not adopt the dumber provisions of the legislative bill offered by Former Democratic Assemblyman Richard Brodsky. Libraries are not part of this policy, and there’s no unfunded mandate to catalogue everything, for example.

Nor did they “split the baby.” They took fairly measured action, and by publishing comments and their answers to them, showed excellent judgment in determining what is a matter of public policy and what should be left to the discretion of the collecting institutions.

For example, even though I think it’s important for museums to deaccession in public — beforehand — the Regents did not make a policy statement on that. Instead, they told the institutions to report deaccessioned items yearly, after the fact — which, I suppose has some restraining effect on the sales.

Nor did they, as I had proposed, provide for an arbitration process for institutions in extremis, but them’s the breaks, at least in New York.  

So what did the Regents do? You can read the whole decision here, but, in sum, they told museums and historical societies that may may not deaccession objects unless they meet one of ten specific criteria (such as inconsistency with mission, redundancy, severe need for conservation that goes beyond the capacity of the institution, inauthenticity, refinement of the collection, repatriation, etc.).

They also said that the proceeds may be used only for “acquisition of collections or the preservation, conservation or direct care of collections.” The Association of Art Museum Directors’ policy is stricter, allowing only the first. 

They did not, as far as I can see, include institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art that predate the Regents’ chartering process.

Unless I’m missing something —  in which case I am sure I will hear about it — it’s not a bad solution. 

 

 

Can you recall your first visit to a museum? Your first exposure to great art? Or, perhaps, a museum visit or a work of art that turned you into an art-lover? Or an artist? What are your museum memories?

Tomorrow is International Museum Day, an annual event created by ICOM, the International Council of Museums that has been around since 1977. This year, ICOM says that more than 30,000 museums in about 100 countries will take part. And the Association of Art Museum Directors, meanwhile, calculates that about 100 American art museums will participate, often by reducing admission rates or offering special programs. (Not everything takes place tomorrow, though — some museums shift the day to make it more convenient.)

This year, ICOM has chosen the theme “museums and memory” in an attempt to prompt museums to explore how they help preserve individual and collective memory. As ICOM puts it:

Through the objects they store, museums collect stories and convey the memory of our communities. These objects are the expressions of our natural and cultural heritage. Many of them are fragile, some endangered and they need special care and conservation. International Museum Day 2011 will be an occasion for visitors to discover and rediscover individual and collective memory.

Objects, in other words, can tell a story. But it’s also broader than that, which is what prompted my questions above. Think about it… and think about what your museum means to your community: a source of pride, a unifying factor, or — I hope not — a struggling institution?

Tomorrow night, I will be at the Toledo Art Museum (above), moderating a panel on these questions and more. Toledo’s creative director Brian Kennedy (at right)has gathered the directors of two other great Midwest museums to be on the program and, to add to the international aspect of the day, all three were born overseas: David Franklin, the Canadian head of the Cleveland Museum of Art; Graham Beal, the British director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, and Kennedy himself, who is Irish.

It starts at 6 p.m. If you’re in the neighborhood, come. And come early to visit the museum’s renowned collection, too. 

UPDATED: The program is now posted online.

 

The Association of Art Museum Curators has just announced their annual awards for excellence, the only prizes given to curators by their peers. The awards are spread around, and some seem to be a tad politically correct, but worthy winners all — well, most. See what you think:

OUTSTANDING CATALOGUE BASED ON A PERMANENT COLLECTION –

First Place:
Modern Women: Women Artists at the Museum of Modern Art, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2010.

Runner-up:
Wisdom Embodied: Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010.

Honorable Mention:
Jewelry by Artists: In the Studio, 1940-2000, Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2010.

OUTSTANDING EXHIBITION CATALOGUE –

First Place:
The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2010.

Honorable Mention:
Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917, Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2010.

OUTSTANDING ARTICLE, ESSAY or EXTENDED CATALOGUE ENTRY –

First Place:
A Favourite among the Demireps: Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman in Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman, Cincinnati: Cincinnati Art Museum, 2010. The essay is by Benedict Leca.

Honorable Mention:
Ties That Bind: Hiram Powers’s Greek Slave and Nineteenth-Century Marriage, American Art 24 (Spring, 2010) 41-65.

OUTSTANDING MONOGRAPHIC OR RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION –

Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913-1917, Curated by Stephanie D. Alessandro, The Art Institute of Chicago, and John Elderfield. Co-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and The Museum of Modern Art.

OUTSTANDING THEMATIC EXHIBITION –

Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, Curated by David C. Ward and Jonathon Katz. Organized by The National Portrait Gallery

OUTSTANDING EXHIBITION IN A UNIVERSITY MUSEUM –

For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights, Curated by Maurice Berger. Organized by the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore County in partnership with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Honorable Mention:
Lynda Benglis, Curated by Diana Franssen, Franck Gautherot, Caroline Hancock, Laura Hoptman, Seungduk Kim, and Judith Tannenbaum. Organized by the Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, in collaboration with the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Le Consortium, Dijon; and New Museum, New York.

OUTSTANDING PERMANENT COLLECTION NEW INSTALLATION (OR RE-INSTALLATION) –

The Art of the Americas Wing, Curated by Elliot Bostwick Davis; Erica E. Hirshler; Gerald W. R. Ward; Karen Quinn; Nonie Gadsden; Kelly H. L Ecuyer; Dorie Reents-Budet; Cody Hartley; Dennis Carr; Heather Hole, Art of the Americas department, in collaboration with: Darcy Kuronen, Musical Instruments; Pamela Parmal, Textiles and Fashion Arts; Karen Haas and Elizabeth Mitchell, Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. Organized by The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

OUTSTANDING SMALL EXHIBITION (no more than 2,000 square feet) –

The Mourners: Medieval Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy, Curated by Heather MacDonald and Sophie Jugie. Organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, in association with FRAME (French Regional American Museum Exchange)

 

 

The march of progress, even in the cultural world, is never without costs, as a new documentary called Lost Bohemia demonstrates. Made by Josef “Birdman” Astor, it tells the story of the legendary studios above Carnegie Hall, which have been occupied over the years by the likes of George Ballanchine, Mark Twain, Norman Mailer, Isadora Duncan, Barnett Newman, Elizabeth Sargent and many more.

In 2001, the Carnegie Hall Corp. began to evict these artists so that it could expand into the space. For more on that, here’s Nick Paumgarten’s New Yorker TOTT from 2007 and one of many articles in The New York Times, this one written in 2010 by Liz Robbins.

I’m writing about it now, without having seen the film, because it will be shown for a week beginning Friday at the IFC Center in New York. (It premiered last fall at the DOC NYC Festival, and so far, according to its website, the documentary has also been screened at the Sarasota Film Festival and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.) You may not want to miss it.

Astor, who lived in the studios (which at one time numbered 160), tells the darker side of the story hinted at in Bill Cunningham, the hit documentary about the NYT photographer who also lived there.

As Astor, who used a hand-held camera to chronicle the remaining residents, writes on the Lost Bohemia website:

Tragically, this documentary is the only film record of the extraordinary studios, and the last denizens of a community that has inhabited them for over a century. Conceived by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, the studios offered affordable spaces for artists to work and live, and were specifically designed for actors, painters, singers, and musicians with north-facing skylights, sprung wood floors, and soundproof walls.

The studios’ significance to 20th Century culture cannot be overstated…

I couldn’t find any reviews (yet), but artist Pamela Talese, who has seen the film, feels strongly about it and the story it tells: “Through interviews with the last marvelous and eccentric artists-in-residence at home in these secret spaces where artists and performers have lived and worked for over 100 years, Lost Bohemia is at once humorous and heartbreaking,” she says.

“It begs the question of what kind of cultural center New York will become if it continues to cater only to those of high privilege and low imagination,” Talese adds.

I’m guessing you’ll want to see it and decide the case for yourself. As a teaser, there’s a trailer on that website, and here on YouTube Astor talks about the film.

Unlike The Art of the Steal, about the Barnes Foundation, I don’t think Astor is trying to reverse the course of history here — it’s too late for that.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Lost Bohemia

 

A short time ago, I wrote here about the exhibition at the Palazzo Strozzi called Picasso/Miro/Dali. Angry Young Men: The Birth of Modernity because it was organized like a film, shown in a series of flashbacks.

Now comes a museum that has been inspired by the film experience. And the theater experience. The rooms and interiors were designed by B-architecten of Antwerp.

The Museum aan de Stroom, which open next Tuesday, tells the story of the historical exchanges that have taken place between Antwerp and the world “using the traces of these exchanges. About the city, the river and the port. About the world in all its diversity. About Antwerp’s centuries-long connection with the world.”

And so, per the press release:

A contemporary exhibition must be an exhibition of experience, and putting one together is best compared with the creation of a theatre production. Not only does the content attract the visitor, but also the visual, auditory and tactile input. Various senses are stimulated during a visit to the museum.

Eric Sleichim from Bl!ndman was selected to compose specific music for each themed exhibition. Just like in a movie, the music supports the exhibition’s story.

Studio Tom Hautekiet was appointed to work together with B-architecten on the design of the graphics for each themed exhibition.

Granted, this is not an art museum. But I would really like to see how it’s done. It could well point toward the future of art display — either in a good way or in a bad way. The building itself, judging by the picture above, is pretty stunning.

I’ve already written opposing music in art museum galleries — at least most of the time.

All comments from people who go to the museum are welcome.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Museum aan de Stroom