Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Poor Trade-Off — Bellows To London — But One Bright Side

Of course I have mixed emotions about the sale by Randolph College of its beautiful painting, Men of the Docks, by George Bellows, to raise money for its endowment. Remedying financial mismanagement elsewhere is not what art in museums is supposed to do, especially as this painting was purchased by students for the college in 1920. That part is very sad.

men-of-the-docksBut the great news is that the National Gallery in London bought the work and paid $25.5 million, finally adding a major American painting to its collection. As Nicholas Penny, the NG director who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite museum directors, said in the release, “We look forward to giving the work a place of honor in our rooms.” (Boldface mine.)

It is about time that great European museums started collecting American art. The Louvre is now showing American art and I recall rumors, too, that it had also recently purchased an American painting or two, but I could not find that as fact with a quick search. What Penny told The New York Times, “I’m a great fan of American painting, but great examples are hard to come by,” is no excuse. There are great paintings on the market, as Alice Walton, for one, has shown. More probably, the museums don’t have the cash — yet some American art historians think Penny got a bargain on the Bellows (Nancy Mowll Mathews, for one, per her post on FB). The money came from a fund created by the late billionaire oilman John Paul Getty.

There was hardly a choice for the NG, but I do like that Penny will place the painting among Manets, Monets and Goyas. Penny told The Guardian, that the “fantastic” painting “will have a revolutionary effect on the collection and an electrifying effect on visitors.” (Here’s what The Independent had to say on the matter.) The Bellows, press reports said, indicated that the NG was moving in a new direction, now collecting paintings in the Western European tradition, instead of those made by artists working in Western Europe. I don’t know why they can’t just call it American art, but…

As for Randolph College, it crowed about what is essentially a fig leaf — that, according to its press release, the deal “mak[es] Randolph College the only U.S. educational institution with a collaborative relationship with the National Gallery.” That means that its students can gain access to the NG’s collections and attend classes there, while “high-level staff members of the National Gallery to lecture at Randolph College [and] a special internship program for Randolph students that will be established in London with the museum.”

Durer Vs. Rembrandt Vs. Cranach Vs…

It’s a rare museum that does what the Städel Museum just did: like an auction house crowing about new record prices, it sent out a release with attendance figures for its recent exhibition, Albrecht Durer: His Art in Context — and them compared them with previous monographic shows for other renowned artists. Some museums, as you know, refuse to share any exhibition numbers at all, which I think is silly. (Understandable, maybe, but still silly.)

Anyway, back to the Durer: in 15 weeks on view, the exhibition ended last Sunday, Feb. 2 — after staying open till midnight on Saturday — with attendance topping 250,000 visitors – “including some 23 percent from outside Germany,” the museum said. It added:

“Dürer” is thus surpassing major Frankfurt visitor successes such as “Rembrandt Rembrandt” (2003) with 245,000 visitors, or “Cranach the Elder” (2007/08) with 205,000, and earning the status as second most well-attended exhibition in the nearly two hundred years of the Städel Museum’s history.

The Städel stayed open until 10 p.m. on Friday and 8 p.m. on Sunday, both also extended for this exhibition.

And what artist drew more people? “With 367,033 visitors, only the Botticelli show staged in 2009 has been more successful to date,” the museum said.

Durer

The Durer show was a blockbuster and I wish I could have seen it:

The exhibition has encompassed a total of more than 250 works, including some 190 by Dürer. Altogether, the presentation has introduced the oeuvre of the German master in the entire breadth and wealth of his artistic expression. Twenty-five panel and canvas paintings, eighty drawings, a further eighty works executed in various printmaking techniques, and books written and illustrated by Albrecht Dürer have been on view….these works have been juxtaposed with examples by forerunners and contemporaries who were of importance to the artist – whether because he creatively explored their achievements, or because his own works served as points of departure for a new rendering in the oeuvre of a colleague.

It does make one wonder why Botticelli soared so high. But never mind: congratulations to the Städel for being so ambitious. I am sure the exhibition was expensive and I am glad it paid off.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Städel

 

Museum Secrets: Instructive Audit In St. Louis

St. Louis Art Museum director Brent Benjamin (below right) receives $670,000 in pay, “slightly more in annual compensation than the heads of similar art museums.” The museum has an endowment of $140 million and an operating budget of about $30 million. In 2012, it spent $1.4 million on exhibitions that yielded only $320,000.00 at the gate. The museum’s restaurant is losing money — $260,000 last year.

SLAMWhy do we know all this? As a government entity, publicly-supported, museum, the St. Louis Art Museum is subject to regular audit, and late last month, the most recent results — including those facts above — were published. SLAM receives about $20 million each year from local property taxes (much like the Detroit Institute of Arts…more about which in a minute). Interesting and instructive.

The audit also noted that SLAM was under budget by $1 million on its recent $130 million expansion, and that the museum is great at collecting on pledged donations (Of more than $10 million in pledges at year-end 2010, it wrote off just $12,000 as uncollectable), and — according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch account of the audit, “has millions of dollars more than it needs to pay its bills” — “more than 16 times the current assets needed to cover liabilities — basically, enough cash in the bank to pay bills 16 times over.” That last quote is from an earlier P-D account, here.

BBenjaminThe news was all the better for SLAM because the 2011 report, about the St. Louis Science Center, and the 2012 report, about the Missouri History Museum — two of the five institutions that receive money from the tax — turned up more substantial problems. Now about about those exhibition costs; There’s no reason to worry. SLAM is free, except for special exhibitions, and Benjamin, according to a follow-up story, “pointed out that exhibition losses, about $1 million in 2013, were explained in part by the museum’s free-Friday policy. “It’s been successful,” Benjamin said, adding that between one-third and two-thirds of museum attendees came on Fridays.”
Yikes — I’m not keen on that part. I know money is tight, but maybe the museum could make it “pay as you wish” on Fridays instead of free — to even things out. Or, maybe the museum should reexamine its hours: it must be nearly empty at times. Benjamin also said the restaurant — which was apparently praised by local critics for the good looks of its food but panned for its taste — had planned to lose money for a while, in start-up costs. Nevertheless, there will likely be changes, soon.

So Benjamin gets an A, or maybe A-, from me.

But I write this post because it’s revealing to other museums, too, not least the DIA, where The Detroit News recently criticized director Graham Beal’s salary of $455,453. The DIA and SLAM have similar sized budgets, and while that is not the total indicator of a job’s worth, it is one indicator. And there are those hours — if everyone is coming when a museum is free, maybe it’s time to try other options.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of SLAM

Nastiness Starts: DIA Plan Opponents Attack Director

Politics, not to mention bankruptcies, are a nasty business, so perhaps we should have been prepared. Today The Detroit News published an article headlined DIA executives’ pay up 17% since ’10. It puts the museum and its executives under the microscope, probably to undermine the deal reached last week.

bealThe headline doesn’t cover most of the reporting, which may have influence. The article goes on to elaborate on the raise for top museum executives; a loan to Graham Beal, the DIA director; a “discretionary fund” for his business expenses; compensation for his wife’s travel, and a few other things. It also said the Beal has put his house up for sale — signaling, perhaps, his intended departure. (And who would blame him?)

A few choice excerpts:

The Detroit Institute of Arts gave executives pay hikes, and granted a $155,000 loan to Director Graham Beal, while it campaigned for a regional property tax and faced a pension shortfall, according to its financial records….

…“At a time when we are asking for so much from people in Detroit — pensioners, firefighters and police officers — it is outrageous that these individuals are being so grossly compensated,” said state Rep. Kurt Heise, R-Plymouth….

…The DIA’s pension plan has more than $25.5 million in assets but has a $7 million shortfall, according to the museum’s most recent audited financial statement. In 2012, the shortfall was more than $11 million.

…Beal’s total compensation is $455,453. [AnnMarie] Erickson received $270,802, according to the DIA’s most recent tax filing. Four other museum executives are paid more than $100,000….Beal, 66, also received a $155,832 housing loan, according to the 2012 tax filing. He received the loan in December 2011, nine months before voters approved a 10-year, $230 million regional tax to pay for museum operations….Beal still owes the full $155,832 loan.

Although the News compares Beal’s salary to those of other local arts groups, like the Symphony chief’s, which is lower, those salaries don’t seem out of line to me. Nor are the article’s comparisons all apt — running a museum is somewhat more complicated than a symphony, for example. The Detroit Symphony has a smaller budget than the DIA (or did…the DIA’s has shrunk a bit).

And although the AAMD is quoted as saying that there are “only a few examples of museums offering free or subsidized housing for executives, namely the Indianapolis Museum of Art,” I think this requires more investigation. Off the top of my head, I recall that the Metropolitan Museum used to subsidize the director’s housing, though that may have been discontinued with Tom Campbell. So did the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Morgan Library (that ended recently for practical reasons, not on principle). I believe there are others.

What’s clear here is that some politicians (maybe just a few) opposed to the deal to save both pensions and the DIA are going to fight it, perhaps with dirty tactics — just as banks and bondholders are going to fight. The latter don’t have much choice — Kevyn Orr, and his boss Gov. Rick Snyder, along with the court, have the final say. But politics is unpredictable. Let’s hope these issues go away.

 

In This Exhibition, Technology Really Works

BMmannequinsI was cleaning out photos on my cell phone this weekend when I realized I had never posted here about the fabulous exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum* called The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk. Some of Gaultier’s designs are a bit over the top of me, so I wasn’t quite sure I’d like the exhibition. I did, and not just for the clothes, though may of them are gorgeous. I liked the exhibition because it used technology to the viewer’s advantage: it wasn’t just an add-on; it actually conveyed meaning and provided context.

Here’s the museum’s description of the exhibit:

BMtheatricality

This multimedia exhibition is organized around seven themes tracing the influences on Gaultier’s development—from the streets of Paris to the cinema—since he emerged as a designer in the 1970s. It features approximately 140 haute couture and prêt-à-porter ensembles, from the designer’s earliest to his most recent collections, many of which are displayed on custom mannequins with interactive faces created by high-definition audiovisual projections. Accessories, sketches, stage costumes, excerpts from films, and documentation of runway shows, concerts, and dance performances, as well as photographs by fashion photographers and contemporary artists who stepped into Gaultier’s world, explore how his avant-garde designs challenge societal, gender, and aesthetic codes in unexpected ways.

BMrunwayThose custom mannequins, which must have cost a bundle, look real and have eyes that move [above left]. The one of Gaultier himself speaks. The projections are well-done. On occasion, the mannequins are set in appropriate surroundings, with the right touch of theatricality [above right]. And the runway actually moves — the mannequins revolve around an oval [left], suggesting a catwalk. They do not sway and swing their hips, but viewers get the picture.

There’s a video on the website too.

BMGAnd the clothes are really stunning, as these pictures below show — and that’s just a taste. The exhibition runs until Feb. 23.

BMGaultier

BMGfeathers