People

The reopening of the expanded, improved Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, which took place on Saturday, hasn’t gotten much press in the United States, despite its being run by an American, Ann Goldstein, formerly a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. That’s a pity. Especially because Goldstein came to New York to meet the press last spring: When was the last time the Stedelijk did that?

As I write in an article for Art in America magazine — the September issue — Goldstein has high goals. She exhibited, in our interviews, an interesting mix of assuredness, built on a long track records of organizing well-respected exhibitions, and willingness to change, adapting to a new country’s customs. I suppose that’s logical: as she pointed out to me, she’s from Los Angeles, where change is a constant. And she seemed so down-to-earth that I was a little surprised when she used American corporate-speak when she talked about her goals, wanting the Stedelijk to be alive, active, artist-centered, anticipated and ambitious. Pretty good aims, despite the hokey alliteration.

One article I read, not well done, noted the lack of Dutch artists in the opening exhibitions. That’s just plain wrong, as my article notes, though it’s a sensitive topic. After I raised it — prompted by a chat with a Dutch artist — and we talked it through, Goldstein nevertheless later wrote me an email, saying:

As you know, we will open in September with a presentation of our collection and one temporary exhibition, “Beyond Imagination,” which features the work of 20 artists who live an work in the Netherlands. It is part of a longstanding series of exhibitions known as the Municipal Art Acquisitions. These exhibitions, which are sponsored by the City of Amsterdam have been annual exhibitions and acquisitions that look at Dutch-based artists It was very important to me that we reopen with this exhibition, and as many of the artists have been participants in the residency programs here in NL: de Ateliers, Rijksakademie, and Jan van Eyck Akademie, it also gives us the opportunity to put a spotlight on the vital and important Dutch art community, which is also quite international.

 In addition, we have a magnificent new monumental textile commission by Dutch designer Petra Blaisse made specifically for our new entrance hall, our new graphic identity is by the Dutch design team Armand Mevis and Linda van Deursen, and our collection display will include the work of numerous Dutch artists and designers, including single gallery spaces devoted to the work of Marlene Dumas, Rineke Dijkstra, Willem de Kooning (here still considered Dutch), Erik van Lieshout, Guido van der Werve, Melvin Moti, Ed van der Elsken, Gerrit Rietveld, etc, as well as works by Karel Appel, Stanley Brouwn, Ger van Elk, Jan Dibbets, Daan van Golden, Loes van der Horst, Wim Crouwel, among many others in the various collection presentations.

The Stedelijk is an international museum, though, and Goldstein’s bigger challenge will be meeting the attendance expectations of the board, which wants 500,000 visitors a year – which it has never done. It will need to draw from the crowd at the neighboring van Gogh Museum, which attracts about 1.4 million visitors a year, and the Rijksmuseum, which gets more than 1 million.

The Stedelijk’s new entrance, on the museum square, will help, but it won’t be enough.

 

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Stedelijk

 

It has been more than five weeks since Jeffrey Deitch, the embattled director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, promised the world that the museum would announce two new “significant” trustees “within days.” But no announcement has come.

We are left no choice but to put his words in a Clintonian context — it depends on what your definition of “within days” is. Of course, Deitch and Eli Broad, the museum’s key benefactor and mastermind, could be having trouble getting “significant” people to commit to the wayward museum. I watch for the news regularly, but nothing has been forthcoming as I write this — except for the recent announcement that MOCA would not hold its annual fall fund-raising gala until spring.

People continue to write about MOCA, though, and — sadly — it’s getting to be almost too easy to mock MOCA these days. Try to read this recent piece by Rochelle Gurstein in The New Republic without smiling or laughing out loud. A few excerpts:

..what prompted my familiar feelings of disbelief was reading John Baldessari’s explanation for why he decided to resign from the MOCA board of trustees. …Baldessari has made a career of appropriating photos from commercial, mass-produced entertainment and then altering or juxtaposing them with words and images in a deadpan fashion—…part of a larger movement dedicated to destroying the boundary between art and life—but it turns out, and this is what surprised me, there were limits to this project….Baldessari …objected to …[Deitch’s proposed exhibit on] disco culture…: “When I heard about that disco show I had to read it twice. At first I thought ‘this is a joke’ but I realized, no, this is serious.”

…I could only think, another fine example of the world turned upside down: Some of the most “progressive” segments of the art world, in truth, the very people who have devoted themselves to obliterating the distinction not only between art and life but also between the “media world” and the “real world” (Baldessari’s terms), feeling righteous indignation at the prospect of things overly commercial or lowbrow being shown in the museum. Concern about standards was showing up in the most unlikely of places.

…And then came the line [from Baldesari] that made me rub my eyes in disbelief: “It also makes me think that I’m a dinosaur, and Jeffrey Deitch and his ideas may be the future. But I don’t like it.” I couldn’t help feeling that there was something comic and a little poignant in a figure like Baldessari…finding himself in the same dreaded position as art lovers who have questioned the aesthetic value of the pop appropriation/“critique” he has made and championed all his life….

She has a point. Next, Gurstein takes on Deitch.

…Just as the vanguard artist could not believe he was becoming a dinosaur, the fun-loving, everyman museum administrator [Deitch] cannot believe his authority is being questioned. And so Deitch directs the reporter of the Los Angeles Times to open the catalogue of his current exhibition, Painting Factory: “How can people talk about the lack of seriousness? This is the heaviest book on new abstract painting that’s been published in a long time.” I wonder if he is talking about its seriousness—“the heaviest book”—or whether he is counting pages just like he counts paying customers at the gate.

There’s more, about art history, university trends, etc. Even if you disagree, you can’t help but smile. Here’s the link again.

I do not see how MOCA can survive much more of Deitch.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Art Reserve