Museums

On The Road: The Maine Art Museum Trail

If you ever have the opportunity, drive the Maine Art Museum Trail. Did you even know there was a MAMT? Or that it includes eight institutions around the state, from the Ogunquit Museum of American Art in the south to the University of Maine Museum of Art in Bangor?

Truth is, it should be better known. This summer, the museums are trying with a special exhibition called “Directors’ Cut” at the Portland Museum of Art; for it, each museum director was given a certain amount of space to fill and each chose works for that space. What results is kind of a mishmash, but that’s ok–it’s a small sampling meant to whet the appetite for more.

I did it the trail last month, and it was well worth my time. In fact, I wish I had taken more time than the four days I spent on the trail. The museums present mostly American art, except for the three largest–the Colby College Museum of Art,Â the Portland Museum, and the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. All told, they say they own 73,000 works of art. Yes, the collections are uneven. The university collections are for teaching, after all. But on the trail you will see lots of treasures and the occasional masterpiece, plus manyÂ representative works worth seeing.

Tomorrow’s Wall Street JournalÂ has my take on the trail, headlined Hunting Beauty on Maine’s Art Museum Trail. It occupies a full page, and has includes four art works.

What can I add here? More pictures.

The Ogunquit, with permanent collection gallery.

Bates, with permanent collection gallery, works by Shoshannah White (top right) and David Maisel (bottom right)

Colby: contemporary gallery and a wall of Hartleys.

University of Maine Museum of Art: work byÂ Anna Hepler.

Farnsworth (forgive the tilted pix, please): Andrew Wyeth (left); Yvonne Jacquette (top right); George Bellows (bottom right)

Monhegan: works by Lamar Dodd

Bowdoin: permanent collection gallery (top), photos by Abelardo Morell (bottom)

Portland Museum of Art: permanent collection gallery

Fun And Games In Art Museums

There is absolutely no point in saying something isn’t offensive if you’re not a member of the offended class, but let me say right off that I don’t quite understand the uproar over letting visitors try on kimonos at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Yet that doesn’t much matter here. I’m more puzzled over why museums like the MFA are offering dress-up opportunities in the name of audience engagement. Engagement with what?

In case you have not heard, the MFA decided to have “Kimono Wednesdays” to teach visitors aboutÂ Japonisme, the European affinity for Japanese goods and styles after Japan opened to the West in 1853. It invited visitors toÂ invited try on a made-in-Japan kimono near its 1876 painting at right, La Japonaise (Camille Monet in Japanese Costume) by Monet, which shows his wife Camille dressed in a kimono and wearing aÂ blond wig, â€œto emphasize her Western identity,” the museum said. Some people, presumably Japanese-Americans, saw this as racist and as appropriation. They began demonstrating in the museum and accosting other visitors with their complaints. You can read more details here, on ArtNetÂ and on BigRedandShiny.

What happened next? The MFA cancelled “Kimono Wednesdays” and decided to let people touch, but not try on, the kimonos–which were, incidentally, made in Japan. As the Boston Globe reported:

The kimonos, which are replicas of the garment in the painting, were commissioned by the Japanese broadcaster NHK to accompany â€œLa Japonaiseâ€ for the recent traveling exhibit â€œLooking Eastâ€; visitors to museums in Tokyo, Kyoto, and the MFAâ€™s sister museum in Nagoya could try them on as part of the exhibit.

â€œIt was very successful in Japan, and we wanted to provide an opportunity to further the visitor experience in Boston,â€ said [deputy director Katie] Getchell, who added that the MFA presented an educational talk on the eventâ€™s inaugural night. â€œPeople really appreciated the opportunity to see the kimonos, to try it on, to feel it, to appreciate its craftsmanship, and to think about what it would be like for a Parisian woman to have worn that at the time for her husband to paint her.â€

I’m confounded by the whole thing (after all, museums rarely back down over a work of art that offends–and they show plenty).

But while the museum called this an educational effort, it really wasn’t–or maybe “hardly was” is a better way to put it. As the MFA told the Associated Press, “it had hoped to create an “interactive experience,” helping museum goers appreciate the rich details, embroidery and fine materials of the garments.” Notice that word “interactive.” Translation: “fun.” And trying to make your museum “fun” is, as they say, as slippery slope.

I ran across this dress-up nonsense in May in, of all places, Madrid, where the Thyssen Bornemisza museum also invited visitors to take selfies of themselves dressed up in clothes from two 16th century portraits by Hans Mielich. See my pictures below (I think the gentleman is bewildered, but the guard told me that people were taking the museum up on its offer and laughing all the way through it).

And more recently, I learned of a cousin to the dress-up corniness at the Crystal Bridges Museum:

As part of the exhibitions Warholâ€™s Nature and Jamie Wyeth, weâ€™ve created a self-portrait photo booth where you can fashion your image as a Warhol- or Wyeth-inspired portrait! Choose between the Pop-Art designs of Andy Warhol or the mysterious stylings of Jamie Wyeth for a one-of-a-kind photo experience. Recreate Wyethâ€™s Pumpkinhead â€“ Self Portrait, or add some pop with Warholâ€™s signature style. Once youâ€™ve created your picture, weâ€™ll email you a copy with the opportunity to share on all social media outlets.

I know, light up! It’s just the dark age we are in. But IÂ always ask the same question about these “initiatives” — what have they got to do with art?

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the MFAÂ (above); Judith H. Dobrzynski (below)

The Met’s Coming Rebranding: A Puzzlement

It’s no secret that Thomas P. Campbell has been working overtime to make his Metropolitan Museum* different from the one he inherited from Philippe de Montebello. And the change has been dramatic–some covered in the press, some not. At least not yet.

But as the King of Siam sings in “The King and I” (and here I will stop to give a commercial to the current production at Lincoln Center Theater; if you haven’t seen it, go. It is one of the best productions I have ever seen of any musical), some of what is going on at the Met is “a puzzlement.”

For example, word is that the Met will soon introduce a new logo. What precisely is holding this up is unclear. I hear from insiders that the design was chosen some time ago. Perhaps the ad campaign isn’t ready? Perhaps there are second thoughts?

Anyway, Campbell–distancing himself from the past–had (I’m told) hired a rebranding consultant. Some say it’s the same one that changed the name of the Tate in London to simply “Tate.” Dropping the article before a proper noun is a trendy thing to do–witness Facebook. But, I’ve noticed, few publications actually drop “the” before Tate. The Whitney, in its new downtown location, also sports a logo that’s just “Whitney,” no “the,” no “museum,” although its press releases and other written materials continue to use the article and the full name, Whitney Museum of American Art. That’s unlike the Tate, which puts horrible sentences like “Tate holds the national collection of British art” and “Tate is a charity” in its materials.

The Met’s consultant also proposed calling the museum at 1000 Fifth Avenue “Met.” That’s it. Someone–perhaps trustees on the board?–rejected that idea. The last I heard, “the” stays; the museum will be called “the Met.”

But a new logo was designed, replacing the one I’ve posted at the top here (a perfectly good logo, if you ask me). It will, I predict, be more streamlined, designed to appeal to the young.Â I know people who have seen it, and none of them like it. It’s red, not blue or black, and it looks nothing like the current one, which alludes to Leonardo’s Vitruvian man. Will theÂ Met’s new logo refer to art at all?

The Met has had other logos; I’ve pasted two I found on the web here. I anxiously wait to see what the new one looks like.

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Met.

Crystal Bridges Makes A Few Announcments

When it come to art purchases, there could Â be a “Crystal Bridges” watch–it seems to me that the museum in Bentonville built largely with Alice Walton’s and the Walton Family Foundation’s money is spending more money buying art than another other U.S. museum currently open to the public.

For a short item in tomorrow’s New York Times that is now onlineÂ (and is a better, longer version than what will be in the print version), I disclose five more big purchases: two sculptures (including Quarantania, at left) and two paintings by Louise Bourgeois purchased through Cheim & Read (worth about $35- to $40 million, all told) and the Jasper Johns’ “Flag” that sold at Sotheby’s last fall for $36 million.

Going back to previous announcements, I totaled up the museum’sÂ purchases over the last several months as costing about $150 million; I alsoÂ mention a few other, undisclosed purchases that the museum has made, and I identify Alice Walton as the buyer of a big Rothko and a Bourgeois for her personal collection–so far. They may go to the museum, someday.

So, Eli Broad may be spending more–I don’t know–but his museum in Los Angeles doesn’t open until the fall. It may be, too, that Mitchell Rales, who owns GlenstoneÂ (currently closed), Peter Brandt, whose space in Connecticut is open by appointment, or another big art buyer is stashing things away in their private museums. But public? If another public museum is buying more art than CB, I’d like to know. (Not acquiring–i.e., by gift–buying.)

Read the item here.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Christie’sÂ

Museum Pictures To Warm Your Hearts

In the United States, many museum-goers I know are perturbed by the hordes of school children that sometimes descend on museum galleries, talking loudly, paying no attention to others trying to enjoy the same space and finding little to warrant their attention.

Here’s one example: About two years ago, at the Art Institute of Chicago, I watched either a teacher or a docent (I didn’t ask which) try to engage a group of, say, 14-year-olds (give or take a year or two) in the contemporary art wing. They were seated on collapsible stools before an abstract painting (sorry, I forgot, whose). The adult-in-charge asked what they thought about the painting. One said, “I think it’s weird.” Another thought it was awful. A third used the traditional “A child can do that” line. The adult had no answer for any of these comments. She let them pass, and moved on to another painting, while the kids starting to act out a bit.

I could understand why the class was bored.

While I was in Spain, I visited a half dozen museums, and the experience was completely different. To be fair, I saw groups of young children, not teenagers or tweens. I couldn’t get over how much attention they paid to the art and to what their teacher was saying. They really looked hard at the art and they answered questions seriously. Not being a Spanish speaker, I can’t tell you how sensible their responses were, but the teachers, in each case, took them seriously.

So–though I wasn’t supposed to–I snapped a few pictures that (I think) should warm your hearts. These little children were not bored in their museums.

I’m not going to make generalizations based on a few anecdotal experiences. But the people I know who complain about young museum-visitors would have been pleased by the groups I saw and the way they all behaved.

See for yourselves:

« Previous Page