Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

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Too Much Contemporary? Too Little What Came Before?

That is a prospect we–American consumers of art exhibitions–face, and it is that subject and its consequences for our culture that I take up in an opinion piece published this morning on Aeon, the digital magazine that covers science, philosophy and society as well as the arts.

The headline is Why does contemporary art make for wildly popular blockbusters? but it is equally about the consequences of the art imbalance that is already occurring and is likely to get worse. Important note: I am not against contemporary art–I love a lot of it–but I think it must be viewed, overall, in the context of art that came  before it–not in every exhibition, obviously, but art in context.

My Aeon article is an essay, an idea piece, and therefore lacks a nut graf that I can copy here, but here are a few excerpts:

…with museum directors under pressure to boost attendance, Holbein loses out to Damien Hirst, Manet to Christian Marclay, Braque to Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Klee to Jeff Koons. Even museums whose collections extend back to the ancients are stressing contemporary art. In the past few years, some museum directors and fundraisers have told me that it has become difficult to find money for exhibitions displaying what some are now calling ‘pre-contemporary art’. Sponsors, be they corporations, foundations or individuals, are simply uninterested….

…in the visual arts…curators and directors struggle to make ‘old art’ seem ‘relevant’…but contemporary art gets a pass on that score because it is made in the present…

…when these factors combine to crowd out attention to some of the world’s greatest works of art, our knowledge of past civilisations is diminished. Knowing less about different times and places means our knowledge of human nature grows thinner, narrower. We become, in short, less sophisticated….

That’s bad, no matter what you feel about museum exhibitions these days.

 

Dan Weiss Announced As Met’s CEO: Initial Thoughts

My initial reaction to this morning’s announcement from the Metropolitan Museum*–that Daniel H. Weiss is now President and Chief Executive Officer, with the TBD director reporting to him–is skepticism.

I’ve got nothing against Weiss. I don’t know him. But as a long-time student of corporate governance and museum governance, I don’t think this particular arrangement is best at the Met. Sometimes it works at other museums, sometimes not. It usually depends on the personalities involved.

But for me, the Met’s director, should be the paramount leader (that’s sounds ominously North Korean, and I don’t mean it that way!). It’s the Country’s best museum; it should have the best director and to get that person must be able to offer the job as CEO.

The Met’s press release says this:

…the Board concluded that Weiss’s background as a distinguished scholar with a doctorate in art history and college president, as well as his outstanding tenure for the past two years as President of The Met, make him an exceptional fit to lead the Museum. The Board’s decision follows a comprehensive review of the Museum’s organizational structure, roles, and leadership titles, followed by extensive discussions in a series of Executive Committee and Board meetings over the past three months….

The release also said that “…the Museum will lead a search to appoint a Director of the Museum, who will report to Mr. Weiss. The President and CEO will be responsible for the overall leadership of the Museum, and the Director will lead the core mission functions.”

Interestingly, the Met noted that the director reported to the CEO in the past–but that is not what they said in 1999. Here’s the release:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has had both single- and dual-leadership models in the last four decades of its 147-year history. In the single-leadership model, the Director has previously reported to the President, as Philippe de Montebello did upon becoming Director in 1977. More recently the President has reported to the Director and CEO, which began in 1999 when Mr. de Montebello was appointed to assume the role of Director and CEO.

But when I was a culture reporter for The New York Times, and wrote in January, 1999 an article about the departure of William H. Luers as President, the Met insisted on a correction. Here was my lede:

In more than a dozen years as president and chief executive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, William H. Luers never really spoke out about the nation’s biggest art museum or his tenure there. That was the deal he cut with the museum’s director, Philippe de Montebello.

Mr. de Montebello, though technically his subordinate, rules over the Met’s art, and has always aspired to hold both jobs one day, as most museum directors do.

Here is what the Met insisted upon:

An article yesterday about William H. Luers, the departing president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, misstated the relationship between his position and that of Philippe de Montebello, the museum’s director. The two have been equal, both reporting to the chairman; the director is not subordinate to the president.

For me, this only points out the sensitivity of the subject. And it raises the prospect that some excellent candidates for director will not want the job if they cannot be the CEO.

Watch, though: this will be the time when the Met decides to have a woman as director, but not CEO.

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Met.

A Masterpiece That Needs More Attention

On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal published my latest entry in its Saturday Masterpiece column, about Enguerrand Quarton’s Pietà of Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, and all I can say is that we picked the right artwork this time, for sure, based on the feedback I’ve received so far. Many people–not art historians, of course, but art lovers nonetheless–have told me that they’ve never noticed the work in the Louvre. Yet is it a large work, more than 5 by 7 feet.

That’s a detail of Mary Magdalene at left, one of Mary at right, and the whole work below, all courtesy of the Louvre.

As I told one friend, I blame its placement, up to a point. It’s in the French paintings galleries on the second floor and it’s one of the first paintings you see. But it is in a little room that seems like an entryway to larger galleries. While I was there in February, almost everyone gave it a quick glance and proceeded to the next room, which contained many more pictures.

Also, as I explain in my piece, ‘This [pieta]…would surely be as celebrated [as others] had it not been hidden in a dark, provincial chapel, its creator unknown and then disputed, for so long.” Quarton’s restraint in painting a work of such poignancy and pain makes it rise above other depictions of this scene.

A fascinating aspect of the story is that it was

discovered in 1834 by a young inspector of historical monuments named Prosper Mérimée—later the author of “Carmen,” the novella that inspired Bizet’s opera. Mérimée found it in a church in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, a little town on the Rhone opposite Avignon.

Charles Sterling, a curator at the Louvre and later at the Metropolitan Museum, is also a hero of this story–he made the attribution to Quarton.

Aside from this work, only two other paintings are known to exist now by Quarton, the Virgin of Mercy in the Musée Condé in Chantilly, and the Coronation of the Virgin in a hospice in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon–but we know that he made others, because the documents detailing six commissioned works can be found in French archives.

Obviously, American museums own no paintings by Quarton, but he was also an illuminator, and the Morgan Library owns one page, on which he did the miniature, and two others that are attributed to him. Here is the first:

 

Discovery At The National Gallery

While I was in London recently (returning before the latest terror attack, thank God), I stopped in at the National Gallery to see its marvelous exhibition, Michelangelo & Sebastiano, which–for the first time, apparently–united the work of these two artists. Michelangelo helped Sebastiano immensely, giving him ideas and even drawings, at least partly to win him over to his side and keep him away from the circle of arch-rival Raphael.

As have other museums, the National Gallery has loaded its website with explanatory material–a few films are here, for example, and an illustrated “In Focus” article is here.

But there was also something I had not seen before. As I entered the exhibition, which cost £16.00 for adult admission (and less for seniors, students, etc.), I was handed a thick booklet. It contained all wall texts and all picture labels, noting which ones had an audio component as well, plus a floor plan, a chronology and a few other end items, like events and museum information.

Brilliant! No longer was everyone bunched up reading the texts and jockeying to get a look at the labels, especially useful during crowded times or at very popular objects. And it’s a little keepsake. I found myself taking notes on the paintings I liked, or didn’t. See for yourself here, in a PDF of the M&S label booklet. (Click twice-first on the link and then on the booklet’s picture.)

The NG, the press office said, “tends to” print these for big exhibitions but not always. It should, and I wish other museums would follow suit.

Over at the Tate Modern, I visited the Giacometti and Wolfgang Tillmans exhibitions–also paid entry–where I was given smaller booklets containing just the wall texts. No label texts–but that’s probably because the labels were simply titles and dates. Less useful, but still better than nothing.

How much could these cost, I asked a knowledgeable museum person in NYC–“not much,” he said. They should be in reach for museums.

Since you all know Michelangelo’s talents, I’m posting two paintings by Sebastiano–Christ Carrying the Cross and The Holy Family with St. John the Baptist.

Finally, here’s a good review of the exhibit in Hyperalleric. It’s on view through June 25.

UPDATE: On a recent visit to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, I discovered that it, too, handed out brochures of the checklist to all visitors to its Yves Saint Laurent: The Perfection of Style special exhibition. Kudos.

 

That Feast of St. Roch? It’s A Milestone in Contemporary Art

Tipped off by none other than Philippe de Montebello, who read my review of Eyewitness Views: Making History in Eighteenth-Century Europe, I learned a fascinating fact about one of the pictures in the exhibition: Canaletto’s The Procession on the Feast Day of Saint Roch is a milestone for contemporary art.

If you look closely at the painting, you’ll see about ten paintings hanging against the the facades of the buildings. I had noticed them, but had not known that “This is one of the first recorded exhibitions of paintings, usually held on a feast day. The pictures would have been removed the next day. And they are contemporary art,” PdM wrote to me. “I use the picture in my history of museums class,” which of course he teaches at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts.

Here’s a large copy of it:

At the Getty, the label references the paintings:

The procession on the feast day of Saint Roch, who was invoked against the plague, commemorated the end of a devastating outbreak in Venice in 1576. After Mass, the doge and senators (in red togas) leave the church of San Rocco as spectators draw near to watch. Members of the doge’s entourage carry the accoutrements of his office—a ceremonial stool, cushion, and sword. Many participants hold sprigs of flowers, believed to ward off disease. On this annual occasion, an exhibition of paintings was held outside the Scuola di San Rocco.

The National Gallery in London owns the painting, and records the scene this way, adding a line about Titian:

In Venice the feast day of Saint Roch on 16 August commemorated the end of the terrible plague of 1576 (in which Titian died). On this day the Doge would hear mass in San Rocco where Saint Roch was buried, to celebrate his intercession in bringing the plague to an end. Canaletto’s painting shows the grand procession of state dignitaries and ambassadors emerging from the church. The participants all carry nosegays, which were presented to them on arrival as a memorial of the plague. The Doge carries a parasol and wears gold and ermine ceremonial robes. Awnings give protection from the sun.

An exhibition of paintings was traditionally held at the Scuola di San Rocco, which dominates this painting, on Saint Roch’s feast day. The pictures decorating the Scuola here have not been identified.

All intriguing to me, making one of my favorites in the show, even more special. (I love the structure of the painting, bisected by that canopy, and Canaletto’s use of sunlight and shade, along with everything else.)

Speaking of the exhibition, I’ve heard from a few people who said they knew nothing of “view” paintings, though they know about Canaletto and Panini. The other painters in this exhibition are Carlevarijs, Claude Joseph Vernet, Bernardo Bellotto, Antonio Joli, Francesco Battaglioli, Guardi, and Hubert Robert–they were the best of the view painters. With their works, the exhibition takes us to Venice, Naples, Rome,  Siena, Warsaw, Dresden and Madrid.

I should also add that this show will travel to the Minneapolis Institute of Art and to the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Getty