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Defending Melissa Chiu…UPDATED

When the Hirshhorn Museum, which has been led for the last year by Melissa Chiu, late of the Asia Society Museum, announced that its 40th anniversary gala would be held in New York, not in Washington, D.C., I too raised my eyebrows. That is a slap in the face to the hometown crowd, I thought. I have revised my thinking.

110412_Melissa_ChiuImmediately after the announcement, Chiu was blasted in the local papers. Said the Washington Post:

The decision to hold the Hirshhorn’s 40th-anniversary gala in New York is deeply troubling and raises concern about where the museum’s new director, Melissa Chiu, is taking the organization…it is a snub, and a distressing indication that she doesn’t understand the purpose, the history or the identity of the museum she now leads….

[President] Johnson helped facilitate the gift of Joseph Hirshhorn’s collection to the Smithsonian, telling an adviser: “I want the American people to see this stuff.” Placing it in Washington, which was a tourist magnet but far from a cultural capital in the 1960s, was part of that vision.

And throughout its 40-year history, the Hirshhorn has played an essential role in elevating the cultural conversation in the nation’s capital.

The article conceded that Chiu had to go where the money was–New York, etc. And in her response, according to Washington City Paper, she offer no apology but rather context:

We started our 40th celebration last October in Washington with the opening of our newly renovated third floor for our permanent collection and an opening celebration dinner.

I still thought it was a blunder. Then, on Tuesday, came an announcement that changed my mind. The press release said:

The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden announced today that it has received a substantial gift of $2 million—the single largest individual donor gift in the museum’s history—from Joleen Julis, who joined the board of trustees in October 2014, and her husband, Mitch Julis.

I applaud the Julises. But seriously, the largest-ever individual gift is $2 million, 40 years on into the museum’s history?

The Hirshhorn’s annual budget, including funds allocated by the Smithsonian, is about $20 million. The museum cares for about 12,000 objects, offers many special exhibitions and public programs, and is open daily (except Christmas). Joleen Julis is one of 12 new trustees that Chiu recruited to the Hirshhorn board.

Washington area residents need to be jarred–especially those who say they care about contemporary art, those who are offended by Chiu’s call on the location benefit.

If they don’t like it, they should step up to the plate and give.

UPDATE: AS of Oct. 28, the Hirshhorn has said this gala in NYC has raised more than $1.55 million–a record for the museum. Read the press release here.

Flash: The Detroit Institute of Arts Names New Director

Salort-PonsThey have replaced Graham Beal as director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, and it’s an inside job. Salvador Salort-Pons, the current curator of European paintings a the DIA, plus–since 2013–director of collection strategies and information, won the post. Not an easy job ahead of him, but I do think it was wise for the trustees to select an insider.

I don’t know Salort-Pons (pictured at right), so I can’t say much more from personal experience. here are highlights from his resume, per the DIA press release:

For the DIA, Salort-Pons has organized the exhibitions Fakes, Forgeries and Mysteries, Five Spanish Masterpieces and was the in-house curator for the show Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus – among others. Prior to coming to Detroit, Salort-Pons was senior curator at the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, assistant professor at the University of Madrid and exhibition curator at the Memmo Foundation/Palazzo Ruspoli in Rome. While at the Memmo Foundation, he co-curated Il trionfo del colore: Collezione Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza (Rome, 2002) as well as Velázquez (Rome, 2001), which was the first monographic exhibition on the painter ever organized in Italy. Salort-Pons has been the recipient of a Rome Prize Fellowship at the Spanish Academy of Rome and a research fellow at the Royal College of Spain in Bologna (founded in 1364), the Getty Grant Program, the Medici Archive Project in Florence and Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome, among others.

Salvador Salort-Pons named director of Detroit Institute of Arts Will take office as the museum’s 11th director on October 15, 2015 — News from The Detroit Institute of Arts

In addition to two books—Velázquez en Italia (Madrid, 2002) and Velázquez (Madrid, 2008—Salort-Pons has published a number of scientific articles in British, Spanish and Italian journals and exhibition catalogues. He holds a master’s in geography and history (University of Madrid), a master’s in business administration (Cox School of Business, SMU) and a doctorate in the history of art (University of Bologna).

I think it was smart to promote from within because of the DIA’s recent problems and history. Presumably, he will also get on well with the COO, Annmarie Erickson–who played an enormous role in the DIA’s woes because of the Detroit bankruptcy.

By The Numbers, Good Museum News in Virginia

ANyergesEarlier this week, when I received an email from the American Folk Art Museum, I thought it was doing well–getting back on its feet after a disastrous over-expansion.

Anne-Imelda Radice, the director, wrote that:

We closed the fiscal year with great news: 150,018 visitors came through our doors, experiencing exhibitions, programs, events, the shop, and more. This represents a 30% increase from the previous year.

Then there was even better news in an email from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where the metrics seem to be astounding. The email was about the museum’s economic impact–it “generated more than $145 M for the state”–but take a look at this chart:

FY2008 FY2014                         % change
VMFA Attendance 118,470 464,534 292%
Statewide Program Attendance 205,987 616,817 199%
Museum Members 8,353 34,628 315%
Membership Income $1,440,000 $4,003,917 178%
Exhibitions 1/year 4-5 major exhibitions & 4 major gallery reinstallations/year 400%
Acquisitions 141 1,080 666%

Of course, I have nothing from other museums for direct comparison. And I know full well that negative statistics were, of course, left off the chart. Nonetheless, the record of Alex Nyerges, who became director in 2006, seems to be impressive.

He said:
The museum is becoming more globally recognized, and this is evident most prominently in our exhibitions and acquisitions. The amount of art we have acquired has grown exponentially since the museum’s transformative expansion in 2010. By continuing to curate world-class exhibitions, offering programs for all ages, and providing free general admission 365 days a year, we have built an environment for all Virginians to visit, learn, and spend their free time.
I’ve applauded the 365-day-a-year schedule before, and stand by that.
For more information about VMFA’s economic impact study, go here.

Common Sense From Gary Vikan

Maybe retirement, if that’s what Gary Vikan–former head of the Walters Art Museum–had entered, loosens inhibitions. Vikan’s editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal may not have been written if he still had the job. It’s headlined The Case for Buying Antiquities to Save Them.  It’s about the unrelenting damage being perpetrated by ISIS, of course.

GaryVikan

It challenges the “prevailing view among archaeologists, reflected in bills in Congress, [that we should] ….exclude from the U.S. all antiquities thought to originate in those countries.”

Vikan instead says:

This is a mistake. After decades of museum experience with cultural property of uncertain provenance, I believe that we should accept looted antiquities from these troubled areas, even when such action might be considered “encouraging looting.” The expenses that museums might incur—including the costs of returning the pieces to the countries of their origin—are worth paying to keep them out of reach of ISIS sledgehammers.

No one, anywhere, should buy art from ISIS….[But] In times of extraordinary risk, we should be open to dealing with bad guys to create a safe harbor for works of art. This is an act of rescue and stewardship—and should be done with the explicit understanding that eventually, when the time is right, the objects will be repatriated to the country of their origin.

He is right. In Britain, Neil MacGregor recently said that the British Museum, which he directs, is holding–“guarding”–an object looted from Syria.

In June, the House of Representatives passed HR 1493–provisions here–which among other things allows for such “safe harbor” importation to the U.S. of Syrian antiquities if the President grants a waiver and if no money goes to terrorists. Pretty difficult to determine, but it’s a step in the right direction, I guess. Still it has yet to get into the Senate. You can read more about it on the Cultural Assets blog of Greenberg Traurig.

For Near Eastern antiquities, these are desperate times; they require fresh thinking and the challenging of conventional wisdom.

 

Tom Krens: At It Again?

Tom Krens, the museum consultant formerly known as the director of the Guggenheim Foundation and booster of multi-branch museums, has always lived by the philosophy of “Go Big or Go Home.”

2013_WCMA_KrensNow, he is at it again. Last week, the Berkshire Eagle reported that Krens–who first proposed the creation of Mass MoCA in North Adams, Mass. nearly three decades ago–wants to start another massive art venue nearby. The new art palace would create 160,000-sq. ft. of gallery space on North Adams’s Harriman-West Airport grounds.

Said the Eagle:

The idea for the museum, which would be privately owned by a for-profit group of investors and cost an estimated $10 million to $15 million to build, was presented to the city’s Airport Commission during a special meeting on Tuesday. It would be named the Global Contemporary Collection and Museum and contain a collection of about 400 works of art, according to Krens.

“The basic concept is to work with a group of, essentially investors, to put together a world-class collection of contemporary art,” Krens said.

The idea was a hit. The Airport Commission unanimously voted to begin lease negotiations with Krens.

Krens said that construction could begin next year if the idea gains financial backing. The article also said:

The 68-year-old Krens said he’d been working on the concept for about five years. It was originally planned for China, he said, but “the idea of spending a little more time in the Berkshires was attractive to me.”

This proposal can be viewed in two ways. As I wrote just about a year ago in The New York Times,  Mass MoCA is also expanding, doubling its exhibition space to 260,000 sq. ft.  The state of Massachusetts provided money for the expansion on the theory that a bigger Mass MoCA, along with the expanded Clark Art Institute and the Williams College Museum of Art, both nearby, will be too much to see in one day and thus turn day-tripping tourists into over-nighters.

That’s believable if you think the audience for art is pretty big–and likely to want to spend two full days in a gorgeous setting inside looking at art.

Krens, in the Eagle, also argued that his GCC will be complementary, not competition for Mass MoCA. “pointing out that Mass MoCA does not have a collection and his museum would not have exhibition programming. The Global Contemporary Collection and Museum would be ‘positioned to complement the Clark, to complement Mass MoCA,’ not compete with them…”

Krens has pulled off many long-shots before, and lost some too. Who knows whether he can persuade investors to give him money for this. He does have a personal motivation: ” A graduate of Williams College, Krens still owns a home in Williamstown that he purchased in 1972.”

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Williams College Museum of Art