Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Curatorial Matters

More Creativity For The Delaware Art Museum’s Centennial

For a smallish museum, the Delaware Art Museum has gotten a lot of attention from me on this blog. That’s because it has often been creative, and over the weekend I learned of another example worth remarking about –partley becauses it gets visitors to focus on the permanent collection — thanks to Edward Sozanski, the Philadelphia Inquirer‘s contributing art critic.

Sozanski’s story, Delaware Art Museum and How It Grew, outlines where and how the museum got parts of  its collections. The roots go back to the death of local illustrator  Howard Pyle, which a group of locals bought from his widow for what became the museum, and continue through other gifts, notably of Pre-Raphaelite paintings from the family of Samuel Bancroft Jr. and of a group of more than 5,000 works Helen Farr Sloan, the widow of John Sloan. They provide evidence for the simple fact that, as the article says, “the majority of acquisitions are gifts or bequests; few museums can afford to buy much of anything that’s worth bragging about. Furthermore, a few major gifts prove to be the catalysts around which the collection accrues, like a coral colony.”

But there’s more, and that’s the creative part — how Delaware has chose to display “100 Works for 100 Years,” in celebration of its centennial. When the museum announced the exhibition in April, I somehow missed this aspect. As Sozanski describes it (I obviously haven’t seen it myself), the exhibition is

… not gathered together in the special exhibitions space but distributed throughout the building, even overflowing into the Copeland sculpture garden.

As if on a treasure hunt, visitors proceed with a map-checklist. With one noteworthy exception, all 100 objects are found in the galleries where they normally reside; each is identified by a special label, easily recognized.

It’s these labels that explain how the museum acquired each object, through gift, bequest, or purchase.

Online, visitors will find a map listing the 100 works and their locations. They will also find audio clips about the works, recorded by “community members” including the First Lady of Delaware, the conductor of the Delaware Symphony, a charter school student, the state’s poet laureate, and others. One by Danielle Rice, the museum’s Executive Director, discusses The Return of Tobias, by Benjamin West, pictured here.

Something similar to that tactic, non-experts commenting on paintings was tried notably with Leonardo Live, the documentary made for Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, shown at the National Gallery in London several months back to mixed results. I know that other museums have done so as well. Some have had non-experts  write labels. When I’ve heard or seen these efforts, most seem to fall short, for me at least.

But the treasure hunt aspect of this show seems to be handled very well. It can be followed or, seems to me, ignored, as each visitor prefers.

Add this to previous posts, which include pop-up painting reproductions around the state and a battle of the sexes contest to see if people can really tell who painted a picture, and the Delaware Art Museum seems to me to be on a roll.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Delaware Art Museum

 

Another “Gift” From Rome’s Mayor

If you’re in the neighborhood of Malibu, Ca., you may want to stop in at the Getty Villa one day soon. There’s you’ll find an ancient statue on loan from Rome’s mayor, part of his “The Dream of Rome” project through which he’s sending masterpieces from the Eternal City to American museums.

Last December, I wrote about Bernini’s Medusa, which was sent to the Legion of Honor branch of the Fine Arts Museums sof San Francisco, and  now Lion Attacking a Horse, which dates to the fourth century B.C., is at the Getty Villa.

Since its arrival in Rome from Asia Minor at some point before 1300 A.D.,  Lion Attacking a Horse has never before left the city. As I wrote in a brief article in today’s Wall Street Journal:

In 1300, the piece is mentioned in archival documents and located in the Piazza del Campidoglio on the Capitoline Hill – the first piece of ancient art in what became Europe’s oldest public art museum. By 1347, it had moved to the steps of the Palazzo Senatorio in the piazza, where it dominated an area used for the administration of justice and capital executions.

As a result, this dramatic depiction of a fallen horse being devoured by a ferocious lion came to symbolize the city of Rome.

There is stayed until about 1925, when it inexplicably went into storage. Now restored, it’s on loan to the Getty.

You may know this piece, however, because as Pat Wengraf, the London dealer, told me:

Probably the earliest reinterpretation of the antique marble in the Capitoline Museum is found in bronze group now in the Detroit Institute of Arts, which is signed by Antonio Susini (who worked for Giambologna circa 1580-1600). Susini’s bronze probably dates from circa 1580 -1590.  However, many replicas of the ancient marble were reproduced in bronze on a much smaller scale particularly for the Grand Tourists who visited Italy from the late 17th century.  Susini’s model of a “Lion attacking a Horse” is often found paired with a group of a “Lion attacking a Bull” – more usually on a small scale in bronze, but sometimes on a larger scale in marble. 

Photo Credt: Courtesy of the Getty

 

 

Beginning Of The Endgame At MOCA?

Charles Young, the former chief executive of the Museum of Contemporary Art, has urged the institution’s influential life trustee Eli Broad to remove museum director Jeffrey Deitch.

That’s from a story by Jori Finkel in the Los Angeles Times this morning. Young is a former chancellor of UCLA — no slouch.

Perhaps Deitch didn’t know what he started when he forced the resignation of Paul Schimmel — though he should have — but Broad, who has played hard ball in the business world with the best, should have known. They must have underestimated Schimmel’s support system and overestimated Deitch’s.

More the the LATimes:

[Young] questioned Broad’s “support for Jeffrey, when many about you are no longer willing to give him any credence as a Director of a world-class museum, indeed believe his tenure is likely to take MOCA into the abyss…”

Young’s friendship with Broad didn’t prevent him from saying:

“I hope that the four-alarm fire now enveloping MOCA has at least given you pause for thought about his appointment and your continued attempts to try to save him for a job for which many (including myself) believe he is unqualified…The resignation of dedicated, long-term trustees, and especially four highly respected artists of international acclaim should bother you, David [Johnson], Maria [Bell] and the other continuing members of the Board. The question is ‘What is now to be done?'”

This could be the beginning of the endgame.

 

LA MOCA: The Coverage And The Debate Continues

Another day, another story about the sad situation at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles — that’s the way it’s been going. So any hopes by “philanthropist” Eli Broad and his hand-picked director Jeffrey Deitch that the brouhaha over the firing/forced resignation of chief curator Paul Schimmel is going to blow over should now seem like wishful thinking.

That little dismissal, which no doubt was the culmination of long battles within the museum, is going to cost MOCA, short-term and probably long-term.

Deitch broke his silence, which as I’ve said before has shown him to be either a coward or a puppet, on Friday, giving a “wide-ranging interview” to the Los Angeles Times. I don’t know how long it went on, but — through I would bet no fault of the writer, Reed Johnson, Deitch managed to say almost nothing substantive. (He probably signed a nondisparagement agreement, as Schimmel assuredly did.) Sample:

Eli has been an absolutely great patron with us. He’s so totally supportive.I know that there’s this conspiracy theory. It doesn’t make any sense. That’s not the case.

Deitch also managed to say nothing in his own blog post. Sample:

We would like to reassure you of our commitment to extending MOCA’s legacy and international reputation as a preeminent contemporary art institution, to fulfilling the museum’s mission, and to ensuring that it has a secure future both financially and artistically.

And just why should anyone believe that reassurance? He doesn’t say.

Yesterday’s Guardian, in the U.K., published “LA aesthetes fight pop-art billionaire,” which provided a recap of the last few weeks, but, in my opinion, got a few things wrong. It mentions accusations that Deitch is dumbing down and says:

And behind that, many suspect, is a billionaire whose motives are not entirely clear. While Broad saved Moca and wants to keep it viable, he is also constructing a rival museum across Wilshire Boulevard [sic] to house his own collection.

Aside from that location gaffe, I think we know exactly what Broad’s motivations are: he wants larger attendance at MOCA and at his own museum, when it opens. That goal happens to coincide with Deitch’s ambition, which has often been more about being the center of attention as a creator of events, aka parties, than it has been about art. The Guardian story hits that point tangentially:

LA art critic Mat Gleason said: “Deitch is actually inoculating the museum from conflicts of interest with high-wealth collectors.” By putting on more pop-culture orientated shows, “he can go to low-level donors and say, ‘We throw really cool parties, why don’t you donate to us?’ “

And when the story says

Friends of Deitch say he’s tired of being criticised for placing pop art or shows about disco culture ahead of cutting-edge art. But they also say he’s perfect for Los Angeles because it is a city “wrapped up in celebrities and celebutantes”.

It’s the artists, then, who may have to accept that they live in an entertainment town. “But, of course, they’re freaked out that people like James Franco are getting exhibitions because it’s not serious and it doesn’t matter,” says a Moca supporter.

…I was surprised. I had thought, at least, that Pacific Standard Time showed that the art produced in southern California, at least between 1945 and 1980, was not “entertainment.”  

 

 

 

Help Stop Berlin’s Plan To Store Its Old Masters

Last week here, I wrote about the shocking situation in Berlin, where the city’s current plan to accommodate the gift of the the Pietzsch collection of modern art involves the emptying of the Gemaeldegalerie, which houses the State Museums’ world-class old master paintings collection, and moving in the 20th century works.

Some Old Master paintings — perhaps including the Durer at right and the Vermeer below — would be sent to the Bode museum and the rest would go into storage for at least six years,  possibly longer, depending on whether or not the state can find and finance a new home for the Old Masters (more selections from the collection are here). 

Many Real Clear Arts readers were as appalled as I was, and remain.

Over the weekend, Jeffrey Hamburger, the Harvard art historian who has been calling attention to this plan, posted a petition to the powers that be at Change.org.

It asks for:

  • true disclosure of what would happen to the Old Master collection under the current plan – it’s very unclear how much would go into storage and how much would be stuffed into the Bode.
  •  concrete plans to display the Old Master collection that is currently on view in its entirety concurrently — whether in a new or adapted building.
  •  an adequate strategy that will do justice to the whole of Berlin’s extraordinary collections, including a home for Berlin’s growing collections of modern art.

Who could be opposed to that?

Please join others who care about art in signing the petition here.

As I post this, more than 2,100 have signed on — including James Marrow, emeritus professor at Princeton; Robert Darnton, University Professor and University Librarian at Harvard; Frederick Ilchman, curator of paintings at the MFA-Boston; Yve-Alain Bois, of the Institute for Advanced Study; many curators, art historians, art dealers, and people who just love art. Many come from Germany itself, and as far away as Australia. It’s heartening to see people sign on from all over the world.

Photo Credits: © SMB, Gemäldegalerie; Fotos: Jörg P. Anders