Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Museums

Toledo Museum Lights Up On Its Own

Earlier this year, I let news from the Toledo Museum of Art pass without notice, but now I’m going back to it. It’s not about art; it’s about the environment.

big buildingThe museum said that after 20 years of green initiatives, its main building (left) went completely off the electricity grid and actually returned excess power it was generating to the electrical system on May 21. For a 101-year-old building, that’s a real achievement.

Using what the museum calls “sustainable energy practices such as solar power, energy-efficient lighting, micro turbines and chillers,” the museum has cut operating costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. Electrical usage in the museum’s main building has been cut by 79%. According to the press release:

The latest addition to the Museum’s green arsenal is a 360 kilowatt-hours (kW) solar canopy installed over a large portion of the newly renovated main parking lot. The canopy provides nearly double the renewable energy than the solar arrays on the roof of the main Museum (the roof project alone, started in 2008, ranks as one of the largest solar panel installations in Ohio). The electricity generated by the system will provide up to half of the 250,000-square-foot building’s needs on a sunny day, and will cut annual grid consumption by almost a quarter.

Led by Carol Bintz, chief operating officer, and Paul Bernard, director of the Museum’s physical plant, TMA is the only museum in Ohio – and one of only a handful in the nation – to institute these practices.

Bernard also said that “It only took two months for some of the changes to start paying for themselves.” You can read more details on Toledo’s green initiatives here. A publication called Building Green covered the accomplishment, and provided a few more details, here.

I know, this isn’t as sexy as other posts, but it’s important nonetheless.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Toledo Museum

 

 

Peter Schjeldahl Is Mistaken, I Believe

hragLike many in the art world — take a look on Facebook — I was surprised that Peter Schjeldahl wrote on the New Yorker website that he favored the sale of the Detroit Institute of Art’s collection to pay the city’s creditors. I saw the headline, wondered what this esteemed art critic had to say, and immediately read the piece, to see what I had been missing in this argument.

As it turns out, nothing. I was amazed by the shallowness of the piece. Sure enough, I was not the only one. Before I could even contemplate how to respond here, an email from Hyperalleric landed in my mailbox, with a piece by Hrag Vartanian (at left). It begins:

Would New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl suggest that Greece sell the Parthenon to pay its crippling national debt? How about Italy or Spain or Portugal or Ireland, which have financial problems of their own — should they sell off national treasures, maybe a national forest, or part of their coastline to pay creditors? The stodgy critic known for his purple prose seems to have, obliviously or not, penned a poisonous exhibit A for justifying the shameless “asset stripping” of a museum collection held in trust for the public. …

…It’s worth noting that Schjeldahl’s post on the New Yorker website is without any real facts that demonstrate the dangers Detroit is facing, and it is mostly filled with vague notions of culture and concern for retirees…

With that, I agree (hence my surprise). Vartanian says of the sale, “I personally don’t think it will” happen — and I agreed from the start of this. Now I am not so sure. I think the art may have been put on the table in some sort of political game of chicken. But that game could not be stopped once the number of players in it increased dramatically to include powerful creditors. They, let’s face it, are only about the money. The governor, emergency manager, mayor and other pols do have other considerations — like the future of the city. Looks as if they should never has started this, because it can no longer be contained.

More On Christie’s Behavior

Mark Stryker, a staff writer at the Detroit Free Press, picks up today on my Tuesday post about Christie’s vulture behavior, and adds:

Some other art world insiders, who declined to speak on the record to the Free Press because of the sensitivity of the situation, privately characterized Christie’s actions as predatory. They noted the company was risking possibly alienating other museums, which buy and sell work through the major auction houses all the time.

Both Christie’s and Sotheby’s declined to comment to Stryker, but he found another auctioneer who would:

Joan Walker, a partner at the Detroit-based DuMouchelle, a respected regional auction house, was adamant that if DuMouchelle were asked to participate in a forced sale of DIA art, the company have nothing to do with it.

“We are completely against the sale of any works at the museum,” Walker said. “Our treasures should be kept at the museum for the enjoyment of the public, and I think the city should find a solution in other areas.”

Asked to comment directly on Christie’s sending appraisers to Detroit, Walker said curtly: “That’s up to them.”

Here’s the link to the Freep’s story.

 

The End Of Deitch Comes Tomorrow — UPDATED

I am surprised only by the length of time Jeffrey Deitch has managed to stay director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles..

JDeitchAs I wrote here almost exactly a year ago, on July 27, 2012, his days were numbered:

At the time, MOCA trustee Charles Young, the former chief executive of the Museum of Contemporary Art, urged Eli Broad — who recruited Deitch from his gallery in downtown Manhattan — to dump him.

The LATimes wrote:

[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…”

Earlier today, Mike Boehm at the Times picked up on the rumor that I saw over the weekend on Facebook (possibly because of blog posts on LA Weekly, but also just gossip) and wrote:

…MOCAis expected to announce Deitch’s exit along with the news that the museum is nearing completion of a fundraising campaign it announced in March to boost its endowment from about $20 million to $100 million.

The person who spoke with Deitch, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the fundraising success would enable Deitch to exit with a parting accomplishment. Deitch had a five-year contract to lead MOCA and has served slightly more than three years.

I always thought he was a poor choice for director.

What’s next? An interim director and a search — for someone with executive and fundraising capabilities, as well as a vision to lead MOCA out of the fix it’s in, financially and programmatically.

UPDATE, 7/24: Deitch’s resignation is now official.

Appalled By Christie’s “Vulture” Behavior

When a company goes bankrupt, a certain kind of investor comes out of the woodwork trying to make a killing: if they buy assets at distressed prices, really cheap, they can often wait a few years and resell at a very big profit. They are called vulture investors.

detroit-institute-ofI’ve been thinking about the term ever since I read the article headlined Detroit’s Creditors Eye Its Art Collection in the July 20 New York Times, which of course is about the people who would like to sell the art collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts so they can collect on money owed to them by the city. I’ve been thinking about it, not just because of Detroit’s creditors, but rather because of Christie’s, the auction house. The article had this passage:

About a month ago, the institute’s officials were contacted by Christie’s auction house, which asked for an inventory of works and asked if appraisers could visit to assess the collection. It is unclear whether such a visit took place and whether it was creditors or someone else who enlisted Christie’s to begin an appraisal. (Mr. Nowling said that the emergency manager’s office did not do so, and Christie’s declined to comment.)

All I can think of is, shame on Christie’s. Sure, business is business, but let’s remember here that it is NOT the Detroit Institute of Arts that has mismanaged the city and led to the bankruptcy. As far as I can tell, the DIA has husbanded it resources very well and acted responsibly over the last several years.

Is Christie’s so hard up that it will take any business, no matter how reprehensible? That’s sad. Of course Christie’s is positioning itself for the sale, should it be ordered. But if I were a collector wanting to sell, I would not patronize Christie’s because of this. If wanting to buy, yes, I know collectors go with whoever has the “material.”

BTW, I applaud the behavior of the Detroit Institute during this crisis. It just keeps going about its business, trying not to get distracted, and head down. Yesterday, I received this in a press release:

The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) will examine and digitally photograph 13 full-scale drawings, known as cartoons, created by Diego Rivera in his preparation for painting the DIA’s internationally renowned Detroit Industry murals. The drawings have not been looked at in more than 30 years, and have never been digitally photographed. The project will take place from July 22 to Aug. 2 and is made possible by a grant from Bank of America’s Art Conservation Project. The grant will also fund any necessary conservation work on the delicate drawings.

ETC. Some of us are “liking’ the DIA on Facebook in a show of support. As of  now, it has 231,851 fans — versus 223,00 in mid-June.

BTW, tomorrow’s New York Times has an article about the closing of the Fresno Metropolitan Museum, which over-expanded and had to close in 2010 — offering it as a template for, or lessons relevant to, the situation at the Detroit Institute of Arts. I don’t think so. They are just not comparable.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the DIA