Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Museums

Milwaukee Revises And Refines: At What Cost?

The Milwaukee Art Museum has revamped the design of its intended expansion, calling back the architect Jim Shields — who had taken his name off the project — to view1-600make refinements, the Milwaukee Business Journal revealed.

The new design adds wall-to-wall windows overlooking Lake Michigan on the ground floor of the addition and exterior panels with a natural metal such as zinc or copper, said Shields, of HGA Architects and Engineers, Milwaukee.

Previously, the museum had released a “boxier, mostly white” building plan, but director Dan Keegan said that was “conceptual and unfinished” and never the final version. 

The last design had blank white walls facing the lakefront for a portion of that space, shielding an interior gallery from the sun. The new design shrunk that gallery space by 1,500 square feet so the exterior walls can instead have windows, Keegan said.

The result is what Shields called a “community living room” in that space, with floor-to-ceiling windows. There will be tables there for a cafe and room for display of sculptures, for example.

“The galleries were pushed back a bit in order to add this open, transparent space,” Shields said.

The exterior materials have also changed, from white to earthy-toned. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which had criticized the initial plan, also had a story on the revision. I was  not so against the old plan,  but this one may be better on some grounds (the exterior look) and worse on others (less gallery space). I can’t tell if the building is too close to the lakefront, which is a concern I had. We shall have to see.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Milwaukee Business Journal

 

Revenge On Germany: Bern Museum To Get Gurlitt’s Trove

The Kunstmuseum Bern is now saying that it is the “unrestricted and unfettered sole heir'” to Cornelius Gurlitt’s treasure trove of art, according to several reports. Wow.

KunstmuseumBernAccording to the London Daily Mail, one of several accountings of the aftermath of Curlitt’s death, “The 81-year-old son of Adolf Hitler’s art dealer, whose collection included many pieces looted by the Nazis, had made a will shortly before his death yesterday.”

In a statement it said the appointment brings “a considerable burden of responsibility and a wealth of questions of the most difficult and sensitive kind, and questions in particular of a legal and ethical nature.”

The museum says it never previously had any dealings with Gurlitt….

…Stephan Holzinger, Mr Gurlitt’s lawyer, told the BBC that Mr Gurlitt wrote the will in the last few weeks.

‘It now falls to the probate court to determine if the will is valid and whether a contract of inheritance exists,’ he said. ‘I can understand that there is now wild speculation, but I don’t want to comment on that at this stage.’

German authorities are said to be angry about this development — and museum officials, whose institutions were stripped of many of these works must be too. Will they contest? Gurlitt was clearly angry about the way he was treated in the last few years;  now he has got revenge.

The Daily Mail piece recounts the history of this affair pretty well, in case you have forgotten the details.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Daily Mail 

The Word Is Out From Delaware Art Museum

The first painting that Delaware Art Museum trustees have chosen to deaccession is not, as many expected, Winslow Homer’s Milking Time. Rather, they’ve chosen a pre-Raphaelite painting by William Holman Hunt, Isabella and the Pot of Basil. 

l_isabella-and-the-potChristie’s has placed it in its June 17 London sale of Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art. But the catalogue is not yet online and the estimate has not been disclosed.

Going against traditional museum ethics rules — and some say without exploring all other options — the museum said in March that it needed to sell as many as four paintings to raise $30 million, some of which would be used to pay down debt racked up in its recent expansion. The rest would go into its skimpy endowment.

The Homer disappeared from both the museum’s walls and its website, leading many to suspect it was on the block. The painting might raise close to $30 million, according to some experts.

But Newsworks, which is WHYY in Philadelphia, now says otherwise — citing the Hunt. It says “The painting was originally purchased by the museum in 1947 using general art acquisition funds.” It appears, from the museum’s website, to be the only Hunt in the collection.

I could argue this either way, alas. While the Homer is likely to fetch much more than this, and therefore require fewer paintings to leave the collection, I think it’s a better painting than the Hunt and ought to be kept. On the other hand, Delaware has a fine collection of pre-Raphaelite paintings, and I believe that museums should aim for and maintain strength in specific areas to differentiate themselves from other museums.

Which brings me back to square one: I don’t think all financial avenues have been explored.

 

That Dangerous Impulse To Ever-Expand

AnneRadiceI could barely believe it when I read that the American Folk Art Museum, saved from dissolution only when it unhappily sold its “new” building to the Museum of Modern art in 2011, is expanding again. But there you have it, according to The Art Newspaper.  Yesterday, it reported:

The American Folk Art Museum plans to open an annexe in Queens to house its collection and library. “We have just signed an agreement,” the museum’s director, Anne Radice [at left], says. The annexe will also provide the institution with additional space for exhibitions as well as improve access for researchers, she says.

The Queens annexe will be near the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, confirms a spokeswoman. This puts it in the same neighbourhood in Long Island City as MoMA QNS, the Museum of Modern Art’s satellite storage and archives, open to scholars by appointment only.

Storage, library — they may need the space. But this also sounds like that “lebebsraum” impulse, which can be all-consuming and often wrong. There isn’t much syngery with MoMA QNS, as it is not an exhibition space. I’ve been there and noticed very little street traffic that would suggest the area would support “space for exhibitions.” TAN does not specify whether this is a lease or a purchase, and there’s no announcement on the museum’s website.

Plus, while recovering, the folk art museum is not fully stabilized after its financial woes of the past several years. Its most recent 990, through last June 30, reports net assets at just $8.2 million — a lot better than the previous year’s minus $4.3 million, but still.

I hope the folk museum has done its sums properly. I would hate to see it in trouble yet again.

Another Director’s Job Is Now Open

Jim-BallingerThe Cleveland Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Barnes Foundation, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester — those museums all need directors. And now, so does the Phoenix Art Museum.

Last Thursday, on Apr. 17, Jim Ballinger — director there since 1982 — announced that he was retiring, with the effective date undisclosed but, I’d guess, probably related to the selection of his successor. The search will start immediately, the museum said.

Ballinger turns 65 this year, and started at the Phoenix museum as a curator there in 1974. According to the museum’s press release:

During Ballinger’s tenure, the museum has presented nearly 500 exhibitions and the collection has grown by 10,000 objects. Ballinger has personally organized more than 50 exhibitions, authored exhibition catalogues, a book on Frederic Remington, administered two major capital campaigns that expanded the museum from 72,000 square feet to its current 285,000 square feet and brought a number of blockbuster exhibitions to Phoenix, including the current Hollywood Costume. He currently manages a staff of more than 115 and an operating budget of $11.6 million a year. He is recognized as a leader nationally in the field of Western American art.

…”Today, the museum is four times the size physically and the budget is more than 10 times the size as when I started as director,” [Ballinger said].

That’s 40 years in one place, an anomaly in today’s world.

Details here.