Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Curatorial Matters

Another Curator Leaves Indianapolis; It’s Worrisome

When I last wrote here about the Indianapolis Museum of Art, it was looking quite troubled. That was March. Now it’s worse; IMA seems to be hemorrhaging people.

Hyperallergic, reporting more departures in the contemporary art department, got this quote from Sarah Green, the Curator of Contemporary Art, who just quit: “I don’t believe in [Director Charles] Venable’s mission for the IMA, and our visions don’t align.”

IMAIt would be one thing if Green were the only one departing for that reason, but Hyperallergic reports, the reason for most if not all of the departures appears to be the same as Green’s:

Richard McCoy, a former Conservator of Objects & Variable Art laid off this summer, told me over the phone, “Of the people I know that have left since the cuts, they left because they disagreed with the direction Venable is taking the museum.” This sentiment was echoed on condition of anonymity by several current and prior employees; the staff is voting on Venable with their feet.

Granted, at least one person left for a better job — Lisa Freiman, who was senior curator and chair of the Department of Contemporary Art at Indy, recently took the post of inaugural director of the VCU Institute for Contemporary Art, for example. I suspect she would have taken that job no matter who was IMA’s director.

But without her and Green, Hyperallergic said, “As of next week the only person left in the contemporary department will be Gabriele HaBarad, the Senior Administrative Coordinator.” And it noted that:

Sarah Green brought in her own top-notch exhibitions from the likes of Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei. Green also helped curate the Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion, where she exhibited large-scale installations by artists like Spencer Finch and William Lamson.

Green, too, is leaving for a good venture, if not as planned. She will be “curator and host of a new video series [in PBS] called The Art Assignment, which will premiere in 2014. Each episode will focus on an emerging to established contemporary artist from the US working through a single assignment, from start to finish.” She’ll be working with her husband, John Green. That a look at that link, on the title, to see what she’s doing, really. To me, it’s less interesting than I had hoped — but we’ll see. It depends on the execution.

In fairness, Venable has been hiring staff too, and they may be more than up to the job; they may even be better than those leaving. There’s a new European paintings curator and a new CFO, for a start. Other news — all good, of course — is posted on the press release page of IMA’s website.

Probably what Indy needs right now is some stability. Although I admired some things Venable did in his previous job, I have to withhold judgment now, for the time being.

 

 

 

Solidarity With Detroit

It’s just a gesture, but it is nevertheless an excellent one: Today, the Association of Art Museum Curators announced that they will hold their next annual meeting in Detroit. At least one day of programs in the three-day conference will take place at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Said Emily Ballew Neff (at right), President of the AAMC and curator of American painting and Emily-Neff-168x300sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston:

We have watched the situation in Detroit and at the DIA very closely this year. We believe that moving our conference to the DIA affirms our support of one of the most outstanding museum collections in the world.  And, we thought, what better way to show this than by bringing hundreds of curators to its doors next May?

Graham W J Beal, DIA’s Director, is obviously delighted, and said so in a statement.

Ever since this mess with the Detroit bankruptcy began last spring, art-world people have struggled with the means of showing meaningful support. We’ve liked the DIA on Facebook (go here, where its friends now total 246,434) and signed petitions; we’ve blasted officials and Christie’s, and sent letters to the Michigan governor.

At the end of the day, it’s all symbolic. But we cannot give up; the pressure must be maintained. I’m glad the AAMC added their part to this today.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of GlassTire

Textiles: No Longer In The Backroom

Met-WentkeCoatMuseums have increasingly shown fashion exhibitions in recent years, often in efforts to draw crowds and to attract a new kind of visitors. Now textiles are coming out of the storerooms far more often, too, I think — though I don’t have statistics to prove that.

Exhibit A, of course, was SPUN: Adventures in Textiles at the Denver Art Museum, which I wrote about here, and which ends Sept. 22. (From afar, I’ve heard SPUN has been a great success for the museum, but I haven’t checked in lately. See some of the Native American textiles that are on view in SPUN below).

Exhibit B is at the Metropolitan Museum.* Yesterday, it previewed Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800 — and I was sorry to have to miss that. I plan to see this exhibit soon, and the description explains why:

Beginning in the 16th century, the golden age of European maritime navigation in search of spice routes to the east brought about the flowering of an abundant textile trade, causing a breathtaking variety of textiles in a multiplicity of designs and techniques to travel across the globe.  Textiles, which often acted as direct currency for spices and other goods, made their way from India and Asia to Europe, between India and Asia and Southeast Asia, from Europe to the east, and eventually to the west to North and South America. Trade textiles blended the traditional designs, skills, and tastes of all the cultures that produced them, resulting in objects that are both intrinsically beautiful and historically fascinating.

DAMNativeAmTextiles2It should be glorious. The Met says this exhibit is the first major exhibit to explore this theme — see more in this release. (That’s a mid-18th century coat from the Netherlands above left.)

Interwoven Globe opens on Sept. 16, and that same day Feathered Walls: Hangings from Ancient Peru opens at the Met, too. These marvelous creations — if the two I saw last year in Cleveland, on loan from the Met, are any indication — were made by the Waris of Peru. I wrote about the Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes exhibition, which traveled from Cleveland to the Fort Lauderdale Museum to the Kimbell, last October, here.

Natori-Collection

On a side note, I recently wrote about a private textile archive, amassed by designer Josie Natori, for Traditional Home magazine. Natori uses her collection as inspiration for her clothing designs, but someday, she told me, she’d like to place her trove in a textile museum in her native Philippines. You can read that article here.

That’s Natori at left.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Met (top); courtesy of Traditional Home (bottom)

 

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Met.

 

 

Nicholas Penny Speaks Out Against Overseas Lending

Many museums, from the Louvre to the Barnes Foundation to the Modern, have send parts of their collections on the road, at least in part to earn some money. The city of Glasgow in Scotland had such plans for the Burrell Collection, whose 8,000 works of art were given to the city under a 1944 deed of gift — one that prohibits its exhibition overseas.

(c) Glasgow Museums; Supplied by The Public Catalogue FoundationBut, last January, with the 30-year-old building that displays the collection in need of repair, “estimated to cost millions of pounds,” according to The Herald Scotland, trustees decided to go to Parliament for relief from that restriction — since the museum would be closed for years between 2016 and 2020.

Not a good idea says Nicholas Penny, director of the National Gallery — citing the “deplorable tendency” to ignore the risks, again according to the Herald.

In a candid submission to the Scottish Parliament committee considering The Burrell Collection (Lending And Borrowing) Bill, Dr Nicholas Penny, the director of the National Gallery in London, says moving works of art has led to several major accidents, incidents and damage to works, many of which have not come to public attention.

Dr Penny said he would be prepared to describe the incidents in confidence to a “single trustworthy individual nominated by Scottish Government” if the committee desired.

His comments left the city’s museum officials “flabbergasted.” Here’s more:

Dr Penny wrote: “What is very often forgotten in discussions of this kind is the moral advantage and tangible (if not always immediate) benefit of a declared preference for honouring the wishes of the donor. Real concern for the future is always more persuasive in those who have a genuine feeling for the past.”

He said the financial benefits of touring art collections are also “greatly exaggerated” and did not lead to any significant increase in visitors to the galleries touring the works.

Giovanni_Bellini_009He added: “There has always been much talk of ‘profile raising’ to palliate the mercenary motive or to compensate for a disappointing fee … it would not be appropriate for me to say the Burrell should not engage in such an exhibition, but the interests of those encouraging it and brokering it should be examined very severely – they are not always obvious. Loans for fees are, it should be remembered, a short term fix.”

Hat tip to ArtWatch UK for calling my attention to this item.

Penny has been outspoken before: I mentioned one instance here about a year ago, when he lamented the similarity of contemporary art collections and the lamentable lack of critical debate on contemporary art — both of which I heartily agree with.

On loans, I am wary of the damage done to art in travels (but obviously many, many things are moved around safely). Penny said he knows of  “10 major accidents in transported art during his 27 years working in museums and galleries.” Shouldn’t they be made public, if they occurred at public museums?

I’ve visited Glasgow, but not the Burrell Collection. Since its focus is late medieval and early Renaissance art (including Cranach’s Judith, above left, and Bellini’s Madonna, at right). I’m inclined to side with Penny.

And I again applaud his willingness to stake a public stance on such issues, which too many directors hold back on.

How The Asia Society Museum is Evolving

110412_Melissa_ChiuI’m still away, but the news never stops. Actually, I finished an article on Melissa Chiu’s vision for the Asia Society Museum before I left the U.S., and it was published in today’s Wall Street Journal. Headlined A Society Evolves, it is pegged to the opening this weekend of an exhibition on art created in Iran between 1950 and the 1970s, while the Shah was in control. He allowed, surprisingly, relative freedom in the arts. I am looking forward to seeing the show; so far I’ve looked only at the catalog.

But my article is broader than that, and I hope you’ll have a look.

Chiu said her exhibits are more about history than art history, though they involve both, obviously — they are, she hopes, topical.

The Asia Society Museum is surely different from many other museum, and it was good for us to hear Chiu out and think about that difference.

I am in Ukraine, btw, and have visited some museums. I’d say that someone else might consider an effort parallel to Chiu’s with Asian museum directors here in the former east bloc. (Yes, I know there have been some efforts over the years – but can’t get into that from this far away — and not much computer access.)