Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Museums

Does Nicholas Serota Have The Only Formula For the Future? UPDATED

Calvin Tomkins profiles Nicholas Serota, longtime head of the Tate Gallery (-ies, really), in this week’s New Yorker, and it’s largely laudatory, as one might expect. Tomkins doesn’t shy away from saying, straightaway and approvingly, that

­Serota­ has ­been ­widely ­acclaimed— and ­often ­vilified—for­ changing ­the ­culture­ of­ Great­ Britain. The establishment, the press, and the numberless upright citizens who used to regard modern art as a joke, a foreign-born absurdity practiced by incompetents or charlatans, now embrace it with almost unseemly fervor. Tate Modern, the Tate’s new building for twentieth- and twenty-first-century art, which opened in 2000 in a derelict power station on the south side of the Thames, draws about five million visitors a year, making it the world’s most heavily attended modern-art museum.

Tompkins chronicles Serota’s rise to these heights, changing from an economics major at Cambridge to art history; running Whitechapel Gallery in the East End; co-organizing shows like ­“A ­New­ Spirit ­in­Painting,”­ at ­the ­Royal ­Academy in 1981, with ­work by the likes of deKooning, Bacon and Richter; inviting artists into the galleries during his first days at the Tate; raising private money for the Tate Modern; etc., etc. It’s not a puff piece, but you know exactly where Tomkins stands.

I’m fine with that. Serota has done marvelous things for art in London. What makes me worry a little is signaled in the headline and deck: “The Modern Man: How the Tate Gallery’s Nicholas Serota is reinventing the museum.” Those definite articles imply that his way is it — he’s leading everyone else to the museum of the future.

If so, various revealing sentences comes as early as the first column. Describing the scene inside the Tate Modern, Tomkins writes about its visitors:

They drifted around in pairs or small groups—hardly anyone was alone—chatting convivially, taking pictures of one another with their smartphones, pausing now and then to look at­ a­ work of art. [Boldface mine]

This theme continues in later passages, all challenging the definition of a museum. Examples:

We have many more people than we’d anticipated who want to hear lectures and ask questions, or just spend time here, looking at art, buying ­a ­book, having coffee with­ a­ friend….

For students and young Londoners in their twenties or thirties, the members’ room at Tate Modern is one of the cooler places to hang out on Friday and Saturday evenings, when the museum stays open until 10 P.M. The museum as a social environment, where people interact with art and with one another on their own terms, and create their own experiences, might seem to work against the close study of individual works that Serota learned from Michael Jaffe, at Cambridge. “One criticism of this building is that you can’t have an intimate experience with ­a ­work of art,” Serota conceded. “That’s something we are going to address in the new building, where we’ll have some smaller galleries, for photographs and modestly scaled works. But, if you come here at ten or eleven on­ a ­weekday morning, you can still have that experience.”

Later, Tomkins gives his blessing, by quoting an impeccable source:

John Elderfield, the greatly respected, British-born scholar who recently joined the Gagosian Gallery after many years at MOMA, believes that what’s happened at Tate Modern is “a really radical change in howpeople use museums now. It’s not only about looking closely at works of art; it’s moving around within­ a ­sort of cultural spectacle.­I ­have friends who think this is the end of civilization, but­ a lot more people are going to be in the presence of art, and some of them will look at things and be transported by them.” [Boldface mine.]

Hmmm. Does really matter if a lot more people are in the presence of art if they’re not paying attention? No one can predict how big, or small, that “some” will be.

There has to be more than one way to run a museum: Serota has a formula, and a good one, but it’s not the only one.

Here’s the link to the article, though I believe it’s behind a pay wall.

UPDATE: I’ve made a PDF of the article — NewYorker-Serota.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the New Yorker

 

 

 

Appalling Situation in Berlin: You Can Help – UPDATED WITH PETITION

UPDATE: Please help by signing the petition here; it asks for disclosure of the impact on the Old Masters and a concrete plan for their display in a different building. It does not oppose expanded galleries for modern art.

You may recall that in late 2010, the German collectors, Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch (pictured below in 2009, at an exhibition of some of their collection), signed an agreement with the state of Berlin to bequeath their internationally renowned collection of modern art to the city. It now appears, however, that the conditions were too stringent — and will result in the emptying of the great Berlin Gemaeldegalerie, which houses the State Museums’ world-class old master paintings collection, and its conversion into a museum that would showcase the Pietzsch collection and related works. The Old Masters, mainly, would go into storage — paintings by Durer, Titian, Caravaggio, Vermeer, Rembrandt, on and on.

Everyone should be appalled by this development — and many in Germany are. They need international support, however, and Jeffrey F. Hamburger, the Kuno Francke Professor of German Art & Culture at Harvard University, is helping to galvanize dissent here. He is seeking signatures from American art historians and museum curators to a protest letter. More on this later.

It is true that the Pietzsch Collection is outstanding. It comprises Surrealist works from Paris and Abstract Expressionist works by the New York School – paintings by Max Ernst, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, Paul Delvaux and Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell and Barnett Newmann, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. among others. At the time of the agreement, it consisted of about 150 paintings, drawings and sculptures, with an estimated value of €120 million. Announcing the deal, Hermann Parzinger, President of the Foundation of Prussian Cultural Heritage, said: 

Today’s agreement is a decisive step towards integrating the Pietzsch Collection into the National Gallery’s collection at the National Museums in Berlin. I am convinced that the Foundation of Prussian Cultural Heritage will find the space to exhibit the works in the way Heiner and Ulla Pietzsch see fit. [Boldface mine.]

The couple wanted their treasure to go to “the National Gallery in particular,” Heiner Pietzsch said at the time. The announcement referenced above also said this:

The agreement will only come into effect under the condition that Berlin city council places the collection, in its entirety, in the hands of the Foundation of Prussian Cultural Heritage as a permanent loan, and that the Foundation guarantees that parts of the collection are placed on permanent display within its own collection of modern art. [Again, boldface mine.]

On June 12, the German government allocated €10 million to renovate the Gemaeldegalerie to accommodate the Pietzsch collection. But the Old Master collection would have to go – some will be moved to the Bode Museum for display amongst sculpture of the same eras, but much more will, under this plan, go into storage until at least 2018, and probably longer, when it is hoped that a new museum space would be built alongside the Bode.

Many fear that, given the financial outlook, such an expansion will not occur by 2018, and all those wonderful pictures would be locked away in storage for a long, long time.

This plan should not stand. I’ll have more information on how to protest it soon.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of Getty Images via Zimbio

“Tear Open Those Doors” In Worcester

One of the most ridiculous tropes I hear from museum people all the time revolves around museum architecture, mainly old-style Beaux Arts buildings; any old building, actually. They say some variation of “young people find them intimidating.”

Please. Young people as group are bold and take all sorts of risks older people won’t take — why would they find beautiful buildings intimidating? Such lazy thinking has led to many a poor “solution,” such as building new entrances on old museums or closing the old entrances when a new building presents an opporunity to do so. But we won’t name names.

Rather, this post is about the attempts by a museum director, Matthias Waschek (at left). who recently took over as director of the Worcester Art Museum, to reopen the lovely building’s front doors, which open onto it “beautiful Renaissance Court, a trademark of our Museum.”

Those doors, known as the Salisbury Street entrance, weren’t closed because they were intimidating, it’s true. They were closed (except on weekends and for special events) to save money. But Waschek says that they provide the museum with a “WOW factor.” The home page of the museum’s website  features a plea, including a video, by him asking members to “join forces with me and open the doors!” Online he says:

The $60,000 needed to open the doors would be very difficult for one, two, or even ten of us to raise – but this can be easily done if each member gives just $25. This is less than the cost of a dinner out, or two movie tickets on a Friday night.

May I count on you? I would love to add you to the list of supporters for this special initiative.

Although the museum’s finances haven’t substantially improved, he says in the video, showing the Renaissance court inside, he thinks it’s doable for the community. Fantastic: I would do one more thing — have one of those thermometer devices showing contributions toward the goal, so that all can see. After getting “an overwhelming response” from members, according to the Worcester Scene, Waschek has taken the campaign to the broader public.  

Waschek has a background in modern and contemporary art; he has a PhD in French surrealism and he ran the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts in St. Louis before moving to Massachusetts. But when I spoke with him in January for an article about acquisitions endowments, he was an enthusiastic evangelist for his new museum, all of it. Attendance there is just 45,000 a year, despite a terrific collection, and he knows he must do something — opening the front doors is a symbolic and meaningful initiative, especially if he galvanizes support throught this campaign. Good for him.

Now back to that false intimidation excuse — framing something incorrectly leads to the wrong solution. Waschek is showing what a real problem is — that non-visitors think museums are boring. That’s why he mentions the WOW factor. That can start at the door, even of an old building, whose architecture usually has nothing to do with it.  

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Worcester Art Museum

A 1908 Sojourn Pays Off For The Clark

The Clark Art Institute’s biggest splashiest exhibitions always take place in the summer, when tourists visit the Berkshires looking for things to see and do. This year is a little special though, because the 1908 scientific expedition led by the museum’s founder, Robert Sterling Clark, is paying off all these years later.

In 2008, the 100th anniversary, the Clark forged a relationship with China’s Ministry of Culture – a cultural exchange program.  At the time,  the museum says on its website,

the Clark commemorated the 100th anniversary of the expedition by presenting in China an exhibition of historic images printed from the original photographs in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution Archives in Washington. Researchers believe that all of these photographs were taken during the Clark expedition of 1908-9, although little is known about some of the images.

…the Clark also presented rare original copies of Through Shên-kan to Chinese municipalities along the expedition route, and has translated the book into Mandarin… The book has also served as inspiration for three students from Oxford University, who during the summer of 2008 retraced the original route of the Clark expedition, recording on their own website the changes that have occurred during the past 100 years. In 2011 and 2012 the Clark will share masterpieces from its collection of French Impressionist paintings with leading museums in Beijing and Shanghai, furthering the relationship between the institution’s artistic legacy and the country Sterling Clark studied so carefully early in his life.

In return, the Chinese have lent antiquities from three recently excavated tombs in the territories Clark explored — the exhibition is called  Unearthed: Recent Archaeological Discoveries From Northern China and it opens tomorrow.

That’s not all: The Clark has three other related exhibitions on tap this summer, a critical mass that interested the Wall Street Journal — I have a short article on the Clark’s China summer in tomorrow’s paper. They’ll be worth the trip.

Photo Credit: Tang Dynasty figures (top); Woman with Headdress in Zhenyuan Xian, Gansu (bottom), Smithsonian Institution Archives, both Courtesy of the Clark

 

 

Louis Grachos Quits The Albright-Knox

The news was announced today: Louis Grachos, director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, has quit that job to become Executive Director of AMOA-Arthouse, a new organization formed by the merger of two long-standing arts organizations in Austin, Texas — the Austin Museum of Art and the Jones Center (Art House) — last November.

He leaves effective January 2013.

In some ways, his departure does come “at the right time,” as Grachos told the Buffalo News. He took up the Albright-Knox post in 2002, and ten years is a goodly amount of time to make a difference. As the press release announcing his departure reported:

 During his tenure, he has implemented a strong, dynamic exhibitions program, which featured the landmark exhibition Extreme Abstraction in 2005, as well as theRemix and Artists in Depth series of exhibitions that mined and deeply explored the Gallery’s Collection in new ways, frequently inviting leading local, national, and international artists to engage with the Gallery and become involved in selecting and installing exhibitions in the museum’s spaces.  He also initiated a host of innovative and important projects, programs, and community collaborations, which include Art’scool, Gusto at the Gallery, and M&T FIRST FRIDAYS @ THE GALLERY.  Grachos …[added] many significant, key works to the Collection over the past ten years… The exhibition DECADE: Contemporary Collecting 2002–2012, which the Gallery will present this fall…will show, for the first time, many works that have entered the Collection during Grachos’s tenure.

All true, and Grachos does deserve some credit for trying to restore the Albright-Knox to it glory days, when it was a leader in showing contemporary art. Its recent show, The Long Curve: 150 Years of Of Visionary Collecting at the Albright-Knox Gallery, attempted to do that (and was in demand to travel, though I am not sure what happened with that), and its current show, Wish You Were Here: The Buffalo Avant-garde in the 1970s, takes visitors back, too (apparently not quite so successfully, some critics have said. I haven’t seen it).

But there is that unspeakable matter of deaccessioning antiquities from the permanent collection in 2007, despite the fact that the museum’s own Collections Management Policy said “No sale of masterpieces; nor, in terms of its own collection, of very important works.” Those non-masterpieces brought in $67 million. I am eager to see exactly what he’s been buying that money in the coming exhibition.

Before moving to Buffalo, Grachos was the director of SITE Santa Fe, and I always felt he was leading the A-K’s directors down a contemporary path they thought they wanted, but might not have thought through.

It’s too late to go back, though. The die was cast in 2002. The release said the board was, of course, “forming a committee to initiate a national search for our next director.”

Photo Credit: Courtesy of AMOA-Arthouse.