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

I 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.

I 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) toÂ 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

You 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, theÂ 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”)Â on May 9, will offer “anÂ 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

What If Britain Hadn’t Taken the “Lion Hunt Reliefs”?

Hard as it is to believe, many people visit the British Museum and entirely miss the greatÂ seventh-century B.C. Assyrian lion hunt reliefs. I know, not only becauseÂ some people have written that to me but also because I was one of them. On my first several visits to the BM, I didn’t know they were there. Once I discovered them, I was awestruck.

So when earlier this year the so-called Islamic State began destroying what remains at Nineveh, where the lion hunt reliefs came from, I proposed them as a “Masterpiece” for the column of that name in The Wall Street Journal. My piece, which tells their story, ran in Saturday’s paper under the headline An Enveloping Battle Between Kings.

To little surprise, my piece and other commentaries on the damage wrought by ISIS/ISIL is engendering comments like “Thank God the British rescued these artifacts and keep them for the world to see. If they hand been left in their homelands they would have been destroyed and the world would be a poorer place.” In another forum I read recently–can’t remember where–Getty Trust president James Cuno even advocated a return to the partage system, under which excavation partners split their finds, leaving some in the originating country and taking some home to American, British, French, German and Italian museums, among others.

I can’t see that happening. But we must figure out something to preserve the world’s important cultural sites. Some people think we should digitize everything or make 3D models of artifacts. That’s helpful, but obviously not the real thing and I wouldn’t want to see money diverted to such efforts as a substitute for preservation.

All ideas are welcome.

The Shocking Cooper Hewitt, Part Two

Aside from the maltreatment of its beautiful historic building, which I wrote about here nearly three weeks ago, something else is deeply wrong with the new incarnation of the Cooper HewittÂ National Design Museum: the display and the contextualization of the objects in the displays simply don’t measure up to minimal standards. To be sure, visually they are often attractive. But frequently they are very dumbed down, witless and perhaps even misleading.

I think the museum’s leadership meant well; I really do. But I think they misjudged their task and perhaps their audience. As last time, when I posted pictures of current displays within the historicÂ rooms, I will let you judgeÂ for yourself.

Here are four wall labels (apologies for the tilted pictures–I shot them with my phone and sometimes it was difficult, given the other people in the galleries, to stand in place where I could get a direct shot) about elements of design. They set the scene for displays on the second floor.

They are not in the order in which the galleries proceed–but then again, the galleries can be entered, as I recall, from at least two points, so I don’t think the labels were necessarily intended to be read sequentially.

The displays themselves are a jumble; the objects are notÂ arranged
chronologically or relationally. I am guessing that the objects in the cases were chosen simply to illustrate a theme–to show many objects that have, for example, patterns. It’s all very simple.

For evidence of these simple thematic displays you can see the pictures at the bottom of this post.

I know museums of all stripes are dealing with visitors, particularly younger visitors, whose education is substandard. Many, many public schools–and some private ones, I’d bet–have meager offerings in art or design.

But the definitions I’ve posted here don’t provide much enlightenment. Is “a vocabulary of repetition, reflection and rotation” a clear definition of “Pattern” or is it jargon? And btw, designers do not “create an infinite variety of patterns”–they merely have the potential to do so.

You, dear reader, can find your own examples of imprecise or misleading language in these labels.

As for the themes on view, yes, you can see texture–or pattern, line, etc.–in some displays. But what else do you learn when a 1604 engraved English shoehorn is placed near an 1886 book of patterns open to an “Egyptian” page? Or a 2007 poster hung next to an 18th century Greek cushion cover? I don’t know.

The Dangers Of Audience Gimmicks

What was that song from Gypsy–“You gotta have a gimmick,” right? Sadly some museums are trying gimmicks to lure people into their galleries and I fear this will all end badly.

Let’s take a look at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, which does have a visitorship problem, apparently, considering that it has a splendid permanent collection. In January, The Independent said that the permanent collection there draws just 200 visitors aÂ week (compared with 2,000 per week when there is a temporary exhibition). On Apr. 29, the same paper said it “usuallyÂ gets about 500 visitors a week.” Either way, that’s not enough (although I’d bet the location is part of the problem–going from London to Dulwich via train can take 45-60 minutes).

In January, the Dulwich tried a “provocative intervention” in which a contemporary artist selected a picture in the collection, removed it and had it replaced with a replica made in China. The public was invited to spot the fake, voting on which work it was. As I wrote then, Guardian critic Jonathan Jones didn’t like it (“It will confuseÂ the public, undermine the pleasure of looking at the great paintings on its walls, and replace the joy of learning about art with a glib postmodern game that is pretentious and destructive…”).

Still, I gave the Dulwich a pass then because I agreed with the goal.

Now, however, I have to say the Dulwich is on a wrong path–even though it may be working temporarily. Press reports say that people flocked to the museum to look for the fake, and the museum says that by the time the game was over last week Â “Nearly 3000 people submitted their vote via iPads in the Gallery, revealing some popular red herrings by Gainsborough, Rubens and other suspects.” Visitorship doubled during the three months of the contest.

The fake, revealed last week, was a replica of Fragonard’s Young Woman. About 10% of the voters got it right. Have a look.

Dulwich-Fake

Getting people to look more carefully at artworks, even in a game, is a worthy goal. The trouble comes in the aftermath, the expectations that are raised. For evidence I cite one Rosie Millard, a British journalist for many publications who wrote an opinion piece for The Independent on the Dulwich experiment in which she identified “two universal truths of visiting art galleries.”

One is that visiting a gallery is quite hard work. On the face of it, going to an art exhibition might be much easier than going to a modern dance piece, since you can drift around, chatting, and visit the gallery shop or cafÃ©, after about 40 minutes. You donâ€™t need to, as Bray puts it, â€œactively lookâ€ at each picture. This is not wholly surprising, since in order to engage even with the greatest Old Masters, you need to be up on people from the Bible, understand the social niceties of the day, even have a vague grasp of 17th-century politics. And not every gallery can provide that information in an easily accessible way. Which is where the second truth comes in.

Art needs to be entertaining. …Giving visitors some sort of activity â€“ over and above that of standing in front of a picture nodding gently â€“ is bound to work, because people love a challenge….Of course galleries should be places for scholarship and silent wonder, but they also need to be a place for games, and fun, and challenges â€“ and not just for the under 12s….Art galleries ought to be amusing. …Yes, they are uplifting and educative, but just like the theatre or the cinema, they ought to also give you the promise of excitement and thrilling engagement when you walk up the gravelled path and pass beneath the grand entrance.

I agree with her last sentence. What’s dangerous is the idea that “art needs to be entertaining” and that galleries “need to be a place for… fun.”

I suppose it depends on one’s definition of “entertaining,” but would you say that Guernica is fun? Or The Raft of the Medusa? Or the great Isenheim altarpiece? Or Bruegel’s Mill and the Cross? Or, for that matter, most great works of art?

Engaging, yes. Not necessarily entertaining. Let’s not let that idea gain even more currency, even as the Dulwich attempts to prompt people to become connoisseurs.

The Daily Mail has a story on this experiement, too: its numbers differ but it contains hints from curator Xavier Bray on how to spot replicas.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Dulwich Picture Gallery

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