Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Curatorial Matters

Does Crystal Bridges Have A Collecting Strategy? An Answer

The 1960 Rothko that I revealed on Saturday as being purchased by the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is not the only addition to the Bentonville museum’s collection since its opening last November. My article in the Wall Street Journal had room for me to mention a few others, but not in detail. And, in fact there’s even more than I was able even to hint at.

For a start, the museum has received about 20 works of art as gifts, mainly from artists’ estates and foundations. There have been some individual donors as well, including Donna and Arthur Hartman, the former ambassador, who gave a 1902 painting called The Midinette by Alfred Henry Maurer. (The museum declined to release the names of other donors.)

More important, museum director Don Bacigalupi and I talked about about the museum’s collecting strategy. He seemed a little tired by the expectations or suggestions made by others (including me) about holes in the permanent collection and said the museum is not filling gaps. “It’s more complicated than that,” he says. “We are not replicating any institutional story of American art. There’s a multiplicity of stories. So we don’t have a linear strategy for collecting or a checklist of artists we want to purchase. We are looking very broadly, and some names are blue-chip and some are at the margins.”

Bacigalupi said that the museum assessed the Pollock (as well as the $86.9 million Rothko) that was up for sale at Christie’s last spring,  but decided the Pollock wasn’t “the right Pollock.” Unfortunately, I spoke with him before Sotheby’s announced on Sept. 7 that it will sell another Pollock drip painting, Number 4, from 1951 (est. $25/35 million) in November, and could not ask about that.

That price would be a leap for Crystal Bridges so soon after the Rothko, however. The museum draws down about $15 million a year from its acquisitions endowment, and Bacigalupi said that — like other museums — it also depends on “friends” to contribute to purchases. He added that the museum “is working with a number of artists’ estates” on gifts or purchases (maybe even loans?).

Now a few details about the works I mentioned in passing in the WSJ article: the Thomas Hart Benton is called Tobacco Sorters,  from 1942/1944; the Theodore Roszak is 42nd Street (Times Square), from 1936 (above left); and the Miriam Schapiro is a collage from 1984 called A Mayan Garden (at right). 

The museum has also acquired Ammi Phillips’a Woman in Black Ruffled Dress, ca.1835. That large print collection I mentioned, with a few big names, also includes works by Martin Lewis, Benton Spruance, Ida Abelman, Minna Citron, Mabel Dwight, Jolan Gross-Bettelheim, Riva Helfond and Bernarda Bryson Shahn.

Here’s what curator Kevin Murphy wrote about that collection (in part):

The prints address subjects and themes concerning artists and society during the tumultuous years encompassing the roaring 20s, Great Depression, and World War II.  As Americans flocked to cities, printmakers depicted the promise and peril of skyscrapers, bridges, subways, and factories.  Artists were equally drawn to rural America, and documented the increasing industrialization of previously bucolic land.  The Great Depression loomed large in the consciousness of printmakers.  Artists, often on the margins of the workforce themselves, demonstrated their sympathy with the unemployed and those workers who protested against exploitative-sometimes deadly-labor practices.  Artists mobilized in service of America’s entry into World War II, creating uplifting images of soldiers and the home front.  As a whole, the print collection provides an unflinching look at the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, but foregrounds the dignity of human labor and achievement in an increasingly mechanized age. 

Bacigalupi said visitors who went to Crystal Bridges last fall would see different things today — some galleries have been rehung as works are acquired and others have moved from the first temporary exhibition, Wonder World, into the permanent collection galleries. 

Photo Credit: Courtesty of Crystal Bridges (btw, I think the color in Rothko’s No. 210/No. 211 reproduced here in Saturday’s post and in the WSJ is too red — but I can’t quite fix it.)

New Money For American Art Scholars!

Here’s some good news for lovers of American art, straight out of that (until-recently) backwater of any art — Arkansas (I say that kiddingly, because I love that there’s great art in Arkansas, though some RCA readers do not): Crystal Bridges has announced a research and residency program for scholars to study and promote the understanding of American art and a prize to recognize “lifetime achievement in American art.”

Both are being funded by a $5 million pledge from the Tyson family and Tyson Foods, the chicken processing company largely expanded by the late Donald Tyson and now run by his son John (below). It’s a naming gift — scholars will be called Tyson Scholars of American Art and it’s the Don Tyson Prize.  

Crystal Bridges (a favorite wall of mine there, showing Martin Johnson Heade’s Gems of Brazil is at left) has an extensive library and manuscript collection that the scholars can mine, and the press release noted that their research “may also provide fertile ideas for Crystal Bridges’ own dynamic exhibition program,” which is good since Crsytal Bridges has always said it wants to go beyond the current received wisdom in American art. Scholars will be expected to interact with the local community via lectures, symposia, and collaborations with the University of Arkansas.

The first class has already been chosen – through an internal committee headed by museum director Don Bacigalupi and the museum’s curator of American art, Kevin Murphy. From now on, a committee of Crystal Bridges’ staff and outside art historians will sift through applications, choosing on the basis of “their proposals’ potential contribution to the field of American art.” Tyson Scholar receive stipends “competitive with other prominent residency programs,” are housed in Bentonville, and “may apply for multiple semester-length terms of residency with a stipend for research and travel expenses.”

The first class, described in detail here, include  Matthew Bailey, from St. Louis; Jason Weems, from Riverside; and Susan Rather, from Austin.

The prize is in the works, but not announced. According to the press release:

A jury of respected museum and academic art historians empanelled by the museum will recommend for recognition an individual whose work has significantly advanced knowledge in the field of American art over the course of a career.  The honor carries a cash prize as well as recognition by Crystal Bridges during an event given in the recipient’s honor. Crystal Bridges has begun the selection process for the first winner, who will be announced once the rigorous nominating and vetting process has been completed.

Begun by Don Tyson, who bought Western art starting in the 1960s, the Tyson Foods corporate collection has been expanded and diversified by John Tyson. It now includes works by “Ansel Adams, Troy Anderson, Thomas Hart Benton, Charlie Dye, Sam Francis, Harry Jackson, Frank McCarthy, Charles M. Russell, Andy Warhol and Jack Woods,” according to the release.

I’m giving the penultimate word to Bacigalupi (because I agree with him!):

American art has historically received too little attention from scholars and academic programs as a field of research. Funding for its study has been sadly limited. Here at Crystal Bridges, we have made it part of our mission to help improve that situation. Thanks to the generosity of the Tyson family and Tyson Foods, our museum will be able to develop and foster a community of scholars committed to furthering the understanding and appreciation of American art. In addition, through the Don Tyson Prize, named in honor of the late Don Tyson, former chairman and CEO of Tyson Foods, we’ll also be able to honor people who have advanced American art during their career.

This changing, no doubt about that — and this will add more momentum.

 

Berlin Gemaldegalerie: Prussian Cultural Foundation Backtracks, A Little

Yesterday, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation took a step forward toward possibly resolving the contentious battle over the fate of Berlin’s Old Master collection. As you may recall from my previous posts (here and here), the donation of a large 20th century art collection and demands by its giver had led the Foundation to a specious plan: moving the older paintings into the already full Bode Museum and into storage (supposedly temporarily, but with no set timeframe and no money allocated for new quarters) to make way for the gift.

Opponents here and then in Germany launched petitions against this appalling plan. (See the petition, and sign it, here). The U.S. petition has more than 13,000 signatories.

Pressed by the outcry, the Foundation has now said it will begin a feasibility study to look at alternatives to its original plans, though it repeated its belief that the leadership’s original stance was correct. (It’s hard to admit when you are wrong.) If you can read German, the text is here. There is also a good article in today’s Berliner Zeitung. Just plug it into Google Translate and you can get the gist.

The study will ostensibly look at keeping the Old Masters in the Gemaldegalerie and at moving them to a new building near the Bode; better, the statement said it would commit to a binding timeline for a move to a new display of the Old Masters.

Jeffrey Hamburger, the Harvard professor who took up the cause, wrote and posted the petition here, and remains on the case told me last night that this is “real progress,” but remains wary. And I agree, the opponents must remain vigilant — or the Foundation will take it as a sign that all is dandy.

Here’s a statement Hamburger gave to Der Spiegel:

It is gratifying to see that the Foundation is taking steps to respond to its critics in a constructive fashion. Their willingness to explore alternatives represents progress, albeit compromised by their statement that they are doing so “in order to avoid any appearance of hasty decisions.” No less welcome is the commissioning of a feasibility study, although one is left to wonder what the need for such a study at this late date says about the years of planning that supposedly took place previously. The public recognition that any such study needs to take into account progress (or lack thereof) on the Foundation’s many other current projects also represents an important concession.

 The study is due by spring.

 

 

 

The MFA’s Misguided New European Art Gallery

Not every new gallery or exhibition is automatically or immediately reviewed. Yet I expected some reaction by the Boston media to the newly refurbished and rehung Koch Gallery at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which was unveiled on Saturday.

Why? This was the first (I believe) gallery that Malcolm Rogers, MFA’s director, has specifically taken charge of  since he named himself “acting” director of the Art of Europe there late last year, after the former chair of Art of Europe, George Shackelford, announced his departure to the Kimbell Art Museum in Ft. Worth, Tex.

The MFA is calling this gallery its “Great Hall,” harking back to the castles built in Europe in the Middle Ages. This biggest, most impressive room in the museum seems tailor-made for billionaire William Koch, its namesake. Not aligned with his conservative brothers David and Charles Koch, Bill Koch is a bit of a renegade — he gives to both parties — and Rogers has been courting him for years, even giving his eclectic collection an exhibition in 2005. It was controversial. At the time, the Boston Globe said the 100 objects on display ranged from “antique firearms to French Impressionist paintings and 20th-century sculptures,” plus of course his two (in)famous “racing sailboats, their masts rising 125 feet in the air — nearly twice the height of the MFA’s roof.”  Few people applauded.

In the last few years, the MFA’s installations have been less controversial: not everyone loves the new Art of the Americas wing or the Linde Family wing for contemporary art, but they are defensible.

But now, with the Koch gallery, Rogers seems to be returning to his strategy of being iconoclastic to stir things up, despite the fact that he told me in 2010 that “I don’t feel the need to be controversial anymore, but I want to do new things,” which I used in an article for the Wall Street Journal.

What is now the Koch gallery had shown paintings from 16th- and 17th-century Italy, France, Spain, and Flanders, and it still does. Rogers has also pulled four 17th Century tapestries from storage, and hung them amidst the paintings. Fine, I guess, as I believe this gallery was built for tapestries (which it contained until 1996; some people says it’s dreadful for paintings). But at the center of one wall, Rogers has made a huge, garish display of Hanoverian silver pieces. It extends 18 feet from top to bottom and includes 103 pieces. The silver has little if anything to do with the paintings in the gallery.

A bit horrified for myself, I’ve inquired around among art historians. The consensus: Rogers seems to be decorating, not hanging great works of art. He’s equating the likes of a Velasquez, whose Don Baltasar Carlos and Dwarf is among the paintings on view, with household decorative furnishings, made for a drawing room.

Now, the museum says that 40 paintings hang in the gallery. See more details here. Cutely, the MFA has produced a speeded-up video of the transformation, here.

The museum isn’t shrinking from the decorative descriptions. In fact, a Gallery Talk, set for later this month, is entitled “A Display Fit for a King: A New Installation of Hanoverian Silver for Art of Europe.” It will focus not on the paintings, but on “Hanoverian silver and gold illustrating the magnificence of the Hanoverian court from the mid-seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries.”

As much as anyone can admire silver, it doesn’t really rise to the artistic and aesthetic value of masterpiece paintings, does it?

I think the MFA has gone wrong here. Unfortunately, for fear of retribution (no loans from the MFA), no one wants to agree with me on the record. And the critical silence, to use an old cliche, is deafening.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the MFA (and Photoshop)

Mint Museum Goes Political: A Twist In The Crowd-Curated Category

This week the Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C., where the Democratic Party convention begins tomorrow, is trying its own crowd-curated project, with the added twist that it aims “at educating the public on both the electoral process and the process of building a world-class collection for Charlotte and the region.” It also seems to have the not necessarily unintentional goal of bringing in political visitors in town for the convention.

This is a “one-of-a-kind election taking place within the walls of Mint Museum Uptown,” as the press release for “Vote for Art: Your View, Your Vote” says. Anyone who visits may vote for three of six “specially-chosen” art works that have been selected by curators and placed on view in the museum. One visit, one ballot — but anyone can return and vote again.

Why three votes? The museum plans to acquire the three biggest vote-getters for its permanent collection.

The voting began on Sunday, when the museum was closed to the public but open to some political visitors for a delegates’ welcome party. (There’s no provision for online voting, which is good — better to see works in person.) The museum is also closed for “special events” on tomorrow and Wednesday. But all visitors to the museum through Friday, the day after the convention closes, can vote. Then the polling closes until Oct. 1.

I’m not quite sure why that would be (and no explanation is offered in the release or the museum’s website) unless the Mint wants to cater to out-of-towners.

When the voting resumes on Oct. 1, it runs through Nov. 9, and on Election Day – November 6 — the museum is free all-day (it’s always free from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesdays). That accommodates locals.

To create the contest, the museum apparently asked galleries and artists to submit works, and they were considered by a committee of museum curators and representatives of the museum’s affiliate groups who narrowed the choices to six.

The choices are outlined here and the candidates’ works can be viewed on this webpage. The works are by Vic Muniz, Beverly McIver, Nacho Carbonell (his work at right), Mathias Bengsston (his work above left), Mattia Biaggi and Sebastian Errazuriz.

So what do we think of this? I suppose I don’t see the harm, as long as the curators weighed in substantially first (I’m a little wary of that committee) — in general, I don’t think museums should abdicate responsibility in the name of getting people involved. But I wonder how the home-town visitors feel about letting politics — ok, political visitors — decide what goes in their museum. The one salvation point on that is that the out-of-towners are likely to make up a small portion of the final votes.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Mint Museum