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Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

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Big Questions Re: Museum of African Art’s New Dream

There was alarming news in the article in Wednesday’s New York Times about the Museum for African Art here in NYC, and it wasn’t ab0ut the shrinking of the building or even the gallery space. It was about the shrinking of the board — to six people! That is way too small for a non-profit, where aside from choosing the leader/director, raising money — get or give — is one of its most important functions.

MfAfricanArtThe article said:

The number of trustees — who usually are expected to provide an overwhelming majority of contributions — has shrunk to six from 24. Mr. [Phil] Conte [the chief financial officer] said the board decided having fewer people would be more efficient. Two of them are the children of the Sudanese-born philanthropist Mo Ibrahim, including the co-chairwoman, Hadeel Ibrahim. A third is a new recruit, Chelsea Clinton, vice president of the Clinton Foundation, which is involved in several philanthropic projects in Africa.

Two others on the list, Jane Frank Katcher and Ian Bruce Eichler, are holders, and Ashish Thakkar seems to be new.

I don’t for a minute believe the “efficiency” argument. Perhaps those who left — resigned or pushed out, we don’t quite know all of the dynamics — hadn’t been giving or didn’t have the capacity to give more. Perhaps they disagreed with the new strategy. The article continued:

The reconstituted board has pledged $9 million toward the building’s completion, Mr. Conte said, adding that he is optimistic that the remaining $11 million will be raised by October.

I’d like to know the breakdown.

But in any case, six people are too small a number of trustees for an organization whose FY 2011 budget, according to the 990 posted on Guidestar, was more than $4 million.

Another alarming point in the article: “…the museum had to write off nearly $5 million in uncollected pledges in the fiscal year ending June 2013.” That’s a large number for renegs in one year. Did the pledgers reneg because they didn’t like the new mission, as “The Africa Center” or because they didn’t believe that the numbers worked either way.

So many questions, so few complete answers. I would not advise giving money until I knew the answers.

Photo Credit: the unfinished lobby of the museum, Courtesy of The Africa Center via the NYTimes

If “Creative Director” Title Fits A Museum, Why Not?

News the other day that the National Academy had elected 13 new Academicians reminded me that I meant to comment on the new title there, announced in the recent shakeup by Carmine Branagan, the director.

First, the new members: visual artists Ida Applebroog, Jane Dickson, Martin Puryear, Edward Ruscha, Joan Semmel and Stanley Whitney; and architects Peter Bohlin, Preston Scott Cohen, Michael Manfredi and Marion Weiss, Eric Owen Moss, Antoine Predock and Charles Renfro.

MPellegrinSecond, the idea: you will  recall that several weeks ago, Branagan created a stir when she laid off members of the curatorial staff (among others) and appointed Maurizio Pellegrin to the new post of “creative director” for the Academy’s museum and art school. While most of the upset was about the layoffs, there were snickers about the title and the fact that Pellegrin was “an artist and educator with little curatorial experience,” as The New York Times phrased it. It continued:

Ms. Branagan said that Mr. Pellegrin (at left), though not a trained curator, “has a vision that I think will bring a lot of energy and relevance” to the museum and school. But he has already drawn some online ridicule for comments he made on the New York Observer’s art news blog, Gallerist, in which he compared his new position to Anna Wintour’s at Vogue. “You don’t need a hierarchy,” he said in an interview with the blog, which first reported the layoffs.

In an interview Monday, Mr. Pellegrin addressed the criticism by saying: “I have confidence in my extreme passion and my expertise, and other people’s doubts I cannot answer for.”

Those comments? ““No, no,” Mr. Pellegrin said, “we don’t need a senior curator because it’s me. It’s my vision. Let’s look at Vogue. Who do you have at Vogue? You have Anna Wintour. You don’t need a hierarchy.” Instead, “I’ll have a team of six people working for me, and that is enough.”

That was weeks ago — so am I writing now? Because on July 17, Lisa Phillips, director of the New Museum, promoted Massimiliano Gioni to the title of Artistic Director and, while he apparently has not compared his job to Wintour’s, no one made a peep. In the release, Phillips said:

We are not a typical museum. Nor is Artistic Director a typical museum title. But it accurately reflects the expansiveness of Massimiliano’s vision and the wide spectrum of activities it contains.

MassimilianoGioniIs this just another term for chief curator? I don’t think so. Phillips also said:

In his new position as Artistic Director, Massimiliano will take an even more active role working with me to envision and plan the next phase of our institution’s growth.

In my experience, creative enterprises, from magazines and prime time TV divisions to film directors to opera companies, are often run best when they have someone with a strong overarching vision and a team who helps makes that happen — think of people, aside from Wintour, like William Shawn, Tina Brown, Roger Ailes, Orson Welles, John Huston, etc. It doesn’t work as well in a large, broad, universal museum which require many curators, and where the best will always want their vision to shine.

But like the New Museum, the National Academy Museum isn’t a typical museum — and it’s struggling to find an identify that works in a city with a lot of competition. I am not sure I agree with Pellegrin’s vision (” He has aspirations for a more involved architectural program and to also include “cinematography” in future exhibitions. He listed “graphic design, furniture, relations between Asian and Western architecture” as points of interest” Gallerist said), but I’m willing to let him try it. Nothing else seems to have worked there.

And I would not be surprised if other small museums try out titles, and jobs, like creative director and artistic director.

And Here’s Another New Contemporary Art Museum

On a completely different continent and in a completely different scale from the news about Los Angeles, there is word of another contemporary art museum — African contemporary art. This proposed museum, which sounds quite wonderful if it happens, is in Capetown.

ZeitzMOCAA_interiorOn Cape Town’s waterfront at the southern tip of Africa, the world’s biggest museum of contemporary art from across the continent is being carved from a conglomeration of concrete tubes nine storeys high.

The $50 million (36.7 million euro) project to transform the grim functionality of 42 disused colonial grain silos into an ultramodern tribute to African creativity is driven by an international team of art experts and architects.

For Mark Coetzee, executive director and chief curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, the project is the fulfilment of a pledge he made to himself a quarter of a century ago.

“It has been my life dream to build a contemporary art museum in Africa,” the South African-born former director of the Rubell Family Collection in Miami told AFP. “When I left Cape Town 25 years ago I vowed to return only when I had the skills and the relationships to make this happen.”

That is an excerpt from an article published on July 13 on the Global Post.  Other reports note that the museum will transform 42 disused colonial grain silos into the museum. The architect is Thomas Heatherwick, a Brit. The photo here is from his studio.  More important, the Zeitz Museum starts life with an extensive permanent collection donated to it in perpetuity by German entrepreneur and former Puma chairman Jochen Zeitz. He has also committed to underwriting operational costs of the museum and providing a budget for acquisitions of works made after 2000.

You may have seen parts of the Zeitz collection on view in various European countries.

Timken Mess, Part 3: Hugh Davies Adds Perspective

The Timken Museum of Art in San Diego, as you’ll recall, is a governance mess: trustees have caused Executive Director John Wilson, a professional, to resign and have replaced him with a well-known art restorer who will run the museum part time from New York City. See my posts here and here. That’s no way to run a museum.

hugh-daviesThe saddest thing, as reported in a piece last week by KPBS, the public radio station, is that locals now see the museum as regressing. Wilson had boosted attendance and raised some money, but apparently also thought the board should help fundraise. One source told me that at one point a few years ago the board had been asked to get or give a certain amount, but that the current board president, Tim Zinn, has let that fall by the wayside.

Reporter Angela Carone spoke with  Hugh Davies, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and he had the courage to speak out on the record:

“It’s potential was finally being tapped by John Wilson…And I can’t for the life of me figure out why you would nip that in the bud. I can only think it comes from the leadership of the board.”

But her story continued:

Zinn said Wilson was a great curator, but the board wanted a different fundraising and administrative approach. “It’s where you put your time,” said Zinn, suggesting that Wilson’s focus was too heavy on curating.

“And he’s been here for six years, and sometimes it’s just time to repot a plant.”

Zinn said that Bull will raise money from New York, but Davies shot that down:

“David Bull will not be able to raise money. You have to know people and have known them for a long time,” said Davies. “You have to be invested in the community. He is just parachuting in five or six times a year for cocktail parties and openings.”

One of the divisive issues between Wilson and the board was who was responsible for fundraising. Wilson wanted the board to facilitate more access to individuals and families who might give to the Timken. Zinn said a case for giving, especially since the museum already has a $25 million endowment, needed to come from Wilson. “That needed to start with the administration of the museum,” he said. “John’s feeling was the board needed to come up with that. A different philosophy.”

Truth is, board and director need to work together. There’s still more to come out here.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Art Ltd.

 

American Art Bonanza Left By Richard Mellon Scaife

Billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, scion of two wealthy families, died on July 4, leaving a large art collection — apparently — to two small Pennsylvania Museums. Scaife’s attorney called the art collection “expansive.” And according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review — which Scaife owned:

The Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg and Brandywine Conservancy near Philadelphia will split Scaife’s art collection, according to the will. The will allows the organizations to decide how to divide the collection and sets up a rotating selection system to resolve disagreements.

The only direction Scaife gave, apparently, was that his works by John Kane, the American self-taught artist (whom I came to like earlier this year, when I visited the Milwaukee Art Museum to review Uncommon Folk: Traditions in American Folk Art), would go to the Westmoreland museum. There are at least eight Kanes in the Scaife trove.

Born in Scotland, Kane was a laborer who turned to art after losing a leg. His Bust of a Highlander (Bust of a Scot), c. 1925 and shown here, intrigued me: it’s bold, direct, charming.  

JohnKaneThe Met has one of his paintings, The Monongahela River Valley, Pennsylvania, and the Whitney owns two — though I could not find out what they were by searching the collection online.

Those going to the Westmoreland Museum of American Art include  Along the Lincoln Highway and Boulevard of the Allies, which “depict Pittsburgh during the industrial boom of the early 1900s.” I couldn’t find them online either.

Other than the Kanes, we don’t know what is in the collection. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer:

…lawyer H. Yale Gutnick, one of Scaife’s executors and a longtime friend and colleague, said he could not estimate the value of the collection or even characterize the paintings and artists.

On Monday, Gutnick said the paintings were largely by American artists. He called it a “very, very substantial collection” put together “over many, many years.”

He declined to define it further. “There’s so much, I can’t describe it all,” he said. “It would take me three days to go through it.”

Scaife also left $15 million outright to the Brandywine Conservancy (and museum) in Chadds Ford, Pa., intended for the “maintenance and management of a conservancy” that he “built on the grounds of his childhood home,” said the Tribune-Review. 

Scaife was a conservative who donated to many conservative and libertarian causes over the years, and also gave money to historic preservation, environmental protection, educational institutions and the arts. I look forward to finding out what art he left us.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum

 

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About Judith H. Dobrzynski

Now an independent journalist, I've worked as a reporter in the culture and business sections of The New York Times, and been the editor of the Sunday business section and deputy business editor there as well as a senior editor of Business Week and the managing editor of CNBC, the cable TV

About Real Clear Arts

This blog is about culture in America as seen through my lens, which is informed and colored by years of reporting not only on the arts and humanities, but also on business, philanthropy, science, government and other subjects. I may break news, but more likely I will comment, provide

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