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Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

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Now What? Cornelius Gurlitt Has Died

_74671208_gurlittNews reports are coming in from Europe: the “‘Nazi art’ hoarder,” as the BBC terms Cornelius Gurlitt, is dead at the age of 81 — “with no definitive answer on what will happen to his secret collection, which included many Nazi-looted pieces.”

Gurlitt recently changed his mind about claiming all 1,300 or so pieces in his collection as his own, saying he would cooperate with German authorities on establishing the paintings’ provenance and that he would return them if they were proven to be stolen.

More from the BBC here, plus a look into his vault here.

Gurlitt reportedly died in his Munich apartment; he had recently had heart surgery.

The disposition of the works is very muddy now, because — as The New York Times reported — “It was not clear if Mr. Gurlitt had drawn up a will that would stipulate what would happen to his collection.”

Art History For The 21st Century

In fall 2012, James Cuno, president of the Getty Trust, chastised art historians in an op-ed on the web for being behind the times in their use of digital tools. I agreed, and wrote a post about it. So I’ve watched to see what the Getty was going to do about it — and I outline some of those initiatives in today’s Wall Street Journal.

JamesCunoMy Cultural Conversation with Cuno is headlined Modernizing Art History, and it details his thoughts, as well as a few from others who work at the Getty, on digital art history.

Even though this is 2014, most curators and academic art historians remain a bit at sea about the real, as opposed to the theoretical, potential of exploiting digital technologies to create new knowledge in the art realm. But Cuno promised, as I wrote,

I’m convinced this is something the Getty has to enable. …We have the means to push the needle.

The Getty Foundation is sponsoring three institutes — at George Mason University, Harvard and University of California, Los Angeles — this summer, “where art historians can learn about the tools, methods and potential of digital art history.” Applications are closed, however, and as I understand it not everyone will be accepted.

I learned this morning of another such institute — also already full — at Middlebury College, sponsored by the Kress Foundation. It’s called the “Summer Institute on Digital Mapping and Art History” and runs Aug. 3 through Aug. 15.

I suspect we will need many more of these, along with a lot of good question that can be asked with the new tools, before we make great discoveries — but I am hopeful.

 

That Dangerous Impulse To Ever-Expand

AnneRadiceI could barely believe it when I read that the American Folk Art Museum, saved from dissolution only when it unhappily sold its “new” building to the Museum of Modern art in 2011, is expanding again. But there you have it, according to The Art Newspaper.  Yesterday, it reported:

The American Folk Art Museum plans to open an annexe in Queens to house its collection and library. “We have just signed an agreement,” the museum’s director, Anne Radice [at left], says. The annexe will also provide the institution with additional space for exhibitions as well as improve access for researchers, she says.

The Queens annexe will be near the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, confirms a spokeswoman. This puts it in the same neighbourhood in Long Island City as MoMA QNS, the Museum of Modern Art’s satellite storage and archives, open to scholars by appointment only.

Storage, library — they may need the space. But this also sounds like that “lebebsraum” impulse, which can be all-consuming and often wrong. There isn’t much syngery with MoMA QNS, as it is not an exhibition space. I’ve been there and noticed very little street traffic that would suggest the area would support “space for exhibitions.” TAN does not specify whether this is a lease or a purchase, and there’s no announcement on the museum’s website.

Plus, while recovering, the folk art museum is not fully stabilized after its financial woes of the past several years. Its most recent 990, through last June 30, reports net assets at just $8.2 million — a lot better than the previous year’s minus $4.3 million, but still.

I hope the folk museum has done its sums properly. I would hate to see it in trouble yet again.

AAMD Tries To Get Tough Re: Delaware Deaccession

Timothy Rub (pictured), current president of the Association of Art Museum Directors, has just penned a tough letter to Delaware officials — Governor Jack Markell, Attorney General Beau Biden and Wilmington Mayor Dennis P. Williams. It breaks no new ground, but it does make a decent point on the museum’s current strategy of non-disclosure:

timothy-rub…we are also deeply concerned that the Delaware Art Museum has refused to disclose publicly the works of art that it is considering selling. Given the importance of this decision and its potential impact, we believe that such information should be shared with the Museum’s members and the community as a whole so that they can understand what is at stake and be reassured that the action taken by the Board of Trustees does not violate donor intent or other strictures.

AAMD does intend, as it has said in the past, to impose sanctions on the Delaware Art Museum if it goes ahead with its plans to sell $30 million worth of art to pay its bills.

You can read the whole letter here.

But I have another non-disclosure quibble. Rub repeated what he has said before — the AAMD wants to help:

We also reaffirm our offer to help the Museum explore alternatives to this course of action.

Yet he has not, to my knowledge, even hinted at what alternatives he might be able to suggest than the museum hasn’t already explored on its own.

I realize that negotiating in the press is not a good strategy, so I’m not expecting details. But how about a few general hints? I for one would take the letter more seriously if he were more specific.

 

New Web Resources Everywhere, It Seems

Hard on the heels of the recent announcement by the Vatican, that its bounteous library had begun digitizing all 82,000 manuscripts in its 135 collections — thanks to help from the Japanese Japanese technology group NTT Data — the Tate has made available a rich artistic resource. It’s called Audio Arts, and it consists of 245 hours of more than 1,640 interviews with artists, critics and other art world figures. This one is already available here.

Beuys+Furlong_1985As the Tate’s press release describes it:

The list of interviewees …includes some of the most important artists of the late twentieth century. It features, among others, Marina Abramovic, Carl Andre, Joseph Beuys, Daniel Buren, John Cage, Tacita Dean, Michael Craig-Martin, Tracey Emin, Gilbert & George, Richard Hamilton, Mona Hatoum, Susan Hiller, Damien Hirst, Howard Hodgkin, Anish Kapoor, Ellsworth Kelly, John Latham, Richard Long, Sarah Lucas, Chris Ofili, Gerhard Richter, Richard Serra, Nancy Spero, Sam Taylor-Wood, Mark Wallinger, Andy Warhol and Rachel Whiteread. Many artists were interviewed when they were beginning to be known, and subsequently at later dates, shedding light on the trajectory of their artistic careers and the development of their ideas and views.

This archive, acquired from Bill Furlong (seen interviewing Joseph Beuys) in 2004, involved more than “350 boxes of taped interviews on reel-to-reel tapes, cassettes and digital formats, as well as other material such as mock-ups of each issue, associated correspondence and photographs.” They’ve all been digitized over the past two years, with support from The Rootstein Hopkins Foundation.

More details are here. Start listening.