Museums

This is a test, so don’t look below just yet, please.

I’ve written in the past about the goal of so many museums to become “town squares,” leaving behind their past as “cultural cathedrals.” I prefer the cultural cathedral metaphor — art museums as a place for really looking at art, for seeking inspiration and enlightenment, sometimes for reaching for an almost spiritual experience. The concept of becoming a town square may or may not exclude those goals — depending on the noise and activity levels that are fostered — but the concept certainly makes them harder.

And yet, the two are not mutually exclusive. It’s perfectly all right — even a laudable goal — for museums to want people to come to common areas, like restaurants and coffee bars, to seek social interaction. I think that’s great, as long as it doesn’t make the other goals impossible for those would-be cathedral-goers.

So here I have posted several pictures I took recently at a museum with my cell phone (pardon the quality). I snapped two venues on a Wednesday afternoon. In the one with red walls, people were communing with art, via computers, as well as with each other. In the other place, it was all about eating and being social — it was completely accessible from the outside. One did not have to go into the museum to use this cafe, and many there clearly had not. The museum presumably was, though, earning a profit on the food it sold — which looked quite a bit more appetizing than some museum fare. (I sampled a slice of quiche, and it was just ok, however — but it was mid-afternoon, long past lunch and therefore probably long past its prime. Bad choice on my part. The sweets looked delicious.)

Notice the lack of school children beefing up the attendance numbers. Notice the mix of ages, the presence of men.

Now guess which museum this is.

First, a hint: From the outside, this museum is an example of what people frequently label as “intimidating,” ridiculously. It dates to the mid-1800s. But it doesn’t look as if it’s scaring ordinary people away, does it?

Second, this museum is full of old art. Its collection extends from the 13th century only to the 19th. No Warhol here. Its director recently blasted the cookie-cutter approach to contemporary collecting, and questioned the legitimacy of certain categories.

Yet it draws. Admittedly, this museum has a big tourist base.

Ok, you know now — It’s the National Gallery in London. I admit this may be a bit unfair — but I can’t think of another museum I’ve been in that has added this social aspect so successfully without ruining the experience for awe-seekers. Maybe the Met, but it has so much more room, more kinds of art, to work with.

 

The Washington Post, doing its duty, checked in on the mess at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Corcoran College of Art and Design again the other day, lest something nefarious happen there under everyone’s noses.

It didn’t come up with any news whatsoever. Nothing has happened since the Corcoran said it was discussing its future with the National Gallery and George Washington University. Nor did it come up with new analysis or quote any new recommendations. What it did do is recap the sad situation and put the blame squarely on the board: Corcoran’s Board Holds Key To Museum’s Fate, the headline read.

And in this article, the board looks even more inept than we thought. The trustees have managed to create a situation in which they have no vision for the future, they have no money for the future, they have no director for the museum, and — perhaps worst of all — the study they ordered up to assess the museum/school’s potential is seven months away from delivery.

Then, of course, there will be deliberation and fund-raising, because no one is going to give the Corcoran much money without knowing what it’s going to be in the future, “the vision.” Can this institution remain on life-support for so long? I shake my head in disbelief.

Here’s an interesting passage: Since October, 2o10:

[The board] spent $1.5 million on consultants, including a $683,000 contract with Lord Cultural Resources (not all paid yet), which produced six thick binders of research and interviews with staff and students as well as outside experts. The data examined the state of the art in museums and art colleges worldwide, and attempted to discern the direction in which the best galleries and colleges will evolve in the coming decades. …A year later, in the fall of 2011, Corcoran leaders were not yet ready to publicly propose a new vision, but the board was eager for fresh eyes on the problem. At least six trustees joined in two months….Yet even now, after 24 months, the new vision remains a work in progress.

One could be relieved by that, because any new director worth his or her salt would want a say in formulating the vision. To which the board chairman, Harry F. Hopper III, replied:

We were advised that we could not attract the caliber of leadership on the content side that we needed without having a well-thought-out framework, and that’s what we’re working on. We don’t claim to have a granular playbook on how a new leader is supposed to execute a vision. We have come up with a framework within which a visionary leader can allow the institution to flourish. Exactly what shape that takes is an organic process that will be led by the new leadership that we bring in.

Fair enough, I guess, except: if the board is months away from agreeing to a framework, and then it has to recruit a visionary director — a process that, in recent years, has been taking about a year from the time a director quits to the time another is hired, which is sometimes followed by more delay before he/she can take up the job — that life-support system at the Corcoran better be  pretty darn good. To me, it looks as if it will waste away.

 

How did The Art of Crystal Bridges, a documentary about the founding of Alice Walton’s museum, get made? A recent email from the museum, the monthly roster of news and upcoming programs there, piqued my interest, because how many museums merit their own film? The listing, which advertised the public premier of the film at Crystal Bridges on Nov. 9, didn’t say anything about the film’s origins. But it did say the film was “sponsored by J.P. Morgan.” Intriguing.

I searched and discovered that the film had been shown earlier this month at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, which billed it this way:

…This half-hour documentary written and produced by Emmy-award winning documentarian Larry Foley tells the fascinating story behind the museum”s founding and development. Featuring glorious high definition imagery, narration by Academy Award-winning actress Mary Steenburgen, and an original music score by James Greeson, The Art of Crystal Bridges takes viewers on a visual journey “from construction to completion” of the first major museum devoted to American artwork to open in half a century.

It had to be an inside job. And it was. Laura Jacobs, the museum’s communications director, told me that the museum had commissioned it and sought a sponsor. The Nov. 9 showing there will mark the one-year anniversary of the museum’s opening. The film itself, which includes interviews with museum curators and designers, as well as architect Moshe Safdie and founder Alice Walton, is for sale in Crystal Bridges store and, says Jacobs, “we will show it on a continuous loop on 11/11/12, our anniversary, in the Great Hall.”

After that, she said:

The film will air on AETN  (Arkansas Educational Television Network, the state PBS affiliate), twice in November (15 and 21) and the filmmaker is shooting for a PBS broadcast as well.

Would that be possible? Would PBS really show an inhouse film like this? The answer may be yes. Earlier this year, a film about the Barnes Foundation aired on PBS. It was made by WHYY in Philadelphia and was sponsored by Wilmington Trust. It’s described this way on the WHYY website:

WHYY’s special 60-minute TV documentary on the Barnes Foundation for the new PBS Arts Summer Festival series tells the story of Dr. Albert C. Barnes and his noteworthy, priceless art collection, considered among the world’s greatest, and detail [sic] the design and construction of the new Barnes building in Center City Philadelphia.

The film follows the story about Dr. Barnes and the unique period in art history in which he lived and collected via a focus on a few key pieces in his collection. By showcasing those pieces, the philosophy behind Dr. Barnes’ collection and his methods of displaying works in ensembles will be explored. The Barnes Collection also features digital animation, which takes viewers from Merion through the architect’s drawings to the Parkway location.

I tuned in (though you can watch the whole thing for yourself at that link above), and I was appalled. In nearly 60 min., it made no mention of the controversy surrounding that move. It completely pulls the rug out from under the pro-NEW Barnes* critics that complain that The Art of the Steal was biased against the move. At least that movie tried to get interviews from both sides.

PBS, which famously airs no commercials, managed to air a 60-minute one that time.

I suspect it will have more trouble airing The Art of Crystal Bridges — but not because of content or who exerted editorial control. The difficulty may be with the length. PBS likes schedule national programs that fill an hour, not a half-hour.

I haven’t watched the Crystal Bridges documentary, so I am making no judgment here about its merits. Its behavior is perfectly understandable. But if PBS airs this documentary, without explaining its origins, then I do have problems with PBS.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Crystal Bridges

*Please see comment below, after which I added the word NEW.