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Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

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“Artless” In America: Why, Oh Why?

What irony. And what a contradiction. Here we are in an era when paintings and sculpture regularly make national headlines and television newscasts for selling at sky-high prices and, at the same time, we are know-nothings about art. And we care less.

181-michael-lindThe latter half of that contradiction was asserted several days ago by Michael Lind (at right), a writer whose last of 14 books (listed on his Wikipedia page) was a 2012 economic history of the U.S. He has also been an editor or staff writer at magazines including The New Yorker, Harper’s and The New Republic. Pretty great credentials.

The Smart Set published Lind’s piece called “Artless: Why do intelligent people no longer care about art?” In it, he asserts:

The fine arts don’t matter any more to most educated people. This is not a statement of opinion; it is a statement of fact.

As recently as the late 20th century, well-educated people were expected to be able to bluff their way through a dinner party with at least some knowledge of “the fine arts”— defined, since the late 18th century, as painting, sculpture, orchestral or symphonic music, as distinct from popular music, and dance/ballet. … it would have been a terrible faux pas not to have heard of Martha Graham. You were expected to know the difference between a French impressionist and an abstract expressionist….

[But] As far as I can tell, very few college-educated people under the age of 50 pay any attention to the old fine arts at all.

Lind bases his opinion on his knowledge of the content in ‘zines like Vox and n+1.

But wait for it: Lind goes on to blame the very market that, for now, puts art in headlines most often. By his reasoning,

… It was not the mockery of Pop artists but the capitalist art market itself which, in its ceaseless quest for novelty, trivialized and marginalized the arts….

Markets tend to prize fashionable novelty over continuity. The shocking and sensational get more attention than subtle variations on traditional conventions and themes. Capitalism, applied to the fine arts, created the arms race that led to increasingly drastic departures from premodern artistic tradition, until finally, by the late 20th century, “art” could be everything and therefore nothing….

…The process of escalating sensationalism ultimately reaches its reductio ab absurdum in any fashion-based industry. In the case of painting and sculpture the point of exhaustion was reached by the 1970s with Pop Art and minimalist art and earth art and conceptual art. Can a row of cars be art? Sure. Can an empty canvas be art? Sure. Does anybody care? No.

Lind has a point, but he uses too broad a brush to indict contemporary art. Some art being made today seems empty and does estrange people; but much of it is very creative, sometimes even overloaded with content. Yet is “content,” as he defines it (Pop Art certainly was about something), what makes art either good or bad?

Further, to say that art–and museums–do not feature in today’s publications is simply wrong, and relies on too small a reading sample. Maybe art does not register in the cultural mainstream the way Life magazine and Time magazine, to cite two examples, covered it in the good old days, but you have to blame Time (and the death of Life) and readers, or lack thereof, for that. The U.S. simply lacks a core of publications that everyone reads nowadays. There’s so much more on offer. We no longer have just three TV broadcasters to choose from either. The cultural core has splintered.

What’s more, I’d say from observation that newspapers all over the country regularly cover what is happening in their museums; I see and read a lot of that coverage. Sometimes, to be sure, the coverage is scant on real content. Maybe it’s not enough, maybe it’s not national coverage, but still–it’s coverage.

Further, those well-educated people he cites have a far bigger smorgasbord of activities–cultural and not–to choose to learn about out, enjoy and spend time with now. Why blame art, and art alone?

I share Lind’s concern that many people have never heard of artistic giants–that the only names they may know are Picasso, Michelangelo, Leonardo and Monet, and Jeff Koons (or thereabouts).

But to cite only his perceived emptiness in contemporary art as the reason lets too many other causes and people off the hook. We’ll never fix something if we don’t correctly analyze what’s wrong.

NB: I’M SORRY TO SAY THAT I AM NOT PUBLISHING MOST COMMENTS ON THIS POST, MAINLY BECAUSE THOSE OFFERED SO FAR ARE REPETITIVE COMMENTS BY THE SAME PEOPLE. IF YOU HAVE NOT LEFT A COMMENT PREVIOUSLY ON THE SUBJECT OF “WHAT ART IS AND WHAT IT ISN’T,” I WILL CONSIDER PUBLISHING YOURS. 

The Brooklyn, The Whitney…Oh My! (Or, While I Was Away…)

Donna de SalvoI didn’t actually post here at RCA that I would be away for about a week around the Memorial Day weekend, so I am sure that it looked as if I was perhaps speechless last week when major announcements came out from the Brooklyn Museum* and the Whitney Museum. I was simply AWOL–in Spain, actually, taking advantage of the strong dollar.

I had a marvelous time viewing art in Madrid and nearby towns, and one visit is pertinent to those two aforementioned announcements.

Not the Brooklyn release, which named Anne Pasternak as successor to director Arnold Lehman, who is departing late this summer. Her appointment came as a surprise to me, but not a shock. I was sure that the trustees would pick a woman–the search committee was led by three women and Brooklyn’s chair, Elizabeth Sackler, has been a vocal supporter of women artists (her named space/program at the museum is devoted to feminist art). Pasternak has a strong record at Creative Time, which she has led for the past 20+ years. She has drawbacks, most notably the lack of museum management experience. But Brooklyn does have a long-time deputy director for operations plus many veteran curators.

There’s also her main focus on contemporary art, though I am told that she has a strong interest in Medieval and Renaissance art. too. Brooklyn, need anyone require reminding, is a universal museum. She must signal early that she embraces and cares about its entire collection, imho.

PrendergastI am sure that Pasternak knows that we’ll all be watching her moves very closely.

But my trip reminded me that the promotion of Donna De Salvo (above) to deputy director for international initiatives and senior curator at the Whitney, from chief curator and deputy director for programs, is also worth watching. Having just returned from Spain, I’ve not talked to a soul about this one–it may be that she was simply bumped upstairs to make room for Scott Rothkopf to get the chief curator’s post (her former job). I hope not.

The reason: De Salvo is supposed to gin up international partnerships and my many travels, including this one, always remind me that American art needs a bigger presence overseas. Sure, everyone knows Andy Warhol and more recently, because of either high prices paid for their works or their shock art, many people know Jeff Koons, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock (perhaps) and a few others. But Europeans and Asians still have little exposure to the breadth of American art.

In Spain, the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum has the strongest, biggest collection of American art. (It includes six Homers, four Hoppers, plus works by Church, Cole, O’Keeffe, Still, Sloan, Prendergast (as above) etc. etc.) At least that’s what my art historians have told me (which backs up my own experiences). It has even have the strongest American collection outside of the U.S., period.

I don’t know how De Salvo views her job–looks to me as if she can create it. But I would hope that she helps organize partnerships that sends our works overseas to provide a more complete picture of what American art actually is.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Whitney (top) and the Thyssen Bornemisza (bottom)

Something Good To Say About MoMA

MoMAAlz5_photoJasonBrownrigg-300x200You hear so much about museums seeking out young audiences, the audiences of the future. It’s tiresome, actually, and that quest ignores another giant portion of the country’s population–seniors. Seniors make up nearly 15 percent of the U.S. population and that’s nothing to ignore. So I was glad to learn recently of a new program at, of all places, the Museum of Modern Art, which has been a big target of criticism of late, mostly because of the Bjork exhibit and the tear-down of the folk art museum building, but also just in general.

On May 1, MoMA took new aim of its own, in recognition that older audiences are desirable, too. It created a program called “Prime Time” for New Yorkers aged 65 and up. Prime Time, which began with free admission for seniors (plus a “variety of interactive drop-in activities throughout the Museum”) on May 9, will offer “an array of gallery conversations, film screenings, online courses, and more, designed to enhance cultural participation and provide opportunities for older adults to engage with modern and contemporary art.” Seniors will also get 25% off their membership renewals during May. Details are here.

May is, in case you were wondering, “Older Americans Month,” according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The theme for 2015 is “Get Into the Act.”

MoMA’s “Prime Time” initiative recognizes that museums are social places and it extends its own capacious space to senior for socializing and learning at the same time–a very big need. In all the years I’ve been covering museums, I think only one or two other press releases that I’ve received from museums specifically about senior programs.

So far, alas, MoMA is short on details about the future of this initiative, but we’ll be watching.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of MoMA

Breaking Now: The MFA Names A New Director

MTeitelbaumAnd it’s Matthew Teitelbaum, currently director of the Art Gallery of Ontario.

If you read yesterday’s post here, you’ll know that’s one down–of many museum director jobs open along the East coast–and many more to come.

In fact, I hear that another I mentioned yesterday will be announcing in the next week, or ten days.

Meanwhile, back to Teitelbaum:

Teitelbaum was appointed Director of the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in 1998 after having first joined the museum in 1993 as Chief Curator. With a vision to transform the Gallery into an institution of global stature serving a vibrant city and region, Teitelbaum significantly grew the museum’s collections, broadened its audiences, increased its research initiatives, and raised its standing to unprecedented levels. Starting in 2002, Teitelbaum spearheaded a major expansion and renovation of the museum, realized by Toronto-born architect Frank Gehry, which encompassed a 47 percent increase in gallery and exhibition space and a complete refurbishment of its existing beaux arts building. Teitelbaum was instrumental in securing a landmark $100 million (CAD) gift from collector and business leader Ken Thomson to complete the museum’s $306 million campaign—surpassing its original $276 million goal. The campaign also funded endowments for operations and contemporary art acquisitions.

I have spoken with Teitelbaum, but not lately, and I don’t have anything to add about his appointment now.

Another Opening, Another…

BolgerDI’m not talking about “Kiss Me, Kate” or another show. I’m talking about art museum directorships. Doreen Bolger, director of the Baltimore Museum of Art (pictured at right), just announced that she is retiring, effective June 15. That’s not much notice.

On March 19, Michael Conforti (at left) announced that he’d be retiring on Aug. 31 after 20 years as director of the Clark Art Institute.

MConfortiUp and down the East coast, at least, major directorships are open: the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Morgan Library and Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Isabella Stewart Garner Museum, the Harvard Art Museums, the High Museum, the Wadsworth Atheneum, the museum at the New-York Historical Society, and several museums in Miami.

Then there’s the big hole at the Detroit Institute of Arts–not East coast, but still.

Have I left others out? Probably. This happens from time to time–a great number of turnovers at the top in the museum world. It’s always worth asking why. This time, most departees are of retirement age and many have recently completed expansions or other building projects.

But with museums in turmoil–worried about funding, desperately (and sometimes stupidly) seeking young audiences, trying to generate buzz instead of scholarship, etc.– these next few years, with new people at the top, are going to be momentous for art museums. I hope the boards choose well, but based on what I hear from some of them, I have doubts.

Just last night, I was chatting with a trustee of a regional museum in the South. He was dismayed by the direction the museum was going and the lowering of standards at the institution, whose leadership is stable and not about to turn over (or so it seems). “Have you spoken up?” I asked. No, he said, shaking his head. Too much headwind.

But how could he know? Maybe other trustees were worried too, but afraid to speak up.

It seems we have governance problems all over the place, with some boards trying to call the tune even on curatorial matters and other becoming rubber stamps.

 

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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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