Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Museums

A Happy Ending For The Once-Besieged Rose Art Museum

What a difference support from the top makes. This weekend, the Boston Globe dutifully went back to visit the Rose Art Museum of Brandeis University, to see how its new director, Christopher Bedford (below), who was hired last year, was doing.

bedford647x260You’ll recall that in 2009, Brandeis’s then-president Jehuda Reinharz wanted to sell the Rose’s sterling contemporary art collection, then valued at some $350 million, to find his way out of the university’s fiscal problems. (See here and here, for example — plus the links in those posts.)

Reinharz left (voluntarily, he says) and Brandeis hired Fred Lawrence to replace him. Lawrence reversed the plan, settled the lawsuit filed by a group of Rose supporters by agreeing that the university would not sell the art, and hired Bedford. Lawrence understood that said the Rose was, or should be, an integral part of Brandeis. And, according to the Globe, he’s done more than that.

For one, he and his wife helped woo a new trustee, Liz Krupp (boldface mine):

Krupp admits she was reluctant. Already a trustee at the MFA, she has also served on the boards of the American Repertory Theatre and Boston Ballet. She and her husband, George, a real estate investor who cofounded the Berkshire Group, have had a gallery named after them at the MFA.

Not long after Bedford’s hiring, he was invited to meet Liz over lunch by Frederick Lawrence’s wife, Kathy. Krupp initially resisted Bedford’s offer to join the Rose board. She was too busy. Then Bedford e-mailed and called. He and Fred Lawrence visited her at home. She couldn’t say no this time.

Sure, Krupp told the Globe that she liked Bedford’s enthusiasm, but you can’t underestimate the effect of the presence of Lawrence and his wife in the process.

But let’s give credit to Bedford, too — he has also recruited artist Mark Bradford for the board, commissioned artist “Chris Burden to install an ambitious, outdoor and permanent work with a $2 million price tag,” and commissioned “Walead Beshty to create a mirrored floor at the Rose that crinkles and cracks under the weight of museum visitors,” the Globe said. More acquisitions are pending — “including works by Whitten, Al Loving, Dor Guez, and Charline von Heyl.” Details about the Burden commission are here.

Attendance, meanwhile, is up, “from 9,145 before he came to 14,303 in the current year.” I don’t know how that compares with 2008 or 2009, whose number was inflated by the crisis. (Paging former Rose director Michael Rush, who can’t be looking back…the Associated Press just reported that “More than 114,000 people have visited the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum in East Lansing in its first year,” the museum Rush now heads.)

I am sure Bedford deserves much of the credit here, but the sea change at the university level seems pretty key to me.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Brandeis

 

What Have Leonardo, Aggie Gund, Sopheap Pich, Etc. Got In Common? News

I rarely do this, but  several smallish but interesting things have happened in the museum world recently, so I’ve collected them in one post.

From the Frick Collection, three pieces of news:

  • Director Ian Wardropper has lured one of the Metropolitan Museum’s* biggest stars, Xavior Salomon, several blocks south on Fifth Avenue to serve as chief curator; he’d been a curator in the European paintings department, “a prototypical and brilliant curator/scholar,” as one source who knows him well told me, and formerly chief curator at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. More here.
  • The Frick’s Center for the History of Collecting* has chosen the winner of the Sotheby’s Book Prize for a Distinguished Publication on the History of Collecting in America — it’s a team headed by Jennifer Farrell, the general editor, and essayists Thomas Crow, Serge Guilbaut, Jan Howard, Robert Storr, and Judith Tannenbaum. They collaborated on Get There First, Decide Promptly: The Richard Brown Baker Collection of Postwar Art. Details here.
  • The Frick usually closes at 6 p.m. (5 p.m. on Sundays), but to accommodate the crowds eager to see Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and the other paintings on loan for its special exhibition Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis, it will now stay open until 9 p.m. on Friday nights for that show. Better yet, thanks to Agnes Gund, it will be free on nine of those evenings, from this Friday until January 17, with the exception of Dec. 6 and Jan. 3, which are reserved for members.

131017-ARoom-model-1From the Dallas Museum of Art:

  • Speaking of free, the DMA recently received an anonymous $9 million gift. Of that, $4 million is unrestricted operating support for the DMA’s free general admission program. The other $5 million will support the digitization of the museum’s collection of 22,000 objects and the creation of a platform for free access to those digital images. In addition, the unnamed donor will give $2 million to match money the DMA raises, presumably in a one-to-one ratio, in the next five years. Details here. Now for pure conjecture on my part — I would not be surprised if this gift came about because DMA director Max Anderson went all out in fundraising last year in an effort to buy the recently rediscovered Leonardo, Salvator Mundi. He couldn’t muster the rumored $200 million price tag, but he did amass pledges of a very sizable total, I’ve been told. Perhaps he has turned convinced one of those potential donors to support greater access to the museum.

And speaking of the Leonardo:

  • It’s no longer available. It has been sold.  — or is in contract negotiations. To whom, I do not know. Again, pure conjecture based on rumors I’ve heard: it‘s going, or has gone, to a collector in Europe. Probably a private collector. Stay tuned to see if it is put on view in a museum.

Earlier this year, I saw a wonderful exhibition at the Met of work by Sopheap Pich, a Cambodian artist (images here), and now:

  • The Indianapolis Museum of Art has announced that it has commissioned an installation by Pich for its Efroymson Family Entrance Pavilion Series.  Titled A Room, it “will consist of nearly 1,200 bamboo strips, extending 40 feet from the atrium’s ceiling to floor and occupying a 26-foot diameter circular space that museum visitors will be able to enter.” Based on what I have seen so far, not just at the Met but online, Pich is destined for more acclaim and this should help spread the word about him. A rendering of the new project is above.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Indianapolis Museum

 

Reason To Rejoice With The New Museum in San Antonio

Art-Artifact-Pancho-Villa-SaddleSan Antonio has a new museum, in an excellent location for visitors, and a clear mission that doesn’t duplicate another nearby museum’s — good signs for the future. I’m talking about the Briscoe Western Art Museum, which opened on Saturday. Situated on the city’s popular River Walk, in a restored historic building that once housed a circus museum, its inaugural exhibition contains about 700 objects, including Santa Anna’s sword (bottom), Pancho Villa’s saddle (top), and an Apache olla basket (middle).

Although the lobby contains a life-sized sculpture of cattle herds by John Coleman, officials say the Briscoe is not a museum of “cowboy art,” but rather will also collect art depicting and related to the American Indian and Spanish and Mexican vaqueros. In the collection or on loan now are paintings by E.I. Crouse and Maynard Dixon, among other things.

Here’s more about what is inside  and more about the collections.

You may not like Western art and artifactsArt-Artifact-Basket-Olla-Apache (I do, btw), but there’s another reason to know about this museum. Again, as in Dallas, the San Antonio city officials and business executives are vocal about the importance of having museums. As reported by the Native American Times,

The Briscoe adds a new element to the city’s cultural offerings as the first dedicated Western heritage museum. Briscoe officials and city leaders see the new museum fitting into a well-established niche: the tourism industry. Located at Market and Presa streets on the River Walk, the museum is within easy reach of various tourist destinations.

“They’re a walk away from the Convention Center. They’re a walk away from the major hotels downtown, so it’s an added value to that experience,” said Felix Padrón, director of the city’s Department for Culture and Creative Development. “If we can encourage tourists to stay an extra day not only to go to the Briscoe but to the Tobin or other institutions downtown, that’s a win-win situation for all of us since we’re supported by the hotel-motel tax.”

Pat DiGiovanni, CEO of Centro Partnership San Antonio, said cultural attractions such as the Briscoe are key to the effort to revitalize the city’s core. “This is the kind of asset we need to build off of if we’re going to have a vibrant, 24-hour, seven-days-a-week downtown,” he said.

Art-Artifact-Santa-Anna-SwordNot that there weren’t troubles along the way. According to the San Antonio Express,

About 10 years in the works, the three-story museum initially was slated to open in 2009. It was delayed as the original design changed and the price tag grew from $18 million in 2006 to the final $32 million. More than $7 million in taxpayer funds has gone into the project, including $6.25 million from the county and about $1 million from the city. The rest of the funding has come from the private sector.

Former Gov. Dolph Briscoe, who died in 2010, contributed $4 million to the project. The museum is named for him and his wife, Janey.

“The public-private partnership was such a successful model for this project,” said museum board Chairwoman Debbie Montford. “Private donors came together with both the city and the country to restore a building with great bones, and I think it’s energized this entire piece of the river. We’re so happy. I mean, we’re looking at each other and saying, ‘I can’t believe it’s finally here.’”

There’s more to the story at both newspaper links.

 

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.

 

 

 

Trouble In Paradise: Santa Cruz’s Museum Loses Its Way

Maybe my “Experience Museums” opinion piece in The New York Times last month has emboldened others who equally disturbed by some goings-on in art museums to speak up.

Over the weekend, I learned of one Bruce Bratton, in Santa Cruz, who took on that city’s Museum of Art and History and cited my article. He wrote:

SantaCruzMAHMAH’s NEWEST MEANING…Mostly Attendance and Happenings. Other folks among the numerous local residents sugggested Mostly Attendance and Hobbies. Then there’s Mediocre, Humdrum and all kinds of clever ways to re-name our gone to hell Museum of Art and History. We’ve lost the “Museum”, “The Art”, and “The History” concepts of what was once a professional institution with professional standards….

…Remember …when you could sit or stand and just think about the art pieces you were able to see in person? Think how many thousands/millions of students and artists were influenced by seeing circulating masterpieces or from the local collections…not now. Consider the impact on the next generation of art and history-lovers; the kids. Where can we take our kids now to learn how to experience a real museum; a place that challenges the attention span a little? There are experiential activities everywhere, as I mentioned but the former MAH was our only real museum environment that offered art in a museum context; a respectful place that created the sense that what you’re seeing is important, and worthy of your consideration. Not just something you whip through as you’re doing activities.

Bratton is, by some lights, a “Santa Cruz institution,” a columnist who has been “getting Santa Cruzans all riled up on a weekly basis” for decades. Now he has a presence online, which is where he published that opinion.

I commend him for mentioning another aspect of this whole issue: mission statements. Apparently, under newish executive director Nina Simon (who, he said, did not like my article), “The actual mission statement of MAH has changed and now we have what should be called our “second community center”. MAH Board members have been quitting over this, professional historians, curators and staff members have either left or are completely devastated by the community circus that Nina Simon has created in the two and a half years she’s been executive director,” he writes.

Later, he says:

The new mission statement is so stunning in its exclusion of any cultural references that you should read it… From the website; “Our mission is to ignite shared experiences and unexpected connections”. What does that mean?? Where’s History, where’s Art, where’s Tradition, most important where’s any statement about inspiration and education???

The whole statement is here, and in fairness, the “vision” does contain those words:

Our vision is to become a thriving, central gathering place where local residents and visitors have the opportunity to experience art, history, ideas, and culture. We envision engaged members and visitors who are increasingly passionate and knowledgeable about about contemporary art and local history that celebrate our diverse community.

In contrast, however, the 2010 strategic plan for the museum says as its mission statement:

The Museum of Art & History promotes a greater understanding of contemporary art and the history of Santa Cruz County, through its exhibitions, collections, and programs, for the benefit of residents and visitors to Santa Cruz County.

It’s not hard to see the difference in emphasis between the two.

Simon, of course, has built her career on advocating participatory museum experiences. The MAH board must have known that when they hired her (if not, they were derelict — it was plain to everyone in the museum world). Why then, did they hire her, or why are they resigning now?

Bratton wrote: “Historians have told me many times in the last two and a half years that there are no longer any qualified historians cataloguing and curating and handling our MAH’s collections. Future generations will suffer from this.”

I can only agree. I urge others, in other cities, to speak up now before it is too late.